Chopped liver

[Mark A Mandel]

On Fri, 9 Aug 2002, James A. Landau wrote:

#I had always heard that "not an iota of difference" comes from the Byzantine
#Empire, referring to one of their longstanding theological street-fights in
#which each side's platform incorporated a similar Greek word, the two words
#differing only in that one had the letter iota and the other did not.

Whether the Father and the Son were "homo-ousioi" 'of the same
substance' or "homoi-ousioi" 'of similar substance'. I think the problem
was that both words were translated into Latin as the same word, but I
Am Not An Authority on this.

#Is this accurate?  or a rather Classical etymythology?  It seems a little bit
#of a stretched coincidence that the letter iota, alleged to be the hot dog of
#this dispute, is itself in its lower case form the smallest letter in the
#Greek alphabet.

I rather suspect that the "smallest letter" origin is, er, original, and
that the debate story attached itself later. In fact... [scramble among
bookshelves]...

Got it. Matthew 5.18:

KJV: For veriy I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, <one jot or
one tittle> shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.

LXX: ... iO^ta ... kerai'a ... [cap = long vowel]
        'an iota or a [small stroke, apostrophe, separating stroke]'

Since the Gospel of Matthew predates the abovementioned debate:

        Q.E.D

-- Mark A. Mandel