Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Jeffrey Gibson · 03-23-2013, 05:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stephan huller

Isn't it worth mentioning that there is a tradition that the earliest strata of the gospel narrative has Jesus declare οὔκ εἰμι δαιμόνιον ἀσώματον:

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For I know that after His resurrection also He was still possessed of flesh, and I believe that He is so now. When, for instance, He came to those who were with Peter, He said to them, Lay hold, handle Me, and see that I am not an incorporeal spirit (= δαιμόνιον). And immediately they touched Him, and believed, being convinced both by His flesh and spirit. For this cause also they despised death, and were found its conquerors. And after his resurrection He ate and drank with them, as being possessed of flesh, although spiritually He was united to the Father. (Smyrna 3.1 - 2)

This seems to be a reference to the scene in Luke 24:37-39

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37 They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost (πνεῦμα). 38 He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? 39 Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.” (ὅτι πνεῦμα σάρκα καὶ ὀστέα οὐκ ἔχει καθὼς ἐμὲ θεωρεῖτε ἔχοντα.)

which also has echoes in the Gospel of John -- but not in Matthew and not in Mark.

So I am extreme puzzled that you call your text something that refers to or comes from "the earliest strata of the gospel narrative".

In any event, I'm not sure what you think this indicates other than that Christians could and did use an adjectivised δαιμόνιον as an equivalent of πνεῦμα = incorporeal being.

And what is significant in that, given that as Foerster notes, and is apparent at Lucian De Peregrini Morte. 27 and at Philopseudes 17, 29,
in popular belief a δαιμόνιον (and especially a δαιμόνιον ἀσώματον) was often thought of as the (sometimes but not always evil) "shade" of the departed?

And in the FWIW department, the same "tradition" is found in (to use the TLG's nomenclature) Evangelium Secundum Hebraeo 22.4, a second time in Ignatius (7.3.2.2); Eusebius Eccl Hist 3.36.11.6, and Theodoret 153.16. And there it means "ghost".

Jeffrey

Robert Tulip · 03-23-2013, 05:22 PM

It is not true that daimons were always anthropomorphic, even though they were portrayed sometimes in human form. The Greek concept of divinities matches more to forces of nature, for example Poseidon as the sea and Apollo as the sun, with the human figures just a way of portraying this objective reality in popularly comprehensible narrative form.

Forces of nature are neither good nor evil, but are basically indifferent to humans, even though the ancients thought that sacrifice could be magically placatory.

Zeus Patera was never imagined as omnibenevolent, since he was a serial rapist. As Zeus Patera evolved into Deus Pater the Judaic concept that God is Good was overlayed on the Hellenic myth. This new cosmology, drawing also from the Zarathusran conflict of good and evil, also required the idea that the good god who likes people is the basic force of reality, and that bad demons who dislike people are a fallen corruption and not a fundamental principle of nature.

So the displacement of daimon into demon was a necessary consequence of the idea that God loves people.

Looking again at Heraclitus' Ηθος Ανθρωπος Δαιμων 'ethos anthropos daimon' (a man's spirit is his guardian angel), we see this is not directly normative regarding daimon, since a bad spirit will fail you and a good one will make you prosper. Our ethos shows where we are going. Character is fate.

stephan huller · 03-23-2013, 05:26 PM

I am not arguing against you. I am trying to make the conversation more substantive (while playing Xbox)

stephan huller · 03-23-2013, 05:28 PM

its the "earliest" because of Ignatius

Jeffrey Gibson · 03-23-2013, 05:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Robert Tulip

So the displacement of daimon into demon was a necessary consequence of the idea that God loves people.

How then do you account for the evident belief in "demons/evil spirits" on the part of people who did not believe in an all benevolent god and who were raised in cultures where that conception of deity didn't exist?

Jeffrey

Jeffrey Gibson · 03-23-2013, 05:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stephan huller

its the "earliest" because of Ignatius

Leaving aside the matter that Smyrna is not a Gospel, let alone a part of the Gospel narrative, are you actually claiming that Ignatius wrote before Luke and that the event Ignatius speaks of is not an allusion to the story in Luke 24?

