medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
--- Robert Kraft <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and
> culture
>
> Great idea, ELAI- ("oil") as the root.
Thank you. It struck me (and here I am trespassing on ground of which I
know very little) that the Jewish user, or perhaps even coiner, or this
word, was making a compare-and-contrast between Jesus and the Messiah
still expected by the Jewish people. He might not wish to use the word
Christos/Christus as a translation of Messiah, since this had been well
and truly appropriated by the Christians, but had used what he took to
be a synonym, 'the oiled one.'
If he actually coined the word, or indeed if another member of his
faith community coined it with a similar purpose, then we might not
find it in the dictionaries. Indeed its authenticity and grammaticality
would depend on his own mastery or otherwise of the Greek language. It
might not be very good Greek, but that would be because he was not a
good Graicist (Greekist?).
The late Metropolitan Anthony Bloom has a meditation somewhere making
play on the words 'mercy' and 'olive oil' in Greek. He himself admits
that he is not a Greek philologist and the connexion could be entirely
spurious, but if he could see a connexion, perhaps our ancient source
could also do so. After all medieval literature is littered with false,
and sometimes laughable, etymologies: an elephant's proboscis,
according to the Bestiaries, is so called because it is 'for the
bushes' (pro boscis).
Bill.
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