Transcript: 20260421-GreekWorkshop Part 3 - Satan and Christing

All right, let's get started. I would like to thank everyone who has come tonight. I appreciate that. That is makes me feel great and for that I feel responsible to show you what the workshop can do.

So, tonight we're going to deep dive and I want us to be able to really get somewhere. So, I've asked several of you. I'm going to start with um I'm going to start with Ion. Ion, do me a favor. Have you been looking at Satan at all or have you been doing other things, sir? Give me a report. Yes, I've been looking at Satan. I've been looking at some of the apocryphal texts and also Byzantine stuff, trying

To look for that delicious Satan. Oh, God, that is so sexy. I love it. Give me the Now, give me the way that you're doing this. Are you doing this on TLG, Ion? Yes. Okay, so people, we're doing searches on TLG, right? This is not This is not rocket science, right, people? If I can do it shh anybody can. Chewie, switch this over to TLG. Can I just go like who, huh? Fantastic. Boom. You really shouldn't have to be here, Chewie. I should be able to do this on my own. Keep Ion up there.

Ion, I'm going to ask you a few questions. So, Oh, look what I did here, Ion. Oh, God. Tell me what you think about this, will you? Do you Do you see what I have searched for? I've done a proximity search, people. For those of you who aren't nerds, this is going to get shaky.

I've put in the Greek sphrag

And and drug because people don't realize the Christian seal is a drug and boom. What do we get? How many sources? We got 12 out of 12. 12 out of 12, people. This is fantastic. Look at this. Look in the yellow. Ion, read that in the yellow, would you?

Sphragida pharmakou. Yeah. That's That seal, people. Right? Oh, that seal. You know what it's made of? It's made of a drug. This person's tasting it. Ooh. Laugh it. Look, people. Look what sources do we have? Philorchus. Had you ever heard of him? No, I hadn't told you about him, had you? Cuz there's hardly anything.

But here you go, Ion. What do you think of that? 4 to 3 BC, historian. Does that get you going? I love the Jacoby fragments. Looked through them a lot. Oh my God. Did everybody hear Ion? He's He's pulling it out big time. Good job. That's fantastic, okay? Make me look good. Plutarch. Plutarch, it's in his biography one of his biographies, right? Galen.

What What is Galen talking about here? Um Ion, what is the What's in the yellow? As pharmakon Helemnios sphragis. It's the Looks like the Lemnian seal. Correct. Correct. And of course Galen is talking about that because that's, you know, he's into that. The That's the princess Not princess, that's the priestess of Lemnos. Oh, God. So,

Um I want to look up sphragis here. This is before we jump into Satan. I've I've got I've got you here for Satan, but I want people to also see how the research works.

Uh Uh Hey, people. Ion is going to look at this definition with me and just peruse it and tell me, Ion, what you can get out of it. Do they have this? Okay, fantastic. What does it say? Sphragis.

I'm saying seal, signet. So, they're talking maybe a ring or a stone for a ring or a gem or any mark, even a wound. Yeah. Tablet at the very bottom. Tablet of Lemnian medicinal earth. Yeah, some kind of impression, right? It's almost like there's an image involved and you know, what's going on with the seal? Yeah. Dude, this is not something in story storyland, you know what I mean? Tablet of Lemnian medicinal earth certified as such by bearing impression of the seal of the Lemnian priestess of Artemis.

Hey, tell me something.

Have you noticed You said you were reading some apocryphal hoo-ha. Did you Have you noticed Artemis is heavy? She's all >> to be honest, I haven't run into her quite yet. Okay. Oh, God. Just today I

Take it. Okay. Just today Let me put something more interesting on. Just today, Ion, I was reading Oh, God. It's the Acts of John. Have you read the Acts of John the Apostle? You haven't if you haven't seen Artemis because she is in there as well. As the Acts of Philip. A lot of the apocryphal Acts have have all of this gorgeous um art Artemis cult that they're fighting in Asia Minor. Right? It's lovely. You didn't know Jesus sent out 70 people to [\\h__\\h] kill people,

Did you? That's why they took it out. Here's the Here's the Lemnian seals again. Are we sharing? Mhm, more Lemnian seals. So, we got a lot of it. Oh, [\\h__\\h] Look at this, Ion. Sphragida Chrysanthes.

