¹ Pejorative εὐλογία should no longer be illustrated from Aesop Fab. 160. The apparatus of the three critical editions show no knowledge of what is quoted from Coraes's edition (Paris, 1810) in Grimm's lexicon (1868) and docilely repeated by Thayer, Sanday & Headlam et al.; cf. Chambry (1926) 2.361; Hausrath & Hunger (1940/1970) 1/1.187; and especially Perry, , Aesopica I (Urbana: Illinois, 1952) 381.Google Scholar

² MS 460 was first brought seriously to the attention of biblical scholarship by Rinck, W. F.; cf. Lucubratio Critica in Acta Apostolorum, Epistolas Catholicas et Paulinas (Basel: Schneider, 1830) 19, 30–41.Google Scholar At 134, Rinck ‘dared’ (ausim) to defend εὐγλωττία, on the grounds of the pejorative use of εὐλογία and the unlikelihood that εὐγλωττία is a gloss or that Paul would have used two such similar words as we have in TR.

³ Cat. 4.2 (Reischl & Rupp [1848] 1.90). This quotation has not hitherto been recorded by commentators or editors and is still ignored by Nestle-Aland²⁷. Since he often uses the εὐλογ-wordgroup in eucharistic contexts (see PGL), it is possible that it was Cyril himself who was responsible for the change, which then infiltrated an ancestor of 460. On the other hand, he had used διàτῆς εὐγλωττίας just four lines earlier and it may still have been in his mind.

⁴ The great kindness of Prof. H. J. Frede, Director of the Vetus Latina Institut, Beuron, allows me to augment the OL witnesses to this omission. My analysis of the patristic quotations of the verse shows that Chromatius (CChr 9A.368), the Leonine Sacramentary (SC 65.202), the Balliol MS of Pelagius (TaS 9/2.124) and possibly Augustine (CSEL 88.123) have no equivalent for καίεὐλογίας. Though this is an argument from silence, neither does any pre-Hieronymian writer.

⁵ (Oxford: Clarendon, 1707) CXXXVa = (Leipzig: Gleditsch, 1723) 135 §1288.

⁶ Though no pre-Pauline examples of the complex abstract noun χρηστολογία are extant, its constituent elements were used separately in disapproving contexts; cf. Menander (Kock frags. 725; 745) and especially Herodian 8.3.4 μή πιστεύειν δέ ὑποσχέσεσι τυράννου έπιόρκου τε καί άπατεῶνος, μηδὲ χρηστοῖς λόγοις δελεασθέντας ὀλέθρῳ προύπτῳ παραδοθῆναι, and Palladas, Anth. Gr. 10.95 (references taken from Wettstein but modernized). Add Aesop Fab. 22 with its four conclusions to the four versions of the fable of the Fox and the Woodcutter (Hausrath & Hunger 1/1.32–4); the second epimyth runs ὁ μῦθος πρὸς ἐκείνους τοὺς ἀνθρώπους τοὺς χρηστὰ μὲν έπαγγομένους διὰ λόγων, δι’ ἔργων δὲ φαῦλα δρῶντας. Observation of inconsistency between words and deeds was and is universal; cf. Matt 7.15; Titus 1.16; Plutarch Aem. 8.2/3, where an explanation is given of the nickname of Antigonus III of Macedonia,Δώσων: ὡς ἐπαγγελτικὸς (μέν), οὐ τελεσιουργὸςδὲ τῶν ὑποσχέσεων, a nickname that at Cor. 11.3 Plutarch classes as a σκῶμμα; at Mor. 1117DEhe defends Socrates against the early Epicurean charge of inconsistency, ἕτερα μὲν διελέγου …, ἕτερα δὲ ἕπραττες.

⁷ See F. Field's note in his edition of John Chrysostom's commentary on Matthew (vols. 1–3; Cambridge, 1839) 3.158. S.v. Ίάμβη the Etymologicon Magnum records a verb ἀχρηστολογεῖν, used of smutty jokes (Gaisford [1848] 463.23–6). The context shows that it is ἅχρηστος, not χρηστός, that is the first basic element. Unlike the parallels in n. 6, there is no inconsistency here: Iambe's jokes are matched by suggestive poses, σχήματα ἅχρηστα. A. de Longpéier contributed a note on the nature of Iambe's indecency to Miller, E., Mélanges de littérature grecque contenant un grand nombre de textes inédits (Paris, 1868) 459–60.Google Scholar

⁸ Cf. CPG 3 §7558: ‘conscriptum s. ix ineunte’.

