Off topic but curious (was: A bunch of oxymorons?)

At 10:29 pm +0100 18/9/01, Dan Jones wrote:
>J Y S Czhang wrote:
>
>> In a message dated 17.09.2001 07:55:07 AM, dan@FEUCHARD.FSNET.CO.UK
>writes:
>>
>> >Pagan here too, principally Romano-Greek. There are more of us about than
>> >you think...
>> >
>>     er, eh, excuse me, but I think ya mean Greco-Roman, right?
>
>That's what most people *would* say, quite right. My religion is more based
>on the ancient Roman one- hence my putting "Romano-" before Greek.
So is there any Greek, really?  If so, in what way?

>Strictly
>speaking I prefer "Religio Romana" anyway- Oi daown't 'old wiv orl that
>syncretism stuff, me. I prefer the comfortable domesticity of the Roman
>tradition- the Ancient Greek beliefs always seem so bleak.
But the 'religio Romana' was syncretic; it inherited elements from its
Indo-European past, notably its chief diety Iuppiter (as the Romans spelled
it << *(d)iouis pater << PIE *djewis IIRC) - the same deity, as I'm sure
you know, turns up in Germanic as *Tiwas, giving Old Norse Tyr and Old
English Tiw whose name is still preserved in  "Tue's day".   But there were
unquestionably Etruscan elements in the religion; the Lares (not sure about
the Penates) are of Etruscan origin IIRC.

OK - I guess you mean you don't like the syncretism with the Greek
religion; I must admit I've always thought the two religions did not fit
well together.  What about the syncretism with later 'mystery' religions
such as Mithraism & Isiacism?

Among the Greeks, the Homeric writings (Iliad & Odyssey) were regarded as
the canon of their religion, with the so-called 'Homeric Hymns' and the
works of Hesiod being, so to speak, deuterocanonical.  I don't think the
Romans had anything quite in the same category.  How do you regard these
works?  What about Vergil's Aeneid?

I'm not asking any of these question with any hostile or anti-pagan intent.
I am genuinely curious (after all, I've known these religions to some
extent for some 50 years).

Ray.



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A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
                     [J.G. Hamann 1760]
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