Do you like that? Are we Christing? Oh, yeah. What are we Christing that seal? Right? People, don't you understand it's a pharmakon. You [\\h__\\h] people. You've got it. What is this from? This is from Hippolytus, the Refutation of All Heresies. Right? Look, people. Look, people. Woohoo. It's the power of pharmakeia, baby. Look in the blue. Power of pharmakeia. Oh, God. It's lovely. Those Christians.

Right? What did Madelaina say?

Ah. Fantastic.

It's the seal, baby. Where's that seal going? Here's John Damascene. Ion, where do you put the seal? Do you remember this from the cult that you were in? Oh, yeah. It goes the other way. Across the forehead. Okay, forehead. >> Yeah, and why do you want to seal the forehead? Because that medicine is going to be running into your eyes. Now, you have placed or your priestess has placed a mask upon your face. That mask is not like skin or something. It's just a special

Cream to protect your skin against the burn. Now, your eyes are a different story. Oh, God. This is the You [\\h__\\h] people, look at number 16. Oh, God. Forget this. Forget this. Let's go to the dev devil. Now, people, I'm going to put a search in. Son of a I hope it doesn't kick me off, people. I've been using it too much today. Look what I'm putting in, Ion. Satan. >> [laughter] >> I'm going to go more specific. What have you been putting in your searches, Ion?

Uh just Satan, I think. Just Satan. Okay. Um I want the lesson today to be we start with Satan in order to get all of Satan, we've got to branch. It's right. We're looking for groups, clusters. Here's Satanel. Watch this. If I put in Satanel, how many do I get? People, do you think I'd get 43? Oh, God.

Where am I going first? Oh, look. Here it is. Here it's the Acts of of John. Now, I just started People, just so you know, I'm We're on the up and up here. I just started this today. All right? I knew the Acts of John existed. I've quoted from it before. But um I've never taken the time to sit down and read

From beginning to end. So, I started that today and I got about 30 pages into it and I'm completely [\\h__\\h] blown away because I got through the strangulation of the little boys and girls. Oh god. You wouldn't believe what these [\\h__\\h] Christians are doing. It's amazing. Look, there's the Gospel of Bart. Have you ever read the Gospel of Bart? Ion? Looked into it a little bit and I like that one and then number four has been intriguing me lately. I just started looking in into the life of Saint Marina of Antioch.

She's doing some weird stuff and she dies a virgin. Yeah. What the hell is Satanael doing? Right in this with the ladies. Oh god. Hey, look at number five. There's Michael Sellus. People look. Look at what we're doing. Pull Madalena up to let her talk. In a second I'm going to pull Brian in if he's here. Look people. Here's Michael Sellus

For my students. De operatione daemonum. There's your Latin. On the working of demons people. This is how they work. There's a lot of ascetic behavior going on. Oh god. And who's involved? Satanael. Now people, you don't have to go read all of Michael Sellus. You don't have to read this whole document. What you have to do is you're working with the Greek as you're saying what environments are these words found in? Right? I'm sure that I'm sure that Ion is probably starting to form those skills.

Brian, are you there? He's not there. Brian, oh god, is he? He was. Give you a second. Brian, put down that beer and tell me, sir. Number six with Michael Sellus. Um

In all your work and you've done stuff as early as you've done stuff as early as the Homeric hymns all the way down to, you know, good classical Euripides, you know what I mean? This is Michael Sellus

Who is a scholar from the 11th Anno Domini. But I just want you to take a look, Brian, at his Greek. And I just want you to tell me it's not foreign yet at the same time it has a different feel. You can feel. I want people to be feeling. People who are my Greek students reading I want them to be feeling their way through these different periods. This is Damn, this is like the 2,000 year spread that I was talking about people. So, that's a real that's a real uh

Advantage. It's a real advantage here. Now we're going to 11 12. Hang on, Brian. I have a question for you. Just give me a second. Okay. Tell me something in this Acts of John. Pasa, my my Greek reading students, right? Mhm. I apen Look at the end of the first line. Kai apen top down. We're just trying to get a read of the general environment.

