Laudator Temporis Acti

Origen, Against Celsus 5.35 (tr. Henry Chadwick, with his note):

And I have not yet said anything of those Egyptians who shiver with fear at the trivial physical experience of flatulence.<sup>1

1</sup> Cf. Minucius Felix, XXVIII, 9 'Idem Aegyptii cum plerisque vobis non magis Isidem quam ceparum acrimonias metuunt, nec Serapidem magis quam strepitus per pudenda corporis expressos contremescunt.' Jerome, Comm. in Isai. XIII, 46 (Migne, P.L. XXIV, 467 A): '... ut taceam de formidoloso et horribili cepe et crepitu ventris inflati, quae Pelusiaca religio est.' Clem. Hom. X, 16; Clem. Recog. V, 20; Theophilus, ad Autol. I, 10. For the onion cf. Pliny, N.H. XIX, 101; Plutarch ap. Gellius, N.A. XX, 8, 7; Mor. 353F; Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech. VI, 10. Discussion in T. Hopfner, Plutarch über Isis und Osiris (Monographien des Archiv Orientálni IX, Prague, 1940), I, pp. 71-2; A.B. Cook, Zeus II (1925), PP. 986-7.

The Greek:

Καὶ οὔπω λέγω περὶ τῶν τὰς τοῦ σώματος φλυαρίας ἐν φύσαις φριττόντων τῶν Αἰγυπτίων.

φλυαρίας literally = babblings, fooleries. I can't find the meaning flatulence in any of the dictionaries.

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Jim Sullivan per litteras:

You are right about φλυαρία "chattering". But the flatulence is the phrase ἐν φύσαις from ἡ φῦσα "bellows", which in the plural means "flatus".

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Labels: noctes scatologicae