Thinking of Blindness, the Wrath of the Gods, and Atonement

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ancient greek, Atonement, blindness, Erinys, fate, Hercules, latin, philosophy, Theseus, Wrath of the Gods, zeus

Not long ago, Platosparks and I spoke of ἄτη and its meaning in Greek culture, here. It is quite the interesting word, and I cannot ignore the fact that it may mean something far more than our usual understanding of it. The word is an A. Greek 1st Declension Feminine Noun. What that means is that its declension is thus:

ἄτη       ἄται
ἀτής     ἀτῶν
ἀτῃ       ἀταῖς
ἄτην     ἀτάς
ἄτη       ἄται

Singulars on the left, plurals on the right. The order from top to bottom is Nominative (subject in a sentence), Genitive (Possession and origin), Dative (everything else in a sentence, but identified as the Indirect Object), Accusative (Direct Object), and Vocative (my favorite, when one summons or calls a thing or person). Notice the genitive plural is ἀτῶν, literally meaning ‘of blindness.’ At the time I first read about this, my defense for a cognate run thus.

“I was thinking of the transliteration from the A. Greek to the English; from ἀτον to aton-e. The English Etymology Dictionary (EED) had no insight on the possible connection, stating that it was a simple contraction from ‘at one’ to ‘atone’ in order to denote an event that was meant to be done only at one time. The example of Jesus Christ’s ‘atonement,’ according to the EED, ‘meant to be done only once,’ is the best exemplar I could find for the use of the word.

However, we must consider the validity of the transliteration and its similarities, especially since there are mythological cognates as well, especially between the story of Jesus and such others as Oedipus and Hercules; that is, if atonement is, as you state, payment/punishment for a deed (the Liddell & Scott confirms this with early uses such as the one seen in the Iliad at 6.356) then how is Jesus’ atonement not a punishment for trying to bring balance to the world? That last question is a bit convoluted, I know; although, consider this; I had a friend of mine, major in Religious Studies, who once explained the existence of nemesis in comics thus:

If the hero is demonstrating his hubris by attempting to balance nature and bring peace to a particular city, then nemesis, the rise of the villain, is the response of the righteous anger of the gods.

In that sense, the hero must ἄτη for his hubris by suffering loneliness, the death of those close to him, the suffering of his friends. Hercules and Theseus, especially, are remembered for destroying the enemies of Athens and bringing balance to the world. As such, they both suffered great loss in their lives, and had to be purified for it. This idea really gives meaning to the phrase ‘no good deed goes unpunished.’ Nature is what it is, and it is what it is because of the gods. To upset nature is to upset the gods, even when the hero does it to save humanity – Prometheus comes to mind here.”

In order to really bring the meaning of atone to the fore. I thought it had to have a Latin connection. Often, the Latin will borrow a nominative, accusative, or genitive from the Greek and use it as a nominative (with its own declension – I know, crazy) in the Latin. I found four words that could fit the profile.

Ater – (Adj) Deadly, terrible
Ater – (Adj) Black, dark
Ategro – (Verb) to pour out wine in sacrifices
Atechnos – (Adj) unskilled

Atechnos is actually a cognate of ἀτεχνη, literally meaning ‘unskilled.’ This suspect has an alibi, and must be eliminated from the list of possibilities. Ater, as to both meanings, is very interesting as well. Here’s the reason:

καί τέ με νεικείεσκον: ἐγὼ δ᾽ οὐκ αἴτιός εἰμι, ἀλλὰ Ζεὺς καὶ Μοῖρα καὶ ἠεροφοῖτις Ἐρινύς, οἵ τέ μοι εἰν ἀγορῇ φρεσὶν ἔμβαλον ἄγριον ἄτην, ἤματι τῷ ὅτ᾽ Ἀχιλλῆος γέρας αὐτὸς ἀπηύρων.
Even these words they used to speak to me in chiding; although I myself am not to blame, but Zeus and Fate and Erinys, that walk in darkness, seeing that in the midst of the market-place they threw within my soul a bitter blindness on that day, when of mine own arrogance I took from Achilles his prize.

