Agape

EVCHARIS EST MATER PIVS ET PATER EST [

VOS PRECOR O FRATRES ORARE HVC QVANDO VENI[

ET PRECIBVS TOTIS PATREM NATVMQVE ROGATIS

SIT VESTRAE MENTIS AGAPES CARAE MEMINISSE
VT DEVS OMNIPOTENS AGAPEN IN SAECULA SERVET

Eucharis est mater, pius et pater est [mihi Celsus].

Vos precor, O fratres, orare huc quando veni[tis]

et precibus totis Patrem Natumque rogatis:

sit vestrae mentis Agapes carae meminisse,

ut Deus omnipotens Agapen in saecula servet.

Eucharis is my mother, and my dutiful father is [Celsus].

I ask you, O brothers, to pray when you come to this place

and with all your prayers you ask the Father and the Son:

may you keep in mind dear Agape,

so that Almighty God may save Agape forever.

 

The upper right side of the stone having been lost, the conjecture [mihi Celsus] was added by the German scholar Franz Buchler.

"Agapes" and "Agapen" are Greek genitive and accusative singular forms of the name Agape, meaning "Love", and her mother's name, Eucharis, is also Greek, meaning "Thanksgiving".

Chryse

From a marble stone found in 1981 at Ostia, near the church of St. Aurea, a 3rd century martyr.

CHRYS[...

HIC DORM[...

Chrys[e]

hic dorm[it]

Chryse

sleeps here

Because "Aurea" mean golden in Latin, and "Chryse" means the same in Greek, some conjecture that this might have been the grave of the Saint herself.

What did the angels really say on the first Christmas? Part 3

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This is a scan of the page which contains Luke 2, 8-14.  Verse 14 at the bottom is the verse in question, which I transliterated in my previous post as "Doxa en hypsistois theo kai epi geis eireinei en anthropois eudokia(s)."

Below the Greek text is what is called the 'Critical Apparatus'.  This indicates to scholars what parts of the text have differing words or spellings than what is printed above in the 'official' text.  It also indicates where these variations come from, and give an editorial judgement, consisting of a grade which can range from 'A' (most realiable) through 'D' (least reliable) on how reliable our 'official' reading is.

For example, in verse 11 the words "Christos kyrios" appear as part of the sentence "is born to you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord".  Most of the manuscripts of Luke say "Christos kyrios", as indicated by the letters and numbers which follow that Greek phrase in the note.  Each letter or number stands for a manuscript or collection which has this Gospel (most of these manuscripts go back to the 4th-6th centuries AD, although some are later).  After that, the note tells us that the readings "kyrios Christos", "Christos kyriou", "Christos Iesus", "Christos Iesus kyrios", "Christos Soter", and "Christos" appear in this verse in one or more other manuscripts, but based on the editors' judgement, "Christos kyrios" is the correct reading, and so, while they list the variants, they assign the "Christos kyrios" reading a grade of 'A' , based on the editors' knowledge, judgement, and the evidence of the texts.

We see that the reading of "en anthropois eudokias" (among men of good will), is assigned a 'B', meaning that scholars are pretty sure that this is the correct original reading, but not enough to assign an 'A'.  You can tell that there is quite a variation in this verse by just looking at the numbers of manuscripts that have different readings. 
 
By the way, Luke F.  pointed out to me that the earliest complete manuscript we have of the Bible, including the entire New Testament, is now online for viewing at http://www.codexsinaiticus.org/en/  (this manuscript is represented in the Critical Apparatus above by the Hebrew letter Aleph).  So go over there and take a look at Luke 2, verse 14, and see what you think!

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.

Ichthys

In my previous post, I typed the final word of the inscription as "IXQYS".  This represents the Greek word for "fish", which is transliterated as "ichthys", and was used by early Christians as a code word (and symbol) to identify each other.

Because the blogging software does not allow me to use characters of the Greek alphabet, I substituted the letter Q for the Greek letter Theta, which looks somewhat similar.  (BTW, if anyone knows how I might get around this restriction, please let me know).

Here is a scanned document which shows the Greek text of the word, and what each letter represents:

So the inscription for Caecilia Placida could have been a regular funerary inscription, except for the inclusion of the final word.

Caecilia Placida

CECILIUS.MARITVS.CECILIAE

PLACIDAE.COIVGI.OPTIMAE

MEMORIAE.CVM.QVA.VIXI.ANNIS.X.

BENE.SENE.ULLA.QVERELLA. IXQYS.

Caecilius maritus Caeciliae

Placidae coniugi optimae

memoriae cum qua vixi annis X

bene sine ulla querella.  IXQYS

Caecilius, husband, to the memory

of his best wife, Caecilia Placida,

with whom I lived well for 10 years

without any complaint.  ICHTYS

(p. 343)

Spelling and language change

The previous entry, although very short, is rich with examples of how spelling can show us pronunciation from a vantage of almost 2000 years.

Agape:  This is the Latin transliteration of a Greek word which means 'love'.  This is probably a name, although it could also be an affectionate term of endearment.  The spelling shows us that the Greek letter Eta was pronounced like the Latin letter 'e'.

vibes:  in 'correct' Latin, this would be 'vives', the second person singular of the future indicative ("you will live").  The alternation of 'v' and 'b' here shows that, even in the first two centuries AD, the trend of pronouncing these letters as they are in Spanish today was already current.  We will see many more examples of this, and explore it further.

eternum:  usually spelled 'aeternum', this shows us another trend.  Historically, the 'ae' diphthong was originally spelled 'ai' and was pronounced as the English word 'eye'.  One of our oldest existing records of written Latin is a bronze tablet from the year 186 BC, which records a decree of the Roman Senate concerning the 'Bacchanalia'  ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senatus_consultum_de_Bacchanalibus ).  This decree changes from 'ai' to 'ae' in the same phrase ('apud aedem Bellonai').   Later, the pronunciation of 'ae' softened from 'eye' to English 'ay' as in 'hooray'.  Since this was roughly the same as the pronunciation of the Latin long 'e', we see that, as in this inscription, the spelling reflected that 'confusion'.

Alexamenos worships God

This graffito was discovered in 1857 during excavations of the Palatine Hill. It has become justly famous as one of the earliest depictions (and caricatures) of a Christian worshipping Christ crucified.  For details, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexamenos_graffito

The Greek text printed above has caused some discussion, with some scholars debating how the imperative plural (sebete) could be used for the third person singular indicative (sebetai).  D'oh!!  I can think of two off the top of my head:  spelling and pronunciation were fluid (as we will see in further inscriptions to come);  whoever did this was mocking Christians, so he might have been mocking their language skills at the same time.

Some Linguistic Notes

After posting an inscription and its translation, I will add some notes regarding the language of the inscription.  There are many Latin, Greek, and mixed language inscriptions, and because many of these were written by people who were not the best educated of the time, idiosyncrasies creep in.  Also, those who study the classical languages today focus on the literature which has come down to us, and is normally used as an exemplar of grammar and style.  Many of these early Christians may never have heard of, much less read, the Orations of Cicero.  They wrote as they spoke, and that in itself is an invaluable piece of evidence.