List of Greek Phrases / Beta

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beta

Βάλανε το λύκο να φυλάει τα πρόβατα.

Gustave Doré : The wolf as a shepherd
Βάλανε το λύκο να φυλάει τα πρόβατα.
Valane to lyko na filai ta provata.
"The wolf was hired to protect the sheep."

This modern Greek idiom with the meaning "make the goat a gardener " goes back to the Aesopian fable The Wolf as Shepherd , which was also edited by the French fable poet Jean de La Fontaine , in which the German translation says:

A wolf, whose business in sheep was
slowing down a little , might think
it would be good
to appear in a different shape, like a clever little fox, and only to appear masked.

Βαπτίζοντες αὐτοὺς εἰς τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ Πατρὸς καὶ τοῦ Υἱοῦ καὶ τοῦ ῾Αγίου Πνεύματος.

One of the earliest depictions of a baptism in the Catacomb of Calixtus (3rd century)
Βαπτίζοντες αὐτοὺς εἰς τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ Πατρὸς καὶ τοῦ Υἱοῦ καὶ τοῦ ῾Αγίου Πνεύματος.
Baptizontes autous ice to onoma tou Patros kai tou Hyiou kai tou Hagiou Pneumatos.
"Baptize them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit."

With these words, put Jesus the baptism as a sacrament one. The Gospel according to Matthew ends with the so-called baptismal or missionary command :

“ 18 καὶ προσελθὼν ὁ Ἰησοῦς ἐλάλησεν αὐτοῖς λέγων · ἐδόθη μοι πᾶσα ἐξουσία ἐν οὐρανῷ καὶ ἐπὶ γῆς. 19 πορευθέντες μαθητεύσατε πάντα τὰ ἔθνη, βαπτίζοντες αὐτοὺς εἰς τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ Πατρὸς καὶ τοῦ Υἱοῦ καὶ τοῦ Αγίου Πνεύματος , 20 διδάσκοντες αὐτοὺς τηρεῖν πάντα ὅσα ἐνετειλάμην ὑμῖν · καὶ ἰδοὺ ἐγὼ μεθ ὑμῶν εἰμι πάσας τὰς ἡμέρας ἕως τῆς συντελείας τοῦ αἰῶνος . ἀμήν. "

“ 18 And Jesus came and said to them, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all the peoples: baptize them in the names of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 and teach them to keep all that I have commanded you. And see, I am with you every day until the end of the world. Amen"

Baptism is presumed to be something known in the New Testament. The Essenes also knew similar rites. The ritual washing was carried out regularly. Baptism rites were performed without public confession. However, the first of these ablutions was considered to be the official admission of a novice.

The baptismal formula " in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit " does not appear in the baptismal narratives of the Acts of the Apostles and the letters of Paul. Where the act of baptism itself is described in more detail, the baptismal formula is simply: “In the name of Jesus Christ ”.

Βασιλεία τῶν ῾Ρωμαίων

Territorial changes in the Byzantine Empire
Βασιλεία τῶν ῾Ρωμαίων
Basileia tōn Rōmaiōn
"Kingdom of the Romans"

The Byzantine Empire also carried the unofficial name Βυζαντινὴ Αὐτοκρατορία , which was often shortened to Byzantium ( Βυζάντιο (ν) Byzantio (n) ). This empire in the eastern Mediterranean, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire due to its historical origins , emerged in late antiquity from the eastern half of the Roman Empire , existed throughout the Middle Ages and ended with the conquest of Constantinople by the Ottomans in 1453.

The Eastern Roman Empire with its capital Constantinople (today's Istanbul ) was preserved under constitutional law until the 15th century - and the Greeks still refer to themselves as rhomoi (" Romans "). The Catholic West preferred the designation " Empire of the Greeks ", since they did not want to ascribe the legacy of the Roman Empire to the Eastern Orthodox Christians who had renounced the papacy , but rather claimed this for themselves (e.g. Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation ), expressed in the coronation of the emperor by the pope and in the theory of the Translatio imperii ad Francos (transfer of the imperial dignity to the Franks) Conversely, the byzantines also called the byzantines παλαιὰ ῾Ρώμη palaiá Rhṓmē ("Old Rome" ) in order to emphasize one's own following as the New Rome .

