Origin of the Horizontal Line in Nomina Sacra

[Secret Alias]

I would agree with it denoting an abbreviation.

[Ben C. Smith]

I was reading in modern Greek (through Google translate) that there are examples of fully written 'sacred abbreviations' (as they are called in Greek https://el.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CE%99%CE ... E%B5%CF%82) which are not abbreviated at all. Fully written sacred names with a horizontal line above them. Didn't know that. I assume they are rather late.

I have come across complete words with the overstroke before somewhere, but I am not remembering where right this moment.

Ah, I remembered! Nag Hammadi. From my notes:

Terry Miosi, “Nomina Sacra and the Nag Hammadi Library,” page 12:

When working with the NH texts, one will note that there are a number of texts where words that are not abbreviated occur with the supralinear horizontal stroke. Just a few examples will suffice. The Apocalypse of Adam has, among many others ΑΔΑΜ (Adam), ΕΥϨΑ (Eve), ϹΑΒΛΩ (Sablo), ΝΩϨΕ (Noah), ΕΩΝ (Aeon), ΓΑΜΑΛΗΛ (Gamaliel); the Hypostasis of the Archons has ϹΑΒΑΗΘ (Sabaoth); Melchisadek, again among many examples, has ΒΑΡΒΗΛΩΝ (Barbelo), ΗΥΗΛΗΘ (Eleleth), and ΕΝΩΧ (Enoch); the Thought of Norea has ΑΔΑΜΑ (Adama).

Within a Gnostic environment, each of these words certainly has as much reason to be considered to be sacra as ‘lord’ or ‘son’ or ‘mother’, and the fact that they are written with the horizontal stroke seems to indicate that they ought to be understood as members of the nomina sacra group, with the abbreviated forms for these and other sacred beings such as Mazaereus, Armozel, Pigeradamasa, Abelborouch, Deucalion not being used, since they are so arcane and complex that the reader might not have been able to reconstruct the original if presented only with its contracted or suspended abbreviation.*

* Supralinear strokes above full names of deities, angels, or powers are regularly found in Coptic magical texts.

It seems only appropriate, however, to close this brief study by repeating the observation as to the frustrating inconsistencies in the nomina sacra pattern: even with these names of deities and powers, there is no predictability. In the same text, the same word will be written both with and without the supralinear stroke, and words that have the supralinear stroke in one text will not have the stroke in another text.

[Secret Alias]

Interesting. I would even pay for the following information. I can't find anyone who has expertise in 'neo-Hellenic' scribal habits. Did the horizontal line used to denote abbreviations transfer to secular documents? In other words, Greeks now use a period after the first initial like other European countries. But was the horizontal line used to denote an abbreviation in the period between Byzantine and neo-Hellenic (modern Greek)? Don't have any way of determining this.

[mlinssen]

I was reading in modern Greek (through Google translate) that there are examples of fully written 'sacred abbreviations' (as they are called in Greek https://el.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CE%99%CE ... E%B5%CF%82) which are not abbreviated at all. Fully written sacred names with a horizontal line above them. Didn't know that. I assume they are rather late.

I have come across complete words with the overstroke before somewhere, but I am not remembering where right this moment.

Ah, I remembered! Nag Hammadi. From my notes:

Terry Miosi, “Nomina Sacra and the Nag Hammadi Library,” page 12:

When working with the NH texts, one will note that there are a number of texts where words that are not abbreviated occur with the supralinear horizontal stroke. Just a few examples will suffice. The Apocalypse of Adam has, among many others ΑΔΑΜ (Adam), ΕΥϨΑ (Eve), ϹΑΒΛΩ (Sablo), ΝΩϨΕ (Noah), ΕΩΝ (Aeon), ΓΑΜΑΛΗΛ (Gamaliel); the Hypostasis of the Archons has ϹΑΒΑΗΘ (Sabaoth); Melchisadek, again among many examples, has ΒΑΡΒΗΛΩΝ (Barbelo), ΗΥΗΛΗΘ (Eleleth), and ΕΝΩΧ (Enoch); the Thought of Norea has ΑΔΑΜΑ (Adama).

Within a Gnostic environment, each of these words certainly has as much reason to be considered to be sacra as ‘lord’ or ‘son’ or ‘mother’, and the fact that they are written with the horizontal stroke seems to indicate that they ought to be understood as members of the nomina sacra group, with the abbreviated forms for these and other sacred beings such as Mazaereus, Armozel, Pigeradamasa, Abelborouch, Deucalion not being used, since they are so arcane and complex that the reader might not have been able to reconstruct the original if presented only with its contracted or suspended abbreviation.*

* Supralinear strokes above full names of deities, angels, or powers are regularly found in Coptic magical texts.

It seems only appropriate, however, to close this brief study by repeating the observation as to the frustrating inconsistencies in the nomina sacra pattern: even with these names of deities and powers, there is no predictability. In the same text, the same word will be written both with and without the supralinear stroke, and words that have the supralinear stroke in one text will not have the stroke in another text.

https://www.freelyreceive.net/metalogos/files/plum.html

Which leads to https://www.freelyreceive.net/metalogos ... lumley.pdf

$23 there

Dr. Terry Miosi has a Ph.D. in Egyptology from the University of Toronto with a specialization in ancient Near Eastern languages and religions. He has authored numerous refereed publications on Ancient Egypt, Early Christianity, and Quality Assessment/Higher Education. He has been a member of archaeological and epigraphic teams that worked in the Nile Valley, the Western Desert, and the Sinai Peninsula. He was the co-founder of the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities.

Really?

each of these words certainly has as much reason to be considered to be sacra

sacrum, singular

[mlinssen]

P 64, the earliest NT manuscript with a Nomen Sacrum - allegedly

https://www.magd.ox.ac.uk/libraries-and ... n-papyrus/

I really, really have an awful lot of trouble locating that infamous IS. Can you?

[Ben C. Smith]

It stands among the partial letters after αὐτοῖς ὁ in the top right fragment, hardly visible in the image at that link, but I am not completely sure we can be certain it is ΙΣ and not ΙΗ. The bottoms of the letters α and ν from πάντες are visible in the CSNTM image, and there is not enough room for the whole Ιησοῦς, but Roberts thought it was ΙΗ in the editio princeps, not ΙΣ.

[mlinssen]

Ta. So impossible to tell anything about a superlinear, right?

Funny thing is on the Wikipedia page https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomina_ ... E)%5B10%5D lists all texts. And the footnote to that, number 10, says

[10] All nomina sacra and dates of manuscripts taken from Text of the Earliest New Testament Greek Manuscripts - Philip Comfort and David Barrett (1999)

And a very interesting link about that book is http://rosetta.reltech.org/TC/vol06/CB2001rev.html

[Ben C. Smith]

Ta. So impossible to tell anything about a superlinear, right?

Right.

[mlinssen]

It is all a bunch of hearsay. Unbelievable