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A Traditional Form in Religious Language
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
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Eduard Norden, in the second half of his Agnostos Theos, has maintained with great learning and ingenuity the thesis that predications in the style ‘Thou art (Isis),’ ‘I am (the supreme god),’ are due to Oriental influence; purely Greek religious language does not go beyond ‘Thou dost (illuminate the earth),’ ‘We are indebted to thee for (the fruits of the earth).’ This view appears to be substantially correct. To Oriental influence we may, I think, trace also the custom of stringing together a series of brief predications in or of the second person, for the most part not connected by conjunctions, and producing the effect of a rapid fire of assertions. The earlier Greek examples are not, as a rule, asyndetic. In the Hellenistic age and later we see the other style, as in Catullus 34. 13: ‘tu Lucina dolentibus Iuno dicta puerperis, tu potens Triuia et notho es dicta lumine luna, tu cursu dea menstruo … exples’ 61. 51: ‘te suis tremulus parens inuocat, tibi uirgines zonula soluunt sinus, te timens cupida nouus captat aure maritus’; in Lucretius' proem; in Ovid, Met. IV. 17: ‘tibi enim inconsumpta iuuenta est, tu puer aeternus, tu formosissimus alto conspiceris caelo, tibi cum sine cornibus adstas, uirgineum caput est’; in the invocation of Apollo (identified with Osiris and Mithras) at the end of the first book of Statius' Thebaid; in Capaneus' prayer to his strong right arm (ib. IX. 548-): (‘ades o mihi, dextera, tantum; tu praesens bellis et ineuitabile numen, te uoco, te solum superum contemptor adoro’); in the Orphic hymns, II. 10-, though they consist mostly of accumulations of epithets; in Menander Rhetor περ πιδειкν (IX., p. 330, ed. Walz, an address to Apollo): περ [al. Θο⋯ραι], περ σ Θνδες, παρ σο⋯ кα σελνη τν ετῖνα λαμβνει; in Valerius Maximus VI.
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References
page 185 note 1 Formulated pp. 221 sqq.
page 185 note 2 Exceptions are Hom. hymn. XXX., and in less degree XXI., Soph. Ant. 786- кα σ ὺ … σὺ кα … σ⋯ кα …, Eurip, Hel. 1107, σ τν … σ τν …, and perhaps Peirithous, frag. 593, σ τν α$$v$$τοϕν, τν ν αἱΘερῳ ῥ⋯μβῳ πντων ϕ$$v$$σιν μπλγξανΘ' (attributed to Kritias by Diels' Vorsokratiker 4 II., p. 318). [For this note I am indebted to Mr. D. S. Robertson.]
page 185 note 3 The editors date the papyrus early in the second century a.d.
page 185 note 4 Cf. in Able's, Orphica, p. 288Google Scholar, hymni magici II. 19-, and P. Lond. 46 (Vol. I., p. 68, 1. 98-), and Audollent, , Defixiones, p. 341Google Scholar, n. 250A.
page 185 note 5 Also found between two Christian prayers in P. Berol. 9794; cf. Reitzenstein, , Göttingen Nachr., 1910, p. 324Google Scholar sqq.
page 186 note 1 The Mimaut papyru Greek version is given by Reitzenstein, , Archiv für Religionswissenschaft, VII. p. 393 sqqGoogle Scholar.
page 186 note 2 Cf. Studien zur Geschichte und Kultur des Altertums VI. 1/2, p. 5.
page 186 note 3 Swainson, C. A., Greek Liturgies, p. 28. 27-Google Scholar; cf. the Nestorius liturgy (ibid. p. 14. 40-).
page 186 note 4 Constitutiones Apostolorum VII. 47. For variant texts cf. Funk, ad loc.; Holzmeister, , Zeitschr. f. kath. Theol. XXXVIII. (1914), p. 125-Google Scholar.
page 186 note 5 Cf. also the peculiar form thereof given in the Bangor antiphonary (Swainson, C. A.ap. Smith-Cheetham, , Dict. Chr. Ant. II., p. 1950)Google Scholar.
page 186 note 6 Const. Ap. VII. 48.
page 186 note 7 Martyr, XII., p. 7, Gebhardt. Other liturgical elements in this prayer have been noted by Robinson, J. A., Expositor IX. (1899), pp. 63Google Scholar sqq.; Lietzmann, H., Zeitschr. f. wiss. Theol. LIV. (1912), pp. 56Google Scholar sqq.
page 186 note 8 Delahaye, H., Analecta Bollandiana XXXIX., p. 258Google Scholar; cf. the long prayer assigned to Antiochensis, S. Cyprian (Migne, P.L. IV. 905)Google Scholar , and the short prayer of Afra, S. (Ruinart, Acta sincera2, p. 456)Google Scholar.
page 186 note 9 Cf. Schermann, , Stud. G.K.A., Erg. Bd. III., pp. 200, 262Google Scholar for references.
page 186 note 10 As in Christ-Paranikas, , Anthologia Graeca Carminum Christianorum (to which Mr. A. B. Cook drew my attention), II. 63Google Scholar; III. 12-, 25-, 95-, 191–6, 210-, 266-, 301-; IV. 1-, 175-; V. 20-; VI. 12-.
page 186 note 11 Ibid. II. 1-, III. 15-.