When the Byzantines spoke of the Greeks themselves ( ῾Έλληνες Hellenes ), the pre-Christian Greeks of antiquity were always meant, often as with the Greek Church Fathers in the sense of pagans . The name “ Rum ” (“Roman Empire”) was also common among the inhabitants of the Muslim empires when referring to the Byzantine Empire.

The Urum are a small Turkic-speaking minority in the Caucasus, southwestern Ukraine, Crimea and the Balkans. From an ethnic point of view, the members of this ethnic group are to be regarded as Greeks (Turkish rum = Greek ), whose ancestors adopted the Tatar language around 1780. In censuses, the Urum in Georgia are listed as Greeks rather than Turkic people because of their Orthodox beliefs.

Βελλεροφόντος τὰ γράμματα

Bellerophontes on Pegasus kills the Chimera
Βελλεροφόντος τὰ γράμματα
Bellerophontos ta grammata
"Bellerophontus letter"

Letter with the order to kill the bearer. Bellerophon (also Bellerophontes) was a grandson of Sisyphus . King Proitus' wife accused him of trying to seduce her. The king then sent Bellerophontes to his father-in-law Iobates with the encrypted message - compare Σήματα λυγρά  - to kill him. Iobates befriended him. But after reading the letter from his son-in-law, he set Bellerophon the most difficult tasks in the hope that he would perish in the process. First he ordered Bellerophon to kill the Chimera . Bellerophon tracked them down and killed the chimera. Next, Bellerophon had to take to the field against the neighboring Solymer people . Bellerophon defeated them as well as the Amazons afterwards .

After all these attempts to let Bellerophon perish failed, Iobates believed Bellerophon was a favorite of the gods, gave him his daughter as a wife and gave him half of his kingdom.

The Old Testament story of Urijas is similar . Uriah was one of King David's 30 heroes . Uriah was on the front lines when David fell in love with his wife Bathsheba . David had Uriah sent to the front and gave him a letter to the general. In it he ordered that Uriah should be used in the front line during the battle and that the combatants should suddenly withdraw. Uriah was killed as intended; Bathsheba became a widow.

βῆ βῆ

βῆ βῆ
bē bē
"Bah bah"

Excerpt from the Dionysalexandros by the comedy poet Kratinos :

" Ὁ δ᾿ ἠλίθιος ὥσπερ πρόβατον βῆ βῆ λέγων βαδίζει. "
Ho d 'ēlithios hōsper probaton bē bē legōn badizei.
“ The idiot moves like a sheep and says uh, uh. "

The humanists of the 16th century quarreled violently about how to read ancient Greek texts. On the one hand with regard to the pronunciation of the Η stood the Etazists like Erasmus of Rotterdam , who advocated the pronunciation “ ä ”, while the Itazists around Johannes Reuchlin advocated the modern Greek pronunciation “ i ”. According to the modern Greek reading, however, the sheep should have bleated “ wi, wi ”.

The philosopher Georg Christoph Lichtenberg intervened in this dispute by directing a satire against Johann Heinrich Voss , in which it says:

" To bah or not to bah, that is the question ".

Herodotus reports in his histories that Pharaoh Psammetich I wanted to know who the first humans were and that he carried out an experiment. He had two newborn children raised by a shepherd in a lonely hut, where they were fed only silently. After about two years, when the shepherd came, both children shouted:

" Bekos! "

The shepherd reported this to the king, and his research into the original language revealed that " bekos " means bread among the Phrygians in Asia Minor. It was concluded that the Phrygians were older than the Egyptians. This experiment is said to have been repeated by the Staufer Emperor Friedrich II , but the children died due to a lack of attention.

