E

Introduction
I know it's ancient... Why not start today?

at Delphi
Joannes Richter

Of the Word Ei Engraven Over the Gate of Apollos Temple At Delphi1

Today is a fine day to investigate some unsolved enigmas about the Delphinian temple. This would definitely prepare us for strange ideas. It's an essay discussing dolphins, eternally prolonged vowels, knowing thyself - but not too much, avoiding pledges, the symbolic character E, monotheism, corrupting purified colors, pronouns and other ingredients all mixed up in a lukewarm philosophical soup. I know the ancients are dead for a quite some time... I know we should not try to know ourselves too much.... But I cant' help it. It must be done someday.

1Of the Word Ei Engraven Over the Gate of Apollos Temple At Delphi. - from Plutarchs Morals. Translated from the
Greek by Several Hands. Corrected and Revised by William W. Goodwin, with an Introduction by Ralph Waldo Emerson. 5 Volumes. (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1878). Source: Book V-27. On the EI at Delphi ( - De E apud Delphos)

Dolphins
Speaking of Delphi . . . ? First of all we should consider Delphi as a derivative from dolphin. The name Delphoi comes from the same root as delphys, "womb" and may indicate archaic veneration of Gaia, Grandmother Earth, and the Earth Goddess at the site. This location started as a fertility cult's centre ... Apollo is connected with the site by his epithet Delphinios, "the Delphinian". The epithet is connected with dolphins (Greek ,-) in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo 2, recounting the legend of how Apollo first came to Delphi in the shape of a dolphin, carrying Cretan priests on his back. The Homeric name of the oracle is Pytho ().

Apollo's inscriptions
Apollo is the son of Zeus and Leto, and has a twin sister, the chaste huntress Artemis. Delphi became the site of a major temple to Phoebus Apollo, as well as the Pythian Games and the famous prehistoric oracle. Even in Roman times, hundreds of votive statues remained, described by Pliny the Younger and seen by Pausanias. Today and to me the most interesting enigmas of Delphi's oracle have been documented in the temple's inscriptions, which in contrast to the temporary utterances have been made to be preserved for eternity. Supposedly carved into the temple were three phrases and a singular vowel of gold, brass or wood: (gnthi seautn = "know thyself") and (mdn gan = "nothing in excess"), and ' (enga pra d'at = "make a pledge and mischief is nigh"3), as well as a large letter E.

The first three statements "Know thyself" and "nothing in excess", as well as "make a pledge and you will be ruined" may still be accepted as standard philosophies, but the E is a sacred symbol, an enigma, which is waiting to be deciphered... Plutarchs explanations are too simple. We will need some more ideas to find the solution. The E had been existing form the very beginning as a wooden symbol. In all religions vowels have been sacred and secret elements, gifts from the ancient wise men, but sometimes also to be hidden by the priests.

Coins and amulets

Plutarch's description is not the only evidence of the E-inscription. Old coins (e.g. with Faustina Senior4), depict the E at the entrance in the center between 6 columns of Apollo's temple at Delphi.

2 line 400

3 "Pledge, and then you'll meet misfortune" as explained by Geoffrey Owen Miller. This third statement is the most
complicated, but is the key to the whole. Essentially, once one asserts that they have achieved perfect self-knowledge and proportionality, then one has reduced the meaning of life to dogma. 4 died A.D. 141 - the wife of Antoninus Pius.

Vowels
At Delphi a golden character E has been spent by empress Livia5, the wife of Augustus Caesar. The brazen character E has been spent by the Athenians, but the first and oldest of all, which is the wooden one, they call the ei of the Sages, as not being of any one, but the common dedication of them all. In writing systems based on the Latin alphabet, the letters A, E, I, O, U, and sometimes Y are all used to represent vowels. Vowels contrast with consonants, such as English sh! [], where there is a constriction or closure at some point along the vocal tract. A vowel can be endless divine... In all languages, vowels form the nucleus or peak of syllables, whereas consonants form the onset and (in languages that have them) coda. There is a conflict between the phonetic definition of "vowel" (a sound produced with no constriction in the vocal tract) and the phonological definition (a sound that forms the peak of a syllable). The approximants [j] and [w] illustrate this conflict: both are produced without much of a constriction in the vocal tract (so phonetically they seem to be vowel-like), but they occur on the edge of syllables, such as at the beginning of the English words "yes" and "wet" (which suggests that phonologically they are consonants).

