Acts 17:8 - Greek "Spermologos," Latin "Seminiverbius" - Does this mean what I think it does?

[Denis Giron]

WARNING: A somewhat low and crude back-alley character to this post...



Today I decided to look into Acts chapter 17 because I vaguely
recalled a passage about Paul visiting Athens, preaching to some
Epicurean and Stoic philosophers, and getting called a fool. When I
checked the actual text, different translations had things like
"babbler," and even "base fellow". So I checked the Latin and found
"Quid vult seminiverbius hic dicere?" - "what does this
[seminiverbius] want to say?" Then I thought back to "base fellow".
What does "seminiverbius" mean? As I understand it, the words
apparently can break down to semen and word... literally "seed
speaker"? I was a little shocked, so I checked the Greek, and sure
enough, there is spermologos, which breaks down the same way. Am I
badly misunderstanding this, or does this mean what I think it means?
Was there something about Paul that made these Philosopher's make such
a (possibly homophobic) remark? What does seminiverbius and
spermologos mean?

[mb]

***@hotmail.com (Denis Giron) wrote
...

Post by Denis Giron
Today I decided to look into Acts chapter 17 because I vaguely
recalled a passage about Paul visiting Athens, preaching to some
Epicurean and Stoic philosophers, and getting called a fool. When I
checked the actual text, different translations had things like
"babbler," and even "base fellow". So I checked the Latin and found
"Quid vult seminiverbius hic dicere?" - "what does this

...

Post by Denis Giron
speaker"? I was a little shocked, so I checked the Greek, and sure
enough, there is spermologos, which breaks down the same way. Am I

...

Post by Denis Giron
a (possibly homophobic) remark? What does seminiverbius and
spermologos mean?

Spermologos has nothing homophobic or sexual to it. It simply means
gossip, intrigant, slanderer. It doesn't look as if the meaning has
changed any in the last 2000 years, either.

[Douglas G. Kilday]

Post by Denis Giron
WARNING: A somewhat low and crude back-alley character to this post...
Today I decided to look into Acts chapter 17 because I vaguely
recalled a passage about Paul visiting Athens, preaching to some
Epicurean and Stoic philosophers, and getting called a fool. When I
checked the actual text, different translations had things like
"babbler," and even "base fellow". So I checked the Latin and found
"Quid vult seminiverbius hic dicere?" - "what does this
[seminiverbius] want to say?" Then I thought back to "base fellow".
What does "seminiverbius" mean? As I understand it, the words
apparently can break down to semen and word... literally "seed
speaker"? I was a little shocked, so I checked the Greek, and sure
enough, there is spermologos, which breaks down the same way. Am I
badly misunderstanding this, or does this mean what I think it means?
Was there something about Paul that made these Philosopher's make such
a (possibly homophobic) remark? What does seminiverbius and
spermologos mean?

According to Liddell and Scott, <spermológos> means 'picking up seeds',
hence 'a crow that picks up seeds' and metaphorically 'one who picks up
scraps of knowledge, an idle babbler'. These philosophers were not implying
anything about Paul's sexual orientation. They were likening his preaching
to a collection of scraps as opposed to a coherent philosophical system,
with the hint that his utterances were no more enlightening than the cawing
of a crow.

Souter regards <se:miniverbius>, found only in Acts 17:18, as "probably _ad
hoc_ coinage". I do not know whether Jerome was personally responsible for
this word, or merely followed an earlier translator. It is clear, however,
that the Latin translator misunderstood <spermológos> as a compound of
<spérma> 'seed' and <lógos> 'word', when in fact it is formed from <spérma>
and <légein> in the sense 'to gather, collect', not 'to say, speak, utter'.
The correct late Latin translation would have been *<se:minilegus>;
classical Latin would have had a masculine in <-a> for this type of
compound. Such a term, 'seed-picker', would have been less opaque than the
actual Vulgate's 'seed-word-man'.

DGK

[mb]

"Douglas G. Kilday" <***@chorus.net> wrote
...

Post by Douglas G. Kilday
According to Liddell and Scott, <spermológos> means 'picking up seeds',
hence 'a crow that picks up seeds' and metaphorically 'one who picks up
scraps of knowledge, an idle babbler'. These philosophers were not implying
anything about Paul's sexual orientation. They were likening his preaching
to a collection of scraps as opposed to a coherent philosophical system,
with the hint that his utterances were no more enlightening than the cawing
of a crow.

