Pilate and Josephus

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rakovsky
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Re: Pilate and Josephus

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Ben C. Smith wrote: Tue Mar 13, 2018 7:11 am
rakovsky wrote: Tue Mar 13, 2018 7:04 am I couldn't find the etymology for Decius. Latin Decian - to declare and Spanish Decir - to say is The closest that I could get.
Where are you getting a Latin verb decian? That is not even conjugated like a Latin verb. Spanish "decir" comes from the Latin dico/dicere.
My mistake again.
A Google book search said that Decian was Latin for declare.

But in reality, it is a Spanish conjugation of Decir:
https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/decían#Spanish

Latin Dico was Deico in its archaic form according to Wiktionary.
https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/dico

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Re: Pilate and Josephus

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rakovsky wrote: Tue Mar 13, 2018 8:19 am
Ben C. Smith wrote: Tue Mar 13, 2018 7:11 am
rakovsky wrote: Tue Mar 13, 2018 7:04 am I couldn't find the etymology for Decius. Latin Decian - to declare and Spanish Decir - to say is The closest that I could get.
Where are you getting a Latin verb decian? That is not even conjugated like a Latin verb. Spanish "decir" comes from the Latin dico/dicere.
My mistake again.
A Google book search said that Decian was Latin for declare.

But in reality, it is a Spanish conjugation of Decir:
https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/decían#Spanish
Right. "Ellos decían" = "they were saying" in Spanish.
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Re: Pilate and Josephus

Post by Paul the Uncertain »

rakovsky
My guess is that he was spinning a report based partly on real events. ... My guess is that Josephus likely took that information and spun a lurid tale, naming his characters Paulina (after Paul, who is alluded to in the next story about the 4 Jewish swindlers) and Decius Mundus (meaning "Tenth World", a very unlikely name for a real person).
That's pretty serious if Josephus knowingly made things up and invented false names, isn't it? If true, this would affect the interpretation of the now-adjacent Testimonium. For example, the hypothesis that the TF is original, but tongue-in-cheek and exaggerated for satirical effect would become tenable, maybe even attractive (Eusebius becomes the first apologist not to get the joke; much later Agapius "cleans it up" to kill the humor and salvage Eusebius' reputation).

'Tis a strange business, this historical Jesus thing.
... I think that Suetonius said that in c. 19 ad the Egyptian cults were banished due to temple prostitution...
I don't recall that. Suetonius did add to Tactitus' information that astrologers, too, were banished (at Tiberius 36, although he doesn't say it was all one enactment for all three groups). Maybe you're thinking of the previous section's (35) remarks about prostitution among matrons, and exile being the penalty for some of them?

Here's an accessible online copy for convenient reference:

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/R ... rius*.html

Or were you thinking of a different remark surviving elsewhere?
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Re: Pilate and Josephus

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Ben,

I had seen someone online in a discussion on the Paulina story claim that Decius referred to Tenth, which was why I took Decius Mundus to mean Tenth World. But they didn't cite anything to back up their claim and could be wrong. Deca- or Deci- I think are root words for ten or tenth, as in decade, decathalon, decimal, and decimeter.

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Re: Pilate and Josephus

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rakovsky wrote: Tue Mar 13, 2018 12:14 pm Ben,

I had seen someone online in a discussion on the Paulina story claim that Decius referred to Tenth, which was why I took Decius Mundus to mean Tenth World. But they didn't cite anything to back up their claim and could be wrong. Deca- or Deci- I think are root words for ten or tenth, as in decade, decathalon, decimal, and decimeter.
The words starting with deca- are from the Greek δέκα. Most Latin words having to do with the number ten retain that m (decimus, decimo, and so on). Decius certainly resembles decimus, obviously, but remember: it is also both just a Roman name (either a praenomen or a nomen).
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Re: Pilate and Josephus

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Decimus is the Latin word for tenth, and it falls into a class of similar praenomina including the masculine names Quintus, Sextus, Septimus, Octavius, and Nonus, as well as the feminine names Prima, Secunda, Tertia, Quarta, Quinta, Sexta, Septima, Octavia, and Nona. It is generally believed that the name was originally given to a tenth child, a tenth son, or a tenth daughter. However, it has also been argued that Decimus and the other praenomina of this type could refer to the month of the year in which a child was born. It may be that such names could be given for either reason.
...
The Oscan praenomen Decius or Deciis is derived from the same root, and gave rise to the patronymic gens Decia.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimus_(praenomen)

