[B-Greek] OUSIEN?
frjsilver at optonline.net
frjsilver at optonline.net
Mon Dec 11 13:17:16 EST 2006
As in the ms tradition, ikonography's abbreviations are conventional and generally understood by the people who read and write them -- which takes a certain amount of instruction. It's also true that many of the scriptural quotes represent texts with which people would recognize from hearing them read in Greek during liturgical services and homilies.
Were parchment in limitless supply and wallspace infinite in ancient times, I suppose there would be no tradition of abbreviating texts. It's only with the production of modern paper and more efficient techniques of printing that spelling out every word became a viable option for book publishing, but it took a few generations to catch on, accustomed as people were to the older style.
In fact, early incunabula often include hand-drawn (or at least hand-colored) incipits and illustrations; the late 18th-c foundational documents of the USA, for instance, are full of ligatures and abbreviations, engrossed by hand as they originally were.
In the transmission of biblical texts, when (as occasionally happened) the wider conventions of scribal shorthand weren't closely observed, strangely written and even more strangely read variations arose in the ms tradition of the Greek scriptures, although such purely orthographic considerations cannot be held solely responsible for all the variants of which we are now aware.
These characteristic variations in the Greek scriptural ms stream pretty much never result in controversies over interpretation so severe as to bring the larger Tradition inro question, yet they are embarrassed by the more scrupulous fidelity of Hebrew scribes to the consonantal text of the Torah.
Father James Silver
----- Original Message -----
From: Eric Weiss
Date: Monday, December 11, 2006 12:54 pm
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] OUSIEN?
To: frjsilver at optonline.net
Cc: b-greek
> Isaiah 43:10b (LXX): hOTI EGW EIMI EMPROSQEN MOU OUK EGENETO
> ALLOS QEOS
> KAI MET' EME OUK ESTAI
>
> So ... how are persons like myself supposed to know that
> OUSIEN is an abbreviation for
> OUK ESTAI? Does it mean OU(K) (E)S(TA)I hEN - even though hEN
> is not part of the verse?
> Or is this a common enough abbreviation that iconographers and
> iconophiles would know it?
>
> frjsilver at optonline.net wrote:
> It's an abbreviation for OUK ESTAI.
>
> The quote from IS 43:10 was shortened to
> EMPROSQEN MOU...OUK ESTAI
>
> Father James Silver
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Eric Weiss
>
> Date: Monday, December 11, 2006 10:18 am
> Subject: Re: [B-Greek] OUSIEN?
> To: frjsilver at optonline.net, b-greek
>
> > So ... any idea/guess what the OUSIEN following EMPROSQEN MOU
> is
> > an abbreviation
> > for/of, esp. if it's a reference to the Isaiah passage?
> >
> > For what it's worth, the book in which I saw this photograph
> > of the dome Christ Pantocrator
> > icon is this one, in case anyone here has access to it and can
> > look at the picture I'm
> > referring to:
> >
> > Are you saved?: The Orthodox Christian process of salvation by
> > Barbara Pappas
> >
> > http://www.amazon.com/Are-you-saved-Christian-
> > salvation/dp/0962372145/ref=si3_rdr_bb_product/002-3530985-5477634
> >
> > frjsilver at optonline.net wrote:
> > Dear 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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> know.
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> > > ---
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> > >
> >
> >
> >
> > Eric S. Weiss
> >
> >
> >
> > ---------------------------------
> > Everyone is raving about the all-new Yahoo! Mail beta.
> >
>
>
>
> Eric S. Weiss
>
>
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