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Echthroi (Εχθροί) is a Greek word meaning "The Enemy" (literally "enemies"). The singular form of the word, Echthros, is used in many versions and translations of the Bible for enemy. Etymology According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word bible is from Latin biblia, traced from the same word through Medieval Latin and Late Latin Where the word echthroi (enemies) is used in Romans 5 10 it is passive and means the object of God's enmity. The Epistle of St Paul the Apostle to the Romans is one of the letters of the New Testament canon of the Christian Bible. [1]

Historically used primarily in connection with biblical and classical subjects,[2] the term has more recently been used to refer to a mythical and biblical group of creatures who want nothing more than to destroy all of creation, most notably in Madeleine L'Engle's "Time Quartet". Madeleine L'Engle ( November 29 1918 &ndash September 6 2007) was an American writer best known for her Young Adult fiction The Time Quartet is a Fantasy / Science fiction series of four young adult novels written by Madeleine L'Engle. A personification of the forces of impersonalization and nihilism,[3], they are a form of evil that exists in both the macrocosmic and microcosmic level, in a universe whether everything is interdependent. Nihilism (from the Latin nihil, nothing is a philosophical position that argues that Existence is without objective meaning Purpose Macrocosm and microcosm is an ancient Greek schema of seeing the same patterns reproduced in all levels of the Cosmos, from the largest scale (macrocosm or universe-level L'Engle counters this evil primarily with what she calls "Naming", the process of lovingly helping individuals to know and become their true, particular selves. [3] These concepts appear in one form or another in a number of L'Engle's books, as part of her recurring themes of good versus evil, interdependency, and the role of the individual in the cosmic scheme of things.

Contents

Appearances

L'Engle's Echthroi first appear in A Wind in the Door (1973, ISBN 0-374-38443-6), as the supernatural antagonists behind a number of strange and terrible events in the lives of Meg Murry and her family. A Wind in the Door ( 1973, ISBN 0-374-38443-6 is a young adult Science fantasy Novel by Madeleine L'Engle. Margaret "Meg" Murry O'Keefe is the main character in Madeleine L'Engle 's Time Quintet of Science fantasy Novels the daughter of two scientists Meg first becomes aware of their existence in Chapter Two of the book, when a doppleganger of Mr. A doppelgänger ( or fetch is the ghostly double of a living person a sinister form of Bilocation. Jenkins suddenly flies "screaming across the sky," becoming "a slash of nothingness". The "singular cherubim" Proginoskes later identifies what Meg encountered as one of the Echthroi, and takes her to "yesterday" to see the Echthroi tear a rip in the galaxy, annihilating stars in the process. CHERUB is a series of young adult books written by the author Robert Muchamore. Meg's father, an astrophysicist, has already been called away to investigate such seemingly impossible phenomena. Astrophysics is the branch of Astronomy that deals with the Physics of the Universe, including the physical properties ( Luminosity, Meg's mother, a microbiologist, is simultaneously investigating an illness in her brother Charles Wallace Murry's mitochondria. A microbiologist is a Scientist who works in the field of Microbiology. Charles Wallace Murry is a major character in Madeleine L'Engle 's young adult Science fiction Novels A Wrinkle in Time, The two problems, despite the huge disparity in size, are both caused by the Echthroi. Later the Echthroi again impersonate Mr. Jenkins, and convince the microscopic "farandolae" to behave destructively toward their host mitochondrion, nearly killing Charles Wallace. In Cell biology, a mitochondrion (plural mitochondria) is a membrane-enclosed Organelle found in most eukaryotic cells. Meg learns that the only way to fight the Echthroi in their attempts to "extinguish" creation is to "Name" whatever is being attacked, filling the void with love and an understanding of the particular entity in its uniqueness.

Charles Wallace again runs afoul of the Echthroi in A Swiftly Tilting Planet (1978, ISBN 0-374-37362-0). A Swiftly Tilting Planet is a 1978 Science fiction novel by Madeleine L'Engle, part of the Time Quartet. In that book, the Echthroi try to "blow" Charles Wallace off course as he travels in time on the back of a unicorn named Gaudior, landing him in a "projection" of a time in which the Echthroi have won. Again an Echthros impersonates another character, this time Gaudior.