Explaining the Epsilon at Delphi

Now Plutarch starts explaining the Epsilon6 in several alternative ways: as just another way to say if in a conditional sentence. The if-concept is a trivial concept, which does not meet the standards for long religious evolutions... One of the more successful explanations of the enigma is the definition of the number 5, represented by the Epsilon as a matrimonial state, in which the female partner represents 2 and the male one 3. Therefore Pythagoras, through a certain resemblance, may have suggested that five is the marriage of the first male (3) and the first female number (2). Then after pages of discussing other alternatives Plutarch summarizes: I am of opinion, that this syllable E signifies neither number, order, nor connection, nor any other of the deficient parts, but is a self-perfect appellation and salutation of the God, which brings the speaker to the conception of the power of the God at the very moment of uttering it. For the God in a manner calls upon every one of us who comes hither, with this salutation, Know thyself, which is nothing inferior to All hail. And we again, answering the God, say to him El, thou art; attributing to him the true, unfeigned, and sole appellation of being, as agreeing to him alone.

Monotheism
Ok, that's better, but now Plutarch is explained the concept as monotheism like this: Thus ought those who worship to salute and invocate this Eternal Being, or else indeed, as some of the ancients have done, with this expression , Thou art one. For the Divinity is not many, as every one of us is made of ten thousand differences in affections, being a confused heap, filled with all diversities. But that which is must be one, as one must have a being.
5 58 BC-AD 29 6 See the notes to Epsilon in the Appendix

 , Thou art one.

, Thou art one may be compared to I Am that I Am7 a common English translation of the response God used in the Hebrew Bible when Moses asked for His name (Exodus 3:14). It is one of the most famous verses in the Torah. Hayah means "existed" or "was" in Hebrew; "ehyeh" is the first person singular imperfect form. Ehyeh asher ehyeh is generally interpreted to mean I am that I am, though it can also be translated as "I-shall-be that I-shall-be." The word Ehyeh is used a total of 43 places in the Hebrew Bible, where it is usually translated as "I will be" -- as is the case for its first occurrence, in Genesis 26:3or "I shall be," as is the case for its final occurrence in Zechariah 8:8. It stems from the Hebrew conception of monotheism that God exists by himself, the uncreated Creator who does not depend on anything or anyone; therefore I am who I am. Some scholars[who?] state the Tetragrammaton itself derives from the same verbal root, but others counter that it may simply sound similar as intended by God.

Mixed colors = Corruption

Yes, and now Plutarch is repeating:... For he is called Apollo, as denying plurality and rejecting multitude; and Ieos, as being only one; and Phoebus was the name given by the ancients to every thing that is pure and chaste; as the Thessalians even to this day, if I am not mistaken, say of their priests, when on vacant days they abstain from the temples and keep themselves retired, that they purify themselves (). Now that which is one is sincere and pure. For pollution is by the mixture of one thing with another; as Homer, speaking of a piece of ivory dyed red, said it was polluted by the dye, and dyers say of mixed colors that they are corrupted, and call the mixture itself corruption. It is therefore always requisite for that which is incorruptible and pure to be one and unmixed. This statement of avoiding the mixture of pure colors indeed has been observed at the colors of the Greek temples, which always have been painted in genuine red, blue, white and black. Pure is the unmixed color, but I doubt purple should always be considered as pure. If extracted from the snails yes - the dye must be considered as a pure dye. Purple however may also be mixed from red and blue. As a religious symbol it may have been woven by intermixing red & blue threads in the towels and garments. And the Greeks and Romans applied a great number of purple garments.