⁹ Cf. Lake, K. & Cadbury, H. J., The Beginnings of Christianity: Part I. The Acts of the Apostles (5 vols., edd. Jackson, F. J. Foakes & Lake, K.; London: Macmillan, 1920–1933) 4.211:Google Scholar ‘The etymological approach doubtless throws more darkness than light on the actual meaning of such a word’ (sc.σπερμολόγος); Barr, J., The Semantics of Biblical Language (Oxford: University, 1961) ch. 6.Google Scholar

¹⁰ First in the second edition of his Greek-Latin NT (1519), in loc.: unde Caesares quosdam oratione quam re benigniores, vulgo Chrestologos dictos accepimus, most accessible in Desiderii Erasmi Roterodami Opera Omnia (= OO) (Leiden, 1703; repr. Hildesheim: Olms, 1962) 6.653E.Google Scholar This information is clearly derived from the Historia Augusta (= HA) and/or the Epitome de Caesaribus, both of which Erasmus had edited and Froben published the previous year, in June 1518. But he had been familiar with HA and the word χρηστολόγος ten years earlier. The word is found in one of the Adagia, as its title and with its origin precisely indicated, first in 1508. Erasmus augmented this entry in the 1515 edition with the reference to Paul and Rom 16.18. This makes one wonder why he did not insert the parallel in the first edition of his NT in 1516. The final, composite form of the Adagium (1.10.54) can be found in OO 2.383C. It is also found in Adagium 4.5.92, first in 1526, as a synonym for Doson (see n. 6), and in De Copia, first in 1534 (OO 2.1074E; 1.58E). Doson also occurs in Adagium 4.10.97, first in 1533 (OO 2.1181C). For this last datum and the 1526 date above I am indebted to Prof. Felix Heinimann of Basel. W. H. D. Suringar illustrated its currency as a contemporary proverb and nickname in Erasmus over Nederlandsche Spreekwoorden en Spreekwoordelijke Uitdrukkingen van zijnen Tijd (Utrecht: Kemink, 1873) 60–1,Google Scholar but one is bound to ask how many of these examples are independent of Erasmus.

¹¹ 13.5; 12.1–2 (Hohl [1927/1955] 1.124–5). Cf. Herodian 2.3.6 for Pertinax' comments on the difficulty of returning favours. None of this personal and domestic information appears in the otherwise excellent dossier on the emperor in K. Schubring & Petersen, L., edd., Prosopographia Imperil Romani: Saec. I.II.III (= PIR) 4/2 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1958) §73.Google Scholar This characterization of Pertinax is worth noting for another reason. Not only was he called chrestologus (13.5) but he was not ever believed to be simplex (12.1). Now, instead of innocentium, some Latin renderings of ἀκάκων (Rom 16.18) have the synonym simplicium (Ambrosiaster [CSEL 81/1.489]; Jerome [GCS 49.97]). Paul's opponents use χρηστολογία to deceive the hearts of the simplices, and Pertinax’ opponents call him chrestologus and not simplex. The fact that the first writer to use χρηστολογία and the first writer to use χρηστολόγος associate the two is noteworthy, but perhaps no more can be deduced than that χρηστολογία and ἀκακία belong to the same semantic field. Similarly, Palladas (see n. 6) can call διπλοῦν the man who is χρηστὸν λόγοισι, πολέμιον δὲ τοῖς τρόποις.

¹² 18.4 (Pichlmayr & Gründel [1911/1966]) 154. The Greek name may refer to and poke fun at the education which Pertinax received from a Greek teacher and his own adoption of the same profession; cf. also HA Pert. 1.4.