On the pronunciation of Greek words, Werner van Gent and Paul L. Walser write in their Greek book Cinnamon in Soup :

"From antiquity to the spelling reform at the end of the 20th century, all vowels at the beginning of a word were given a 'breath mark', which the humanists of the Renaissance in Western Europe translated in many cases as h"

On the other hand, with greater scientific correctness, Hans Zinsmeister:

“H still had the sound value 'h'; only when this breath […] in the Ionic fell silent (psilosis), H was used as a symbol for the long open e = ä. "

βιβλιοθήκη ἔμψυχος

Imaginary debate between Averroes and Porphyrios
βιβλιοθήκη ἔμψυχος
bibliothēkē empsychos
"Inspired Library"

The philosopher Longinos said of his teacher Porphyrios , a well-educated polymath , he was " a library of spirits and a grove of muses ". The church father Augustine called him "the most learned of the philosophers ". In his more than 60 works he dealt with religion and myth, rhetoric and grammar, literary criticism, mathematics, music and astronomy.

The writer ETA Hoffmann made it the term " living Conversations-Lexikon " for the secret law firm secretary Tusmann in the bride's choice , in the form of " walking encyclopedia " the dictum was. Tusmann is told there:

“He read wherever he went, on the walk, in the church, in the coffee house, he read everything that occurred to him without a choice, even though only from the old days when he hated the new. So today he studied an algebraic book in the coffee house, tomorrow the cavalry regulations of Friedrich Wilhelm the First and then the strange book "Cicero, depicted as a big cream puff and rabulist in ten speeches" from the year 1720. Tusmann was gifted with an enormous memory. He used to draw everything that struck him while reading a book and then go through what he had drawn, which he never forgot. Hence it came about that Tusmann became a polyhistor, a living encyclopedia of conversation that one opened when it came to any historical or scientific note. "

- The Serapion Brothers , Volume 3, Section 5, The Choice of the Bride , Chapter 3

Βίβλος γενέσεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, υἱοῦ Δαυὶδ υἱοῦ Ἀβραάμ.

Family tree of Jesus in the Book of Kells (Latin: Liber generationis  - Βίβλος γενέσεως )
Βίβλος γενέσεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, υἱοῦ Δαυὶδ υἱοῦ Ἀβραάμ.
Biblios geneseōs Iēsou Christou, hyiou Dauid hyiou Abraam.
"This is the book of the birth of Jesus Christ, who is a son of David, the son of Abraham."

Beginning of the Gospel according to Matthew , the first book of the New Testament of the Christian Bible , which was originally written in Hebrew for believing Jews. The Gospel of Matthew has a great interest in showing Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah of Old Testament prophecy and begins with the family tree of Jesus :

“ 1 Family tree of Jesus Christ , the son of David, the son of Abraham:
2 Abraham was the father of Isaac , Isaac of Jacob , Jacob of Judah and his brothers.
…
16 Jacob was the father of Joseph , Mary's husband ; of her was born Jesus, who is called the Christ (the Messiah).
17 All in all, there are fourteen generations from Abraham to David, fourteen generations from David to the Babylonian captivity, and fourteen generations from the Babylonian captivity to Christ. "

The evangelist Matthew traces Jesus' family tree back to Abraham, while the evangelist Luke goes back even further to Adam . Abraham was the progenitor of Israel, with whom God made a covenant down to his descendants, which was now fulfilled through Christ. Matthew puts the chosen people in the foreground, while Luke expresses his claim to all people.

Matthew shows the legal origin of Jesus in the line of Joseph, while Luke possibly explains the origin via Mary. According to David, the family trees differ from each other, then overlap again and again diverge up to Joseph. From Abraham to Joseph, Matthew gives 42 names. But Luke gives 56 names for the same range. The unmistakable differences between the family trees caused problems for theology that they could not solve satisfactorily.

At the point between Joseph and Jesus the natural succession of generations breaks off:

“ Jacob begat Joseph, Mary's husband, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ. "

The remainder of the Gospel shows that Matthew assumed that Joseph was not the physical father of Jesus.

βίοι παράλληλοι

Print from 1470
βίοι παράλληλοι
bioi parallēloi
"Parallel lives"
" Vitae parallelae "

The Parallels Biographies are biographical works by the Greek historian Plutarch , in each of which a Greek is compared with a Roman. There are 23 pairs of biographies, each putting together a Greek and a Roman whose lives show similarities (e.g. Alexander the Great and Caesar , Demosthenes and Cicero ), which he describes with negative and positive characteristics.

