Author Description

Essay on the Sacred and Ethical Terminology of the Greeks, With a French Summary and THEOPHRASTUS' CHARACTER OF DEISIDAIMONIA AS A SOURCE FOR THE HISTORY OF RELIGION Hosios en Eusebes is a study of the use of these two words and their cognates in Greek literary and legal contexts (mainly the former) from Homer down to the fourth-century orators, Xenophon, and Plato. It establishes conclusively that originally, and continuing throughout this whole period, the usual reference of hosios ("what is pemissible," "decent," "in accordance with established usage") is broadly moral rather than specifically religious; in important contexts (such as those of administrative law) hosios is used in explicit contrast to "sacred" (hieros), e.g. of funds which are expendable for secular purposes, in contrast to those designated hieros, earmarked for exclusively religious uses. The author demonstrates how untypical is Platos usage, where the word is associated much more narrowly with the discharge of duties to the gods. She shows that even eusebes, whose sense comes much closer to that of "pious" in English, may still be used in many contexts in a sense which is purely moral, with no immediate reference to the observance of the cult. The second work is a fine scholarly study of Greek superstition by way of a detailed, wide-ranging, richly documented commentary on the portrait of the Superstitious Man in Theophrastus' Characters. The author has assembled information from a wide variety of Greek religious and maigcal practices. His study is addressed principally to the classical scholar. Dutch, Greek, French & German text. 2vols. in 1