[B-Greek] THIASARCH once only

Anita Clerke clerke at humanperformance.cc
Thu Dec 27 08:10:38 EST 2007


Thank you Elizabeth for doing that search. It is much appreciated.

Thank you too George for clarifying that the search I performed on  
CCE Library yielded a result that, although to me at first sight  
seemed to have been another early christian writers comment on the  
death of Polycarp, was in fact just a chapter from a book written  
just over a  hundred years ago:
History of the Origins of Christianity. Book VI. The Reigns of  
Hadrian and Antoninus Pius. (A.D. 117-161)Author: Renan, Joseph  
Ernest (1823-1892).

I did realise at the time it wasn't the original MPol, that is: The  
letter of the Smyrnaeans or the Martyrdom of Polycarp
Translated by J.B. Lightfoot.  Adapt. and mod. (c) 1990. ATHENA DATA  
PRODUCTS http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/martyrdompolycarp- 
lightfoot.html 23/12/2007; but I certainly had thought the chapter  
titled "The Martyrdom of Polycarpus" was from an early Christian  
source. Thanks again.

I am amazed that THIASARCH appears only once in all of Greek  
literature, Christian and non-Christian.
Could it be that Lucian made a portmanteau in this particular  
instance? Given his extraordinary imagination I presume this is  
possible. At odds with this is the thought that if he had made a new  
word at this point, he may have been unlikely to have been so modest  
about it.

Are there any other words used by Lucian that do not appear in any  
other extant literature?

Did any of the Greek writers within a few hundred years of Lucian  
produce new words, and made a point of indicating that they had in  
fact done so?





More information about the B-Greek mailing list