Does somebody want to translate that?

And he saw the pneuma. Right. Now the spirit said the pasahe. Pasahe What is pasahe dunamis, Ion?

It's like all the power. Yeah, all the power belonging to Satanael. It's katoikei. Ekei. It What it lives there? It abides there, something like that. It functions. There's this idea um of functionality. [snorts]

Katoikeo, like that's where it operates. I mean, look at these words, people. Kai Keep going, Ion. Kai suntaxeis. What is suntaxis? Now here, before you translate, look at the Look at this. I know you're doing this as sites, so. Right? Everybody who's sitting there who can't do this will appreciate the fact that this is dojo. Suntaxis, I'm going to look it up, people. Suntaxis.

Why I buy it >> Sounds like syntax. Oh god, Ion, you're so ahead of the game. Right? Right, people? What is syntax? The putting together and order and arranging. Right? A system. Look at number two, a system. Take your mind from And what is this from? It's from suntato.

If you're Athenian, you know what I mean? [\\h__\\h] that. It all comes from Kekrops. Right? Oh god. Suntaxis from suntato. Right? What are you doing when you're ordering up your your things you got in front of you? You're creating an organization.

You got a composition, some kind of treatise, a grammatical putting together of words. That's where we're getting our syntax. That's what Ion picked up on right away. Which he should. Confident previous arrangement. Mension. Look at your pension. People. Do you know if you looked up a Hebrew lexicon and found their word definitions?

Do you understand what I'm [\\h__\\h] talking about? All of these people are authors. Plutarch, Demosthenes, right? Aeschines. Oh god.

Composition, arrangement. Yeah.

So there are arrangements

In this place where dwells the power of Satanael. There are suntaxeis.

And what do these apply to? They apply meta panton ton archonton. All that rules? Yes, right. Who are those ruling powers? Right? They are tied up in the dwelling power of Satanael. And who else? He mays met autou. Oh god. Are we getting in there, people? I love this. This is crazy [\\h__\\h] dog. Right? Right? Oh god.

What did I just say? People. Kekrops. That's my Athenian great great great great grandfather. Right? And he was one of the founding kings of this [\\h__\\h] place. Right. Now this is not Kekrops. This is Kuonops.

Does anybody want uh um Brian, you um look that up. The dog-eyed? Oh wait, who's the dog-eyed? Yes, Brian. Did you hear that? Oh god. People look. What are we doing? This word, you're not going to find it if you look it up in the lexicon. So, Brian, who is an advanced [\\h__\\h] student like Ion and like Madalena. Right? Except he's got lot of experience. He's got more experience under his belt, so he's sharpening himself. Cuts deep. Kuonops. Dog face.

Dog visual stream. Look it up. You're not going to find it in the lexicon.

Okay. Who is this Kuonops? It's capitalized for a reason.

Listen to me. Pneuma katharton. What is a pneuma akatharton?

One of you Greeklings. Do you remember what catharsis is? It's like cleansing or

Purification. Yeah, yeah, yeah, purification, right? Cleansing. Exactly, both correct. That's catharsis. This is acathartic. Oh god. An acathartic spirit. Have you seen her? Did you see her in the Do you remember in in the bar when she was sitting there. Oh God, she walked over with all the lights flashing. Possessed by an evil cathartic spirit.

You understand? John orders you. John the Apostle to Christ. Ooh. Ow. You're not going to go out any longer and injure for the sake of venturing. Hey, oh God. Not in this place. So, look what he's doing, people. He's casting out demons.