¹³ p. L. Schmidt deals only briefly with this in PRE Suppl. 15 (Münich: Druckenmüller, 1978) 1674.11–18.Google Scholar

¹⁴ 2.8; 15.8. On Marius, cf. PIR (n. 11) 5/2 (1983) §308. The relations between Marius, HA and the Epitome, all with particular reference to χρηστολόγος, are variously explored in Werner, R., ‘Der historische Wert der Pertinaxvita in den Scriptores Historiae Augustae’, Klio 26 (1933) 283–322, esp. 315, 321;CrossRefGoogle ScholarKolb, F., Literarische Beziehungen zwischen Cassius Dio, Herodian und der Historia Augusta (Bonn: Habelt, 1972) n. 332 on 63–4;Google ScholarSchlumberger, J., Die Epitome de Caesaribus (Münich: Beck, 1974) 110Google Scholar ⋍ id., ‘Die Epitome de Caesaribus und die Historia Augusta’, in von Straub, J., ed., Bonner Historia-Augusta-Colloquium 1977/1978 (Bonn: Habelt, 1976) 201–19, esp. 205;Google Scholar and, most fully, in Schwartz, J., ‘Histoire Auguste et Epitome’, in von Straub, J., ed., Bonner Historia-Augusta-Colloquium 1977/1978 (Bonn: Habelt, 1980) 219–24.Google Scholar Schwartz wants to derive χρηστολόγος from Dio's and Herodian's descriptions of Pertinax’ goodness and eloquence, arguing that the late fourth century definition - suave but unreliable - need not determine early second century usage. He mentions Rom 16.18 on 221. (See n. 33 below for a suggestion about the original meaning of χρηστολόγος.) R. Syme, who in general was more cautious than his continental colleagues about attributing material to Marius, also ascribes the χρηστολόγος tag to him; cf. Emperors and Biography: Studies in the Historia Augusta (Oxford: Clarendon, 1971) 131–2;Google Scholar cf. 117–18; id., Ammianus and the Historia Augusta (ibid., 1968) 91.

¹⁵ A shark is not a bird, but ‘loan shark’ or even ‘Jaws’ may catch some of the feral, ruthless quality of Lucilius's barb which HA (or Marius?) relished and reapplied. Consult the notes of Marx (1905: 2.350–1) and Charpin (1991: 3.263). Charpin actually proposed requin as a translation. Cf. Arnott, W. G., ‘Notes on gavia and mergus in Latin authors’, CQ ns 14 (1964) 249–62, esp. 259.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁶ Of course χρηστολόγος might have occurred in those parts of Dio his medieval epitomators chose to omit. The Pertinaxvita of both Victor and Eutropius occupies only four lines each. See Dufraigne's notes in his edition of Victor (1975: 119–20). He dates the composition to c. 360. Eutropius is about five years later.

¹⁷ Cp. NH 19.129; 20.73; 21.88.

¹⁸ The connection, and therefore the argument, between two pairs of clauses or sentences in this extract have been disturbed in transmission. Instead of quod quidem, read by Sillig (1853), Jones (1951), André (1965), Semi (1978) and König & Winckler (1979), other editors read quando quidem (Detlefsen [1868]) and quamquam idem (Mayhoff [1892]). Instead of et silvestre genus - alii hedypnoida vocant - … (Sillig, Detlefsen, Jones), other editors read est et silvestre genus alterum - hedypnoida vocant - … (Mayhoff, André, König & Winckler), and et silvestre genus alterum (hedypnoida vocant) (Semi).