The adjective for dark used by Homer is ἠεροφοῖτις (ēerophoītēs), and refers to Zeus, the Fates, and the Erinys. Who are the Erinys? Goddesses of revenge. When someone commits a wrong, the Erinys will haunt them until they atone for the wrong they have committed. It is this atonement or, as the Liddell and Scott states, temporary blindness, that they Erinys cause.

Goddesses of revenge. The Erinys were feared by all. They were, in essence, guilt personified.

ἄτη, ἡ, Dor. ἄτα, Aeol. αὐάτα ( ἀϝ-), v. infr.:— A bewilderment, infatuation, caused by blindness or delusion sent by the gods, mostly as the punishment of guilty rashness, τὸν δ’ ἄτη φρένας εἷλε Il.16.805; Ζεῦ πάτερ, ἦ ῥά τιν’ ἤδη . . βασιλήων τῇδ’ ἄτῃ ἄασας 8.237; Ζεὺς καὶ Μοῖρα καὶ . . Ἐρινὺς . . φρεσὶν ἔμβαλον ἄγριον ἄτην 19.88 (so ἀλλ’ ἐπεὶ ἀασάμην καί μευ φρένας ἐξέλετο Ζεύς ib.137); ἄτην δὲ μετέστενον ἣν Ἀφροδίτη δῶχ’ ὅτε μ’ ἤγαγε κεῖσε, says Helen, Od.4.261.

Here is where the cognate takes place. Latin does not like ‘e’ sounds by themselves at the end of words. It is the same with Greeks and ‘i’ sounds. The Greeks will add ‘n,’ the Romans may add ‘r’ or ‘m’ to make things sound better for them. Thus, ‘ater’ is a direct cognate with ‘atē.’ What is also interesting, is that atē has become an adjective in Latin. A state of being, in effect. The Greek uses ἔμβαλον to show ‘threw within,’ meaning the blindness or, atonement, is a internal one, a quality, not a physical mark. That this payment to be made for a wrong is bitter (ἄγριον) also indicates its metaphysical qualities. The darkness or blindness spoken of in the Greek and translated to the Latin is therefore not physical, but spiritual. It is the temporary blinding of the soul to its own salvation, to the freedom it enjoys, to the pleasures of life. Guilt, in effect. This guilt, this blindness to the good, is the atonement one must pay for the redemption of the impurity gained by the wrong deed. The enforcers of the punishment are goddesses who dwell in darkness, who know all about it, the Erinys; Zeus is the law-giver that created the punishment, and Fate what drives it. It is a fascinating concept.

Thus, hubris brings about nemesis, and nemesis restores balance by producing, in the impure, atonement. There are two ways to cleanse oneself from this pollution, catharsis (literally ‘a down-pour’ – a sort of baptism) and purification (from πυρη – fire). Both cases are seen in Mythology. Catharsis is the form of cleansing carried out on Hercules, Theseus, and many others. Purification, as far as I know, was only carried out on Hercules, and it meant his ascension into Olympus for all time. Of course, one could say that burning on a pyre (literally a purification through πυρη) is the same thing so, in reality, are pyres simply a final purification rite to ensure the soul ascends? Probably not, since Olympus was reserved only for the gods; yet again, if a Demi-god like Achilles burned, wouldn’t he, in essence, ascend to the High-Vaulted Halls of Zeus?

Χαιρετε!

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Thinking about Transitions, Writers, and Positive Thinking

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Claudii, fate, Germanicus, Julii, latin, Metamorphoses, Ovid, Roman Empire, Roman Republic, Seneca, Soul, Spirit, Stoicism, Tiberius, Transitions

Today I was going over a little Latin and came across this sentence by Ovid, written in his Metamorphoses.

Omnia mutantur, nihil interit.
All things are changed, nothing is lost.
Todo cambia, nada se pierde.

