μυέω

From the study of Philippians 4:12

Range of meaning

Its basic meaning is "to initiate" someone into the mysteries: secret religious rites such as those of Eleusis, Dionysus or the gods of Samothrace. Those rites were revealed only to people who had gone through them. From there it widened to mean being let into any specialised knowledge, being thoroughly taught, or being "in on" something. It is related to mystērion ("mystery") and mystēs ("an initiate").

Against the English

KJV "I am instructed" follows the Latin Vulgate (institutus sum) and loses the religious picture. BSB, WEB, ESV and NIV have "I have learned the secret", which keeps the idea of insider knowledge but can sound like a clever technique. YLT "I have been initiated" is the most literal.

How it drifted

The metaphor was dropped once the mystery cults were no longer part of readers' lives. Latin and then English used ordinary teaching words. "Secret" brings back part of the sense, but modern ears hear "tip" or "hack" rather than an experience you go through and come out of changed.

Used elsewhere in the period

Herodotus 2.51 speaks of someone "initiated (memyētai) into the rites of the Cabiri", the gods of Samothrace. Aristophanes (Plutus 845) uses it of the Great Mysteries. 3 Maccabees 2:30 speaks of those "initiated into the rites" of Dionysus. Philo often uses the word figuratively for being initiated into divine truths. Later Greek writers also use it more loosely for "thoroughly instructed". Philippi was home to many cults, and Paul's own route there went past Samothrace (Acts 16:11), so a Philippian audience would know the word's home setting.