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Christian and Un-Christian Etymologies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 August 2011

Renée Kahane
Affiliation:
University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois

Extract

As far as form is concerned, the gap between Lat. abyssus, “abyss,” and its nasalized Romance congeners of the type abism-is difficult to explain. The two prevalent interpretations are somewhat artificial and unsatisfactory. They are presented by Wartburg, who postulates analogy to the suffix -ismus (Französisches etymologisches Wörterbuch [FEW], I, 11), and by Corominas, who posits a basis *abyssissimus reduced to *abissimus (Diccionario crítico etimológico de la lengua castellana, I, 9).

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1964

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References

1 Battisti-Allesio, Diz.etimol.ital. [DEI], s.v. abisso, explain more specifically, abysmus through influence of the antonym altissimus.

2 The record of Judeo-French abîme, glossing Hebr. THM (i.e., tehôm), which is quoted by Blondheim, Romania 49 (1923), 16, belongs probably to the 14th century (Blondheim, Romania 39 [1910], 130, fn. 1).

3 The material is discussed by Jacoby ap. Handwörterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens, V (1932–33), 1327–47; Dölger, F. J., Antike und Christentum IV (1934), 8194Google Scholar; K. Michaëlsson, Etymologica (Festschrift Wartburg; Tübingen, 1958), pp. 529–37; and above all in the central part (chapters 14–25) of K. Burdach, Der Gral (Stuttgart, 1938).

4 James, M. R., The Apocryphal New Testament (Oxford, 1924), p. 94Google Scholar.

5 An illustration of the plant in a Byzantine MS. of 512 ap. Gunther, R. T. (ed.), The Greek Herbal of Dioscorides (Oxford, 1934), p. 387 to III, 162Google Scholar.

6 Strömberg, R., Griechische Pfianzennamen (Göteborg, 1940), p. 55Google Scholar.

7 H. Stadler, Arch. f. lat. Lexikogr. u. Gramm., 10 (1898), 86. Wellmann, ap. Pauly-Wissowa, RE, s.v. Dioscurides, p. 1141.

8 Both Walde-Hofmann and Ernout-Meillet list longīna under its secondary base, longus.

9 A confusion between the two classes seems to have occurred in a 10th-century passage (dealing with the Hellenization of the Roman military terminology in the Byzantine army since the time of Heraklius) found in the preface of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, De thematibus: Λoγγίνoυς γὰρ ἔλεγoν τoὺς χιλιάρχoυς καί κεντoυρίωνας τoὺς ἑκατoντάρχoυς [“The commanders of a thousand men, then, they (the Romans) used to call ‘longins’, and those of a hundred men, ‘centurions’ ”]. A. Pertusi, Costantino Porfirogenito: de Thematibus (Studi e Testi, CLX; Città di Vaticano, 1952), p. 113 calls Constantine's use of Λoγγîνoς a “blunder” and explains it through association with the Longinus legend.

10 We doubt even the relation which Farinelli (Marrano, p. 19) suggests on the basis of the Jews' not eating pork, between designations of the pig in various languages and their use as vilifications of the Jews. The assumed bridge is: “You don't like pork because you are pigs.” But, to give just one example, Austro-Bavarian saujud (which is quoted in various discussions of our term) belongs clearly in the series saukerl, saumensch, saupack and the inanimate sauwetter (Grimm, Deutsches Wörterb., s.vv.), in which sau- is a prefix of unfriendliness, and can hardly be associated with the eating habits of the vilified. If the converted Jews are called pigs, they are called so because they are Jews, not because they are converts. A 9th-century Byzantine treatise, written by Gregorios Asbestas, a Greek bishop of Sicilian origin, illustrates the point. The passage deals with the convert: “He came to turn Christian, not converted to Christ, … but seeking the promised gold and worldly advantages. He puts up a pretense for the present, soon, however, to return like a swine to his own filth…” (J. Starr, The Jews in the Byzantine Empire [Texte und Forschungen zur byzantinisch-neugriechischen Philologie, XXX; Athens, 1939], p. 137).

11 The text of this epilogue is available in two annotated editions: Moravcsik, J., “Barbarische Sprachreste in der Theogonie des Johannes Tzetzes,” Byzantinisch-neugriechische Jahrbücher, VII (1928–29), 352–65Google Scholar; Hunger, H., “Zum Epilog der Theogonie des Johannes Tzetzes,” Byz.Zeitschr. 46 (1953), 302–07Google Scholar. Both scholars discuss the textual and interpretative difficulties.

12 “And you will find me a Scyth with the Scyths (i.e., a Cuman with the Cumans), a Latin with the Latins, and with all the other nations as one of their nation.”

13 “And the Jews, then, I address fittingly in Hebrew.”

