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+--- Thread: The quest for Anchiton (/thread-2521.html)
RE: The quest for Anchiton - Anton - 23-10-2018
At leisure I checked Cod. Sang. 266, which is separated by some 150 years from the creation of De Tabernaculo, and it's amusing, but it says neither "anchiton" nor "amianton" but "amiton".
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Does anybody know any earlier online manuscripts of this work please?
EDIT: Note how the scribe wrote "lini" and corrected it to "ligni" - an easy-to-make mistake which has been repeated as late as in print books (Searcher posted one such example).
RE: The quest for Anchiton - -JKP- - 23-10-2018
(23-10-2018, 09:30 PM)Anton Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view....
What I must say is that "amianton" is a far more common word than "anchiton", it was early used to designate asbestos and, if I'm not mistaken, it is used in the New Testament (needs check). If the latter is correct, then it is incomprehensible that any learned bible scholar would use "amianton" instead of "anchiton", and vice versa. It would also be very strange that anyone would use the word "amianton" to designate the wood, while knowing that it is asbestos. This could be done only be way of blind copy of what "multa patres" wrote. As David informed me, "amiantos" is asbestos in Spanish still.
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It might not be as strange as it seems. They may not always have meant "wood" when they used the lignum/lignan/etc. words. They may have meant "woody" or "fibrous" and asbestos is very fibrous. Look how it resembles the texture of wood:
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RE: The quest for Anchiton - Anton - 23-10-2018
The Exodus is originally in Hebrew, and it does mean wood. Would, after that, one assume that the tabernacle or its altar was made of linen or even asbestos instead?
I'm more than convinced that all instances of "lini" instead of ligni are just misprints or copies from scribal errors. Note how "lini" is corrected to "ligni" in the MS that I quote above - quite indicative!
RE: The quest for Anchiton - Anton - 24-10-2018
The Septuagint tells yet another tale, Exodus 27 begins like this:
Quote:Και ποιήσεις θυσιαστήριον ἐκ ξύλων ἀσήπτων
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With "ξύλων ἀσήπτων" meaning "wood that does not rot" (ξύλων = wood, and "asepton" as adjective, and from this adjective the modern "aseptic" is derived, no doubt).
That has logic in it, at least.
RE: The quest for Anchiton - Searcher - 24-10-2018
Actually, Saint Jerome commented this fragment (Ezekiel, 41:22):
English Standard Version
an altar of wood, three cubits high, two cubits long, and two cubits broad. Its corners, its base, and its walls were of wood. He said to me, “This is the table that is before the LORD.”
He supposed that it was made from asbestos (amianton), since "it is not consumed when it burns". I didn't find any direct publications, but paleographers write so.
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You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. of the site BiblHub contains cross references where shittim wood, acacia and cedar are used in different translations of different fragments.
So, I don't see anything surprising in the word amianton of Hieronimus, as asbestos was used in ancient lamps and altars to protect from fire, especially as because the etymology of the word shettim (or settim, shittim, etc.) is unclear. Some glossariums or thesaurums say that Lira (Nicholas of Lira) asserts that shittim is chittim or chettim. Now I can't give a link, I'll do it later.
Anyway, it is very interesting that Nicholas uses another word (anchiton) for amianton, and its description is quite similar to the description of the material which covered the gates of Alexander the Great, and one of the versions of its name is also anchiton. We read that some suppose it to be asbestos, as well.
RE: The quest for Anchiton - -JKP- - 24-10-2018
Asbestos = "alumen plumeum"
Alumen/Alumine/amianthus/amiantos = alum (sulfate of potassium and aluminum)
In the parlance of the ancients and medievals, both were minerals called "alumen". One was used for insulation, the other ground to a powder for medicine, baking, and dying.
Raw alum looks like this: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Raw asbestos looks like this: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
RE: The quest for Anchiton - Anton - 24-10-2018
Yes, St.Gerome commented upon Ezekiel, as Banjes informs us in the 1591 book. I think that this should be consulted in some manuscript though (preferably in a number of them), and the earlier it is, the better. In the matter such as this I find it extremely unreliable to consult later printed texts which not only build upon scribal errors of many centuries of manuscripting, but also introduce all kind of mess by themselves.
