The Presence (and Absence) of Nomina Sacra in To Theodore

[Secret Alias]

But the answer is obvious for that - i.e. in non-ecclesiastical Greek. Whenever we have everyday people (i.e. non-priests/scribes) referencing Jesus it would be as 'Jesus' rather than Ἰς). Ἰς was only comprehensible to priests and clerics.

[Secret Alias]

At least as early as 1887 https://books.google.com/books?id=D3sTA ... 22&f=false 'Master Plateas (the schoolteacher).'

It seems contemporary Greek (at least for the last two centuries) takes the first letter and the last two letters for abbreviating words:

Δις - Δεσποινίς; Κος - Κύριος

1893 https://books.google.com/books?id=OqBBA ... 82&f=false

1889 https://books.google.com/books?id=52xDA ... 22&f=false

1888 https://books.google.com/books?id=yZ9Du ... AXoECAMQAg

1882 https://books.google.com/books?id=5MzMN ... 22&f=false

1871 https://books.google.com/books?id=R0vsc ... 22&f=false

1869 https://books.google.com/books?id=ISZol ... 22&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=ISZol ... 22&f=false

1860 https://books.google.com/books?id=Hp0BA ... 22&f=false

1847 https://books.google.com/books?id=jGppA ... 22&f=false

1841 https://books.google.com/books?id=jGppA ... BXoECAYQAg

1834? https://books.google.com/books?id=uVBQA ... 22&f=false

[Secret Alias]

The difficulty we run into is how much of secular Greek literature or writing habits was preserved in a dark period when Greek society was totally governed by the Church? In short how many secular books were published in the seventeenth and eighteen centuries?

[Secret Alias]

Getting back to the OP, Tselikas a modern Greek speaker notes that the language reflects later Greek:

15. v. 34. ἀπόγραφον: This word with the meaning of a copy of book and not of the imitation of a text is very modern. The correct word must be ἀντίγραφον.

Again I think that this is where Tselikas gets his idea that the scribe must have been a native speaker (= aka 'Smith had a Greek accomplice'). In our understanding the scribe was a Greek who spoke contemporary not ancient or Byzantine Greek. If Tselikas is right he was saw out ἀντίγραφον and wrote ἀπόγραφον. Not the slip Smith or an American trained in ancient Greek would have made. Tselikas speaks of substituting contemporary Greek for ancient "is frequent in the Byzantine and post Byzantine manuscripts." We found another with respect to the abbreviation kou. How could these things be attributable to Smith? One can only argue that kou developed from the unconscious of a Greek speaking scribe. No one would want to create the impression of a unconscious errors in transmission - i.e. that Smith studied Byzantine or modern Greek to 'plant' things like kou into the MSS. That's ridiculous.

Tselikas assumes that some of the errors derive from the 'original' manuscript of Clement (i.e. that it is a forgery). But how could Smith have made mistakes indicative of his 'slipping' into contemporary (or even stranger 'Byzantine') Greek? It can't be Smith is the bottom line. That must be why Tselikas settles into the idea of Smith having a Greek speaking accomplice which is ridiculous for self-evident reasons.

[Secret Alias]

Apparently I found another example of this abbreviation in modern Greek:

Σία = Συντροφία (company Σία is like our 'inc').

[Secret Alias]

I had a Greek scholar tell me that the word was μοναχού. Man, I dislike humanities professors. It'd be like going into a lazy doctor who wrongly diagnoses you with multiple sclerosis (happened to my wife).

[Secret Alias]

Carlson on the nomina sacra

The use of the standard nomina sacra abbreviations for Jesus, Christ, Lord, God, and other holy words in Theodore is also unusual for its purported origin. Theodore consistently uses the nomina sacra for Lord and man, but not for Jesus and David. For example, Figure 3D twice shows an abbreviation for kuri/ou as k(uri)ou, while Figure 3E does not abbreviate I) hsou=j. Now, the nomina sacra gradually fell into disuse starting in the eighteenth century, but the nomen sacrum of Jesus was still in use in many documents at Mar Saba in the eighteenth century, particularly when other nomina sacra were also employed, as shown in Figure 2C. Another difference in the way the nomina sacra were employed in Theodore as compared with the referenced Mar Saba manuscripts is that the genitive case of the nomina sacra ends with an omicron-upsilon ligature (Figure 3D), not with a plain upsilon (Figure 2C)

[Secret Alias]

Going through the letter there are four kuriou

line 16 kou
line 24 ku (this IS NOT -ou but u!!!)
line 46 kou (x2)

How is that explained? I would argue the copyist is Greek working off a manuscript and he slips back into his native neo-Hellenic abbreviation of kuriou. I can't believe no one noticed this before. Wasserman didn't see the -ou in line 24 either.

