stephan huller

The metaphor of conjunction in the writings of the Church Fathers - Eusebius, In Praise of Constantine:

stephan huller

Hugo Rainer provides a thirteenth century Latin manuscript that provides some religious context to the same marriage of the sun and the moon:

From Luna shines the glow
Of the sun God's ray
Her steadfast motions show
To men his way.
When sun and moon unite
Darkness doth fly away
And all things grow more bright.

Sheshbazzar

In reply to POST #25

So getting beyond the literal, you can perceive that in a sense Moses corresponds to the sun, Aaron, to the moon, and that there is a conjunction.

Perhaps it might help you a bit if I explain how I arrived at the concept I hold.
The congregation that I have been associated with for many years is meticulous with regards to observing the 'New moon' days, and Passover, and each of the Biblical 'Feast' Days at their appointed times.
Observing these 'Appointed Times' (moed'eem) for years, it became apparent to me that there was a pattern, and that there are only seven possible sequences of the order of the weekdays of the first month (Abib)

It is the custom of our congregation to designate as 'New Moon Day' that evening that the New (crescent) Moon first becomes visible to the naked eye in Jerusalem.
The years went by until there came a year that the first New Moon came on the day of the Spring equinox and it was also within that 24 hour period that designates the first day of the week. This conjunction gave me a fixed point to measure by 360 day years, as well as the various other lengths of years from, and this I did, calculating down to the minute twice a day for a dozen years or so.
Unfortunately, I no longer possess all of this record, as some of it came up missing along the way, I don't know how for certain, perhaps some well-meaning relative desiring to 'save me' from my obsession.
And to be totally honest I was never all that confident that the starting date based on others claimed observation of that New Moon in Jerusalem was all that dependable.
But out of the effort expended, I did come to recognize the existence of a pattern and cycle as the various year lengths diverged and eventually synchronized again, and as an adjunct, also recovered with unshakable certainty the ancient Hebrew system of linear measures.

Think about this. if one starts from a set date of the spring equinox and counts off 360 days, the solar year will be approximately 5.25 days or 126 hours longer.
In ten years that difference between the ancient 360 day year and the 365.25 solar year will have expanded to 52.5 days or 1260 hours or 7.5 weeks, (The exact mid-point in that Pattern I have previously presented to you) in a hundred years the difference between the 360 and the 365.25 years will have grown to 525 days or 12600 hours or 75 weeks (or 17.5 thirty day months) In two hundred and forty 360 day years the difference will have expanded to 1260 days or 42 months or 3.5 years. (240 periods of 5.25 days (126 hours), or 126 periods of 240 hours (ten days).

I'll reiterate my position that all of these things are interrelated. The ten fingers or digits of your hand successively multiplied is 3628800 the number of minutes in 360 weeks. That is no coincidence.
Likewise, if you value each of your fingers at seven tenths (.7) the sum on one 'hand' is 3.5, Ten fingers thus make the whole number seven.

(The pure number 3.5 (three and one half) implies an absolutley equal division into seven absolutlely equal parts, as none of the seven 'halfs' can be any bigger nor any smaller than any of the other seven 'halfs' so derived.)

Now 'thinking around the corner' as it were, with seven days comprising a week, seven and a half days (that would be 15 'half' days) brings one to sunrise on The First day of The Week.
Likewise in those years where the count of the First Month begins on the fifth day of the week, seventeen and one half days (17.5) (that would be 35 'half' days) latter will be sunrise on The First Day of the Week following the Passover, Or Three Nights and Three Days after the Passover on the fourteenth day of Abib.

Sorry if this rambles, but there are thousands of mathematical and geometrical interrelationships once one perceives and employs The Pattern.


.

stephan huller

The conjunction of sun and moon was called in Greek, συνοδός = coming together. Astron., conjunction, “τῶν πλανήτων καὶ πρὸς αὑτοὺς καὶ πρὸς τοὺς ἀπλανεῖς” Arist. Mete.343b30; of the sun and moon, Plu.2.269c, IG14.2126 (Rome); “ἡλίου καὶ σελήνης” Gal.18(2).240; “ς. ἐκλειπτικὴ σελήνης πρὸς ἥλιον” Plu. Rom.12; αἱ ς., of the times of new moon, Zeno Stoic.1.34; “αἱ τῶν μηνῶν ς. ψυχραὶ διὰ τὴν τῆς σελήνης ἀπόλειψιν” Arist.GA738a20, cf. Thphr.Sign.5, LXX De.33.14.