I was quite surprised to read about the Law of Conservation of Energy in a 2000 year old text. Of course, Ovid was not thinking of energy, but of the soul. The very title of his book (translated as ‘Beyond-form’) tells us that life is much more than who were are now. I thought it interesting, considering my last post on Seneca’s father. That great writers of this period are writing about transmutation as well. The Romans understood the concept long before scientists began to formulate these ideas and applying them to physics. Further, if we have spirits and they are energy, the immortality of said energy is proven by both the Law of Conservation of Energy and Transmutation. Ovid, of course, was addressing roman fears of death, saying that all things fluunt (flow) and nihil interit (nothing is lost) was a way to reassure those who had lost faith in this life through the catastrophes of the end of the Republic and the beginning of Empire. Of course. One has to look at the political implications of his text as well. If an Emperor (in this case Augustus) sought to help Romans understand a transition must take place, what better way to do so than writing works on change and the fluidity of life?

It all boils down to what was happening on the ground. A question many historians have asked themselves and come up empty handed. What were the Romans thinking about Augustus and his principate? Further, what did they think about the fact that Tiberius succeeded Augustus in all but name? The Julii and the Claudii had, in fact, taken over Rome; now they were busy killing each other for control of the Emperorship. Germanicus, son of the Julii, commanded the foreign legions and the people; Tiberius, son of the Claudii commanded the home legions and the senate. Augustus died without a clear heir because he had adopted both Tiberius and Germanicus. In essence, the works by the Stoics and the poets began to change in this period to help the individual adapt to the levels of death inflicted in the population; at this time dealt more by their fellow Romans than by barbarians (although we cannot forget the three legions lost by Varus in Teotoburg forest in 9 CE – some 30,000 dead Romans).

However, Germanicus would spend a decade in Germania avenging the legions, recovering the eagles of two of the three units lost. Romans had no qualms about joining up to serve, even in this period of darkness and death. One must be able to thank, if not solely credit, the works of men such as Seneca, Ovid, Virgil, and many others, for saving the animus (soul) of the Roman people when they were being obliterated. Augustus’ reforms had an immediate effect in recovering the lives of men and women who had lost faith in the Republic after one hundred years of civil wars and death within Rome itself. Wars that had begun with Sulla and Marius after the murders of the Gracchi brothers. Thus, Ovid reminds us that nothing is truly gone; everything, in reality, mutantur (is changed).

So stay strong. Change is a fact, strength is a choice, success is a combination of the two.

Valete!

Thinking on Mothers, Chiding, and Children

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Aesop, ancient greek, chiding, children, deeds, fables, fate, future, morality, mothers, Past, Present, time

One of Aesop’s most alarming fables is that of a bad child who blames his mother for his death. As the fable goes, a child brings a stolen book to his mother; however, she does not chide him for the deed. Noticing no rebuke, the child soon moved on to stealing many and greater things. Eventually, as a youth, that same child was caught stealing from a merchant on the road and killed. With his last breath, he blamed his mother for his death. Aesop closes the fable with this moral:

Μὴ οὖν μέλλετε, ὦ ἄξιαι μητέρες, τοἴς ἀναξίοις τέκνοις ἐπιπληττειν.
Do not hesitate, therefore, o worthy mothers, to chide unworthy children.
No dudéis, por lo tanto, buenas madres, en admonestar malos hijos.

There is so much meaning hidden in these few words, one can almost feel a sense of overwhelming etymology. We shall start here:

Children vs. Youths

Aesop calls the child a τἐκνον (tecnon) in this fable, a child of no more than five years old. This mother, although worthy of her title, decides to allow this child to steal since, in the  beginning, he was only taking little things. The case is also illustrative of how Ancient Greek parents saw their children. A child was literally ‘that which one had made’ or, in other words, technology (the word child is exactly where technology comes from – think of ‘this project is my brain-child’). Because mortality rate was quite big in Ancient Greece, somewhere between 45 to 65 percent according to many scholars, there was a disconnect between parents and children. Although there was a ceremony to name the child after his clan once the baby was eight days old (only for boys) in order to give it what we would think of as a last name (patronym), the child would not get a first name until he overcame his first few years in the world. This child could have easily been called, because of his ‘qualities,’ Kleptiscos (little thief); but only once he had reached identifiable maturity. Consider the mother’s hopes that he would only have been a thief during his youth (hence my diminutive) and will not continue to do so as an adult. Thus, when your technology, with your last name but not a first name, misbehaved, there may have been a temptation on the part of the mother to let it do its thing.

