Re: Hebrew/Latin spirit taxonomies

John Cowan wrote:
> > The demotion of the Greek gods to devas is also a Christian invention,
> Are you thinking of daemones?
No, I'm thinking of the process whereby Aphrodite (say) stops being
a real person, a diviinity who takes part in the affairs of the
world, and becomes a personification 'Goddess of Love'; or worse,
an archetype, nothing more than a psychological phenomenon. This
is largely my polytheism getting cranky again.

I'm not sure about the word 'daimon', just now. I've seen it used
in a metaphorical way: 'eu daimones', meaning to be happy or
fortunate; I've seen it used to refer to household spirits, where
offerings are presented to the 'agathe daimon', the worthy spirit.
Socrates uses the word to refer either to his conscience, or to the
voices in his head, maybe both. 'Course, the Athenians were willing
to call those 'gods', but they had ulterior motives.

Anyway, I'm winding down my study of Attic Greek and starting to
study Old Norse, which I can mostly pronounce (I never did get the
aspiration right), and doesn't seem to have _any_ eight-syllable
future perfect middle/passive participles.

        Erich