Re: [tied] Re: Albanian Christian religious terminology

From: george knysh
Message: 23882
Date: 2003-06-26

--- g <george.st@...> wrote:
> >GK: So both in Albanian and in Romanian a
> central
> >concept of Christianity cannot be linguistically
> >related to the standard vocabulary of Latin
> Christian
> >propaganda (word not used pejoratively here).
>
> (GS)Because such words were forgotten or never
learnt,
> and were replaced by other (LatSlavGreek) terms.


>
> IMHO, a conclusion towards a late conversion
> "Valachorum" would be if Romanian contained words
> derived from/related to <resurrectio mortuorum> and
> <resurrexit mortuorum>, used in other contexts.
> Instead, there is the locution <�nviere din morTi>
> [din < de + �n].
>
> George

*****GK: George, I've already stated once, and state
here again, that the evidence of the extant vocabulary
(some of which you kindly provided) demonstrates
conclusively that the ancestors of the Romanians were
"Christianized" in the late stages of the Roman Empire
(my earlier hypotheses being consequently abandoned).
So I'm not insidiously fighting some rear guard action
here (:=)). What I am interested in is whether any
help may be garnered from this vocabulary in settling
more purely historical questions. There is no doubt
that the absence of the word "ecclesia" indicates that
PR lost all contacts with the "official" hierarchies
of both East and West after the collapse of the late
6th and early 7th centuries. But the continuation of
terms such as "preot", "biserica", and "botez"
suggests to me that some form of Christianity
continued, "rude" perhaps, but real. What would be
curious is to learn how this "priesthood" maintained
itself institutionally. There is no record of any
concern by Rome or Constantinople with the remnants of
Romanitas in most of the areas occupied by
"batbarians" after 600 AD (right?) An item from
Pacurariu's list (partly discussed before) might
provide elements of a clue. We talked a bit about the
Romanian word for "Christmas" (CRACIUN) but were
unable to make much headway. Now it appears, from
Pacurariu, that some interesting hypotheses were made
about this already by Romanian scholars. The one I
find most intriguing (and am almost ready to accept)
is that which derives "CRACIUN" from the Latin
"CREATIO". Why associate this word with the birth of
Jesus? The explanation would be that this is exactly
the sort of thing that an Arianizing Christianity
might have done, given the status of Jesus it
defended. We already know that in the 4th century, the
Arians were very powerful among the Christians of the
Empire, and that their defeat in 381 made little
difference to many recent converts, "barbarian" or
not. There is an interesting piece of information in
Archdeacon Thomas' Historia Salonitana, where we are
told that the Croats who settled near Split sometime
in the 630's professed a primitive kind of
Christianity of the Arian type, and were "converted"
to Catholicism by the efforts of Pope John IV. I
wonder if a similar assumption might not be made about
the PR, viz., that they maintained a real if simple
kind of Christianity (including Arian elements) which
was subsequently "elevated" (simultaneously with that
of the Slavs) to a more Orthodox version.******
>
>
>



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