Look at the end of the sentence. Keleuo. It's an order.

I'm ordering you to Oh God. No longer, man. You can't be here. This top boss is not your top boss. I else say us. Does somebody want to help me translate this last line? Kai else say us and immediately. Now, people, immediately what happened?

Top pneuma top poneron. What do you think that means?

Any of you three who are miked, you can you can speak in.

Top pneuma top poneron. What is somebody who's poneros?

It's like a plague. It's like a plague. Something like that. It's something bad, isn't it? Yeah. Grievous. Yeah. Uh-huh. Something a little bit shameful or disgraceful. Ugly. This isn't just caca bad. This is poneron. That which you don't want other people knowing about cuz it doesn't paint you in a good light. That kind of that spirit and ex-elfin

Ekteis nesu.

He fled. He fled, people. Right? Uh Do you understand what's going on? This is

Look. People, this is what I mean. When you read a text that wants you [\\h__\\h] scanning it. Hey, my students, ep himpson. Epetron pneuma.

Right? He sent another spirit. Who is this dog-faced son of a [\\h__\\h] Ensent pros Ioane. He came to John hold the apostolos. What does he do? No seip en pros pneuma.

>> [Sighs and gasps] >> He spoke to him. He addressed him. "Why'd you come here?" he says. Dinos chairen. For the sake of what? Elphis enthade. Now, people, notice I've not been looking up words.

Notice I've not been looking up words. If this were um many, many other authors, I would have to be looking up words. Why? What is going on? Why are we reading this at sight so quickly? And the grad students are like, "Fuck you. Slow down." Right? No, that's exactly what you should be doing. Run behind me until you can catch me. Right?

Daimon epe. Kai hot daimon epen en the daimon se kunops apestelen. En auton archonton. Are we back to the archons? What is kunops doing? He's sending out one of the archons. Right? To what? To kill you. Apostana tose se.

Fantastic. Okay, people, you see what's going on?

For any words that stick out to you of significance, I'm showing you how to do this. Right? Right? Oh God. We're going to stay in these daimon these daimones. Right? We're going to keep with these daimones. Right? Oh God. Myron in there. Oh, what are we doing? He's sending out other Kunops is sending out other two more of these archons to you to kill you. Did you know that's how People, let me just stop for a minute. Did you know that's how the Yeah, go ahead. Stop screen share. Did

You know this is how

The world of Christianity existed? The invisible that is around you. Put the messages up so I can read. The invisible. Is this Is it up? Okay, people, type messages if you want. The invisible

World around you is full of this combat. Right? Christians are trained in the seeing of the invisible, the oratos. And trained in the manipulation of it. Right? So, remember these people are being called magi. John at this point is called a magus by everyone he interacts with.

There is no question that he has learned the drug craft, the sex craft, and the magic from Jesus. Right? Right? Now, Peter is still just not He's just on the cusp of adulthood. So, all the other younglings, all the other apostles, do you know how they address Peter? Who's the oldest at just being able to take the adult tax of 20. Do you know how they address him? Pater.

Not like the Pope, not like a priest, but like a bunch of kids who are the flock of the rock. Right? Oh God. It's gorgeous. Right? Father. Yes. As you just got it. Right?

>> [Sighs] >> Paul said you couldn't see God with human eyes alone. Probably needed some purple. You know that's how you get to the third heaven, right? Right? Peter's the one who's always naked on the ship, right? >> [sighs] >> Fantastic. Fantastic. Okay, people, see what we did. I put a couple of students on the hot on the hot seat, right there. As we looked for text, let's go back now to Satan. And let me do what I've asked people to do, and I just want to people

Share. And I'm going to start with Magdalena. Magdalena, have you had a chance to put um Do you have First of all, do you have access to the TLG? And if you do, have you been looking for Satan? I don't have access to the TLG, but um yeah. >> [laughter] >> Yeah, okay. That's a problem. How about Brian? Brian, do you have access? I do. This is sometimes where I don't get the same results every time, but um I was just I sorted by date, and the one