Sharing red, blue and purple in a concept

These ideas may have been correct if we are able to integrate and share both red, blue and purple in a common concept. Now PIE-religion applied a standard name Diaus for their creator god, whose name included the symbolic image (iau) of the first human being. The symbolic image (IAU) consisted of a leading character I symbolizing the male and a trailing character U symbolizing the female half. At the central position a vowel A had been installed to symbolize the divine joint, which reunited the male and female halves. 7 Source: I Am that I Am

Originally the central character had been restricted to A, but in later eras the vowels E and O have been added8, which allowed the divine names to interchange the central characters A, E and O. Some of the PIE-peoples considered the central vowel as sacred and did not allow to speak or write down the central character. Others refused to document any of the equally sacred vowels. These omissions veiled the symbolism in the divine names and the original unifying force of a common PIE-religion and -language. The central character E is still available in Provencal and French (in the divine name Dieu), whereas in Italian (Dio) and Spanish (Dios) languages a central character O has been chosen

Iuppiter (Jupiter)
The supreme Roman god was Iuppiter (Jupiter), whose name shares the Indo-European root *Iou ( dyeu) with the Greek Zeus (dyeus) and the Sanskrit dyaus (the sky). Although the early Roman gods were in some senses personal, they were generally not anthropomorphic. Originally the Roman deity Iuppiter applied a central character O. Iuppiter originated as a vocative compound of the Old Latin vocative *Iou and pater ("father") and came to replace the Old Latin nominative case *Ious. In IU-piter the Romans eliminated the central O-vowel, resulting in a male I-root and a female Uroot for the divine name. The mixed color scheme for the male red I and female blue U results in purple, symbolizing IU, which has been identified as the imperial dye. The Romans however probably considered purple dye as a genuine, unmixed and pure color.

The Greek Zeus (dyeus)

The Greek Zeus (dyeus) applied a central vowel E, which easily may be identified as the Evowel at Apollo's temple. In analogy to IU-piter Dyeus itself contains a male I-root and a female Uroot for the divine name. At a central position Zeus however preserves the E-character as a singular and neutral, divine symbol. In this concept the central vowel may be considered to symbolize unity, unifying the male and the female elements I and U as a joint. Joining the male and female in a matrimonial unity definitely may be considered as a monotheistic concept. The elements are: the vowel I as a male, red or scarlet element the vowel U as a female, blue element the vowel E as an androgynous or neutral joint between the I and U.

OK, this is no proof, but the concept does support Plutarch's monotheistic concept. The singular vowel may ad lib be chosen to be an A, an O or an E. Any of these may comfortably fit into the monotheistic scheme, represented by one singular vowel A, O or E.

IHVH
By applying the Matres Lectionis we may interpret IHVH as a vowel combination IU. In the spelling of Hebrew and some other Semitic languages, the matres lectionis refer to the use of certain consonants to indicate a vowel. The letters that do this in Hebrew are aleph, he, waw (or vav) and yod (or yud). The yod and waw in particular are more often vowels than they are consonants. 8 Das Runen Wrterbuch by Udo Waldemar Dieterich (1844) who describes I, U and A as the fundamental alphabetic
characters (page VI).

El9
The word El was found at the top of a list of gods as the Ancient of gods or the Father of all gods, in the ruins of the royal archive of the Ebla civilization, in the archaeological site of Tell Mardikh in Syria dated to 2300 BC. According to church fathers of early Christianity, El was the first Hebrew name of God. Is Epsilon a symbol for the divine name El?

Dante Alighieri
Dante Alighieri in his De vulgari eloquentia suggests that the name El was the first sound emitted by Adam: While the first utterance of humans after birth is a cry of pain, Dante assumed that Adam could only have made an exclamation of joy, which at the same time was addressing his Creator. In the Divina commedia, however, Dante contradicts this by saying that God was called I in the language of Adam, and only named El in later Hebrew, but before the confusion of tongues (Paradiso, 26.134).

Sun and Moon

Also in Northwest Semitic the typical belief and thought for El is that he controls the Moon and the Sun. In the myth, while he controls them they often fight for a place as his favorite. The results, day, night, day, night, are often explained as following. When it is day, the Sun has beaten the Moon. When it is night, the Moon has beaten the sun. When this myth formed it was not known that one part of the planet was in night and one in day.

