Sator Square

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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Jax
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Re: Sator Square

Post by Jax »

Secret Alias wrote: Tue Mar 20, 2018 3:46 pm seriously?
Do you mean me?
Secret Alias
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Re: Sator Square

Post by Secret Alias »

I mean the equation between a historical Paul and the square
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
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Jax
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Re: Sator Square

Post by Jax »

Secret Alias wrote: Tue Mar 20, 2018 5:47 pm I mean the equation between a historical Paul and the square
I'm just pointing out that if Paul had started the Christian cult with members of the legions of Julius and Augustus Caesar, in the mid to late 1st century BCE, we should expect to see signs of earliest Christianity around areas that are heavy concentrations of retired Roman military. Campania was an area that was heavily resettled with these veteran soldiers.

Of course, the sator square is in no way a settled matter as to Christian origins, but if it were, finding it in Campania would be in keeping with Christianity being in areas with high concentrations of retired Roman veterans.
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maryhelena
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Re: Sator Square

Post by maryhelena »

Jax wrote: Wed Mar 21, 2018 12:22 am
Secret Alias wrote: Tue Mar 20, 2018 5:47 pm I mean the equation between a historical Paul and the square
I'm just pointing out that if Paul had started the Christian cult with members of the legions of Julius and Augustus Caesar, in the mid to late 1st century BCE, we should expect to see signs of earliest Christianity around areas that are heavy concentrations of retired Roman military. Campania was an area that was heavily resettled with these veteran soldiers.

Of course, the sator square is in no way a settled matter as to Christian origins, but if it were, finding it in Campania would be in keeping with Christianity being in areas with high concentrations of retired Roman veterans.
Not forgetting the family connection between Drusilla's son, who died during the Vesuvius disaster, and his aunt, the sister of his mother Drusilla - Bernice.

So on the morrow, when Agrippa was come, and Bernice, with great pomp, and they were entered into the place of hearing with the chief captains and principal men of the city, at the command of Festus Paul was brought in. Acts 25:23

So...on a literal reading of Acts linked to the Josephan story re Drusilla's son - knowledge of the Jesus story - and the story of Paul - could well have been available in Pompeii.....
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
W.B. Yeats
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Jax
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Re: Sator Square

Post by Jax »

As SA has pointed out the word AREPO may be Gaulic for plough.
Carcopino23 also treats AREPO as ἅπαξ, but believes that the word is Celtic in derivation and means ‘plough’. This etymology is based primarily on a remark of Columella,24 an agricultural writer of the first century A.D., who says that the Gauls call half an acre arepennis.
From http://www.umanitoba.ca/colleges/st_pau ... shwick.htm

Julius Caesar had I believe four legions that he started in Gaul that probably had veterans settled in Campania. Some of Paul's 'Galatians' perhaps?
Paul the Uncertain
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Re: Sator Square

Post by Paul the Uncertain »

This year's Uncertaintist Hallowe'en post examines the sator-rotas square.

https://uncertaintist.wordpress.com/202 ... tor-rotas/

Although this thread is in the "Christian texts and history" section of the site, there's little reason to think that the inherently meaningful concrete poem was originally and uniquely Christian or Jewish. The square, and its related linear palindrome (opera sator tenet rotas arepo) has a "broad target cross section," and could easily have been discovered and independently rediscovered throughout the long and widespread use of Latin.

If a Christian or Jew did (re)dicover it, then there's little reason to think further that the starting point was the cruciform not-quite double pater noster with four letters left over. The simple phrase pater noster contains anagram-jumbles of each of the four common Latin words in the diagram (sator, tenet, opera, rotas).

Among them, those four words fill in 23 of the 25 places in the square. Whatever else arepo might have been, if anything, it is the unique completion of that trial square.

Finally, as a bit of "experimental archeology," an English 5x5 square was constructed based upon the instructions suggested by the poem:

S T R A P
T R O B A
R O T O R
A B O R T
P A R T S

Troba seems a worthy parallel to arepo. The obscure modern word is both an attested proper noun (the brand name for a product marketed in the English-speaking world) and a foreign language verb form.
Giuseppe
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Re: Sator Square

Post by Giuseppe »

my two cents:

«The sower (or father) Attis rules the work of rotation ».

Paul the Uncertain
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Re: Sator Square

Post by Paul the Uncertain »

The first installment of the Uncertaintist's discussion of the sator-rotas square emphasized an aspect of the diagram that would mainly appeal to a playful literate audience. It's a fair bet, I think, that whoever first or independently came up with this thing could read and write Latin. Likely the next thing they did was to share the square with their fellow playful literates.

However, the square has also had a definite down-market constituency. Among our earliest known examples is a crudely scrawled graffito scratched onto a public column. The second installment, then, emphasizes the aural appeal of the simple row-wise or column-wise "reading" of the square, which requires no more literacy than knowing the alphabet (or having a friend who does and reads it aloud).

It's not either-or, but two complementary aspects of the same object: easier to discover than it might at first appear, and offering several ways to enjoy it regardless of educational level.

https://uncertaintist.wordpress.com/202 ... as-part-2/
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