Another fact is that τέκνον was a neuter term, meaning neither male nor female. In our modern world, we have lowered this age of cognitive thinking to a much earlier time. Toddlers (our neuter term for a boy or girl of two) are thinkers, babies have gender since birth; this, to the Ancient Greeks, was visible but not necessarily true. Until a child developed his own conscience sometime after age five, they were a thing. For us, although babies are neuter, we feel the need to ask ‘is it a boy or girl?’ After that, even babies are conscious beings. We have even pushed gender into the womb, so we can attach consciousness to fetuses within the first 12 weeks of life. On the opposite side of the spectrum, the Ancient Greeks believed the child would develop according to the traits given it by the gods, and made no effort to encapsulate their being with a first name or a gender until they were quite older.

A Warning for Mothers

Aesop is warning mothers who are tempted to let the thing be because its actions are small and insignificant. While that was true of good deeds, the writer warns about bad things. After all, it is the duty of a mother ἐπιπλήττειν (literally meaning ‘to hit upon’ – chiding came with a sense of physical violence) her child, especially if the deed was bad. That is why Aesop makes the contrast between “good mothers” and “bad children.” Good mothers with good children have it easy, for they can let the child go; but it was possible to be a good mother with a bad child, in which case it was the responsibility of the mother to teach said child. However, responsibility of the mother did not take responsibility from the adult in which the child would turn into; that is why Aesop insists the mother is good, even though her child is not.

Destiny and Bad Teens

The child-now-turn-youth argues “ἐμοι ἥδ’ ἡ μοῖρα ἐστιν” (this very fate belongs to me) upon his death, because of his mother. Fate here is transient, changeable. Kleptiscos (let us keep the name we have made up for the sake of argument) says that if his mother had chided him (and possibly given him a different name like ‘the chided one’ – Epiplettos) he could have avoided his fate. Fate, then, is dictated by the actions one takes in his or her lifetime. Aesop, while agreeing with the Ancient Greek version of fate, says the boy is incorrect; for mothers do not dictate fate, but your own actions. Aesop still argues, however, that “good mothers” will chide their small children when they do something wrong since, one never knows, they could grow up to be thieves and wrongly blame them for their final fate.

But isn’t fate dictated? You ask. How can mother and child possibly be held liable for fate? Because, as we argued previously, fate is an accumulation of decisions. In “Thinking of the Ancient Greeks, Deeds and Time,” I put forward this very notion. Fate is the irrevocable destination we give ourselves when we have committed certain actions in our past. This is what was so amazing about time in Ancient Greece, if you had made the right decisions, it worked to your benefit; if you had not, you were doomed to a bad fate.

Χαιρετε!

Thinking of the Wheel of Fortune, Its Rotation, and Fear

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chance, fate, Fear, Rotation, Wheel of Fortune

Did you know the Wheel of Fortune was a thing in the Ancient World? It certainly was to the Romans. Cicero tells us:

[Viritūtes homines] rotam fortūnae nōn timent.
Virtuous human beings do not fear the Wheel of Fortune.
Las personas de virtud no temen la rueda de la Fortuna.

Whether we take it as fortune in general (or as the Romans may have thought of it, the wheel of the goddess Fortuna) the clear path to success is through virtue. As Cicero puts it, we can walk through life more securely if good deeds are to be shown for our efforts. Men or women, in the end, must never forsake duty, and thus, wherever the wheel of fortune lands, they will always be prepared to bear the blow if such a thing comes. What if fortune brings gifts? The Roman would be cautious that it did not bring ‘mala fortuna’ (bad fortune) in its wake.

Valete!