ἀσέβεια Socrates

 

ἀσέβεια/

 

 EPIGRAPHY/ PALAEOGRAPHY

Epigraphy is the study of inscriptions, it is the science of identifying graphemes, the smallest meaningful contrastive unit in a writing system. clarifying their meanings and classifying their uses according to dates and cultural contexts. While Palaeography is the combination of to words 'old' and 'to write' i.e., it is the study of ancient writing.

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Socrates, (born c. 470 BCE, Athens [Greece]—died 399 BCE, Athens), ancient Greek philosopher whose way of life, character, and thought exerted a profound influence on Western philosophy. Plato was a student of Socrates and later taught Aristotle. 

  In 399 B.C. Socrates was indicted on charges of asebeia, or “impiety” (this literal translation is not nearly comprehensive in regard to the complexity of the term) and corrupting the youth. He was brought before a jury of some 500 Athenians in a type of trial known as agon timetos, or “trial of assessment”. 

  With respect to negotiable instrument #   "This is actual constructive notice by Beneficiary that he is the owner and holder of all right title and interest with the non-negotiable Bill/Invoice instrument, claim number RA-RE277738075 transferred to the Treasurer Janet Yellen, I.R.S. 1973 N.Rulon White Blvd Ogden 844404-040 accepted for ASSESSED VALUE and returned in exchange for closure and settlement of the accounting, using exemption # redacted with all attachments held in the private".

 Koine Greek, the variety of Greek used after the conquests of Alexander the Great in the fourth century BC, is sometimes included in Ancient Greek, but its pronunciation is described in Koine Greek 

ἀσέβεια/Asebeia  was a criminal charge in ancient Greece for the "desecration and mockery of divine objects", for "irreverence towards the state gods" and disrespect towards parents and dead ancestors. It translates into English as impiety or godlessness. Most evidence for it comes from Athens. Wikipedia

  The PROBLEM/RUB/;IABILITY is “As Socrates Shows, the Athenians Did Not Believe in Gods”, Numen 52 (2005), p. 325-355; H. Cancik-Lindemaier, “Gottlosigkeit im Altertum. Materialismus – Pantheismus – Religionskritik – Atheismus”, in R. Faber, S. Lanwerd (eds.), Atheismus: Ideologie, Philosophie oder Mentalität?, Würzburg, 2006, p. 15-34.

  There are examples  where someone has to prove that he is pious,(proving you did not run the red light).which is equivalent to proving that you are not impious.   See the law of the eranistai in Athens: IG II² 1369, ll. 31-36: [μη]δενὶ ἐξέστω ἰσι̣[έν]αι ἰ̣ς̣ τὴν σεμνοτάτ̣ην | σύνοδον τῶν ἐρανιστῶν πρ̣ὶν ἂν δοκι|μασθῇ εἴ ἐστι ἁ[γν]ὸς καὶ εὐσεβὴς καὶ ἀγ̣|α[θ]ός̣· δοκιμα[ζέ]τω δὲ ὁ προστάτης [καὶ] | [ὁ] ἀρχιεραν̣ισ̣τὴς καὶ ὁ γ[ρ]αμματεὺς κα[ὶ] | [οἱ] ταμίαι καὶ σύνδικοι. 

 The officials of the clan of eranistai are involved in the process of checking that someone is pious may imply that a contrario it was possible to find out somewhere, in public lists or through common knowledge, whether or not someone was impious.

The eranos is shown by Aristotle and inscriptions to have been a formal organization already in the fourth century B.C., making loans, to the injury of the  the borrower and by conclusive presumptions (religious trial done same way today) presumed to be something that I am not, a public officer : assuming the conditions not covered by the law in question. were interest-bearing and enforceable, just like today's mortgages and court and all negotiable einstruments. 

 

 

 Greek text:   SEG_8.13 ,   IG_12.4.2.690

Provenance:   Kos
Date:   c. 30 B.C.
Tags:     tyrants
Format:   see key to translations

This inscription is famous because it has long been associated with Nazareth. However, recent research has shown that the stone on which it was carved came from the island of Kos ( Journal of Archaeological Science ). It has been suggested that if the inscription was originally located in Kos, it could be associated with the desecration of the tomb of the 'tyrant' Nikias. This cannot be proved, but the specific mention of 'casting out bodies' fits in with an epigram of Krinagoras ( Anth.Pal. 9.81 ), which describes the fate of Nikias.

