{"id":256,"date":"2012-02-13T12:11:35","date_gmt":"2012-02-13T18:11:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.wordpress.com\/?p=256"},"modified":"2012-02-13T12:11:35","modified_gmt":"2012-02-13T18:11:35","slug":"heraclitus-of-ephesus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/2012\/02\/13\/heraclitus-of-ephesus\/","title":{"rendered":"Heraclitus of Ephesus"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u1f26\u03b8\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f00\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u1f7d\u03c0\u1ff3 \u03b4\u03b1\u1f77\u03bc\u03c9\u03bd. – Heraclitus, Fragment 199<\/a>*<\/p>\n

\u201cethos anthropo daimon\u201d: a dative noun sandwiched between two nominatives.\u00a0 No verbs, of course: the being verb \u03b5\u1f30\u03bc\u03af is often implied.\u00a0 The first word in a sentence is often given a certain emphasis \u2026 but so is the last.\u00a0 Heraclitus the Obscure, indeed.\u00a0 The passage is traditionally rendered something to the effect of \u201cA man\u2019s character (ethics, moral standing) is his guardian spirit (fate, destiny, guardian angel, tutelary divinity)\u201d, with the understanding that character (\u1f26\u03b8\u03bf\u03c2 ) is what is important here.\u00a0 A man\u2019s ethical nature determines his fate.\u00a0 But this reading seems to take for granted that a man\u2019s (and we\u2019re going to use the male noun here because there was nothing like feminism in 6th Century Greece: when they said \u201cman\u201d they meant \u201cman\u201d.) \u03b4\u03b1\u1f77\u03bc\u03c9\u03bd was not a real thing.\u00a0 If one assumes, as I see no reason to believe Heraclitus did not, that individuals do, in fact, possess a tutelary diety who oversees their destiny, that implied being verb between the two nominative nouns works as an equals sign:<\/p>\n

\u1f26\u03b8\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f00\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u1f7d\u03c0\u1ff3 \u03b4\u03b1\u1f77\u03bc\u03c9\u03bd.<\/p>\n

ethos = nom. masc. sing. noun \u201ccharacter\u201d<\/p>\n

anthropo = dat. masc. sing. noun \u201cfor humans\u201d (appears to be dative of interest)<\/p>\n

daimon = nom. masc. sing. noun \u201cguardian spirit\u201d<\/p>\n

esti = 3rd per. sing. active. \u201che\/she\/it is\u201d (implied)<\/p>\n

[for humans] character == guardian spirit<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A man\u2019s character is his guardian spirit, and vice versa.\u00a0 A good moral character and a good fate\/guardian are synonymous.<\/p>\n

This semester, I am taking a survey class of Ancient Greek philosophy.\u00a0 Last week we covered Heraclitus of Epheseus<\/a>, a philosopher from southern Italy in the 6th Century BCE.\u00a0 His work only remains in the form of testimonia, making everything a little sketchy, but his works seem to provide me with my first look at Hermetic thought\u2014or, at very least, its predecessors.<\/p>\n

Heraclitus\u2019 core thesis revolved around the universal \u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03c2 (logos: word, account, speech, reason), which governed all things.<\/p>\n

\u201c…[A]ll things come to be [or: happen] in accordance with the logos<\/em>…\u201d[1]<\/p>\n

\u201cListening not to me, but to the logos<\/em>, it is wise to agree that all things are one.\u201d[2]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The \u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03c2 was common to all, but most people could not comprehend it even after long study.\u00a0 It governed a \u03ba\u03cc\u03c3\u03bc\u03bf\u03c2 (cosmos) which \u201c\u2026the same for all, none of gods nor humans made, but it was always and is and shall be: an ever-living fire, kindles in measures and extinguished in measures.\u201d[3]<\/p>\n

To those who could understand the \u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03c2, Heraclitus attributed noos**<\/em>[4 ] , understanding, and \u03c3\u03bf\u03c6\u03c1\u1fc6\u03bd (sophren)[5], right-thinking.<\/p>\n

He spoke of the gods in general and in particular, but also of \u03c4\u03bf \u03c3\u03cc\u03c6\u03bf\u03bd\u00a0 (to sophon), Wisdom or the wise, which \u201c\u2026is one alone, both unwilling and willing to be called by the name of Zeus.\u201d[6]<\/p>\n

Clearly, I don\u2019t know enough of Heraclitus or Hermetic thought to draw any stronger conclusions than \u201cHey!\u00a0 Look!\u00a0 Noos, logos, sophia!\u00a0 A parallel!\u201d\u00a0 But it\u2019s interesting, and gives me my first hints of the directions these ideas will later take.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* My source for the original Greek; I really don\u2019t like their translation, though.<\/p>\n

** Sadly, I cannot find the original Greek noun.<\/p>\n

[1] Curd, Patricia. A Presocratics Reader: Selected Fragments and Testimonia. 2nd<\/sup> ed. Trans. McKirahn, Richard D. and Patricia Curd. Heraclitus<\/em>1. (22B1) p. 40<\/p>\n

[2] Ibid. 11. (B50) p.42<\/p>\n

[3] Ibid. 45. (B30) p. 45<\/p>\n

[4] Ibid. 8. (B104) p.41<\/p>\n

[5] Ibid. 35. (B116) p.44<\/p>\n

[6] 47. (B32) p.46<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u1f26\u03b8\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f00\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u1f7d\u03c0\u1ff3 \u03b4\u03b1\u1f77\u03bc\u03c9\u03bd. – Heraclitus, Fragment 199* \u201cethos anthropo daimon\u201d: a dative noun sandwiched between two nominatives.\u00a0 No verbs, of course: the being verb \u03b5\u1f30\u03bc\u03af is often implied.\u00a0 The first word in a sentence is often given a certain emphasis \u2026 but so is the last.\u00a0 Heraclitus the Obscure, indeed.\u00a0 The passage is traditionally rendered … Read More<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[15,16,104,282],"class_list":["post-256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-scholarship","tag-ancient-greek","tag-ancient-greek-philosophy","tag-heraclitus","tag-translation"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8kUcm-48","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journeythroughtheobsidiandream.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}