14 “Bewitched house of the mouth of the ravine! Swallower of flies! Blind one! Jewish stone! The Lord has arrived! May lightning strike your head!” Some of the expressions are obscure. The commentators did not point out, e.g., that the first curse centers around the Palestinian toponym Bηθϕαγή, which in Jewish tradition was considered as the most distant district of Jerusalem, sometimes even as being outside of and therefore in opposition to Jerusalem (Strack-Billerbeck, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch, I [München, 1922], pp. 839–40). For the rendering by Tzetzes of Bηθϕαγή as oίκoς στóματoς ϕάραγγoς cf. I. Löw, Rev. des Ét. Juives 62 (1911), 233. Concerning Tzetzes' translation of τιμαîoς as “blind” see Nestle, E., “Der blinde Bettler Bartimäus,” in Marginalien und Materialien (Tübingen, 1893), pp. 8392Google Scholar.

15 We do not know, of course, the context in which the abuses registered by the fieldworker Tzetzes were observed. But it may be well to remember that at exactly the time of Tzetzes, i.e., by the middle of the 12th century, the Jews of Constantinople were divided into two factions, the Rabbinites and the Karaites, which were so hostile to one another, on religious grounds, that their contiguous quarters were separated by a fence (Starr, pp. 242–44). On the Karaites see now: Z. Ankori, Karaites in Byzantium (Columbia Studies in the Social Sciences, no. 597; New York, 1959).

16 We have discussed a similar dichotomy of evaluation in reference to the term magarit (Zeitschr. f. rom. Phil. 76 [1960], 191).

17 Cf. above all H. Grégoire and P. Orgels, Mélanges Georges Smets (Brussels, 1952), pp. 363–400, with a résumé in Nouvelle Clio 4 (1952), 131–34, and additions in Byzantion 22 (1952), 333–35 and 539.

18 Rohlfs, Etymol. Wörterb. d. unteritalienischen Gräzität (Halle, 1930), 1589, indicates that παγανóς, “heidnisch, bäuerisch,” has been in use from the 3rd century on; he does not, however, cite his source. Preisigke, Wörterb. d. griech. Papyrusurkunden (Berlin, 1925—44), s.vv. παγανικóς and παγανóς, though he documents the meaning “laie, zivilist” from the 2nd/3rd century on, records the religious meaning (and with certain doubts) not before the 5th century.

19 Meyer, G., Neugriechische Studien, III (SBWien, Phil. Hist. Cl., CXXX; Vienna, 1894), p. 50Google Scholar; Polites, Παραδóσεις (Athens, 1904), II, 1254 and 1259.

20 Polites, Παραδóσεις, II, 1332–34; Mεγάλη ἑλληνικὴ ἐγκυκλoπαιδεία (Athens, 1926–34), S.V. καλλικάντζαρoς; K. A. Romaios, Mικρὰ μελεγήματα (Salonica, 1955), p. 291.

21 In this connection, it is striking that Silvanus, a rustic Latin deity, particularly revered in the present Balkan area of the Empire (Pauly-Wissowa, RE, s.v. Silvanus, col. 123), was believed to attack women after childbirth by making his way into the house by night in order to vex and harry them (J. G. Frazer, Folk-Lore in the Old Testament [New York, 1923], pp. 436–37). Migliorini, loc.cit., thinks that exactly the name of Silvanus (together with that of the other forest deity, Diana) may have contributed to the creation of a “witch” suffix -ana, exemplified by Venet. pagana, “witch.” It is perhaps not by chance that the same suffix occurs in several of the surnames of Silvanus: Staianus, Lusianus, Publicensianus, Veturianus, Naevianus, Settianus (RE, loc.cit., col. 122). This digression points up, again, the deity rather than the heathen as the possible starting point of the semantic development of certain variants.

22 The bibliography is compiled ap. Gamillscheg, Etymol. Wörterb. d. französ. Sprache, s.v. “galimatias;” Wartburg, FEW, I, 222; Corominas, s.v. “galimatias.” Furthermore: Elwert, Rev. Ling. Rom. 23 (1959), 78–79.

23 Polites, Παρoιμίαι (Athens, 1899–1902), III, 119. Loukatos, Nέα ‘Eστία, 20 (1936), 1575. Acad. of Athens, ‘Iστoρικóν Λεξικóν, III, 528, s.v. βίβλoς.

24 Polites, Παρoιμίαι, III, 549. Loukatos, ibid.

25 Informant R. T., from Cephalonia.

26 Informant K. J., from Cephalonia.

27 Thes. Ling. Lat. s.v., cata.

28 Ioh. Wrobel, Eberhardi Bethuniensis Graecismus (Corp. gramm. med. aev., I; Breslau, 1887), in Index vocabulorum.

29 But cf. Hubschmied, Vox Romanica 8 (1945–46), 129.