New Photos for My Clement Book

[Secret Alias]

Cover

[Secret Alias]

Going backwards from Epistle 366

Ταῦτά σοι ὀλίγα δοκοῦντα πολλὰ γέγραφα, ὅτι ἑκάστη λέξις νοῦς ἐστιν, καὶ οἶδα ὅτι ἀναγνοὺς αἰσθηθήσῃ

[Secret Alias]

Καὶ γὰρ λέγεται. Νοῦς ὁρᾷ καὶ νοῦς ἀκούει

[Secret Alias]

∆οκεῖ γὰρ ὀφθαλμὸν εἶναι τοῦτον τὸν τὰ ἀφανῆ ἰδεῖν δυνάμενον.

[Secret Alias]

Ὀλίγον ἐγκράτειαν ἐὰν ἔχωμεν καὶ τοῦ βίου μὴ ἐρασθῶμεν, ἀλλ' αἰώνων τῶν ἀνωτέρων, ἐκεῖ εὑρεθησόμεθα ὅπου ἀναπέμπομεν τὸν νοῦν.

[billd89]

You know, I generally like psychedelic art.

These photos don't appeal to me.

Like many, I find the AI errors unacceptable: the garbled Greek key, for example:

Ταῦτά σοι ὀλίγα δοκοῦντα πολλὰ γέγραφα, ὅτι ἑκάστη λέξις νοῦς ἐστιν, καὶ οἶδα ὅτι ἀναγνοὺς αἰσθηθήσῃ

Is this an interesting quotation? It's a basic close telling the reader to ponder his words (meh).
"I have written at length, though it may seem little to you. But there is meaning in all that I have said, and, when you have read it, you will see it."
"I have written many things to you, although they seem to be few. For each word is a thought, and I know that when you have read, you will understand."
"I have written at length, though it may seem limited to you. But there is meaning in everything I have written, and, when you have read it, you will comprehend."


Personally, I would rather see AI interpret 'Sobriety' (ἐγκράτεια) from the entire text, in a series of vignettes and rendered, say, in consistent style of a Russian Orthodox ikon artist then finished with Peter Max psychedelia gloss. Hopefully, the key elements wouldn't be so garbled or nonsensical...


Translation of Dimas Fernández-Galiano Ruiz, "Un monasterio pitagórico" [1992], p.262-3:

Philo [Judaeus] describes a monastery whose members, already trained, devote most of their time to study and philosophical meditation; however, the retreat of these men gives the impression of being the final result of a long process of acquisition of knowledge, not a spontaneous impulse of detachment from the world, as the text might imply. The author was probably in direct contact with Therapeuts and learned part of the Pythagorean doctrines through them, yet it is unlikely that he would have been able to follow the whole process until he became one of these Pythagorean monks22. With them he shared a strong monotheism, a desire for transcendence, a burning piety and the same passion for philosophy, which perhaps brought him closer to the walls of that sanctuary he describes.23

If general features of the Therapeut religion are clearly inspired by essential ideas of Pythagoreanism, specific details of their habits, rites and customs make this dependence even more evident. They divine by means of dreams that the Godhead sends them (26)24, and for this they relax their bodies and minds, having previously undergone a rigorous examination of conscience (27), another typical Pythagorean custom 25. This method of physical and mental self-control carried out by the Therapeuts is also typical of Pythagoreanism 26, and serves to foster self-mastery (enkrateia), the foundation upon which all the other virtues are based.

I follow Moriz Friedländer on this point:

Compare the following passages in DVC {4/34-37}, where the Therapeuts praise it: “They have first of all laid down temperance as a foundation for the soul to rest upon, proceeding to build up other virtues on this foundation, as it were. Nobody takes any food or drink before sunset, since they judge philosophising something worthy of the light, but care for the necessities of the body is suitable only to darkness. – They eat nothing luxurious, just bread with salt. Their drink is spring-water. So they satisfy the two tyrants to which nature subjects the human race, hunger and thirst, but they do not flatter them, only give them what is necessary for life. – Avoid all satiety as the most insidious enemy of the soul and body.” – The passage from the first book De somniis {1.124-6} where Philo links Genesis 28:11 belongs here: “And Jacob found a stone of the place to rest his head," notes this passage also makes good sense literally, because it describes the hard and rough life of the ascetics: (1.124) “lovers of temperance… men who have laid down continence, and frugality, and fortitude, as a cornerstone and foundation for the whole of life… being superior to money, and pleasure, and glory, they look down upon meats and drinks, and everything of that sort, beyond what is necessary to ward off hunger, equally valid against cold and heat… for the sake of the acquisition of virtue… unashamed of ever such cheap or shabby clothes…” {1.126: “using a stone for his pillow”} – Cf. Gfrörer, op. cit., p.429.

DVC 34: ἐγκράτειαν δὲ ὥσπερ τινὰ θεμέλιον προκαταβαλλόμενοι τῆς ψυχῆς τὰς ἄλλας ἐποικοδομοῦσιν ἀρετάς.
"Self-mastery, as it were, is the foundation of the Psyche laid in advance upon which the other virtues are laid."
See Building an Arch. In Philo, these allusions read like clues to the ancestry of such mystical Jews, descendants of Builders and Soldiers.

And here we have the source for the Edelsteins' cornerstone, although I read Philo's Greek terms to mean of the Judeo-Egyptian A. A. bios theoretikos that such Therapeutae expressed: "... ashamed of rivalry, in self-mastery, ever moderate, perseverant, even as the soldiers' boots of those who endure ordinary life {or: as the groundwork or foundation of the temple}." (On Ashamed of rivalry: i.e. "Social distinctions, petty rivalries and jealousies—these are laughed out of countenance. " On Living Ordinarily in soldiers' boots: "trudge the Road of Happy Destiny" but also κρηπῖδάς >> κρηπίς, as an abutment to an arch.)

Presumably, as I have pointed out before (only by back-tracking to find the Anonymous Authors' sources), for Eusebius these mysterious "Therapeutae" -- Philo's Aletheian Anthropoi -- were one and the same as the Sethians/Jessaeans.

[Secret Alias]

I am quite enamoured with this one:

[Secret Alias]

It's the kind of art a lunatic would have hanging up in his home.

[billd89]

I am quite enamoured with this one:



It's the kind of art a lunatic would have hanging up in his home.

**Wins Thread**

[billd89]

First off, these aren't photographs (you know), but merely AI-generated code producing images which resemble art (defined as man's handicraft).

The quality is generic, of course; it's HAL as Thomas Kinkade. Suitable for calendars, surely; this isn't worse than fukken kittens, either. But still. Meh