For a full discussion of the career of Nikias of Kos, see K. Buraselis, "Kos between Hellenism and Rome", pp. 25-65 ( academia.edu ). Over twenty short inscriptions referring to Nikias have been found on Kos, with almost identical texts; an example is given at B.

The translation of A is adapted from B.M. Metzger, "The Nazareth Inscription Once Again" ( Google Books ).

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[A]   Ordinance of Caesar.

It is my pleasure that graves and tombs - whoever has made them as a pious service for ancestors or children or members of their household - that these remain unmolested in perpetuity. But if any person lay information that another person has destroyed them, or has in any other way cast out the bodies which have been buried there, or 10 with malicious deception has transferred them to other places, to the dishonour of those buried there, or has removed the headstones or other stones, in such a case I command that a trial be instituted, protecting the pious services of mortals, just as if they were concerned with the gods. For beyond all else it shall be obligatory to honour those who have been buried. Let no one remove them for any reason. 20 If anyone does so, however, it is my will that he shall suffer capital punishment on the charge of tomb-robbery.

[B]   To the ancestral gods, on behalf of the safety of Nikias, son of the people {damos}, the lover of his fatherland, hero, and benefactor of the city.

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If a law defining precisely impiety existed in the case of epitaphs, it must have had the form: “If someone commits impiety by opening a tomb, he shall be brought to court” or “if someone opens a tomb, he shall be prosecuted for impiety”. But the epitaphs that we know say: “if someone opens my tomb, he shall be prosecuted for impiety”. Casuistic, not general, prescriptions are therefore the norm both for defining impiety and stipulating its consequences. The law from Ialysos mentioned above would tend to confirm this point. It is written that the culprit will be ἔνοχος τᾶι ἀσεβείαι. The article τᾶι must have a demonstrative value and the expression should be translated “liable to this impiety”. Accordingly, it seems that impiety is often referred to with specific referents: you are considered as impious towards specific gods or you

The NAS New Testament Greek Lexicon

Strong's Number: 765 Browse Lexicon Original Word Word Origin asebeß from (1) (as a negative particle) and a presumed derivative of (4576) Transliterated Word TDNT Entry Asebes 7:185,1010 Phonetic Spelling Parts of Speech as-eb-ace' Adjective Definition destitute of reverential awe towards God, condemning God, impious

 We never find in decrees or cult regulations an expression like “if someone does something impious”, but rather “if he does this, he shall be impious”. Supposing that a general text on impiety existed, its aim was to define a procedure in a specific case, as for instance a γραφὴ ἀσεβείας if someone sold sacred items55, but not the offences that were linked to this form of prosecution. 

 . We never find in decrees or cult regulations an expression like “if someone does something impious”, but rather “if he does this, he shall be impious”. Supposing that a general text on impiety existed, its aim was to define a procedure in a specific case, as for instance a γραφὴ ἀσεβείας if someone sold sacred items55

 Moreover, we do not know any general Lycian inscription entitled νόμος ἀσεβείας and used as a reference for epitaphs. If a law defining precisely impiety existed in the case of epitaphs, it must have had the form: “If someone commits impiety by opening a tomb, he shall be brought to court” or “if someone opens a tomb, he shall be prosecuted for impiety”. But the epitaphs that we know say: “if someone opens my tomb, he shall be prosecuted for impiety”. Casuistic, not general, prescriptions are therefore the norm both for defining impiety and stipulating its consequences. The law from Ialysos mentioned above would tend to confirm this point. It is written that the culprit will be ἔνοχος τᾶι ἀσεβείαι. The article τᾶι must have a demonstrative value and the expression should be translated “liable to this impiety”. Accordingly, it seems that impiety is often referred to with specific referents: you are considered as impious towards specific gods or you have committed a specific impiety. Only the expression ἔνοχος ἀσεβείᾳ, without article and without gods, has no referent. Apart from this more ambiguous case, therefore, it is clear that no general law about impiety is to be searched out of the different epigraphic texts known to us.