[Secret Alias]

An unusual statement in Carlson:

By the middle of the second page, Theodore II.18, shown in Figure 3D, the letters are more quickly written, with more flying ends, yet blunt ends are still found throughout and ink blobs at the taus in the two instances of tou=. Nevertheless, the forger’s tremor is still evident in the iota of e)kei= and the theta of e0leuqeri/a. Both abbreviated instances of kuri/ou show pen lifts between the initial kappa and the final omicron-upsilon ligature, as well as between the epsilon and the upsilon in e0leuqeri/a.

But as we've just shown the order of kuriou are (page 1) kou, ku (page 2) kou, kou. It can't be 'a forger's tremor' that causes the author to go back to neo-Hellenic (modern Greek).

[Secret Alias]

I've found the abbreviation for ἀνθρώπων = ἀνων. In the manuscripts the abbreviation ανων is often found for ἀνθρώπων. It's a curious sentence to use a nomen sacrum:

Τῶν δὲ μιαρῶν δαιμόνων ὄλεθρον τῷ τῶν ἀνων γένει πάντοτε μηχανώντων, ὁ Καρποκράτης, ὑπ᾽ αὐτῶν διδαχθεὶς καὶ ἀπατηλοῖς τέχναις χρησάμενος οὕτω πρεσβύτερόν τινα τῆς ἐν Ἀλεξανδρείᾳ ἐκκλησίας κατεδούλωσεν, ὥστε παρ᾽ αὐτοῦ ἐκόμισεν ἀπόγραφον τοῦ μυστικοῦ εὐαγγελίου, ὁ καὶ ἐξηγήσατο κατὰ τὴν βλασφημὸν καὶ σαρκικὴν αὐτοῦ δόξα

But since the foul demons are always devising destruction for the race of men, Carpocrates, instructed by them and using deceitful arts, so enslaved a certain presbyter of the church in Alexandria that he got from him a copy of the secret Gospel, which he both interpreted according to his blasphemous and carnal doctrine and, moreover, polluted, mixing with the spotless and holy words utterly shameless lies.

Although it is worth noting that the habit of rendering ἀνθρώπων as ἀνων is found in non-Christian texts such as Homer https://www.homermultitext.org/facsimil ... 1_16r.html Plutarch http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/tex ... 3Abook%3D4 Aeschylus https://raw.githubusercontent.com/OpenG ... p-grc3.xml Excerpta Escorialensia Augustus quoqne Federus http://www.dfhg-project.org/DFHG/static ... undum.html Aeschylus https://books.google.com/books?id=wp45t ... AHoECAYQAg https://www.loebclassics.com/view/eurip ... 04.107.xml ἀνθρώπων (ἀνων compendium S) ‘vitiosum’ Nauck (1889) Plato https://books.google.com/books?id=SVBOA ... BD&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=jKlIA ... to&f=false Sophocles https://books.google.com/books?id=UtpHA ... AHoECAEQAg

In short - a manuscript associated with all the great non-Christian writers demonstrates this abbreviation. Which leaves us with a decision. The use in To Theodore is NOT in a Biblical passage or citation. It's just a passing reference in the account of the Carpocratians. When seen with the use of kou as an abbreviation it necessarily derives from the habits of the Greek scribe. So when Carlson tries to draw suspicion on a line from Smith:

For example, Smith claimed that the scribe was “an experienced writer and a scholar” (Clement 1). So was Smith. Also Smith deduced that the scribe’s “handwriting had been influenced by his study of patristics texts in western editions” (3). Smith had studied patristics texts in western editions. Smith further concluded that the writer “was interested not only in patristics, but also in the beginnings of western critical scholarship,” (3) a judgment true for Smith as well

Clearly we now get where Smith is deriving his observation. He noticed the use of abbreviations in unexpected places and decides that the scribe was a native speaking Greek who was in the habit of abbreviating things. Why not 'Jesus' and 'David' in the passage from Secret Mark. Perhaps it was deliberate. Even Carlson notes that the 'cross' at the start of the fragment might be a dagger:

Other aspects of the manuscript are anomalous when compared with the known Mar Saba manuscripts. One peculiarity is the sign of the cross, from which Smith inferred that the writer was a Greek monk (Clement 2), but other manuscripts from Mar Saba do not evidence this feature. A conceivable interpretation of the character is that it is a dagger or obelisk, which is a text-critical sign that signifies a spurious text.

In other words, because the scribe didn't think the gospel was holy he deliberate refrained from using nomina sacra. In the rest of the material he is just copying out things according to his habit.