Plutarch clearly distinguishes his biographical work from historiography. For example, in the introduction to his double biography on Alexander and Caesar, he writes:

“Because I am not a historian, but a biographer, and it is by no means always the great heroic deeds in which efficiency or depravity is revealed. Often an insignificant incident, a saying or a joke says more about a person's character than the bloodiest battles, the greatest army contingents and the sieges of cities. "

The pairings of the parallel biographies (each in the order Greek  - Roman ):

  1. Theseus - Romulus
  2. Lycurgus - Numa Pompilius
  3. Solon - Poplicola
  4. Themistocles - Camillus
  5. Pericles - Fabius Maximus
  6. Alkibiades - Coriolanus
  7. Timoleon - Aemilius Paulus
  8. Pelopidas - Marcellus
  9. Aristides - Cato Maior
  10. Philopoimen - Flamininus
  11. Pyrrhus - Gaius Marius
  12. Lysander - Sulla
  13. Kimon - Lucullus
  14. Nicias - Crassus
  15. Eumenes - Sertorius
  16. Agesilaus - Pompey
  17. Alexander the Great - Caesar
  18. Phocion - Cato Minor
  19. Agis and Kleomenes  - Tiberius Gracchus and Gaius Gracchus
  20. Demosthenes - Cicero
  21. Demetrios - Mark Antony
  22. Dion - Brutus

In addition, 2 individual biographies of Arat and Artaxerxes have survived.

In 1579, the parallels biographies were translated from French into English, which was beneficial to hero worship in England at the time. During this time, William Shakespeare oriented himself to a large extent on Plutarch , especially in his plays Julius Caesar , Coriolanus and Antonius and Cleopatra .

In the 17th and 18th centuries, Plutarch's parallel biographies were the most widely read script from ancient times. For example, Friedrich Schiller dealt with Plutarch's works, in whose drama The Robbers Karl Moor expresses his anger:

"I feel disgusted with this ink-splattering seculum when I read about great people in my Plutarch."

Following the example of Plutarch, the British historian Alan Bullock published a book in 1991 with the title Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives (German: Hitler and Stalin. Parallel Lives ), in which he draws on Plutarch's concept of a double biography.

Βίος ἀνεόρταστος μακρὰ ὁδὸς ἀπανδόκευτος.

Variant at Alsenborn
Βίος ἀνεόρταστος μακρὰ ὁδὸς ἀπανδόκευτος.
Bios aneortastos makra hodos apandokteutos.
"A life without celebrations is a long way without hostels."

Sentence of the philosopher Democritus , about which Norbert Wokart writes in his book Die Sandalen des Empedokles :

“This comparison shines a light on anyone who has already come a long way, possibly even in bad weather and without the possibility of rest and relaxation. However, the saying praises the rest at the expense of the path, which is only considered from the perspective of being laborious and arduous, and it defames everyday life because it only allows its interruptions, the sporadic holidays and rare celebrations to be considered enjoyable moments . "

Wokart concludes:

"If you take such sayings seriously, real life does not take place in everyday life, but in exceptional situations as a more or less rare special case."

Βλὰξ ἄνθρωπος ἐπὶ παντὶ λόγῳ ἐπτοῆσθαι φιλεῖ.

Βλὰξ ἄνθρωπος ἐπὶ παντὶ λόγῳ ἐπτοῆσθαι φιλεῖ.
Blax anthrōpos epi panti logō eptoēsthai philei.
"A stupid person usually stands there frightened at every word."

Quotation from the works of the philosopher Heraclitus , who draws a sharp line between human and divine wisdom , because “ the wisest man is held against God like a monkey, appearing in wisdom, beauty and everything else. "

Βοιώτιον οὖς

Boeotia today
Βοιώτιον οὖς
Boiōtion ous
"Boeotian ear"

A Boeotian ear was the epitome of bad taste and lack of education in ancient Athens . The Athenians despised their northern neighbors in Boeotia for being uneducated and rude. The humanist Erasmus von Rotterdam writes in his collection of proverbs Adagia :

"As the Greeks speak of a Boeotian ear and mean a dull and insensitive ear, so Martial says in the 6th book of the epigrams Bataverohr for a peasant, undifferentiated and narrow-minded taste."