¹⁹ Chreston is also mentioned in Pliny's own famous index to the whole work: 1.20.30. It is not surprising, and perhaps not irrelevant, that two words variously akin to chreston are also names of plants. Pliny himself registers philanthropon (NH 24.176; 27.32; = goose-grass or cleavers), a synonym in non-botanical Greek for chreston. Secondly, Ps.-Hippocrates (fourth cent. B C) mentions a plant, used in obstetrics for the removal of a dead foetus, that he does not allow us to identify but calls χάριεν (Littré [1853] 8.186). In fact, Pliny prescribes cichorium for the same purpose, though differently applied (NH 20.74). So, is χάριεν cichorium I chreston? Claims similar to those made for chreston by the Magi were also made by them for verbeneca: hac perunctos impetrare quae velint … amicitias conciliare (NH 25.106); for heliochrysus: ad gratiam quoque vitae gloriamque (NH 21.66); and for lion fat (!): faciliorem gratiam apud populos regesve (NH 28.89). Earlier this century, a historian of Greek science, Max Wellmann, made three attempts to identify the source of ‘das Magierzitat’ about chreston in NH 20.74,Google Scholar in two articles in Hermes, both entitled ‘Beiträge zur Quellenanalyse des älteren Plinius’, 59 (1924) 129–56; 68 (1933) 93–105, and in Die ΦΥΣΙΚΑdes Bolos Demokritos und der Magier Anaxilaos aus Larissa Teil I (Abhandlungen der preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaflen, Jahrgang 1928, Phil.-hist. Klasse, Nr. 7; Berlin: Akademie, 1928) 48–52. In 1924, 134, he proposed Xenocrates of Aphrodisias, but his reference to another of his articles, one devoted to Xenocrates in Hermes 42 (1907) 614–29, esp. 629,Google Scholar is not particularly helpful. Nowhere there does he deal with NH 20.74–5 or a ‘Magierzitat’. In 1928 it was the turn of Anaxilaos of Larissa and, finally, in 1933, 100–5, he opted for Apollodorus (of [?] Telmessos). In other words, there is no certain evidence and five years later, J. Bidez & F. Cumont denied that a source could be identified; cf. Les Mages Hellénisés (2 vols.; Paris: Société d'Éditions ‘Les Belles Lettres’, 1938) 1.117–20,Google Scholar esp. 120 and n. 1; 2.166–73, esp. 170: ‘d'origine douteuse’. See also Boyce, M. & Grenet, F., A History of Zoroastrianism (3 vols.; Leiden: Brill, 1975–1991) 3.532–3Google Scholar (by Roger Beck). With Paul in mind, perhaps we should not forget that Pliny knew of a Jewish Magianism; cf. NH 30.11.

²⁰ König & Winckler trace the second element of hedypnoida not to πνέω, but to ὕπνος, and translate ‘Süssschläferin’, not Brut but Valium!

²¹ Scarborough, J. & Nutton, V., ‘The Preface of Dioscorides' Materia Medica: Introduction, Translation, and Commentary’, Transactions & Studies of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia 4 (1982) 187–225, esp. 187, 192–4, 198–9.Google ScholarPubMed Their assessment of Tarsus is endorsed by Riddle, J. M., Dioscorides on Pharmacy and Medicine (Austin: University of Texas, 1985) 2.Google Scholar Cf. Philostratus, , VA 7.23,Google Scholar where it is suggested that one source of a Cilician's wealth could have been the misuse of drugs. Dioscorides dealt with κιχόριον s.v. σέρις (2.132–3, Wellmann [1907] 1.203–5), where, incidentally, χρήσιμοι and ἐπίχριστος occur within three lines.

²² Centaurea has been proposed. Cf. also von Soden, W., ed., Akkadisches Handwörterbuch (3 vols.; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1965–1981) 2.675b,Google Scholar who translates ‘murār(t)u(m)’ by ‘etwa “Endivie”’.

²³ Loc. cit. (n. 21).

²⁴ S.vv. ‘chicory’ in the index to Danby's, H. translation of The Mishnah (Oxford: University, 1933)Google Scholar, and ‘endives’ in the Index volume to the Soncino translation of the Babylonian Talmud (London: Soncino, 1952). The secondary literature includes Löw, I., Aramäische Pflanzennamen (Leipzig: Engelmann, 1881) 253–6,Google Scholar and his monumental Die Flora der Juden (4 vols.; Vienna etc.: Löwit, 1924–1934) 1.415–20;Google ScholarDalman, G., Arbeit und Sitte in Palästina (vols. 1–7; repr. Hildesheim: Olms, 1964) 1/2.344–8; 2.285; 6.87–8;Google ScholarSegal, J. B., The Hebrew Passover from the Earliest Times to AD 70 (London: Oxford University, 1963) 169–70.Google Scholar

²⁵ Of course, 16.17–20, or 16 as a whole, have been claimed not to belong to Paul's original letter to the Romans. My evidence here will help to show what links there are. Cf. also Lightfoot, J. B. on Phil 3.18 (6th ed.; London: Macmillan, 1890) 155.Google Scholar

²⁶ Although the jingle must have been frequently perpetrated, note the repetition of -λογι-, matching the repetition of -ολογιας in Rom 16.18. R. W. DeWitt devoted a chapter to the philosophical context of ‘Beguiling Speech’ in Colossians, translating 2.4: ‘… that no one may lead you astray with plausible reasoning’; cf. St Paul and Epicurus (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1954) 73–87, esp. 76.Google Scholar

²⁷ Cf. n. 6.