The same word is also used in a sexual sense = συνουσία, sexual intercourse, Arist.HA541a31, Clearch.49, Ph.1.148, Plu.Lyc. 15, Gal.15.47.

stephan huller

"Yes, truly, Theon," I replied, "lecture on these points; for I too require some persuasion, having only heard the question stated in this way—that the three bodies being come upon one straight line, namely, the earth, the sun, and the moon, the eclipses then happen, because the earth takes away the sun from the moon; on the contrary, the moon takes away the sun from the earth, for the sun is eclipsed when the moon, and the moon when the earth stands in the middle of the three; of which cases the one happens in the conjunction (συνοδός) the other in the time of full-moon." [Plutarch, Morals]

stephan huller

Let us now turn to the moon. Then only does she suffer a clear and evident eclipse, when, rounded out with her full light and opposite the sun, she is distant from its orb by 180 degrees (i.e. is in the seventh sign).19 But although this happens at every full moon, yet there is not always an eclipse. 8 But since the moon is situated near the movement of the earth, and is the most remote from heaven of all that celestial beauty,20 she sometimes puts herself directly under the disc21 that strikes upon her, and p13is overshadowed and hidden for a time by the interposition of the goal of darkness ending in a narrow cone;22 and then she is wrapped in masses of darkness, when the sun, as if encompassed by the curve of the lower sphere, cannot light her with its rays, since the mass of the earth is between them; for that she has no light of her own has been assumed on various grounds.

9 And when under the same sign she meets the sun in a straight line, she is obscured (as was said) and her brightness is wholly dimmed; and this in Greek is called the moon's σύνοδος.23 10 Now she is thought to be born,24 when she has the sun above her with a slight deviation from the plumb-line, so to speak. But her rising, which is still very slender, first appears to mortals when she has left the sun and advanced to the second sign. Then having progressed farther and now having abundant light, she appears with horns and is called μηνοειδής.25 But when she begins to be separated from the sun by a long distance and has arrived at the fourth sign and the sun's rays are turned towards her, she gains greater brilliance, and is called in the Greek tongue διχόμηνις,26 a form which shows a half-circle. 11 Then, proceeding to the greatest distance and attaining the fifth sign, she shows the figure called p15amphicyrtos,27 and has humps on both sides. But when she has taken a place directly opposite the sun she will gleam with full light, making her home in the seventh sign; and still keeping her place in that same sign, but advancing a little she grows smaller, the process which we call ἀπόκρουσις;28 and she repeats the same forms as she grows old, and it is maintained by the unanimous learning of many men that the moon is never seen in eclipse except at the time of her mid-course. [Roman Histories Ammianus Marcellinus]

stephan huller

In Empedocles (which is of especial significance for the Gospel of Mark because of the statement in the Philosophumena):

I will report a twofold truth. Now grows
The One from Many into being, now
Even from the One disparting come the Many.
Twofold the birth, twofold the death of things:
For, now, the meeting (σύνοδος) of the Many brings
To birth and death; and, now, whatever grew
From out their sundering, flies apart and dies.
And this long interchange shall never end.
Whiles into One do all through Love unite;
Whiles too the same are rent through hate of Strife.
And in so far as is the One still wont
To grow from Many, and the Many, again,
Spring from primeval scattering of the One,
So far have they a birth and mortal date;
And in so far as the long interchange
Ends not, so far forever established gods
Around the circle of the world they move.
But come! but hear my words! For knowledge gained
Makes strong thy soul. For as before I spake,
Naming the utter goal of these my words,
I will report a twofold truth. Now grows
The One from Many into being, now
Even from the One disparting come the Many,—
Fire, Water, Earth and awful heights of Air;
And shut from them apart, the deadly Strife
In equipoise, and Love within their midst
In all her being in length and breadth the same.
Behold her now with mind, and sit not there
With eyes astonished, for 'tis she inborn
Abides established in the limbs of men.
Through her they cherish thoughts of love, through her
Perfect the works of concord, calling her
By name Delight or Aphrodite clear.
She speeds revolving in the elements,
But this no mortal man hath ever learned—
Hear thou the undelusive course of proof:
Behold those elements own equal strength
And equal origin; each rules its task;
And unto each its primal mode; and each
Prevailing conquers with revolving time.
And more than these there is no birth nor end;
For were they wasted ever and evermore,
They were no longer, and the great All were then
How to be plenished and from what far coast?
And how, besides, might they to ruin come,
Since nothing lives that empty is of them?—
No, these are all, and, as they course along
Through one another, now this, now that is born—
And so forever down Eternity.

