An interesting question, and one that does concern legitimate
interpretation of the Greek as well as a larger religio-historical
question. "Cultivate" strikes me as a bit strange for QERAPEUEIN, which
tends to mean more "do attendant service upon" or "attend medically." Dio
belongs properly to the Second Sophistic, doesn't he--so that his usage is
Atticist rather than ordinary Koine? The language sounds more akin to the
Platonic usage and specifically to the great Socratic metaphor of QERAPEIA
THS YUCHS, "caretaking of one's soul"--where "cultivation" might be used
but there is no notion of "manipulation" but rather, as Socrates put it,
cultivation of the soul so that it might be hWS BELTISTOS, "the very best
that it can be." I don't have access to a text of Dio Chrysostom in my
present location, but I'm curious whether the context of the passage Rick
cites indicates he (Dio) is talking about Simon and the post-Christian
MAGOI rather than about the Zoroastrian MAGOI of Matthew's birth-narrative?
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics/Washington University
One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
Summer: 1647 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(704) 675-4243
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cconrad@yancey.main.nc.us
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/