Πυθόληπτος

Notes

1. = Synagoge pi783, Photius pi1516 Theodoridis; cf. Hesychius pi4305, who has u(po\ tou= *puqikou= [lhfqei/s], which is apparently behind the LSJ's interpretation of the word as "seized with Pythian frenzy".
   The headword is nominative singular masculine or feminine (while the gloss is unambiguously masculine). It is presumably quoted from somewhere, but its only extant attestation outside lexicography is in the ninth-century Byzantine Patriarch Nicephorus I, Refutatio et eversio definitionis synodalis anni 815 147, in reference to the woman possessed by a prophetic demon called "python" encountered by Paul at Acts 16:16 (cf. pi 3140). The gender of the gloss would seem to exclude commentary on that passage as a source, and the reference to "the Pythian one" would normally make one think of Apollo rather than "Python", yet Apollo is not in the habit of seizing or possessing people other than his priestess at Delphi↗. See generally pi 3138.