What did the Angels really say on the first Christmas? Part II

The original Greek text of Luke 2:14 is transliterated into the Roman alphabet as follows:

Doxa en hypsistois Theo, kai epi geis eireinei en anthropois eudokia[s].

The brackets around the final letter s (sigma in Greek) are the key to this mystery.  Why are they there?

Before going into that, let's look at the Greek.  Literally, word by word: "Glory in the highest to God, and peace on earth among men good thought".  OK, I fudged on the last word.  "Eudokia" is a compound word made of "eu", an extremely common word meaning "good" or "well", and "dokia", which means "thought" or "opinion". 

Therefore "eudokia" means either "thinking well of someone else" or "being well thought of", depending on the context.  The bracketed sigma means that some manuscripts have the sigma, and others don't.  How would that affect the meaning?

If the sigma is there, then "eudokias" is a genitive singular form of the noun, which would refer to another noun in the phrase:  "men of good thought toward others".  This is how St. Jerome translated it: "bonae voluntatis" "of good will".

If the sigma is not there, then "eudokia" is the nominative singular, which means it is the subject, and this is where we get the translation "good will toward men".

What about "to those on whom His favor rests"?  I'm guessing here, but I think that depends on the interpretation of "eudokias" as "being well thought of" instead of "thinking well of someone else".  "Peace on earth to men who are well thought of" (by God); hence "peace on earth to men on whom His favor rests".

So, is the sigma there or not?  That will be the subject of the next post.