Other terms that demean the Boeotians are:

  • Boeotic riddles (confused, difficult to understand sayings, such as the riddle that the Sphinx presented to Oedipus . Latin: Boeotica aenigmata .)
  • Boeotian genius (Boeotic spirit, everything foolish was called Boeotian. Latin: Boeoticum ingenium .)
  • Boeotian song (When someone lives in happiness but the end is stormy, like the singing of the Boeotians, which began with songs of jubilation and ended with lamentations. Latin: Boeotica cantilena .)
  • Boeotian pig (unpolished man with peasant customs. Latin: Boeotica sus .)

Βουλεύου δὲ πρὸ ἔργου, ὅπως μὴ μῶρα πέληται.

Illustration to the fable The Fox and the Goat
Βουλεύου δὲ πρὸ ἔργου, ὅπως μὴ μῶρα πέληται.
Bouleuou de pro ergou, hopōs mē mōra pelētai.
"Think before the act, so that nothing foolish emerges from it."

This sentence is traced back to Aesop's fable 45 and can be found in the pseudo-Pythagorean golden sayings and the apocryphal book Jesus Sirach :

“ In everything you do, think about the end, you will never sin. "

Aesop's fable The Fox and the Goat is about a fox and a billy goat who jump together into a well on a hot day and then never come out. Then the fox got the idea of ​​getting on the billy goat's back, climbing out and then helping him out as well. But when the fox is outside, he mocks the goat and says with glee in parting:

“ I see absolutely no way out of your rescue, my friend! But as a thank you, listen to my opinion: If you had had as much sense as hair in your beard, you would never have stepped into this well without first considering how you could get out again! "

The moral of the story is then:

" Prepared and thoughtful, has brought some great suffering !"

This moral is the model for the famous Latin sentence:

" Quidquid agis prudenter agas et respice finem. ”-“ However you act, act wisely and consider the consequences ”.

Compare also Solon :

" Σκοπέειν δὲ χρὴ παντὸς χρήματος τὴν τελευτήν, κῇ ἀποβήσεται · " - " One must look at the end of every thing, how it will turn out one day. "

Βοῦς Κύπριος εἶ.

Βοῦς Κύπριος εἶ.
Bous Kyprios egg.
"You are a Cypriot cow."
"Bos Cyprius it."

The cattle from the island of Cyprus were considered particularly dirty in ancient Greece. They were even said to live on human excrement.

βοῶπις ῞Ηρη

Rembrandt : Juno (or Hera )
βοῶπις ῞Ηρη
boōpis Hērē
"Cow-eyed Hera"

Epithet ornans the poet Homer to the goddess Hera , who was the cow sacred. This designation was intended as a compliment. The cow's eyes are particularly large and were considered beautiful. The word βοῶπις boṓpis itself is derived from βοῦς boûs 'cattle' / 'cow' and ὤψ ṓps 'eye'.

Wolfgang Koydl sees another derivation of the word cow-eyed and relates it to the mythical Princess Europa , who Zeus kidnapped to Europe in the form of a bull :

“Everything had started so promisingly - with a love affair between the Greek father of gods Zeus and the Phoenician princess Europa. Strictly speaking, she was an early illegal immigrant from the Middle East when Zeus swam with her - transformed into a bull - from what is now Lebanon to Crete.
The name of the young lady also has to do with cattle in the broadest sense: the Greek euro stands for broad, the syllable op- for eye (as in the case of an optician). Depending on how gallant you want to be, Europe can be translated as cow-eyed or broad-hearted. "

See also:

Βρήκε ο Φίλιππος τον Ναθαναήλ.

WJ Morgon: Philipp and Nathanael
Βρήκε ο Φίλιππος τον Ναθαναήλ.
Vrike o Filippos ton Nathanail.
"That's when Philipp came across Nathanael."

