Expert: Maria - 12/2/2008

Question
Epictetus, a Greek speaking slave/philosopher in 1st century Roman Empire, referred to God in various ways.  Sometimes he (in his _Discourses_) uses what Oldfather translates as "Another": alpa-lambda-lambda-omicron-upsilon, or, alpa-lambda-lambda-omicron-sigma.  Is it just sheer coincidence that this is similar to "allah"?  Or, could there be common etymological roots?

Thanks,
Tony

Answer
Hello,

The ancient Greek words “állou” (Greek letters, άλλου, in the genitive masculine singular meaning “of another” as an indirect object ), and  “állos” (Greek letters, άλλος in the nominative masculine singular meaning “another” as a subject ), have absolutely nothing to do with the Arabic  “Allah" ( God)  composed by ‘al ‘, 'the' + ’ilāh’, 'God'.

In ancient Greek in fact  “állos” (meaning “another”) is simply an adjective/pronoun  which must be inflected,  as Ancient Greek is an inflected language with three declensions, five cases (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, vocative), three numbers (singular, plural, dual ), etc.

Finally in Ancient Greek “God” translates as “Theόs” (Greek letters, “Θεός”), a noun which belongs to the 2nd.declension. It is in fact from this Greek word that e.g. derives “Theology”, i.e.  the study of the nature of God and religious truth.

To conclude, I have to tell you that Epictetus, whose thought we know only thanks to his disciple Arrian, often mentions God by using exactly the noun “Theόs” in various cases, according to its role in the context.

In short, “állou” (alpa-lambda-lambda-omicron-upsilon ) or “állos” (alpa-lambda-lambda-omicron-sigma)  have NO common etymological root .

Best regards,
Maria
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Note that so far as we know, Epictetus himself wrote nothing. All that remains of his work was just transcribed by his pupil Arrian.