• 56  See the comment about Plato’s legislation against impiety in Bruit Zaidman, o.c. (n. 2), p. 167: “ (...)

37This also explains the formulation in the decree from Teos with a double mention of sacrilege: there is an array of texts in which sacrilege is mentioned and these texts are to be used as a reference for this specific case, but, on account of a lack of evidence, it is not founded to claim that there was a “law against sacrilege” either defining what “sacrilege” was or stating what would happen as soon as any sacrilege, in any occasion, was attested.56

Conclusion

• 57  See an analogous reflection for ἀτιμία in E. Famerie, “La condamnation d’Arthmios de Zéleia”, in S (...)

38What should be remembered from this brief survey of impiety in epigraphic evidence? One can observe that when ἀσέβεια is involved on a descriptive level, clear sanctions are added (trial, fine, exile and so on): “X was impious towards Y because he did such a thing and is punished accordingly” or “X was condemned for impiety and here is the penalty”. But when the text becomes imperative, in the case of preventive laws, ἀσέβεια is used in syncopated forms: “if X does not respect the law, he shall be impious”. In such cases, the point is that you are regarded as impious, but specific sanctions are not automatically mentioned. Being impious can mean that from now on you will not feel at ease with the gods anymore, other people are allowed to reject you from the cult, etc. The problem is to understand how these two categories of texts may have been connected at some point. In other words, in the inscription regarding the cypresses in the shrine in Cos, where someone carrying away pieces of wood would be impious in reference to the sanctuary, we do not know any example of someone who actually committed such a wrong and was consequently mentioned in an inscription as follows: “X was condemned for impiety because he stole pieces of wood from the sanctuary and therefore X has to pay a fine of a thousand drachmae”. Attestations of ἀσέβεια in both contexts are two points between which we do not know how the synapses work.57

 ῠ̔́βρις • (húbris) f (genitive ῠ̔́βρεως or ῠ̔́βριος); third declension (Epic, Ionic, Doric, Attic, Koine)

1. pride
2. insolence
3. outrage

   Noun[edit]

            outrage (countable and uncountable, plural outrages)

   1. An excessively violent or vicious attack; an atrocity. quotations ▼
   2. An offensive, immoral or indecent act.
   3. The resentful, indignant, or shocked anger aroused by such acts.
   4. (obsolete) A destructive rampage. (Can we add an example for this sense?
   5. 
      
   6. 5. outrage (third-person singular simple present outrages, present participle outraging, simple past and past participle outraged)
   7. transitive) To cause or commit an outrage upon; to treat with violence or abuse. quotations ▼

   8. 1. (transitive) To inspire feelings of outrage in.

         The senator's comments outraged the community.

      2. (archaic, transitive) To sexually violate; to rape.
      3. (obsolete, transitive) To rage in excess of. 

      Derived terms[edit]

      1. • ῠ̔βρίζω (hubrízō)

      Descendants[edit]

      1. • → English: hubris
         • Greek: ύβρις f (ývris)
           • βρίζω (vrízo, “to insult, to curse”)
           • βρισιά f (vrisiá, “insult, curse”)
         • → Latin: hybrida (see there for further descendants)
           • → English: hybrid

From Ancient Greek ὕβρις (húbris, “insolence, sexual outrage”)

 

Since the 1970s and 1980s, several scholars have attempted a systematic re-evaluation of the inscriptional and papyrological evidence (Smith 1972, Teodorsson 1974, 1977, 1978; Gignac 1976; Threatte 1980, summary in Horrocks 1999). According to their results, many of the relevant phonological changes can be dated fairly early, reaching well into the classical period, and the period of the Koiné can be characterised as one of very rapid phonological change. Many of the changes in vowel quality are now dated to some time between the 5th and the 1st centuries BC, while those in the consonants are assumed to have been completed by the 4th century AD. However, there is still considerable debate over precise dating, and it is still not clear to what degree, and for how long, different pronunciation systems would have persisted side by side within the Greek speech community. The resulting majority view today is that a phonological system roughly along Erasmian lines can still be assumed to have been valid for the period of classical Attic literature, but biblical and other post-classical Koine Greek is likely to have been spoken with a pronunciation that already approached that of Modern Greek in many crucial respects.

Footnotes