{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/4969",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 4969,
    "subject": "Hiero-people",
    "messages": 2,
    "voices": 2,
    "first": "2008-01-09T12:36:34+00:00",
    "last": "2008-01-09T13:13:26+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<20080109123635.2ED6750038@mailserver9.hushmail.com>",
      "from": {
        "name": "thalassocrat at nym.hush.com",
        "address": "thalassocrat at nym.hush.com"
      },
      "date": "2008-01-09T12:36:34+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Hiero-people",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Following just fwiw. \n\n\"Hierogrammate\" seems like an odd title for a being which purports \nto be in charge of the universe or whatever Tzadkiel's claim is. \nThe Greek is hierogrammateus/plural hierogrammateis. It means \"holy \nscribe\" and seems to have been used most commonly as the Greek term \nfor a class of mid-high ranking Egyptian priests, staffers of the \n\"House of Life\". I guess Thotmatkef (sp?) in SoS would have been \ncalled a hierogrammateus in Greek. Part of the elite but not the \ntop rung, for which a different term was used. \n\n(In Greek cults it seems not to have been such a high status thing: \nany job title within a cult or temple bureaucracy could take the \n\"hiero-\" prefix, it seems, and \"hierogrammate\" doesn't appear to \nhave necessarily meant much more than \"temple clerk\", in the same \nway that there was sometimes a \"holy debt collector\". I would guess \nthat Wolfe was thinking of the Egyptian context, to the extent the \ntitles are supposed to have any connection with the historical \nusage.)\n\nThe common term for priest was hiereus/plural hiereis. (For both \njob titles, the \"-eus\" as like in \"Zeus\"). I suppose that this is \nwhere Wolfe's term \"hieros\" comes from. It was also apparently a \nterm early Christians used for themselves.\n\n\"Hierarch\" was the term for a cult official responsible for \noverseeeing execution of ritual practices and so on.\n\nI get a picture of an organization with hieros (now disappeared) at \nthe board level, so to speak; hierogrammates as senior execs; \nhierarchs as middle management and hierodules as the blue collars."
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<7977.67.142.130.35.1199884406.squirrel@brunians.org>",
      "from": {
        "name": "brunians at brunians.org",
        "address": "brunians at brunians.org"
      },
      "date": "2008-01-09T13:13:26+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Hiero-people",
      "in_reply_to": "<20080109123635.2ED6750038@mailserver9.hushmail.com>",
      "reply_link": "header",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "And there's a court of heaven with various officers and so on. You can\nfigure out which archangel is taking which office in which aeon and so\nforth (by this system, it may interest some to know, the entity filling\nthe office of 'ha-Satan' at the time of the book of Job (and still today)\nis the Aa Gabriel, who is also held to be (under his Arabic name of\nJibrail) responsible for dictating the Quran to Muhammed)).\n\nThe Biblical/Christian stuff seems to be (ulitmately) based upon the\nPersian empire when it isn't based upon the Egyptian stuff, and didn't the\nPersians crib heavily from the Assyrians and Babylonians? And thence into\nthe middle distant and distant past....\n\nIt gets even more interesting in the Indian literature, where various gods\netc are explicitly said to be in/on various 'lokas' (loka is usually\ntranslated 'world' or 'planet'). The big question is, what if all of this\nmythology/theology is more or less dimly remembered history? This is a\nquestion Wolfe plays with very often.\n\n\n\n\n."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Following just fwiw.\n\n\"Hierogrammate\" seems like an odd title for a being which purports\nto be in charge of the universe or whatever Tzadkiel's claim is.\nThe Greek is hierogrammateus/plural hierogrammateis. It means \"holy\nscribe\" and seems to have been used most commonly as the Greek term\nfor a class of mid-high ranking Egyptian priests, staffers of the\n\"House of Life\". I guess Thotmatkef (sp?) in SoS would have been\ncalled a hierogrammateus in Greek. Part of the elite but not the\ntop rung, for which a different term was used.\n\n(In Greek cults it seems not to have been such a high status thing:\nany job title within a cult or temple bureaucracy could take the\n\"hiero-\" prefix, it seems, and \"hierogrammate\" doesn't appear to\nhave necessarily meant much more than \"temple clerk\", in the same\nway that there was sometimes a \"holy debt collector\". I would guess\nthat Wolfe was thinking of the Egyptian context, to the extent the\ntitles are supposed to have any connection with the historical\nusage.)\n\nThe common term for priest was hiereus/plural hiereis. (For both\njob titles, the \"-eus\" as like in \"Zeus\"). I suppose that this is\nwhere Wolfe's term \"hieros\" comes from. It was also apparently a\nterm early Christians used for themselves.\n\n\"Hierarch\" was the term for a cult official responsible for\noverseeeing execution of ritual practices and so on.\n\nI get a picture of an organization with hieros (now disappeared) at\nthe board level, so to speak; hierogrammates as senior execs;\nhierarchs as middle management and hierodules as the blue collars.\n\n\n_______________________________________________"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}