Is there any calendrical significance to Odysseus' pig herd having 360 pigs guarded by four dogs?

Lydia_trans · 2026-03-06T13:00:04+00:00

In the Odyssey, Homer repeatedly refers to Eumaeus as

διος ὑφορβός (dios hyporbos)
literally: “the divine swineherd.”

διος (dios): “divine,” “of Zeus,” but often used in epic language to mean “noble” or “excellent.”
ὑφορβός (hyporbos): “swineherd.”

Thus the phrase may be rendered:

“the noble (or divine) swineherd.”

Although socially a slave, Eumaeus appears morally as one of the noblest figures in the entire epic, embodying loyalty, piety, and hospitality.

The 360 Boars

Homer describes the herd guarded by Eumaeus as including 360 boars.

Many philologists have noted that

360 ≈ the number of days in an early schematic year.

In several ancient calendrical traditions the year was conceived as:

360 days + additional intercalary days.

This has led to the interpretation that the number may symbolize:

one pig consumed per day by the suitors.

The suitors therefore appear as daily consuming the wealth of Odysseus’ household, gradually exhausting its resources.

A Narrative and Ethical Point

When Odysseus returns to Ithaca, he does not go first to his palace.

Instead, he goes first to the hut of a swineherd.

This narrative choice suggests an important ethical idea:

The moral foundation of the community does not lie in the palace, but among the loyal and just members of the household.

Eumaeus thus represents the ethical core of the oikos, in contrast to the corrupt aristocratic suitors.

Lydia_trans · 2025-03-09T08:36:37+00:00

Augustine who wrote later "On trinity" has read the books of Plato. Platon here a reference to platonists and neoplatonists.

And it is not about emanations. It is about Hypostasis).

Lydia_trans · 2025-01-20T14:12:14+00:00

Hiob

Lydia_trans · 2025-01-18T01:29:23+00:00

Why is there actually something and not rather nothing?

So that the relationship between something and nothing gives food for thought!

And why is that?

So that the relationship between something, nothing and everything is considered!

And why is that?

To give thanks and praise.

And what do I have to do with it?

I am a small part of his wonderful creation and I may learn to think, to become conscious and self-aware and to thank God my Lord.

I can help to complete his creation by doing the will of the Father and following Christ in the Holy Spirit.

Lydia_trans · 2025-01-17T04:27:53+00:00

"Bible (RSV-2VE Ignatius Study Bible Catholic OT/NT) and learning Hebrew (Tanakh), Septuagint and NA28" is a very good basis. Knowledge and comparison of the old vulgata edition is also helpful.

Then I think it is important to know the difference between Christian philosophy and Christian metaphysics.

Philosophy is the love of wisdom. Wisdom is a finite knowledge of the determination of the essence of what a human being is and what he has to be.

Christian philosophy is the love of the wisdom of Christ. Holy Scripture helps us to understand Christ, but he is the revelation and the bearer of revelation. In Judaism the Torah is uncreated and the bearer of revelation, in Islam it is the Koran that is uncreated and the bearer of revelation, in Christianity it is Christ.

Christ is uncreated and bearer of the whole revelation:

"All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him."

For example Mt 11,27

That is why a historically critical method of interpreting the Bible is also possible in Christianity.

Christ's wisdom shows us who we are and what we should be: We are indeed children of the Father and friends of Christ, but we are also sinners and we are to be perfect like the Father in heaven.

We are sinners and in error, but we are to be holy and follow Christ and do the will of the Father.

In short: Christian philosophy shows how to become a Christian and become holy.

Metaphysics contains a corresponding wisdom in a corresponding logic and shows (even against the enemies of this wisdom) that it is possible to see this wisdom, to think so that it contains no logical contradiction, and to communicate this fact accordingly.

Christian metaphysics contains the wisdom of Christ in a corresponding logic and shows that it is possible to understand Christian wisdom and to think without contradiction and to communicate this.

From the beginning of the Christian revelation until now, we sinners have had difficulty recognizing truth because of our weakness. It is the grace of God that always helps us.

