[B-Greek] "Gnostic" and "agnostic"

George F Somsel gfsomsel at yahoo.com
Wed Apr 13 08:51:36 EDT 2011


I'm not sure about Augustine's knowledge of Greek (or lack thereof), but it 
would seem to me that "those who struggle" would refer to ἀγωνίστης 
AGWNISTHS rather than ἀγνώστης AGNWSTHS (assuming that would be the proper 
form). 


 george
gfsomsel 


… search for truth, hear truth, 
learn truth, love truth, speak the truth, hold the truth, 
defend the truth till death.


- Jan Hus
_________ 




________________________________
From: Stephen Goranson <goranson at duke.edu>
To: B-Greek <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Wed, April 13, 2011 3:25:56 AM
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] "Gnostic" and "agnostic"

A bit of trivia. OED suggests that "agnostic" was coined by Huxley in 1869. On 
Google books I found Agnostics in a book dated 1857, but Google book dates are 
often mistaken, so I got the book. And sure enough, Agnostics was there, 
published in 1857. But the translation of Augustine on Psalms discussed 
Agonistics (those who struggle, fight) both before and after. So Agnostics there 
apparently was a typo.

Stephen Goranson
http://www.duke.edu/~goranson
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