Craig

Hi everyone,
While we are on other possibilities, I was wondering if anyone has heard any more of Michael Green’s suggestion in “To Corinth With Love” that authentien had a sexual meaning. On p159-161 he says that the main background of the word in Euripides, Philodemus, Phrynicus, and Wisd 12:6 is erotic, and John Chrysostom understood it to mean “sexual licence”. He links this with Jezebel in Rev 2:20, cf.Num 25:1-3. He says that in Ephesus, where many sacred prostitutes were attached to the shrine of Diana, worshippers were taught that fornication brought them into close union with the deity (and both the Gnostics and the Nestorians used the authentien root to justify this). He makes the bold claim that virtually without exception women teachers in Greek society were courtesans, and made it evident that in the course of their lectures that they would be available afterwards.
I haven’t heard anyone recently suggesting this as a meaning for it. I hear things like dominate, domineer, usurp authority, assume authority, exercise authority etc etc. Has the sexual meaning for it gone out of favor for some reason? Does anyone know anything about it?