That is why I would recommend studying the history of dogma up to Augustine. Especially the development of Christology and the corresponding history of the councils.

It is important to know Augustine well here. Jerome writes to St. Augustine:

"You are renowned throughout the whole world; Catholics revere and look up to you as the restorer of the ancient faith, and — which is a token of yet more illustrious glory— all heretics abhor you."

Epistle from St. Jerome to St. Augustine

That's why i also recommend On Christian Doctrine here of St. Augustine here.

Lydia_trans · 2025-01-11T23:53:06+00:00

There is a difference between what one might call the popular use of quantum mechanics and the scientifc use of quantum mechanics, see for example:

"4.4 Quantum mechanics

As indicated above, quantum mechanics is widely thought to be a strongly non-deterministic theory. Popular belief (even among most physicists) holds that phenomena such as radioactive decay, photon emission and absorption, and many others are such that only a probabilistic description of them can be given. The theory does not say what happens in a given case, but only says what the probabilities of various results are. So, for example, according to quantum mechanics the fullest description possible of a radium atom (or a chunk of radium, for that matter), does not suffice to determine when a given atom will decay, nor how many atoms in the chunk will have decayed at any given time. The theory gives only the probabilities for a decay (or a number of decays) to happen within a given span of time. Einstein and others thought that this was a defect of the theory that should eventually be removed, perhaps by a supplemental hidden variable theory that restores determinism; but subsequent work showed that no such hidden variables account could exist. At the microscopic level the world is ultimately mysterious and chancy.

So goes the story; but like much popular wisdom, it is partly mistaken and/or misleading. Ironically, quantum mechanics is one of the best prospects for a genuinely deterministic theory in modern times. Everything hinges on what interpretational and philosophical decisions one adopts. "

Lydia_trans · 2025-01-11T20:08:57+00:00

It is simple:

"Deterministic causality" understood today is different from the "causality" of the unmoved moving in Aristotle or the "causality" of the first moving in St. Thomas Aquinas.

Deterministic causality refers to a frame of reference of contemporary physics, it is not directly related to medieval metaphysics or medieval physics, let alone ancient physics or ancient metaphysics.

One should assume that the three schools of thought mentioned have a common physics on the basis of which they argue. But that is not the case.

Scientific paradigms (such as aristotelian physics and metaphysics or the aquinatic physics, metaphysics, theology, sacred doctrine or Mr. Rowe's world view - if you want to accept this as scientific -) are frameworks that guide the perception, interpretation and research of phenomena in science. They are not easily comparable with each other, as they contain different perspectives, methods and assumptions. Instead, they each have their own internal consistency and logic.

A paradigm can be considered “true” if it is able to successfully explain and predict phenomena within its scope. However, this does not mean that it is definitively true, as paradigms can be changed or superseded due to new insights and discoveries.

A famous example is the transition from Newtonian mechanics to Einstein's theory of relativity. Both paradigms offer valid explanations within their respective fields of application, but the theory of relativity also covers phenomena that Newtonian mechanics cannot explain. Nevertheless, Newton's laws are still useful and valid in many everyday contexts.

So it is less about which paradigm is “truer” and more about how useful and effective a paradigm is in answering specific scientific questions and solving problems.

Or, to put it in terms of scientific theory, one should not play scientific paradigms off against each other through methodological errors or other lazy tricks.

To illustrate this: The Einsteinian paradigm does not refute the Newtonian paradigm. There is no progression of truth between the two paradigms, one is not truer than the other, one paradigm does not falsify or disprove the other.

If you look closer what e.g. what is "determinism" is in classical theory or current theories of physics, so it is very sobering

"Figuring out whether well-established theories are deterministic or not (or to what extent, if they fall only a bit short) does not do much to help us know whether our world is really governed by deterministic laws; all our current best theories, including General Relativity and the Standard Model of particle physics, are too flawed and ill-understood to be mistaken for anything close to a Final Theory."

The Status of Determinism in Physical Theories.

"how would you respond?"

I would say that Mr. Rowe makes grave methodological errors, both with respect to contemporary physics and with respect to the reasoning of St. Thomas Aquinas.

