Stigma and Final Sigma

Mark Goodacre M.S.Goodacre at bham.ac.uk
Tue Nov 5 12:55:44 EST 2002


On 1 Nov 2002 at 15:03, revelation wrote:

> Stigma as a cursive letter for the number "6": When the Greeks began
> to write in cursive people needed to get rid of the uppercase Digamma
> in favor of another symbol. The only unused lowercase letter not being
> used as a number in the Greek alphabet was final Sigma. As luck would
> have it, final Sigma lies between regular Sigma (200) and Tau (300). A
> logical solution was to combine the initial letters and root numbers
> of Sigma (200 = 2) and Tau (300 = 3). The alphabetic letter Final
> Sigma (seen as a number not a letter) was now called STIGMA to reflect
> the product of the two root values of S x T ... 2 x 3 equals "6."

I find that my thinking is still not clear on this.  You say here, 
Daniel, that "the alphabetic letter Final Sigma . . . was now called 
STIGMA".  But I understood from Stephen and Carl that final sigma and 
stigma were different.  Stephen writes:

> Because of its similarity in shape to the final sigma,
> the stigma is sometimes replaced by the final sigma,
> perhaps due to computing limits or out of ignorance.

And Carl writes the following in response to my question "Is a stigma 
another name for a final sigma?":

> No, it is not; what is perhaps confusing is that the stigma, which
> looks much like a final sigma but the end of the upper line extends
> slightly farther to the rightand was meant to represent the
> combination of sigma and tau, came to serve as the number for "6"
> where the digamma had functioned earlier.

So my understanding is that stigma is *not* the same thing as final 
sigma, or am I missing something somewhere?   I notice when looking 
at the apparatus to Rev. 13.18 in N-A26 that the stigma there is 
clearly represented differently from final sigma;  the stigma has the 
elongated upper line mentioned by Carl above.

The other thing that concerns me in what Daniel writes above is that 
this came in "when the Greeks began to write in cursive".  Looking at 
P115 (late 3rd, early 4th C.), there is clearly a stigma used (C 
shape but with elongated upper line) for 6 in 616 (Chi, Iota, 
Stigma).  There's a good image on-line at 
http://www.csad.ox.ac.uk/POxy/beast616.htm .  So stigma for 6 surely 
didn't come in with the advent of cursive writing, did it?

Finally, I wonder if I might ask for some additional clarification on 
stigma being an abbreviation for sigma + tau?   Does this mean that 
stigma was used in texts as an abbreviation for sigma + tau?  Was 
that the origin of the letter before it was used for the numeral 6?  
Thanks, Carl, for the Herbert Weir Smyth reference;  I've looked that 
up and it was helpful, but somewhat terse.

Many thanks for helping me to get clear on this.
Mark
-----------------------------
Dr Mark Goodacre                 mailto:M.S.Goodacre at bham.ac.uk
  Dept of Theology                  tel: +44 121 414 7512
  University of Birmingham      fax: +44 121 414 4381
  Birmingham    B15 2TT  UK
  
http://www.bham.ac.uk/theology/goodacre
http://NTGateway.com




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