[Looking into use of the word αυταρκεια this morning (cf. 1Ti 6.6) I came across Hermas Mandates 6.2 and had to post it. — RWB]

36. “Now hear,” he said, “about faith. There are two angels with man, one of righteousness and one of wickedness.” (2) “So how, sir,” I said, “will I recognize their workings, given that both angels live with me?” (3) “Listen,” he said, “and understand them. The angel of righteousness is sensitive and modest and gentle and tranquil. When this one enters your heart, immediately he talks with you about righteousness, about purity, about holiness, about contentment, about every righteous deed, and about every glorious virtue. Whenever all these things enter your heart, you know that the angel of righteousness is with you. These, then, are the works of the angel of righteousness. So trust him and his works. (4) Now observe the works of the angel of wickedness. First of all, he is ill-tempered and bitter and senseless, and his works are evil, tearing down God’s servants. So whenever this one enters your heart, recognize him by his works.” (5) “But I do not know, sir,” I said, “how to recognize him.” “Listen,” he said. “When some angry temperamental outburst or bitterness comes over you, recognize that he is in you. Then comes the desire for much business, and extravagant kinds of foods and drink, and much drunkenness, and various kinds of unnecessary luxuries, and the desire for women, and greed and arrogance and pretentiousness, and whatever else resembles or is similar to these things. So whenever these things enter your heart, you know that the angel of wickedness is with you. (6) Recognizing, therefore, his works, shun him and do not trust him at all, because his works are evil and harmful to God’s servants. You now have, then, the working of both angels; understand them and trust the angel of righteousness. (7) But shun the angel of wickedness, because his teaching is evil in every respect. For even if one is a man of faith and the thought of that angel enters one’s heart, it is inevitable that that man or woman will commit some sin. (8) On the other hand, if one is an extremely sinful man or woman, and the works of the angel of righteousness enter his heart, of necessity he must do something good. (9) You see, then,” he said, “that it is good to follow the angel of righteousness, but to shun the angel of wickedness. (10) This commandment explains the things about faith, in order that you may trust the works of the angel of righteousness, and that doing them, you may live to God. But believe that the works of the angel of wickedness are dangerous, so that by not doing them you will live to God.”

Holmes, M. W. (1999). The Apostolic Fathers : Greek texts and English translations (amazon.com) (Updated ed.) (391). Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books.

So, the idea of the angel/devil on the shoulder — popularized for me by several Warner Bros. cartoons as I recall — goes back. Way back. Probably further back than Hermas (second century?).

I'm stoked about THIS:

For those without Logos Bible Software, you should really obtain and read at least a few sections of the Handbook of Classical Rhetoric (amazon.com). You should also consider Porter's Handbook to the Exegesis of the NT (link to Logos) and his Idioms of the Greek NT (link to Logos).

Ignatius, To the Magnesians, 11

Ταῦτα δέ, ἀγαπητοί μου, οὐκ ἐπεὶ ἔγνων τινὰς ἐξ ὑμῶν οὕτως ἔχοντας, ἀλλʼ ὡς μικρότερος ὑμῶν θέλω προφυλάσσεσθαι ὑμᾶς μὴ ἐμπεσεῖν εἰς τὰ ἄγκιστρα τῆς κενοδοξίας, ἀλλὰ πεπληροφορῆσθαι ἐν τῇ γεννήσει καὶ τῷ πάθει καὶ τῇ ἀναστάσει τῇ γενομένῃ ἐν καιρῷ τῆς ἡγεμονίας Ποντίου Πιλάτου· πραχθέντα ἀληθῶς καὶ βεβαίως ὑπὸ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, τῆς ἐλπίδος ἡμῶν, ἧς ἐκτραπῆναι μηδενὶ ὑμῶν γένοιτο.
Holmes, M. W. (1999). The Apostolic Fathers : Greek texts and English translations (Updated ed.) (Ign. Magn. 11). Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books.

I am not writing these things, my beloved, because I have learned that some of you are behaving like this. But as one who is less important than you I want to protect you from being snagged by the fish hooks of worthless ideas. You should be fully convinced of the birth and suffering and resurrection that occurred in the time of the governor Pontius Pilate. These things were truly and certainly done by Jesus Christ, our hope. From this hope may none of you turn away.
Erhman, B. (2002) The Apostolic Fathers (Ign. Magn. 11). Series: Loeb Classical Library, vol. 23. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

If the sitemeter reports are to be believed, sometime in the next 24 hours ricoblog will top 100,000 visitors.