That is the "initial" or non-metaphoric meaning, which does not apply
in this case. From early Koine on (and still going strong in Mod Grk)
there is a second meaning, ie "gossip, plotter, intrigant, slanderer",
clear enough. The translations _from_ the Grk NT (including the Latin
and the Eng.) seem mainly to be euphemizing translations (as in post
re Slavic version too). Re-interpreting a metaphor from meaning 1,
when meaning 2 was clearly an everyday word applied to busybodies,
would be a futile exercise.

[Douglas G. Kilday]

Post by mb
...

Post by Douglas G. Kilday
According to Liddell and Scott, <spermológos> means 'picking up seeds',
hence 'a crow that picks up seeds' and metaphorically 'one who picks up
scraps of knowledge, an idle babbler'. These philosophers were not implying
anything about Paul's sexual orientation. They were likening his preaching
to a collection of scraps as opposed to a coherent philosophical system,
with the hint that his utterances were no more enlightening than the cawing
of a crow.

That is the "initial" or non-metaphoric meaning, which does not apply
in this case. From early Koine on (and still going strong in Mod Grk)
there is a second meaning, ie "gossip, plotter, intrigant, slanderer",
clear enough. The translations _from_ the Grk NT (including the Latin
and the Eng.) seem mainly to be euphemizing translations (as in post
re Slavic version too). Re-interpreting a metaphor from meaning 1,
when meaning 2 was clearly an everyday word applied to busybodies,
would be a futile exercise.

Given that the sense 'gossip, plotter, busybody, etc.' was already current
in Paul's time, one may still question whether philosophers, learned men,
would necessarily have intended this "everyday" sense of the word, and
whether such a sense would have been derogatory in Athens in the first
place, considering the remark in 17:21 to the effect that Athenians, and
resident aliens, enjoyed nothing more than speaking and hearing novelties,
in a word, "gossiping".

Here is what W.W. Goodwin says about Demosthenes' use of <spermológos> in
his characterization of Aeschines, Perì toû stephánou 127 (Demosthenes on
the Crown, Cambridge 1904, repr. 1957, p. 78):

"<spermológos>: originally a little bird which _picked up seed_ from newly
sown fields (Ar. Av. 232, 579); then a man who lives by _picking up_ what he
can in the market and other places of trade, _a vagabond_, and generally a
worthless fellow; sometimes one who picks up and retails small scraps of
gossip, _a babbler_ or _prater_, as applied to St Paul in Acts xvii.18.
Either of the last two meanings, or perhaps a combination of both, suits the
present passage."

Now, it seems to me that what Paul actually picked up and retailed were
scraps of philosophy from various sources, and these philosophers recognized
this. They had already heard of the Unknown God, of the god within whom
everyone lives, of resurrection, of judgment after death, etc. Paul was able
to cobble together these scraps into a superficially coherent system which
was capable of impressing the unlearned, but did not fool these
philosophers. They could see that he was a mere scrap-picker.

Of course, there is always the danger of reading too much into a single
word. The Book of Acts is clearly the product of a Pauline shill, and there
is no guarantee that this author has accurately represented the reaction of
these philosophers to Paul, which is a marginal matter in a chapter
concerned primarily with bragging about Paul's conversions. The two
"quotations" in 17:18 at best can hardly be more than condensations. It may
well be that the author intended <spermológos> in the Koine sense, and
merely put stereotyped responses to Paul in the mouths of the philosophers.
Excessive interpretation of this sort of literature is indeed a futile
exercise.

DGK

[David Thomas]

Post by Denis Giron
Was there something about Paul that made these Philosopher's make such
a (possibly homophobic) remark? What does seminiverbius and
spermologos mean?

Well, homophobic is quite on the money...

Not to mention Paul's whole 'I hate women!' thing... wonder why?

- Vae
Sleep, Fate, Death, and I sat one sunday down at tea.
Fate offered up his Ziggy mug before I poured,
Sleep yawned in his PJs, seeming mildly bored,
And Death politely asked, "Another pirouline?"