Massey's simplified Explanation10

But why so difficult if Massey explains IE as another coding name for IAU11: It is the religious community, not the race, that will account for the Jews who emigrated to the ends of the earth, and for the names of the Jewish god, who was the Egyptian Iu, Phoenician Iao, Hebrew Iah, Assyrian Iau, Egypto-gnostic Ieou (greater and lesser), Chinese Iaou, Polynesian Iho-Iho, Dyak Iaouh, Nicobar Islands Eewu, Mexican Ao, Toda Au, Hungarian Iao, Manx Iee, Cornish Iau, Welsh Iau (greater and lesser), Hebrew IaoSabaoth, Chaldean Iao-Heptaktis, Greek Ia, and IE12, Latin Jupiter and Jove.

9 Source: El (deity)
10 English and Globish - Optimized Linguistic Designs 11 From: Ancient Egypt The Light of the World (Vol. 1-page 501) by Gerald Massey 12 This probably correlates to the word EI and the letter E at Apollo's temple as described by Plutarch in Of the word EI engraven over the gate of apollo's temple at delphi. - The Morals, vol. 4 see the details and the image in : E - of the E-symbol Engraven Over the Gate of Apollos Temple at Delphi

Conclusion
Even if the three maxims set up on the Delphian temple were popular proverbs, which tended later to be attributed to particular sages, we must consider the aphorisms as serious concepts. The shortest of all aphorisms is the E-vowel, inscribed above the entrance portal. The vowel has been explained as a monotheistic concept Thou art one, resembling the biblical response I Am that I Am to Moses, when he asked for God's name (Exodus 3:14). But why so difficult if Massey explains IE as another coding name for IAU13: It is the religious community, not the race, that will account for the Jews who emigrated to the ends of the earth, and for the names of the Jewish god, who was the Egyptian Iu, Phoenician Iao, Hebrew Iah, Assyrian Iau, Egypto-gnostic Ieou (greater and lesser), Chinese Iaou, Polynesian Iho-Iho, Dyak Iaouh, Nicobar Islands Eewu, Mexican Ao, Toda Au, Hungarian Iao, Manx Iee, Cornish Iau, Welsh Iau (greater and lesser), Hebrew IaoSabaoth, Chaldean Iao-Heptaktis, Greek Ia, and IE14, Latin Jupiter and Jove. This response seems to be the valid answer to the enigma of the E-inscription. Simultaneously the E-concept may also be the valid answer to the enigma of the ieu-pronouns and the Dieu-names in Provencal language15.

13 From: Ancient Egypt The Light of the World (Vol. 1-page 501) by Gerald Massey
14 This probably correlates to the word EI and the letter E at Apollo's temple as described by Plutarch in Of the word EI engraven over the gate of apollo's temple at delphi. - The Morals, vol. 4 see the details and the image in : E - of the E-symbol Engraven Over the Gate of Apollos Temple at Delphi 15 See: The Hermetic Codex

Appendix: The Epsilon and He

The letter 16 was taken over from the Phonician letter He ( ) when Greeks first adopted alphabetic writing. In archaic Greek writing, its shape is often still identical to the Phoenician letter. Like other Greek letters, it could face either leftwards or rightwards ( ), depending on the current writing direction, but just like in Phoenician, the horizontal bars always faced in the direction of writing. Archaic writing often preserves the Phoenician form with a vertical stem extending slightly below the lowest horizontal bar. In the classical era, through the influence of more cursive writing styles, the shape was simplified to the current E glyph. Among other things epsilon signifies the number 5. Plutarch's essay on the meaning of the "E at Delphi" is the only literary source for the inscription. In ancient times, the origin of these phrases was attributed to one or more of the Seven Sages of Greece, though ancient as well as modern scholars have doubted the legitimacy of such ascriptions. According to one pair of scholars, "The actual authorship of the three maxims set up on the Delphian temple may be left uncertain. Most likely they were popular proverbs, which tended later to be attributed to particular sages."

16 Source: Epsilon