andrewcriddle

Epictetus probably had some knowledge of Christians (or Galileans) see Discourses book 4 chapter 7 section 6.

He is possibly not a witness to pre-Christian usage here.

Andrew Criddle

(FWIW I think it probably was a pre-Christian usage but it would be nice to have examples earlier than Epictetus.)

Vorkosigan

That's what I get for laziness, eh? In any case the Discourses are even later, as they were compiled after his death ~135 CE. And he was a Stoic, not a Cynic, as you were too polite to tell me.

Crucifiction

Oh, they most certainly are. One legend I read was of a Rabbi back in the Middle Ages who considered himself the Messiah, and a legend spread in his lifetime that he would retake Israel while riding on a multi-headed dragon.

Epictetus

Actually, I was merely using this as an example to illustrate how people can come to radically different conclusions and entire industries can be generated over a controversy very quickly even in this day and age with video (8 mm) images of the event. I don't really have a strong opinion one way or the other about whether Kennedy was killed solely by Oswald. I think there are some oddities in the whole episode; i.e. conflicting witnesses, dead witnesses, timing of the shots, etc. but I am unconvinced that it was absolutely done by some group of disaffected Cubans or the CIA or Johnson. On the flip side, I think the government rarely tells us the whole story and hides things from the public all the time. I am just too suspicious of it. But I believe that we should apply Occam's Razor here. Brutus wasn't a lone knifeman. I like that!

Epictetus

Yeah...I must admit I knew about them. They used to bug the #$%$ out of me coming to my door handing out xtian literature...Chick tracts, I think it was.

I let it slide. Actually the Cynics were not too different from us, though I have heard disparaging remarks made about them. The one I recall is that "A Stoic is merely a Cynic who takes a bath once in a while."

Diogenes the Cynic

Hey, I lived in a bathtub.

Now get out of my sun.

spin

But it never had water in it.


spin

DramaQ

Hey, wait a minute. Maybe we should figure out when then bathub, specifically with a statue of the Virgin Mary in it, became a Christian symbol. :devil3:

Clutch

If only my handle was Thales. Then I could say that the tub was water.