Jeffrey

stephan huller · 03-23-2013, 05:43 PM

It's hard for a Marcionophile to treat Luke was an actual historical person or one that was a disciple of Luke. This conversation will be frustrating for both of us. But I hope it can be an amicable one. Neither of us deserves to be treated like a dog.

Quote:

Leaving aside the matter that Smyrna is not a Gospel,

Ignatius is the earliest Patristic witness that I can see has any external evidence supporting his existence (= Lucian, Passing of Peregrinus). I am aware of the differences between a gospel and an epistle.

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let alone a part of the Gospel narrative,

it is an attestation of a variant gospel passage

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are you actually claiming that Ignatius wrote before Luke

I don't think there is any evidence to suggest that canonical Luke as we have it was established before the earliest strata of the Ignatian epistles.

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and that the event Ignatius speaks of is not an allusion to the story in Luke 24?

The Gospel of Luke as we now have it was an anti-Marcionite creation established after the Ignatian epistles in their earliest (= short) form. The Marcionite gospel had the original form of this story. Both the gospel witnessed by Ignatius and Luke have a variation of that (lost) text.

Iskander · 03-23-2013, 06:05 PM

Mountainman,

The Catholic Church explains that the meaning of daimon as it is understood by Christianity is very different from the meaning of daimon as it was understood by classical Greece.

This change of meaning took place very early and it was started by Jesus: The existence of hell is proved first of all from the Bible. Wherever Christ and the Apostles speak of hell they presuppose the knowledge of its existence (Matthew 5:29; 8:12; 10:28; 13:42; 25:41, 46; 2 Thessalonians 1:8; Revelation 21:8, etc.).

You are more intelligent and capable than your advisor .

Quote:

But though the word demon is now practically restricted to this sinister sense, it was otherwise with the earlier usage of the Greek writers.

The word, which is apparently derived from daio "to divide" or "apportion", originally meant a divine being; it was occasionally applied to the higher gods and goddesses, but was more generally used to denote spiritual beings of a lower order coming between gods and men.

For the most part these were beneficent beings, and their office was somewhat analogous to that of the angels in Christian theology. Thus the adjective eydaimon "happy", properly meant one who was guided and guarded by a good demon.

Some of these Greek demons, however, were evil and malignant. Hence we have the counterpart to eudamonia "happiness", in kakodaimonia which denoted misfortune, or in its more original meaning, being under the possession of an evil demon.

In the Greek of the New Testament and in the language of the early Fathers, the word was already restricted to the sinister sense, which was natural enough, now that even the higher gods of the Greeks had come to be regarded as devils

.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04710a.htm

Quote:

The existence of hell is proved first of all from the Bible. Wherever Christ and the Apostles speak of hell they presuppose the knowledge of its existence (Matthew 5:29; 8:12; 10:28; 13:42; 25:41, 46; 2 Thessalonians 1:8; Revelation 21:8, etc.).

Poena sensus

The poena sensus, or pain of sense, consists in the torment of fire so frequently mentioned in the Holy Bible. According to the greater number of theologians the term fire denotes a material fire, and so a real fire. We hold to this teaching as absolutely true and correct... Scripture and tradition speak again and again of the fire of hell, and there is no sufficient reason for taking the term as a mere metaphor...

It is quite superfluous to add that the nature of hell-fire is different from that of our ordinary fire; for instance, it continues to burn without the need of a continually renewed supply of fuel. How are we to form a conception of that fire in detail remains quite undetermined; we merely know that it is corporeal.

The demons suffer the torment of fire, even when, by Divine permission, they leave the confines of hell and roam about on earth. In what manner this happens is uncertain. We may assume that they remain fettered inseparably to a portion of that fire

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07207a.htm

mountainman · 03-23-2013, 07:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tanya

What is curious, about this affair, is the fact that our OLDEST extant copies of Mark 5:2, codices Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, reveal ABSENCE of this Greek word δαιμόνια, as though Mark had worked from a Greek (or Hebrew) text which did not contain δαιμόνια, (or its equivalent, in Hebrew). Later editions of Mark, do include δαιμόνια in the text of Mark 5:2. Someone authorized the change, and then the question arises, WHO, and WHY?

Hey tanya, are you referring to Mark 5:12 in the OP or a separate reference at Mark 5:2?