Sun and Moon.


40.
ἥλιος ὀξυβελὴς ἠδ' ἱλάειρα σελήνη.
Keen-darting Helios and Selene mild.

41.
ἀλλ' ὁ μὲν ἁλισθεὶς μέγαν οὐρανὸν ἀμφιπολεύει.
But the sun's fires, together gathered, move
Attendant round the mighty space of heaven,

42.
ἀπεστέγασεν δὲ οἱ αὐγάς,
ἔστ' ἂν ἴηι καθύπερθεν, ἀπεσκνίφωσε δὲ γαίης
τόσσον ὅσον τ' εὖρος γλαυκώπιδος ἔπλετο μήνης.
And the sun's beams
The moon, in passing under, covers o'er,
And darkens a bleak tract of earth as large
As is the breadth of her, the silver-eyed.

43.
ὣς αὐγὴ τύψασα σεληναίης κύκλον εὐρύν . . .
As sunbeam striking on the moon's broad disk.

44.
ἀνταυγεῖ πρὸς Ὄλυμπον ἀταρβήτοισι προσώποις.
Toward Olympos back he darts his beams,
With fearless face.

45.
κυκλοτερὲς περὶ γαῖαν ἑλίσσεται ἀλλότριον φῶς.
Round earth revolves a disk of alien light.

46.
ἅρματος ὡς πέρι χνοίη ἑλίσσεται ἥ τε παρ' ἄκρην . . .
Even as revolves a chariot's nave, which round
The outmost. . .

47.
ἀθρεῖ μὲν γὰρ ἄνακτος ἐναντίον ἁγέα κύκλον.
For toward the sacred circle of her lord
She gazes face to face.

48.
νύκτα δὲ γαῖα τίθησιν ὑφισταμένοιο φάεσσι.
But earth makes night for beams of sinking sun.

stephan huller

What do you guys think? Is Philo acknowledging that Aaron was only made Moses's brother:

Diogenes the Cynic

I think the syncretizer intended them to be understood as literal brothers. I Think you're working too hard at this angle.

stephan huller

But remember I consciously avoid being dragged into these never ending 'investigations' into the question of whether the 'Bible is true' or 'historical.' When traditional cultures examine the scriptures it is always done in reference to the surviving commentaries. We acknowledge that there is ambiguity in the text. The idea that the original author(s) haphazardly glued a tradition associated with Aaron to Moses is one possible interpretation. But that only goes so far as there are no ancient witnesses to that tradition. It is a conversation between modern interpreters of the text (which I don't find particularly interesting).

It might be true but then again it might not and there is no way to confirm whether or not it was true other a consensus of modern scholars. Yet this is a consensus which will ultimately change in every generation - not the least of which being because of the inherent fickleness of human nature. I am more interested in examining whether or not it is possible that two of the earliest witnesses we have Marqe and Philo thought that Moses and Aaron were made into brothers by God. This would have a profound implication for the study of adelphopoeisis and to the best of my knowledge has never been asked before.

The earliest mention of the rite is found in the Life of Symeon the Fool:

Upon Symeon's and John's conversion to Christian monasticism, the abbot of the Monastery of Gerasimus performs a rite of "the making of brothers (adelphopoiesis)" over them. The connection between this early Byzantine example of the "making of brothers" and expectations of same-sex monastic cohabitation remains unclear. This is the earliest recorded use of the word "adelphopoiesis". Nevertheless, in this case, the narrative progression toward long term domestic stability includes both the ritual consecration of their fictive kinship and the shedding of other kinship obligations.