That came up with earliest was Theophrastus, actually. And not the Satan the figure, but the word Satan is in one that he uses to describe It's called the medlar tree, and the fruit of it is actually um used in medicines of all kinds, and it's it's an astringent, and um

What else is it? It's a diuretic as well. So, there's an action happening there. And the outside of sort of the Christian literature, um that was the only time that I saw the word the the letters sigma alpha tau alpha uh nu outside of um uh like proper names that that were coming from Persia. And you said that's Theophrastus. Correct? Yes. Yeah. Who Who is Theophrastus? He's the student of Aristotle for those of us who were who were here who don't recognize him. He's His works are not

Uh commonly referred to. You can You can catch classes off guard um by talking about his He's got two giant multi-volume works on plants. He's a botanist. Crazy into the botany. So, as soon as you hear Theophrastus, think Okay, um it's going to be some botany, just like you heard from Brian. Right? Right? Fantastic. Ion, do you have the whole Very good, Brian. Very good. That's See what I mean, people? Now, Brian knows something nobody else does. Right? Just like we're learning. Um Ion, do you have the whole TLG?

Yeah, I did buy it. Yep. Did you buy it? People, it's like 140. How much is it now? I think it was Last time I paid it was like how much? Yep, 140 and snail mail. You have to send a check to UC Irvine. Yes. And and then you got to email them and make sure they got it, which is what I did. >> [laughter] >> But they were very good with me, people, in letting me um letting me

Use it even though my date for re-subscribing was up because I had a big project. So I begged them and they let me use it for an extra period of time. So I appreciate that. And if you are at all

Going into the study of Greek, so I recommend this for all my students. This is your tool. If you don't have this, you suck. Right? I mean, seriously. You will read so much if you go ahead and fork over to the people at the university um go ahead and give them this and I hope we're able to flood their Everybody who's out there at Lady Babylon is going to hear this later. Um if you have an extra $140

This investment is fantastic and you're doing any Greek whatsoever. Okay? Cuz guess what? Now listen, they'll kick you off though. Have you been kicked off yet, Ion?

Yeah, hell yeah. Wha- Now what what the It's something when you do too many searches in a row or something. It says you're you're you know, you're wasting it. But um and it and it makes you s- slow down. But this is a great way to get text. Like look at this. So we start here in this one, the Septuagint. Yeah, yeah, Satan in the Septuagint. We all knew that, right? But look here number four, the Testaments of the Patriarchs. Um other students that I've had who are

Here who want to chime in tell Chewie that you want to talk. Um A- and i- and in the gallery there's four or five of you who are in my advanced um reading group, right? I want you to pipe in, please. Um Chewie, pick them up when you see them. This is the testament that includes Pete Pete, I want to hear from Pete as well. This is the Testament of the Patriarchs. How many people have heard of the Test- Testaments of the Patriarchs? The 12 Patriarchs.

To say in the chat, will you people? How many me? Rach, of course, cuz you study this stuff. Rach, nice job. Madalena has heard of it. Yep, Ion, yep. Rich, no. Okay, good, Rich. Good. Skimmed over it, right? See, somebody's noticed it out there, but yeah, they're not really diving into it, you know what I mean? Yes. Yes.

Okay, Jason wants to share some goodies. Fantastic. O- Ophic Soter, yes. Right? Heard of them from previous YouTube. Right? So from from somebody on YouTube, right? Was talking about these. Mhm, probably me. Right? Because people don't read these. Testaments of the Patriarchs. That's not canonical. It's not canonical, people. Are you people nuts? Right?

Second BC. What do you think about the date? Brian, it says second BC to AD 3. What kind of feeling does that give you? Not a very good one. That's a lot of That's a lot of lot of time.

Yeah. It's a little bit worrisome. Right? Now but this goes along with what I was talking to you about before when I said notice that I've been looking up a lot of words. Right? If this were Nonnus, I'd be looking up every third word cuz that's how he is.

