ἠκρατισμένοι means what?

[billd89]

Philo Judaeus, De Ebrietate 1.148:

καίτοι γε ἐκεῖνοι μὲν τρόπον τινὰ μεθύουσιν οἱ νήφοντες τὰ ἀγαθὰ ἀθρόα ἠκρατισμένοι καὶ τὰς προπόσεις παρὰ τελείας ἀρετῆς δεξάμενοι...

My translation:

Yet indeed these sober ones truly are in some sense ‘drunk’, having mightily quaffed (ἠκρατισμένοι) from the Cup of the Good and received that toasting from Perfect Virtue...

I suppose the telling verbs "...ἠκρατισμένοι, καὶ ... δεξάμενοι" are parallel: a victorious guzzling follows the toasting. Likewise, Perfect Virtue offers the contest Winner the Cup of Excellence. That is what makes sense to me -- but I'm guessing at foreign idioms in a language I don't know, here. I also suspect this is Krater stuff, another suggestive connection of Philo Judaeus to the Hermetica.

Imaged, in practice ἠκρατισμένοι looks something like this (after the victor's toast). Note raised can of Bud, at right.



See Yonge (1854), p.484: "having drunk deep", Colson (1930) p.397: "all good things are united in the strong wine on which they feast... they receive the loving-cup", and this (p.162) "having gulped down heaps" or this (p.203) "having received drinks" -- none of these satisfy me.

ἠκρατισμένοι = êcratismenoe is a verb. What is the best translation?

ἠ- = of?
κρατισ- = victorious?
-μένοι = strength?

Contrary indication:
ἠκρατισμένος "vinegar-drinker"???

ὄξος ἠκρατισμένος

Append. prov. 4, 28 ἐπὶ τῶν ὀργίλων καὶ δριμυτάτων. ἠκρατισμένος Κ.] ἠκρατισμένον, quod retineri potest, si antecessisse statuatur nomen accusativo casu positum. qui non vinum, sed acetum prandens potavit.

GoogleTranslate: "which may be retained, if it is established that the noun placed in the accusative case has preceded it: 'who drank not wine, but vinegar at lunch'."




Random Bonus Prize: a long lecture by Dr. James Justin Sledge on Renaissance Christian Hermeticist Ludovico Lazzarelli's Crater Hermetis.

[mbuckley3]

You are on the right track with κρατηρ/mixing bowl (to mix wine with water), but have been led astray by the seeming resemblance to κρατος/strength.

The root verb is κεραννυμι /to mix, the alpha is a negative.

So what we have here is a past participle of the derived verb ακρατιζομαι.

The sense is : "having drunk unmixed (i.e. pure) wine".

The αγαθα αθροα are assembled/united good things. So in fact Colson's LCL translation is, as usual, perfectly fine, as long as you realize that by 'strong' he intends unmixed/pure wine.

[billd89]

I suppose that if ἀκρατίζομαι (to drink unmixed wine) becomes ἠκρατισμένοι (they having drunk of the undiluted essence), you should be correct.

ἀκρατίζομαι, as in:

Philo, De Vita Moisis 2.204: ...μόνος ἀμιγοῦς ἠκρατίσω σοφίας .... (Various translations)
1."who alone has drunk the unmixed wine of Wisdom"
2."who alone has tasted the undiluted Wisdom"
3. "you alone have drunk the pure wine of Wisdom"
4. Latin: Solus sinceram gustasti sapientiam = "Only you have tasted true Wisdom"

Philo Judaeus, De Ebrietate 1.148:

καίτοι γε ἐκεῖνοι μὲν τρόπον τινὰ μεθύουσιν οἱ νήφοντες τὰ ἀγαθὰ ἀθρόα ἠκρατισμένοι καὶ τὰς προπόσεις παρὰ τελείας ἀρετῆς δεξάμενοι...

My amended translation:

Yet indeed these sober ones truly are in some sense ‘drunk’, having quaffed the undiluted Cup uniting all Good things and having received the toast of Perfect Virtue...

See (GoogleTranslate, adapted) Lewy (1929) p.4:

And those sober ones really are drunk in some way, since they drank all goods unmixed in large quantities and received the toast from perfect virtue (i.e. God).

