From: Steven Cox (scox@chinaonline.com.cn.net)
Date: Sat Jan 03 1998 - 10:30:58 EST
Thanks Carl
That is interesting, I had assumed the primary reference
of ARCWN would be to archangels (as LXX) and wasn't aware
of the Hellenistic use. From what you've said though it
does look as though the reference is pagan - I presume AHR
meant more in Hellenic cosmology than the plainly literal
uses given in the rest of NT or 2Sam22:12 (only LXX use)?
If a Greek deity or demon was TOUS AEROS was that purely
location, or does it imply physical/moral characteristics?
Is it possible for EXOUSIA TOUS AEROS singular to still
indicate a grouping = ARCWN TWN EXOUSIWN TOU AEROS (I'm
only asking, not proposing it)
Steven
PS Jonathan :-)
Thanks for the Amish story. Maybe Bibendum (the Michelin
man) is what Paul was referring too?
At 07:32 98/01/03 -0600, Carl W. Conrad wrote:
>> is hO ARCWN THS EXOUSIAS TOU AEROS (Eph2:2)
>> pagan or Jewish? ARCWN suggests Jewish but
>> TOU AEROS??? Is it something related to the
>> local worship of Artemis?
>I think it's pagan: the notion that the planets and the four STOICEIA each
>had their own ARCONTES belongs to a number of systems of Hellenistic
>thought, including some forms of astrology and some emerging forms of
>Gnosticism, perhaps also in Mithraism. Paul's assertion at the end of Rom 8
>that "nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ" includes a
>number of hypothetical intervening factors to which his assertion denies
>any efficacy: among these are ARCAI and DUNAMEIS; although EXOUSIAI aren't
>in this list, that term also is used to designate subordinate astral
>influences in cosmic hierarchies in these widely-variant late Hellenistic
>systems of astrological and kindred religious cosmology.
>
>Carl W. Conrad
>Department of Classics/Washington University
>One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018
>Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649
>cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cconrad@yancey.main.nc.us
>WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
>
>
>
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