²⁸ Dalman (n. 24) specifically included ‘Endivie’ amongst the λάχανα of Rom 14.2; cf. 6.88; 1/2.345 n. 1.

²⁹ Per litteras 6 June 1994.

³⁰ Cf. Vogels, H. J., Das Corpus Paulinum des Ambrosiaster (BBB 13; Bonn: Hanstein, 1957) 60;Google Scholar CSEL 81/1 (1966) 486–9. Ambrosiaster's contemporary, Priscillian, with whom he appears to have some sort of connection, used similar language in his exegesis of Ps 1.1: corruptelae inlecebras et blandimenta non quaerit; cf. tract. 7 in CSEL 18.83 (1889) = PLS 2.1469 (1960). Less adventurously than Ambrosiaster, Vg reads per dulces sermones et benedictiones. Both, however, appear to read the plural TAC for THC. Jerome, another contemporary, follows his quotation of Rom 16.18 with a reference to the bitter herbs of Passover; cf. adv. Pel. 1.27 (CChr 80.35).

³¹ NH 25.162 (cf. 1.25.103); 26.127; cf. André, J., ‘Recherches étymologiques sur certains noms de plantes latins’, Latomus 15 (1956) 290–307, esp. 292–3;Google Scholar id., Lexique des termes de botanique en Latin (EeC 23; Paris: Klincksieck, 1956)Google Scholar s.v. elecebra (also, for the other plants mentioned in this article, s.vv. aphaca, carduus, chreston, cichoreum, endivia, hedypnois, heliochrysus, illecebra, intubus, lactuca, pancratium, philanthropos, picris, seris, verbeneca). Between 1964 and 1974 André edited several books of NH in the Budé series and continued to bring his considerable botanical learning to bear on several of the passages we have referred to; cf. his notes on 19.126, 129; 20.58–68, 73–7; 21.65–6, 88–9, 105, 168; 22.66; 24.176; 25.162. König & Winckler translated elecebra by Liebreiz.

³² Cf. Vogels (n. 30 [1966]), XII-XVII. Of course, Ambrosiaster may be indebted to a source, and one that is also Jewish-Christian in origin. This might explain his desertion of ‘Western’ textual ranks at this point.

³³ This interpretation may find support from the fact that χρηστολόγος in HA and the Epitome may have arisen in the same way. We have noticed HA's view (or Marius's), that it was used because Pertinax did not use his new position to advance his fellow-townsmen (13.6), and Schwartz's view (n. 14) that it was used because Pertinax was a good man and a good speaker. But what about its origin? Several authors refer to Pertinax' mean hospitality. We have seen that HA (or Marius) illustrated his meanness from his habit of skimping on the vegetable dishes at his supper parties (12.2 dimidiatas lactucas et cardus in privata vita conviviis adponeret. Readers of Gibbon will recall his opinion about the origin of such tales: the putative author speaks ‘like a slave, who had received his intelligence from one of the scullions’ [ch. 4, n. 49]). Even Dio, who admired the emperor, reports that some rich men mocked him for his mean hospitality (73/74.3.4 διεγέλων; cf. Herodian 2.3.9 ὀνειδίζουσιν). Now, in NH 19.129 (cf. 126; 20.76), Pliny, or a source, professes his inability to distinguish intubi, cultivated endives, from lactucae, lettuces. Further, the cookery writer Apicius describes a meal where intubae could replace lactucae, when the latter were out of season (similarly cf. Columella 8.14.2, 8; 9.1.8). This recipe is followed in Apicius by ten others, all containing carduus, artichoke (3.18–20, André [1965] 90–5). In other words, for Roman culinary purposes, cultivated endives and lettuce are interchangeable and, along with artichokes, are related vegetables (as botanically they are). If we combine this information with the evidence from HA about Pertinax' skimping on two of precisely these vegetables and if we understand the claim a little further on, that he was nicknamed χρηστολόγος, in the light of Pliny's chreston, something like the third vegetable, wild endives, we can go a step further. We can conclude that originally χρηστολόγος implied that, rather than buy any of his vegetables from the market, Pertinax chose to pick them all wild, in the fields, ‘for free’.

³⁴ We have noticed that another (Magian?) name for wild endives was pancration, all-powerful. By referring to the inevitable destruction of Satan, is Paul again pointing out the futility of the claims made for the magical use of chreston?