We already see that in the earliest (or at least one of) preserved MS of De Tabernaculo, the matter is called amiton, and not amianton. The interesting side of this is that neither the Hebrew Old Testament nor the Septuagint suggest any idea of the wood not consumed by fire, so I wonder whence Bede took it. Since St.Gerome also talks of this, it's unlikely that St Bede invented it altogether. So it makes sense to consult St. Gerome next (btw, he was criticized for introducing much voluntary distortion into his Vulgate).
RE: The quest for Anchiton - MarcoP - 24-10-2018
(22-10-2018, 04:46 PM)Anton Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Searcher found the mention of "anchiton" in comments to the Bible by Nicolas de Lyra, as printed in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. in 1549. This Lyra was a Frenchman living in XIII - XIV centuries, and he was a great authority upon the Bible, with his comments widely referred to in the Western world for centuries to come.
In fact, the messy layout of the book makes it difficult to decide whether the comment of interest is by de Lyra or from Glossa Ordinaria, but anyway its comment to Exodus 27 runs as this:
Quote:Nec mirum hoc de sanctuario et interioribus templi et altaris et thymiamatis credere, cuius etiam anchiton ligni genus vel ligno simile, quanto plus arserit tanto mundius inveniatur.
A translation would be welcome, but with the help of Google I understand that this refers to "anchiton" as a kind of wood that cannot be destroyed by fire, only emerges from fire cleaner than it was.
Exodus 27:1 in itself is about making the altar of the "shittim" wood:
Quote:And thou shalt make an altar of shittim wood...
As VViews pointed out, the "thymiamatis" of the biblical comment and the "shittim" (or "setim") of the Bible are the same thing, something of Acacia species.
In the preceding sentences, the text discusses how a wooden altar was not burnt by fire: Bede quotes Jerome, saying that the altar was made of "heavenly wood" ("de lignis paradisi"). Our sentence follows:
Quote:Nec mirum hoc de sanctuario et interioribus templi et altari thymiamatis(*) credere, cum etiam anchiton ligni genus vel ligno simile, quanto plus arserit tanto mundius inveniatur.
(*) I believe that "altaris et thymiamatis" is an error in the 1545 book. I follow You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. instead.
Translation: It is not strange to believe this [what Jerome says] about the sanctuary, and the interior of the temple, and the incense altar, since also "anchiton," a kind of wood or something similar to wood, the more was burnt the cleaner is found.
This time I have to disagree with VViews. This work seems to use "thymiama" as "incense" or something similar. For instance You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. "cella thymiamatis sive storacis" (the storeroom of thymiama or storax).
RE: The quest for Anchiton - davidjackson - 24-10-2018
Apropos of nothing, I seem to remember that the Romans made a luxury cloth woven out of asbestos. Must have been scratchy!
It was certainly well known as a novelty throughout antiquity and the middle ages. Charlemagne had an asbesto tablecloth he used to perform tricks with.
In the link MarcoP provides above, the correct latin word amianto[n] is used, not anchiton. Which is strange, because in Biblia Santa... it's clearly anchiton, and has a marginalia reference to prove it. I wonder why the difference?
In Bibliorium sacrorum et glossa ordinaria (You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.) there are two index cross references to anchiton where it is described as a tree giving a strong and clean burning fire:
Quote:anchiton ligni genus vel ligno simile, quanto plus arserit, tan to mundius inenitur (p.1.col.773.a)(I haven't tracked down where the cross reference is taking us yet...)
RE: The quest for Anchiton - Helmut Winkler - 24-10-2018
There is ancistrum or anchistris, meaning a surgical retractor (I hope that is the correct English term, 'chirurgischer Haken'), Caelius Aurelianus and Isidor, Etym. 4,11,3. Amiantus is Plinius, Nat. Hist. 36,139 and Isidor 16,4,19. And I would consult the Vetus Latina text of Ex. 27,1
ancistrium is derived from the Greek, of course - ἄγκιστριον