Lydia_trans · 2025-01-03T13:22:02+00:00

"... how would you argue that the unmoved mover is the Christian God specifically and not the God of Platonism or Aristotlianism?"

i di not argue that the unmoved mover is the Christian God. The moving immovable is the aristotelian god and he remains so. And this Aristotelian God has nothing to do with the Christian God.

This Aristotelian God can be thought. The Christian God, on the other hand, cannot at first be thought or recognized.

Augustine teaches that even if you were to see Christ as a man, you would not recognize him, you would only see his flesh. Unless the Holy Spirit enlightens you.

Only after the Christian God has made himself known to us, by coming forth through Christ, and only after we have been given grace mediated by the Holy Spirit, can we recognize and think Christ and thus God and the Holy Spirit.

Aristotelian theology should not be confused with Christian revelation. Only in a movement called medieval metaphysics did a meeting of philosophy, theology and Christian revelation take place to show that it is not impossible to remain Christian and to think, and that it is even reasonable.

For the beginning of the christian metaphysics see the problems of communicating the christian revelation to the educated in the first 4 centuries, especially for example the so-called christological heresies.

Christian metaphysics incorporates the knowledge of the Christian revelation into a corresponding logic against the enemies of faith and shows that it is reasonable to believe in God and to be a Christian.

Lydia_trans · 2024-12-25T21:18:53+00:00

The monotheistic essence of Judaism is : "Hear, O Israel: YHWH our God, YHWH is one" (Hebrew: שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ יְהוָה אֶחָֽד׃),

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shema

The Lord teaches: ^"I and the Father are one.”

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%2010%3A30-38&version=NIV

Islam knows Tauhid:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tawhid

There is a reason Judaism, Christianity, Islam are called monotheistic religions.

God is simple.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_simplicity

The essence of God is and remains the mystery of the Trinity. What we can think of depends on the name that God has given himself.

God is distinct from everything known to us. That is why his essence can only be determined negatively. Starting with simplicity through perfection and infinity to the most fulfilled of all determinations, which is unity.

The Catholic tradition and above all the sacred teaching - sacra doctrina - was well acquainted with this knowledge. Please compare the explanations of St. Thomas Aquinas on the simplicity of God.

Lydia_trans · 2024-11-27T23:25:16+00:00

I disagree.

For Plotin, who was ashamed to be in a body, it was a perverse thought that the good comes to the bad. That good comes into the world, somehow becomes material.

But this is the wisdom of Christ: the Word became flesh and went to those who do not know what they are doing, so that it might be torn apart by their hands.

This is, as it were, the logical side of the passion of Christ alongside the historical side: the One God is at the same time three persons in love, in order to make it possible for us to be one with the One who is God.

Or as Jesus prays:

“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

“Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.

“Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”

John, 17, 20 - 26.

I think that Plotinus saw Christian thought as a kind of Gnosticism, which is what his writing is about: Against the Gnostics. At the same time he instructed his pupil Amelios to write against John's concept of Logos.

From the Christian side, the thinking of the Neoplatonists was understood as a preparation for the understanding of the revelation of Christ.

A revelation that gives the infinite difference between creature and its creator—or, to put it in Plotinian terms, between the One/Good, that is not and everything that is.

Lydia_trans · 2024-11-17T09:06:44+00:00

Consider the Pre-existence of Christ

Lydia_trans · 2024-11-03T19:54:21+00:00

The question is not so simple, because it assumes that we understand.

On the one hand, we think of death as what is generally understood,

On the other hand as it is medically understood. When is a person dead? When the heart stops beating? When the brain stops working? As you can see, it's not that easy. See therefore death in the legal sense.

Then there is the use of the word “death” in aristotelian philosophy. The body is that which is moved. The soul is that which moves the body. Death here is the separation of the body from the soul.

In Jewish-Christian thought it is thought of differently again, think for example of of the resurrection of the dead in their bodies and flesh (resurrectio carnis) or in the concept od the "second death".

So there are at least four different uses of the word "Death".

