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Footnotes. ON THE DRINKING OF WINE. 267:5 ἁλισκόμενα—probably a word-play on ἅλας (salts)
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Footnotes
267: 1 Vulg., “endure with such difficulty” or “feel such disgust at. ”
267: 2 Referring usually to small animals of the sheep and goat kind, and more generally to all sacrificial animals.
267: 3 Or, perhaps, more generally, “the salt from their food. ” It more probably refers to mineral and not to vegetable salts.
267: 4 That is animalculæ .
267: 5 ἁ λ ι σ κ ό μ ε ν α —probably a word-play on ἅ λ α ς (salts).
267: 6 Mü ller, ii. 99. Aristagoras was a Greek writer on Egypt, who flourished about the last quarter of the 4th century B. C.
267: 7 Namely the Nile, as Osiris, or the Great Deep.
267: 8 Mystically the “Leviathan” (e. g. of the “Ophites”) who lived in the Great Deep. Cf. also Ps. civ. 26, where, speaking of the Great Sea (25), it is written: “There go the ships [the barides, boats, or vehicles of souls], and there is that Leviathan [LXX. Dragon] whom thou hast fashioned to take his pastime [LXX. sport or mock] therein. ”
268: 1 τ ὸ Ν ε ι λ ῷ ο ν ὕ δ ω ρ —τ ὰ Ν ε ι λ ῷ α was the Feast of the Overflowing of the Nile.
ON THE DRINKING OF WINE
VI. 1. And as for wine, the servants of the God in Sun-city 2 do not at all bring it into the sacred place, as ’tis not right [for them] to drink by day while He, their Lord and King, looks on.
2. The rest [of them 3] use it indeed, but sparingly.
They have, however, many times of abstinence at which they drink no wine, but spend them in the search for wisdom, learning and teaching the [truth] about the Gods.
3. The kings used to drink it, though in certain measure according to the sacred writings, as Hecatæ us has narrated, 4 for they were priests [as well].
4. They began to drink it, however, only from the time of Psammetichus; 5 but before that they used not to drink wine.
Nor did they make libation of it as a thing dear to the Gods, but as the blood of those who fought against the Gods, 6—from whom, when they fell and mingled with
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the earth, they think the vines came, and that because of this wine-drenching makes men to be out of their minds and struck aside, 1 in that, forsooth, they are full-filled with the forefathers of its 2 blood. 3
5. These things, at any rate Eudoxus says, in Book II. of his Circuit, 4 are thus stated by the priests.
Footnotes
268: 2 Heliopolis—the God being the “Sun. ”
268: 3 Sc. the priests.
268: 4 Mü ller, ii. 389. H. flourished last quarter of 6th and first 5th century B. C.
268: 5 Reigned 671-617 B. C.
268: 6 Sc. the Titans or Daimones as opposed to the Gods.
269: 1 Or “de-ranged”—π α ρ α π λ ῆ γ α ς. Paraplē x is the first of the daimonian rulers in The Books of the Saviour (Pistis Sophia, 367).
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269: 2 Sc. the vine’s.
269: 3 Or “with the blood of its forefathers. ”
269: 4 Or Orbit. Eudoxus flourished about the middle of the 4th century B. C.; he was initiated into the Egyptian mysteries, and a great astronomer, obtaining his knowledge of the art from the priests of Isis.
ON FISH TABOOS
VII. 1. As to sea-fish, all [Egyptians] abstain generally (not from all [fish] but) from some; —as, for example, those of the Oxyrhynchus nome from those caught with a hook, for as they venerate the sharp-snouted fish, 5 they fear that the hook 6 is not pure when “sharp-snout” is caught by it; 7 while those of the Syē nē nome [abstain from] the “devourer, ” 8 for that it seems that it appears together with the rising of the Nile, and that it shows their 9 growth to those in joy, seen as a self-sent messenger.
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2. Their priests, upon the other hand, abstain from all; and [even] on the ninth of the first month, 1 when every one of the rest of the Egyptians eats a broiled fish before his front door, 2 the priests do not taste it, but burn their fishes to ashes before the doors [of the Temple]. 3
3. And they have two reasons [for this], of which I will later on take up the sacred and extraordinary [one], according with the facts religiously deduced concerning Osiris and Typhon. The evident, the one that’s close at hand, in showing forth the fish as a not necessary and a not unsuperfluous cooked food, bears witness unto Homer, who makes neither the Phæ acians of luxurious lives, nor yet the Ithakē sian Island men, use fish, nor yet Odysseus’s Companions 4 in so great a Voyage and on the Sea before they came to the last Strait. 5
4. And generally [the priests] think that the sea’s from fire and is beyond the boundaries—nor part nor element [of earth], but of another kind, a superfluity cor-rupted and cor-rupting.
Footnotes
269: 5 τ ὸ ν ὀ ξ ύ ρ υ γ χ ο ν —perhaps the pike.
269: 6 ἄ γ κ ι σ τ ρ ο ν —dim. of ἄ γ κ ο ς, meaning a “bend” of any kind. Perhaps it may be intended as a play on the ankh tie or “noose of life, ” the well-known Egyptian symbol, generally called the crux ansata.
269: 7 If we read α ὑ τ ῷ for α ὐ τ ῷ it would suggest a mystic meaning, namely, “falls into his own snare. ”
269: 8 φ α γ ρ ο ῦ —Vulg., sea-bream; but Hesychius spells it φ ά γ ω ρ ο ς, connecting it with φ α γ ε ῖ ν, to devour.
269: 9 Or “his” (the Nile’s); but the “self-sent messenger” (α ὐ τ ά γ γ ε λ ο ς ) seems to demand “their, ” and so suggests a mystical sense.
270: 1 Copt. Thoth—corr. roughly with September.
270: 2 π ρ ὸ τ ῆ ς α ὐ λ ε ί ο υ θ ύ ρ α ς —that is, the outside door into the α ὐ λ ή, or court of the house. Cf. the title of the Trismegistic treatise given by Zosimus—“The Inner Door. ” There may, perhaps, be some mystical connection.
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270: 3 Cf. Luke xxiv. 42: “And they gave Him a piece of broiled fish. ” This was after His “resurrection. ” Also cf. Talmud Bab., “Sanhedrin, ” 103a: “That thou shalt not have a son or disciple who burns his food publicly, like Jeschu ha-Notzri” (D. J. L., 189).
270: 4 Compare the Companions of Horus in the Solar Boat.
270: 5 I fancy there must be some under-meaning here, and so I have put the key-words in capitals.
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