Although the malevolent force in A Wrinkle in Time is referred to as the Black Thing rather than the Echthroi, it is an earlier form of the same basic concept. A Wrinkle in Time is a Science fantasy novel by Madeleine L'Engle, written between 1959 and 1960 and published in 1962 In that book, which immediately precedes A Wind in the Door in the Time Quartet series, Meg, Charles Wallace and Calvin O'Keefe are shown a star giving up its own existence as a star to combat a patch of cosmic darkness, essentially the reverse of what Meg sees with Proginoskes. Calvin O'Keefe is a major character in Madeleine L'Engle 's Time Quartet series of books and as "Dr Evil in that book, directed by the giant brain known as IT, takes the form of anonymity and conformity, similar to the concept of "Un-Naming. "

Characteristics

In the L'Engle books, Echthroi are depicted as the forces of "Un-Naming", bent on annihilating not just matter, but knowledge and understanding of the individual, "making people not know who they are"[4]. Impersonal and unnamed themselves, they try to convince Sporos and others that nothing and no one matters but the pleasure of the moment. As Donald R. Hettinga explains, the Echthroi are "fallen angels" and "a kind of personified nihilism, an active evil that is attacking the universe by convincing creatures to deny their importance in a symbiotic creation. "[3] Calvin Miller refers to the Echthroi as "demonic spirits" that "are always stalking good, making the whole sick, the entire partial, the holy eroded by the contaminated. "[5]

As Liam Duncan describes them: "Echthroi desire nothing. They desire Nothing. That is to say, if they got their way, everything would be broken apart, and the pieces be broken apart, and corrupted, and reduced to nothing, until nothing exists. Nothing. Nothing at all. Not even a vacuum, because even a vacuum is Something, if you use your imagination. Nothing at all. Every victory we win, no matter how insignificant it seems, puts them farther from that goal. And every victory they gain, no matter how tiny, brings them closer. " The suggestion made is that Echthroi are nothing more than personified Oblivion, whose aim is to twist Nature in order to create more of themselves. It is possible that they constitute a metaphor for the potential destructive tendencies in the human mind.

Other uses

Outside the L'Engle corpus, the words Echthros and Echthroi occur mainly in connection with biblical studies and in literary criticism of classical literature, specifically Greek tragedy. Literary criticism is the study discussion evaluation and interpretation of Literature. [2][6] Aristotle and others classified people that characters in tragedy encounter into philoi (friends and loved ones), echthroi (enemies) and medetoeroi (neithers), with the characters and their audience seeking a positive outcome for the first group and the downfall of the second. Aristotle (Greek Aristotélēs) (384 BC – 322 BC was a Greek philosopher a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. [7]

The term also appears in Canto XII of the little-known epic The Purple Island by nineteenth century poet and rector Phineas Fletcher, apparently in the general meaning of enemies. The word rector ("ruler" from the Latin regere and Rector meaning "Teacher" In Latin has a number of different meanings but all of them indicate an academic [8]

References

  1. ^ Orr, James (1915). The International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia. Original from Harvard University: The Howard-Severance company, Page 944 and page 1135.  
  2. ^ a b Google Books: Echthros
  3. ^ a b c Hettinga, Donald R. (1993). Presenting Madeleine L'Engle. New York: Twayne Publishers, pg. 34. ISBN 0-8057-8222-2.  
  4. ^ A Wind in the Door, page 37.
  5. ^ Miller, Calvin; Shaw, Luci, editor (1998). "In Favor of God", in The Swiftly Tilting Worlds of Madeleine L'Engle. Wheaton, Illinois: Harold Shaw Publishers, pg. Wheaton is an affluent community located in DuPage County Illinois, approximately west of Chicago and Lake Michigan. 194. ISBN 0-87788-483-8.  
  6. ^ Google Books Search: Echthroi
  7. ^ Lowe, N. J. ; S (2000). The Classical Plot and the Invention of Western Narrative. Cambridge University Press, pg. 178. ISBN 0521604451.  
  8. ^ The Poems of Phineas Fletcher. Google Books. Retrieved 2008-03-01.

See also

A Wind in the Door ( 1973, ISBN 0-374-38443-6 is a young adult Science fantasy Novel by Madeleine L'Engle. A Swiftly Tilting Planet is a 1978 Science fiction novel by Madeleine L'Engle, part of the Time Quartet.
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