In Lewy (1929) also, guzzling is implied. A reasonable translation of "in Mengen tranken" = drank copious amounts, quaffed mightily, etc. And furthermore, since we are discussing alcohol in the 1st C, undiluted wine was in fact considered "strong drink." Already in Antiquity, this Krater Dialectic was deployed to Hermeticize the Apostles!

See Footnote 3 (Lewy in German, GoogleTranslate):

See See Hugo Koch (cited p.104.7) p.141, 1 and Leisegang pp.233-4 and 236f. who have pointed out the similarity of the Philonic passage with the story of the Pentecost miracle in Acts. Just Philo reads Eli's rebuke as an utterance typical of the ‘unconsecrated’ blind crowd, so Acts of the Apostles describes how the multitude of Gentiles mocked the community speaking in tongues, saying: "They are full of sweet wine." And just as Philo rejects this mockery and reveals the true cause of this misunderstood enthusiasm for God, Peter likewise explains the community’s ecstasy as the fulfillment of prophetic word on the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Exegesis in Antiquity already noticed the similarity of these Philonic and NT passages and combined them with each other. See Pseudo-John Chrysostom {c.380 AD} in Sanctam Pentecosten Sermo II Migne Vol.52, p.809f.: "Do not believe they were drunk, nor that they were full of sweet wine... Drunkenness {i.e. Alcoholism} causes acts of insanity, and leads to confusion ... the wicked slanderously accused the Apostles of this... For the Jews thought the sober to be intoxicated (νήφοντες μεθύειν)... Yet I agree with them that they were inebriated, but not from the intoxication which you mean, but from something more divine and spiritual (θειοτέρανκαὶνοερὰν ἐκείνην, sc . μέθην), which is only fulfilled in he who has drank of Wisdom... He who has drunk Her is awake and sober (ἐγρήγορε καὶ νήφει) to receive Virtue... This krater inebriated the Apostles, the Disciples of the Savior drank from this Cup, and became drunk with the most beautiful inebriety (τὴν καλλίστην ἐμεθύσθησαν μέθην) and filled with the Holy Table’s food; and say, with holy David: ,,You have prepared the table for me, etc.,'' (Ps 22.5 [see below p.126f.]). For whoever drinks from this Cup is sober in Christ (νήφει ἐν Χριστῷ), but appears unto the clueless as 'drunk'.«

Who read this work matters. Besides Lewy's friends the Edelsteins, Joseph Ratzinger clearly cited and certainly read Hans Lewy's monograph long before he became a Cardinal. When? He mentions (1990) an earlier essay of his regarding Gnosticism printed in 1977, but he also published in a collection w/ several Gnostic articles, in Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum 4 (1959) pp.1219–1228.

So far as I know, Ratzinger's own first discovery or exposure to Lewy's work cannot be traced back with any certainty to either (important mentors) von Balthasar or Guardini. Conservatively, and without further information, we can only know that Ratzinger's familiarity w/ Lewy's work dates sometime between the mid-1950s and the early 1970s.

The young Msgr. Ratzinger, in 1955:

[billd89]

Evil Communists have also relied upon the gnostic-hermetic Chalice Symbolism. Here is an example of Soviet Mentalism, broadcast across the the USSR, at the very moment their myth was collapsing.

The first sequence of the 20-minute session showed Kashpirovsky speaking in close-up. Then, the image shifted to the site where events were taking place. Kashpirovsky stood at the podium of a cinema, broadcasting his therapeutic message to entranced audience members as lilting musical airs filled the room.

The iconography of the third, and final, sequence brought out the séance’s political dimensions. As the camera panned across the movie theater, the mesmerist’s face faded into, and over, the image. The effect was grotesque yet sublime: Like Leviathan, the sea monster of religious philosophy embodying state power in Thomas Hobbes’s political theory. Nor were effects meant to be limited to the sphere of images. By imbibing “charged” water, spectators were told they would feel the effects of the therapeutic session until the next transmission. At the beginning of the broadcast, Kashpirovsky instructed people seated at home to have a vessel filled with water at the ready; drinking it would revive the unconscious of the land, which had fallen ill, and instill the aims of Communism in the popular mind yet again.

Meme failed. La-la-la-la-la...