page 187 note 1 Cf. Roeder, , Urkunden zur Religion des alten Aegyptens. p. 2Google Scholar (hymn to Sungod), p. 6 (address to creator and guider of world), p. 8 (address to Sun), p. 46 (prayer of wronged man to Sun), p. 48, p. 49, p. 53, p. 235; cf. similar address to king (p. 72).
page 187 note 2 So Grenfell, and Hunt, , Oxyrhynchus Papyri XL., p. 191Google Scholar; cf. Roeder, , op. cit., pp. 5, 22, 31Google Scholar.
page 187 note 3 Cf. Dieterich, , Fleck. Jahrb. suppl. XVI., pp. 771 sqqGoogle Scholar.
page 187 note 4 Cf. Norden, , op. cit., pp. 207Google Scholar sqq., 177 sqq.
page 187 note 5 Sitz. Ber. Heidelberg, 1923, II.
page 187 note 6 Reitzenstein, , Gött. Nachr., 1904, pp. 309Google Scholar sqq.
page 187 note 7 Lietzmann, ibid., 1912, p. 320.
page 187 note 8 Conveniently accessible in Lavagnini, , Eroticorum Graecorum fragmenta, p. 37Google Scholar sqq. It is, perhaps, noteworthy that Nectanebus was introduced in the popular Aesop-romance as well as in the Alexander-romance (cf. Keller, O., Fleck. Jahrb. suppl. IV., p. 367Google Scholar sqq.; Plister, Fr., PhilWoch., 1923, p. 813Google Scholar sqq.; P. Oxy., 1826, now gives us a fragment of a romance concerning King Sesonchosis.
page 187 note 9 On Jewish elements therein, cf. Creed, J. M., Journ. Theol. Stud. XV. (1914), p. 527Google Scholar sqq.
page 187 note 10 Jüdisch, -christlicher Schulbetrieb in Alexandria, 1915.
page 187 note 11 Cf. Geffcken, Zwei griechische Apologeten, Einleitung.
page 187 note 12 Vit. Mos. III. 24, p. 164, Mangey ～ Heliodorus IX. 9. On his Neopythagorean tendencies cf. Münscher, P. W. IX. 21. They would in themselves account for the curious figure Kalasiris, the Egyptian priest, whose dress and habits are naturally like those of Apollonius of Tyana in Philostratus. Is his character based on that figure? (Cf. Rohde, , Der griechische Roman 3, pp. 467Google Scholar sqq.)
page 187 note 13 As P. Berol. 13415, edited by Schermann, Münchener Beiträgeznr Papyrusforschung III. (1917).
page 188 note 1 On this cf. Wendland, P., Gött. Nachr., 1910, pp. 330Google Scholar sqq.; Schermann, , Stud. G.K.A., Erg. Bd. III., p. 462Google Scholar.
page 188 note 2 Mr. A. B. Cook kindly directed my attention to this point.
page 188 note 3 Cf. for examples Schmid, , Atticismus, I, 422Google Scholar; ibid. II. 271; ibid. III. 306 sq.; ibid. IV. 493; Koziol, , Der Stil des L. Apuleius, pp. 221Google Scholar sqq.; Norden, , Kunstprosa3 II. 612Google Scholar.
page 188 note 4 Mart.SS.Cypriani et Justinae, ch. IV. (A.A.S.S. Sept. VII., p. 244A); discussed in Hagiog. N. III.
page 188 note 5 I.G. Rom. I. 105.
page 188 note 6 Vita Antonini Diadumeni I. § 7.
page 188 note 7 Similarly, though Norden makes a good case for attributing such first person predications as ‘En adsum—rerum naturae parens, elementorum omnium regina ’ (Apul, . Met. XI. 5)Google Scholar, or γ ϕς кενο Γώ [εἱμι] νο$$v$$ς, σς Θες, πρ ϕ$$v$$σεως $$v$$γρς τς к σкτονς ϕανεσης (Corp. Herm. I. 6), to Oriental and in particular to Egyptian influence (cf. earlier Dieterich, , Fleck. Jahrb. suppl. XVI., p. 7738)Google Scholar , two factors may have helped to popularize the style. First is the habit of inscribing a statue base with verses in which the statue talks in the first person, as the familiar Xαλк παρΘνος εμ, or the inscription at Miletus, Xαρς εμι Kλσιος Τειχισης ρχς (Dittenberger, Sylloge 3 3d). This continued in Hellenistic times, as on the gravestones at Alexandria (Bulletin de la Société d' archéologie d' Alexandrie I., p. 46. n. 29; XII., p. 93; XV., p. 38, 1. 6); on an engineering work there (ibid. I., p. 48, n. 36); on two Phrygian monuments (Journ. Hell. Stud. IV., p. 420, col. I. 3; Ramsay, , Cities and Bishoprics II., p. 390Google Scholar , n. 241); on late monuments in Trachonitis (Lebas-Waddington, Inscr. Asie Min. 24194), and Bîr-es-Sebă (Alt, Die griechischen Inschiften der Palāstina Tertia, p. 23, n. 39); on a tomb at Parium (I.G. Rom. IV. 176), and in a longish poem in the cave of Sibyl at Erythrae (ibid. 1540). The sel-predications of Isis and Osiris, quoted by Diodorus Siculus I. 27, are described as inscriptions on their tombs at Nysa in Arabia. Second is the oracular style: compare in particular Sarapis' answer to King Nicocreon (Macrob, , Saturn. I. 20. 17)Google Scholar, and Alexander's, reply, Γὼ 'Ασкληπις νος (Lucian, Alex. 43)Google Scholar.