[B-Greek] OUSIEN?

frjsilver at optonline.net frjsilver at optonline.net
Sun Dec 10 18:35:24 EST 2006


Dea Friends --
 
The last line was probably abbreviated in some artistic way so as to make it difficult to read.  How much of any ikon's scriptural quotation gets spelled out is at the discretion of the painter and limited by the image's available space.
 
The words are from IS 43:10 :
EMPROSQEN MOU OUK EGENETO ALLOS QEOS KAI MET' EME OUK  ESTAI
 
This completes or at least echoes the opening lines, which are from REV 1:8 and 22:13.
 
Hope this helps a little!
 
Peace and blessings to all.
 
Father James Silver
 
Monk James
Orthodox Church in America

----- Original Message -----
From: Eric Weiss 
Date: Sunday, December 10, 2006 5:47 pm
Subject: [B-Greek] OUSIEN?
To: b-greek 

> In a book I saw at church today is a photo of an icon of Christ 
> Pantocrator in the 
> inside of a dome of an Orthodox Church - a typical design. 
> Surrounding the 
> icon is the phrase, as I recall (I might be missing a few words 
> or not transcribing 
> it exactly): 
> 
> EGW EIMI LEGEI KURIOS hO QEOS hO PANTOKRATWR 
> TO ALFA KAI TO OMEGA 
> hH ARCH KAI hO TELOS 
> hO PRWTOC KAI hO ESCATOS 
> EMPROSQEN MOU OUSIEN 
> 
> It's this last word - OUSIEN - that has me confused. The first 
> two letters look like 
> the typical icon way of showing OU - i.e., a v-shape on top of 
> an omicron. The 
> icon at the link below shows this in the next to the last line - 
> the "OU MH" has 
> the "OU" written as I describe:
> 
> http://www.orthodoxphotos.com/cgi-
> bin/photo.pl?path=Icons_and_Frescoes/Icons/Jesus_Christ&file=34.jpg
> Anyway, after this "OU" are the letters CIE followed by a 
> subscript-size N. The 
> "C" is of course a sigma, and I assume the little "N" belongs to 
> the preceding 
> letters, but that then spells out "OUSIEN" - and I can't figure 
> out what this is 
> supposed to mean.
> 
> The word KAI was abbreviated as K', but I don't recall any signs 
> of abbreviations 
> in this last word.
> 
> 
> Eric S. Weiss
> 
> 
> 
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