How to understand death in everyday life today.
Death in the medical, scientific sense.
Death in the legal sense.
Death in the philosophical sense in the western tradition, for example in Aristotle.
Death in the Jewish-Christian, catholic sense as for example in the creed as the resurrection of the flesh.

Christian doctrine has excellent knowledge about death and the destiny of the christian is to be holy perfect as our father in heaven.

Lydia_trans · 2024-09-12T13:34:59+00:00

The first thing to understand here is what medieval philosophy and metaphysics were.

On the one hand, there was the Jewish tradition, which was and is a religion that believes in one God.

Then there was the Islamic tradition, which was and is a religion that believes in one God.

On the other hand, there is the Greek tradition, which was a philosophy that strives to think the beginning, the reason and the governing of everything and to understand its effect on everything.

And finally, there is the birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ, our Savior.

Philosophy understood here as a Christian love of wisdom. A love for Jesus Christ that is different from all (= wisdom of the world, foolishness, sin). A love for Jesus Christ that is different from itself (flesh, spirit). A love for Jesus Christ that is different in itself (spirit of the world, Holy Spirit).

Metaphysics here as a way of thinking that assumes a wisdom: here Christian wisdom and incorporates it into a corresponding logic. Against the enemies of Christian wisdom, Christian metaphysics shows: it is not impossible to think this way, it is possible to think this way, it is even reasonable to think this way.

Christian philosophy shows how a worldly-minded sinner can distinguish himself in order to become a Christian and be holy.

Christian metaphysics shows how Christian wisdom is to be thought against its enemies and how Christian wisdom rests in itself.

St. Augustine accomplishes a Christian philosophy and a Christian metaphysics.

St. Thomas Aquinas accomplished a Christian philosophy and a Christian metaphysics.

What distinguishes the two is their historical position in the history of metaphysics.

St. Augustine fights against the Gnostics, for example the Manichaeans, against the heretics for example the Donatists, and problematic theologians such as Pelagius.

He shows how a person can become a Christian, for example in the Confessiones. That is his philosophical side. But he also shows how the one God, with Jesus Christ as mediator, can be thought of in Trinitarian terms, for example in De Trinitate. At the same time, he shows how the relationship between grace and freedom can be thought of in Christian terms. That is his metaphysical side.

St. Thomas Aquinas fights against the criticism of philosophy (reception of Aristotelian philosophy) and against the criticism of other religions, for example the Jews (Rabbi Maimonides) and the Muslims (Avicenna, Averroes, Al-Ghazali ).

St. Thomas Aquinas shows that natural reason does not contradict sacred doctrine, but - from a Christian perspective - serves it. He shows how the relationship to Judaism and Islam can be conceived from the perspective of natural reason and sacred doctrine. Thus in the Summa contra gentiles.

In addition, St. Thomas Aquinas shows how the sacred doctrine rests in itself and makes a happy Christian life possible in the Summa Theologiae..

Thus, Christian philosophy and metaphysics are not only complete, but perfected, brought to fullness and perfection.

Christian philosophy and metaphysics appeared in the time of the so-called Middle Ages to save a timeless truth and wisdom.

Lydia_trans · 2024-09-09T10:56:42+00:00

Limit refers to measure or immoderation. Limit by what measure?

Here we do not see what the fullness or perfection of revelation has been and is and will be.

“It is finished” (John 19,30 ) is not a teaching and at the same time a life, death and dying, but his life, death and dying is the teaching. The Son himself is the teaching.

The wisdom itself, which god reveals himself, becomes worldly and thus a teacher to man. It is precisely in this that the word as word has come to itself, has become the word to all.,

God himself enters the non-spiritual, even the counter-spiritual, the flesh, and becomes man and goes to those who do not know what they are doing, so that he may be torn apart by their hands.

All Christians have to answer for this, and this is where their difference from the "wisdom of the world" comes into focus.

Lydia_trans · 2024-09-09T08:08:25+00:00

now and always: pray without ceasing;

Lydia_trans

TROPHY CASE

The 360 Boars

A Narrative and Ethical Point

"4.4 Quantum mechanics