In prison this morning we spoke about Castor and Pollux,
Castor[a] and Pollux[b] (or Polydeuces)[c] are twin half-brothers in Greek and Roman mythology, known together as the Dioscuri or Dioskouroi.[d]
Their mother was Leda, but they had different fathers; Castor was the mortal son of Tyndareus, the king of Sparta, while Pollux was the divine son of Zeus, who seduced Leda in the guise of a swan.[2] The pair are thus an example of heteropaternal superfecundation. Though accounts of their birth are varied, they are sometimes said to have been born from an egg, along with their twin sisters Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra. (Wikipedia)
In our hubris, we wondered if the Greeks actually believed the stories that have come down to us. (In the same way we wondered if the sweet Golden Retriever understood the baseball game she was taken to over the weekend.)
This evening I look into PHILO.
C H A P T E R I
HELLENISTIC JUDAISM AND PHILO
I. HELLENISTIC JEWISH ATTITUDE TOWARD
GREEK RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY
WITH a single exception, none of the peoples who after the
conquests of Alexander began to participate in Greek philosophy
contributed anything radically new to it. All they did
was to master its teachings and furnish teachers. The Phoenician
population of Citium in Cyprus furnished Zeno, the
founder of Stoicism; Sidon furnished another Zeno, who
became the head of the Epicureans; Carthage furnished
Hasdrubal, who under the name of Clitomachus became the
head of the New Academy; the Hellenistic population of
Ascalon in Palestine furnished another head of the New
Academy by the name of Antiochus; Tyre furnished Dio-
dorus, who became the head of the Peripatetic school; and
Apamea in Syria furnished Posidonius, who established a
Stoic school in Rhodes, the only Greek philosophic school
which flourished at that time outside of Athens. But all of
these, though coming from the new centers of Greek culture,
and perhaps also of non-Greek origin, were thoroughly Hel-
lenized, not only in language but also in religion, and they
appear on the scene of history as Greeks, carrying on the
traditions of Greek philosophers. The schools which they
came to preside over, and, in the case of Zeno, the new school
which he founded, were Greek schools, flourishing in the
ancient seat of Greek civilization. The gods, the myths, and
the religious and political institutions which as philosophers
they had occasion to take as the subject of their speculations
were all the same as those of their predecessors from Thales
to Aristotle.
(--opening chapter, PHILO, FOUNDATIONS OF RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHYIN JUDAISM, CHRISTIANITY, and ISLAM, by H A R R Y N A T H A N A U S T R Y N W O L F S O N , 1947)
Stories gather suspicions gleaned from imagination and shaped by dreams that arrive within consciousness when attention is diverted from full alacrity and slowly slumbers through foggy dusks forming creatures and explanations and narratives that take their own direction despite reasonable doubt or objection.
Hence, philosophy and theology. Hence mythology and fantastical speculation.
On every street corner throughout history, someone smoking (whatever they are smoking) is asking the guy standing next to him (about whatever they are talking about) -- “Do you really believe that?”
Wheeler, the sweet girl Golden Retriever, is settling into the lap of the great-haired lady who comes into the library to welcome her back with a handful of treats.
The pacing and wandering resident who has come in and out of the room about ten times is also happy to see the service pup in training and stands still for a little bit.
Wheeler is in our story now.
She goes over to her corner behind the librarian's desk (who is talking about Castor and Pollux) and curls into her readiness to slumber.
What story is she conjuring?
Which one are we?
Then it is time for the final circle.