And that doesn't include folks who actually subscribe to and read from RSS feeds. Yikes.

Thanks to all who read or stumble here. I'm continually amazed that folks actually would sign up to read my meanderings. Thanks for your support and encouragement.

Update (2007-04-27): Visitor 100,000 was just here, arriving at 5:35 AM (my time, UTC-7 w/Daylight Savings), visiting from Ankara, Turkey (UTC+2, so 14:35 or 2:35 PM). The visitor arrived from a Google search via Google.com.tr for "participle clauses in context". The lucky post was "Ephesians 5 and Clauses". Hopefully you found what you were looking for!

If you went "huh?" when you read that title then you haven't thought about how "Oxyrhynchus" would translate into English.

The "What's New in Papyrology" blog pointed to mention of a book by this title awhile back. Today they pointed to a review of City of the Sharp-Nosed Fish: Greek Lives in Roman Egypt (amazon.com) in the New Statesman.

Do check out the review. The book sounds fantastic.

Are you familiar with the "Best Blogs about Biblical Studies" community ranking/list thing going on at Amazon's UnSpun?

Somehow, ricoblog is placed barely in the top 10 at #9 (and that has been fairly steady since late last week). There are, at present, over 100 blogs listed. I am amazed, humbled and flattered all at the same time.

I'm unsure how to receive this. Part of me thinks "what are people thinking?!"; the other part thinks "my, there are a bunch of smart, well-informed and intellectually curious folks ranking those blogs".

I think I'll choose the second part.

Side note, though. Have you checked the individual rankings of folks in the "Most recently ranked by" list on the right margin of the page? Many folks have only voted for one or two blogs, and most of those seem to be associated with the voter. (Hey, I'm guilty of this too, see?) So it looks like the people who take the time to rank are more interested in making sure their own stuff is near the top; they're not necessarily interested in ranking blogs. That said, however, the ones rising to the top seem to be those that are ranked well by non-blog-authors.

In the "Why aren't they ranked higher?" department, here are the blogs that have low rankings that I just don't get. You should read these (at least have 'em on your feed) if you don't already:

• Biblicalia
• Thoughts on Antiquity

Here's the list at present:

Update (2007-04-24): Link changed from "Top 50 ... " to "Best Blogs about Biblical Studies". Apologies to Airton for getting it wrong the first time.

Check out these reviews out from RBL:

Charles E. Hill
From the Lost Teaching of Polycarp: Identifying Irenaeus' Apostolic Presbyter and the Author of Ad Diognetum
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=5512
Reviewed by Mark Weedman

Matthew Brook O'Donnell
Corpus Linguistics and the Greek of the New Testament
http://www.bookreviews.org/bookdetail.asp?TitleId=5362
Reviewed by Paul Elbert

I own and have read both books. The review of Hill's is spot on from my perspective; more folks need to read and interact with the material Hill presents. I'd say the review of O'Donnell's book is overly pedantic but worth reading.

Roger Pearse (who is always dabbling in very interesting things) reported on Thoughts on Antiquity his inability to find a reasonably priced general introduction to Armenian in English, and the inability to find an Armenian-English dictionary. I responded in the comments with a lead on a dictionary (Bedrossian's, which is mentioned in Thomson's intro as the Armenian-English dictionary to start with). I haven't looked for it in awhile, but I had never been able to find a decently-priced edition of Bedrossian's dictionary (maybe Wipf & Stock will do it someday?)

For some reason I'm fascinated by things Armenian though I have yet to do any serious reading or study on the language (outside of sections in Metzger's Early Versions and Vööbus' Early Versions). It's one of those things on my mental "stuff to study someday" list.

So imagine my surprise when Roger posted a follow-up to his original post pointing us all to the Leiden Armenian Lexical Database. This site has dictionaries (including Bedrossian) and, more importantly, some lexically analyzed texts, including Jonah and the Gospels of Luke and John (from Zohrab's edition) along with Cox's edition of Deuteronomy! Zounds! With a lemmatized John and a dictionary, and Thomson in print at my side, it makes working through the text to familiarize myself with the language that much more approachable!

Now, I just need about four more hours in each day ...