sunthema
(συνθημα)
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| (Language: Greek) |
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| Short Description: |
token, passport, parole, symbol |
| Long Description: |
token, passport, parole, symbol (in the most cases meaning the same as sumbolon); a plaited basket ( cista mystica) of the Eleusinian mysteries is called the ‘watchword’ ( to sunthema Eleusinion musterion: Clement of Alex. Protrep.2.21.2); the sunthemata of the Chaldean Oracles are considered as the ‘thoughts of the Father’ and have a cosmogonic role similar to that of the Forms in Middle Platonism; they have an anagogic function: when the soul remembers the paternal sunthema, it returns to the paternal Intellect; according to Iamblichus, the gods create all things by means of images and signify all things through sunhemata (De myster.136.6.ff); there are material sunthemata and immaterial sunthemata (among them – stones, shells, parts of animals, plants, flowers, sacred statues and icons, sounds, rhythms, melodies, incantations, lights, numbers, ineffable names of the gods); the material objects that preserve the power of the gods are regarded as sunthemata by the theurgists and function as receptacles for the gods; the sunthema, understood as the impresion and power of the god (similar to Hindu yantra), awakens soul to the divinity which it presents or symbolezes. |
| Example(s): |
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| Source(s): |
The Golden Chain: An Anthology of Platonic and Pythagorean Philosophy, by Dr. Algis Uždavinys |
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