Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Socrates on YOU'RE FUTURE (sic)


And I said “who is this, and what country his he from, and for how much does he teach?” “Euenus, O Socrates” he said, “from Parios, for five mina.” And I blessed Euenus if indeed he might have this knowledge and teach it thus agreeably.
(Note: this is heavily ironical. Socrates is poking fun at the ancient equivalent of ITT Tech)

This week I’m reading the Romans 15, the Apologia, Horace, Livy, Iliad 5, Byron, and Wright’s The Resurrection of the Son of God. Suddenly and disturbingly, I’m not practicing very much. The spring semester is wrapping up, and I haven’t been home until late for the past several nights. I think a good round of duets would get me back in shape pretty quickly, and I might be able to find it this weekend when we travel to PA for J’s birthday and general unwinding. 

I finished Climax of the Covenant earlier this week, and have picked up a really exciting bit of insight: Paul’s incorporative use of the term ν Χριστ. Starting with this passage in Philemon
I give thanks to my God always making thy remembrance in my prayers, hearing of thee the love and the faith which you have unto the Lord Jesus and unto all the saints, that the communion of thy faith might be empowered in knowledge of all good among you (as) unto Christ.

Wright argues that Paul uses Christos with two layers of meaning. The first, which is not at all compromised by the second, is the personal sense, the man Jesus of Nazareth, called “Messiah.” The second, in an incorporative sense, describes the covenanted body Jesus reconstituted around himself by his death and resurrection; in the light of this fact a passage like this becomes much more sensible:

And thus reckon ye yourselves to be dead to sin but living to God in Christ Jesus.

There’s also some wonderful discussion on Christology, Torah, and Justification; certainly a worthwhile read.

I’m trying to decide whether this passage is as wonderful as it seemed at first glance or whether Livy disneyed me:
Erige te deosque duces sequere, qui clarum hoc fore caput divino quondam circumfuso igni portenderunt. Nunc te illa caelestis excitet flamma, nunc expergiscere vere. Et nos peregrine regnavimus; qui sis, non unde natus sis, reputa.

Take thyself to follow the gods and rulers, which formerly portended this should be by the divine fire poured round thy head. Now let this celestial flame arouse thee, now arise truly. Even we foreigners have reigned; consider who you are, not whence you were born.

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