In regard to the Mark 5:12 reference in the OP this was originally included because it was returned as the reslt of searching through the Greek TR (textus receptus) for the word "daimon". This word does not appear in Vaticanus so it must have been included sometime between the late 4th centry and when the TR was collated.

I am not sure whether your reference to Mark 5:2 is to Mark 5:12 or a separate additional reference to be examined. If it is separate it appears to be an instance of "daimonion" and not "daimon". However, even if it is a reference to "daimonion" it is very interesting to learn that there has been a change and you are correct to point out that we should ask the question who made the change and why.

Can you clarify this? Thanks.

Also I think that it is of great benefit to apply this same line of argument to the LXX. We have no evidence that Jewish scribes were responsible for the LXX and, as I have pointed out above, the earliest reference that we have AFAIK to the LXX is a letter inserted into Josephus (shades of the "TF").

Considering the fact that Christians in theory preserved their own copies of the LXX (in Greek), and used special nomina sacra throughout it like the NT, it is reasonable to considered that the earliest Christians altered things in the Greek of the LXX to suit their own agenda.

Thus these related questions are also important.

Quote:

The related question is also of importance: If someone could change the text of Mark, someone in power, after the fourth century, when the two codices had already been constructed, then, could someone else, in political power, in earlier days, before creating Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, have altered the original LXX to conform to the political realities of that day? The original Hebrew is not available, but the Vulgate, reflecting Lucian's discomfort with the contradiction between LXX and his understanding of the Hebrew text of that era, shows us that the original meaning of Psalm 96:5, points back to Exodus 20:4

εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

mountainman · 03-23-2013, 07:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Even before Jeffrey joined the thread, it was established that the earlier meaning of demon/daimon included both friendly and unfriendly spirits.

Yes.

Quote:

Pete's idea that Christians invented the unfavorable meaning is clearly off the wall.

That has yet to be established. Jeffrey posted two occurrences (one was Hippocrates) in which, he claims, the author uses the term in a specifically unfavorable manner, but we have yet to see the English translation of Hippocrates. Therefore until we have a precedent before the traditional Christian authorship date (1st century) it is still quite within the realms of possibility that the Christian autors took this novel step, and invented the unfavorable use of the word "daimon".

Quote:

He has tried to backtrack by claiming that the predominant meaning of daimon was positive, but he has not been able to show this.

Bullshit: I have not backtracked at all. The OP shows "both good and bad" - the traditional usage. The original use seems to have been ambivalent, not lop-sided. The claim I made relates to the Christian usage - the predominant meaning of daimon was negative.

And btw thanks Iskander for those references in the Catholic Encyclo.

εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

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03-23-2013, 05:22 PM	#232
Robert Tulip Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2012 Location: Canberra, Australia Posts: 635	It is not true that daimons were always anthropomorphic, even though they were portrayed sometimes in human form. The Greek concept of divinities matches more to forces of nature, for example Poseidon as the sea and Apollo as the sun, with the human figures just a way of portraying this objective reality in popularly comprehensible narrative form. Forces of nature are neither good nor evil, but are basically indifferent to humans, even though the ancients thought that sacrifice could be magically placatory. Zeus Patera was never imagined as omnibenevolent, since he was a serial rapist. As Zeus Patera evolved into Deus Pater the Judaic concept that God is Good was overlayed on the Hellenic myth. This new cosmology, drawing also from the Zarathusran conflict of good and evil, also required the idea that the good god who likes people is the basic force of reality, and that bad demons who dislike people are a fallen corruption and not a fundamental principle of nature. So the displacement of daimon into demon was a necessary consequence of the idea that God loves people. Looking again at Heraclitus' Ηθος Ανθρωπος Δαιμων 'ethos anthropos daimon' (a man's spirit is his guardian angel), we see this is not directly normative regarding daimon, since a bad spirit will fail you and a good one will make you prosper. Our ethos shows where we are going. Character is fate.

03-23-2013, 05:26 PM	#233
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	I am not arguing against you. I am trying to make the conversation more substantive (while playing Xbox)

03-23-2013, 05:28 PM	#234
stephan huller Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: seattle, wa Posts: 9,337	its the "earliest" because of Ignatius

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