The Eruditor? [9 'yards! Essenes!]

[Stephen Goranson]

Eruditio et Religio is the Duke University motto. The library here is getting
an integrated library system, which I guess is software that combines several
now-separate functions and expands options. What to name it? One suggestion:
The Eruditor. According to Lewis and Short Latin Dictionary, that's "an
instructor, teacher" in post-classical Latin (Tertullian, Jerome, Vulgate).
But I have some doubt it will be selected. So what to do with a once-useless
(sadly, not yet in OED) word? ads-l at .... I guess pronunciations would vary,
though imagine all who would become eruditer. Maybe that's the problem. Going
in too many directions: venerable? techyish? ...rude?

Thanks to Gerald Cohen, Sean Fitzpatrick et al. (though with the "all your
error are mine," or something, disclaimer) for help so far on full nine yards.
Some pretty-good researchers have looked: practically speaking, we can be
rather confident that the phrase did not predate the US Vietnam War. And, I
say, does not predate May 1966 when Officer Mole explicitly grouped the nine
tribes of Montagnards in I Corps area. Later that year, pilot "Smash"
Chandler, based at Danang in I Corps, is documented using the phrase. So, for
instance, Barry "that sound like it" Popik, you going to just let this go?
Why, with the right 1966 citation, I bet that NYT rag would lift its Big Apple
antedating embargo. Anyway, that's my story and--unless someone presents a
better-documented alternative--I'm sticking with it.

And again my main etymology question: anyone know a scholarly instance of
recognition that "Essenes" started with the Hebrew root 'asah before Johannes
Carion, Chronica, 1532?

best,
Stephen Goranson