This modern Greek proverb corresponds to the German “ Two people looked for each other and found each other ”. It goes back to a passage from the Gospel according to John , where the calling of the first disciples through Jesus is reported:

" Εὑρίσκει Φίλιππος τὸν Ναθαναὴλ. "
“ Philip finds Nathanael. "

In the context of this passage it says:

“ 43 The next day Jesus wanted to go back to Galilee and found Philip and said to him: Follow me! 44 But Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. 45 Philip found Nathanael and said to him, We have found him whom Moses wrote about in the law and the prophets, Jesus, Joseph's son of Nazareth. "

Nathanael's reaction is significant :

“ 46 And Nathanael said to him, What good can come of Nazareth? Philip said to him, Come and see. 47 Jesus saw Nathanael come to him and said of him, Behold, a true Israelite, in whom there is no falsity. 48 Nathanael said to him, How do you know me? Jesus answered and said to him, Before Philip called you, while you were under the fig tree, I saw you. 49 Nathanael answered and said to him, Rabbi, you are the Son of God, you are the King of Israel! "

Βρῶμα θεῶν

Green cap mushroom as the “meal of the gods” - Βρῶμα θεῶν
Βρῶμα θεῶν
Brōma theōn
"Supper of the Gods"

Alleged saying of Nero about the poisoned mushrooms with which his mother Agrippina the Younger murdered her uncle and husband Emperor Claudius .

According to Suetonius , Agrippina is said to have tried three times to kill Claudius by poison in order to secure the succession to the throne for Nero, her son from her first marriage. In the first few years she exerted a strong influence on Nero's government work, which she lost in the following years. In the year 59, Nero , who was already showing clear signs of Caesar madness , finally had his mother murdered.

The historian Suetonius writes:

“It is agreed that Claudius was eliminated by poison; but where it was given to him and by whom, opinions differ. Some report that it happened during a meal with the priests at the castle through his taster, the eunuch Halotus; others, at a banquet at his house by Agrippina herself, who had served him a poisoned mushroom dish - he loved mushrooms very much. "

Suetonius also says:

“Many say that he lost his speech as soon as he consumed the poison, had suffered terrible pain all night and then died towards morning. After another he first fell asleep and then, because his stomach was overloaded, vomited everything; then he was taught poison again, perhaps in a pulp, as it were to strengthen the exhausted person, or by an enema to allegedly help him and relieve his overloaded stomach. "

For the poisoning, Agrippina enriched her husband's food with the extract of the green leaf mushroom . The lethal dose is 0.1 milligrams per kilogram of body weight, so it can be contained in a single mushroom. The first symptoms usually only appear after eight to twelve hours.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Gospel according to Matthew 28: 18-20 EU
  2. ↑ Acts 2.38 EU
  3. ↑ Hans Poeschel: The Greek language .
  4. ↑ Werner van Gent, Paul L. Walser: Cinnamon in the soup. Surprising Greece . Zurich: Rotpunktverlag, 2004. ISBN 3-85869-283-2 . P. 36f.
  5. ↑ Hans Zinsmeister: Greek Grammar I, p. 20, § 7
  6. ↑ Chapter on zeno.org ; ETA Hoffmann: The bride choice in the Gutenberg-DE project
  7. ↑ Mt 1,1,2  EU and 16,17 EU according to the standard translation
  8. ↑ Gospel according to Luke , 3: 23-38
  9. ↑ The Robbers , Act 1, Scene 2.
  10. ^ Alan Bullock : Hitler and Stalin. ISBN 3-442-75504-2
  11. ↑ Stobaios III, pp. 485,13
  12. ↑ Norbert Wokart: The sandals of Empedocles. Structure of the Taschenbuch Verlag, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-7466-8056-5 .
  13. ^ Translation: Diels / Kranz.
  14. ↑ DK 22 B 87.
  15. ↑ Erasmus of Rotterdam : Selected Writings. Volume 7. Scientific Book Society, 1972.
  16. ↑ Jesus Sirach , 7.36.
  17. ↑ literaturnetz.org .
  18. ↑ Wolfgang Koydl: Literally - Koydls Little Lexicon - Saving with the Dutch spruce. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . May 17, 2010 .;
  19. ^ Gospel according to John , 1.45
  20. ↑ bibel-online.net .
  21. ^ Suetonius : Life of the Caesars. Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, Munich 1972, ISBN 3-423-06005-0 .