These? Not at all. Why? Because these are falling within kind of a late Hellenistic early Koine Greek. In a while you'll get something that's heavily Koine. So we know that there are texts can be um added to over time. Right? And that's what it looks like is going on with the Testaments of the Patriarchs. It looks like people are actually adding to them. So the language is changing just the slightest bit. You know, Hellen- from the Hellenistic to the Koine. And getting kind of rotten. The Koine

Gets rotten the longer you go. Right? And that's why people like Galen are trying to pump it up with some good old-fashioned Attic. Hey, uh Madalena, who is this? W- What is this? In biblioi Enoch. W- How would you translate that? The Book of Enoch. Yeah, look where we are. Yeah. >> [laughter] >> Yeah, and who is who who is Enoch? He is touti kai ou. Is that just? Yes. Right? He's Enoch the just. Right? Hoti ho archon humonesti. Ho satana. Who is our archon?

Our Our archon is who?

Satan. Do you understand where the giants are and what they're doing? People, I'm telling you this stuff just pops right out of the text. Somebody translate. One of my students. You [\\h__\\h] Jason, who's Jason was there. He wanted a shot. Now all I want you to say, Jason is that I want you to repeat this phrase and tell me how you would translate. Give it a shot. In blue. All right. It looks like it says ta pneumata tes porneias.

[Snorts] Uh-huh. This is This is the spirit of of the porneia, right? Of the the shameful, of the unclean thing.

The sex. The idolatrous The idolatrous semen-producing, seed-producing orgiastic orgy sex. These are the spirits of that porneia. Don't you understand? Don't you under- They're pontiffs, all of them. [\\h__\\h] Who who? What? Oh my god. People, the testimo- The Testaments of the Patriarchs is scary. Notice those spirits, right? Who who? Can Can you say something on pneuma cuz Galen tells me that sperma is pneuma.

>> [Laughter]

>> Right? Do you see the vital essence? That's right. Listen to Ion preach the gospel of Galen. Right now, how are you Ion, how the [\\h__\\h] did you How the Are you picking up [\\h__\\h] from this ancient dead author? I mean, yeah, lovely. Yeah, I went looking for the pneuma cuz I'm like, how come you can be baptized in it? What's that What does that have to do, you know? Right? And then all of the sudden I'm reading on pseudo-Aristotle about elephants and their seed and how there's Oh, look, there's

Pneuma in that. Yeah. What? Right? And the more Ion reads, the more he follows this rabbit trail, right? Right down into the hole. He's going to come into a world that's totally new. And he's going to have an understanding cuz now he's a pioneer. Now he can tell your pastor or your priest exactly what the [\\h__\\h] these texts are talking about cuz he's seen it. Right? He's developed an understanding of it, right? Ah.

I love it. Right? Right? Oh. Kai noun phobeisthe ton kurion. Look what the Testam- Testaments of the Patriarchs are telling us to do. Tekna mou hei keries, fear the Lord. Kai prosechete autois.

Apo tou satana. Kai ton pneumaton autou. You're supposed to come together. Let's all get together, right? So that we're away from Satan and his powers, right? Don't Don't You've got a You've got to avoid him. Right? Engizete. Look at the people. Look at the Just look at the Greek. Look at the Greek here, right? This is the death without the men, right? This is not on the one hand, on the other. But it's pretty close to it. Right? He wants you to fear. It's a command, right? You got to fear

The Lord. Right? You got to stay away from Satan and his spirits. Oh, when he pound you. Satan and his spirits and engizete engizete de. Right? But it's a little bit on the other hand, but not quite. But you should be staying close to autheoi.

To God. Kai toi angeloi. Right? Ah, God. And to his angel. Right?

Chewie, can you put that people that's the testament to the patriarchs. Look what we've gotten over over and over. We've got this. I think we're going to have to go on pause. I got to take a 10-minute break people. I'll be back in 10 minutes.