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Re: Pilate and Josephus

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rakovsky wrote: Tue Mar 13, 2018 3:17 pm
Decimus is the Latin word for tenth, and it falls into a class of similar praenomina including the masculine names Quintus, Sextus, Septimus, Octavius, and Nonus, as well as the feminine names Prima, Secunda, Tertia, Quarta, Quinta, Sexta, Septima, Octavia, and Nona. It is generally believed that the name was originally given to a tenth child, a tenth son, or a tenth daughter. However, it has also been argued that Decimus and the other praenomina of this type could refer to the month of the year in which a child was born. It may be that such names could be given for either reason.
...
The Oscan praenomen Decius or Deciis is derived from the same root, and gave rise to the patronymic gens Decia.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimus_(praenomen)
Ah, very interesting. Apparently Latin borrowed the praenomen from Oscan. Do you think a reader of Josephus' Greek would have picked up on this Oscan etymology of a Latin nomen?
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Re: Pilate and Josephus

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Oscan was still spoken in central Italy in 100 AD about the time of writing, and Josephus was narrating Rome's events at that point, so a Roman name would be chosen even if the character were fictional and the audience were Greek. Decius and Decimus aren't Greek, but nor is Mundus. Deci shows up as a root word meaning Tenth in numerous languages like Sicilian IIRC, and deca is Greek, so it looks discernible. I would not be surprised if as you asked some Greek readers could discern the etymology of Decius and others could not.

I think that your concern is that my idea of "tenth" as an alluded meaning in Josephus' Decius is too cryptic for the average reader, but I find Josephus to be intentionally cryptic here. For example, when on my own in reading Antiquities looking for cryptic allusions to Jesus, I first read the story of the 4 Jewish swindlers in Book 18, chapter 3, I considered if it could refer to Christianity. But I ruled that out, not seeing anything clearly related even as a metaphor - there were no crucifixions, fishermen, Galileans, etc. in the story. Its only after reading the scholars' comments that I came to see it as a reference to Paul collecting money for the Jerusalem church and its three leaders.

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Re: Pilate and Josephus

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rakovsky wrote: Tue Mar 13, 2018 4:11 pm Oscan was still spoken in central Italy in 100 AD about the time of writing, and Josephus was narrating Rome's events at that point, so a Roman name would be chosen even if the character were fictional and the audience were Greek. Decius and Decimus aren't Greek, but nor is Mundus. Deci shows up as a root word meaning Tenth in numerous languages like Sicilian IIRC, and deca is Greek, so it looks discernible. I would not be surprised if as you asked some Greek readers could discern the etymology of Decius and others could not.
Well, if you ask people what something means, you have kind of tipped them off to the fact that it means something that may not have sprung to mind on its own. :)
I think that your concern is that my idea of "tenth" as an alluded meaning in Josephus' Decius is too cryptic for the average reader....
Yes. To expect readers of Greek to pick up on the Oscan origins of a Latin name to get "tenth," and then to skip right past the usual meanings of the cognomen to get "world" (instead of "elegant" or "decoration") seems like madness to me. It helps a bit if all that was expected was to compare Decius to decimus in a punning sort of way; but, even then, as I have said, Decius was a real name and probably would have raised no more flags than "Brenda" or "Phil" do in English.

And what message would Josephus be conveying with "tenth world" or whatever? What is the payoff?
...but I find Josephus to be intentionally cryptic here. For example, when on my own in reading Antiquities looking for cryptic allusions to Jesus, I first read the story of the 4 Jewish swindlers in Book 18, chapter 3, I considered if it could refer to Christianity. But I ruled that out, not seeing anything clearly related even as a metaphor - there were no crucifixions, fishermen, Galileans, etc. in the story. Its only after reading the scholars' comments that I came to see it as a reference to Paul collecting money for the Jerusalem church and its three leaders.
If Josephus is being intentionally cryptic here, does that mean, on your view, that he himself thought of "tenth world" when he made up the name Decius Mundus, but had no intention of his readers picking up on that meaning?
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Re: Pilate and Josephus

Post by Charles Wilson »

"Tithing World", perhaps?
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