ἄκναπτος
(Moer. α 71)

D. General commentary

Moeris’ entry (A.1) deals with the adjective ἄκναπτος (‘untreated, unfulled’), prescribing its Attic spelling with the clusters -κν- and -πτ- in place of the form ἄγναφος, typical of koine Greek, in which the change ἄκναπτος > ἄγναπτος > ἄγναφος occurs (see below). The issue concerns the verb κνάπτω (‘to full, to comb’, with reference to both wool and cloth) and its derivatives: aside from ἄκναπτος, κναφεύς (‘fuller’), κναφεῖονκναφεῖον (‘fuller workshop’) and κνάφαλλονκνάφαλλον (‘wool-flock’).

ἄκναπτος is a verbal adjective with a negative prefixPrefixes from κνάπτω . The verb is also attested with two other alternative spellings: κνάμπτω (which is very rare, occurring in Pl. R. 616a.2) and γνάπτω. It should not be confused with the archaic and exclusively poetic γνάμπτω (‘to bend’, ‘to curve’, from which the adjective γναμπτός ‘curved’ – frequently used by Homer: see e.g. Il. 11.416 – derives). This variety of spellings also concerns the noun κναφεύς (‘fuller’), for which koine Greek develops the spelling γναφεύς, and the adjective ἄκναπτος, for which three different forms are attested: ἄκναπτος, ἄγναπτος, and ἄγναφος (see below). κνάπτω, κναφεύς and ἄκναπτος, in addition to belonging to the same semantic family and being affected by the same transformations in pronunciation and spelling, are often dealt with together in erudite sources; for this reason, shall consider all three here.

The alternation of κν- and γν- in these words is due to the voicing of the voiceless stop (κ > γ) before a nasal, which became a feature of the Attic dialect from the 4th century BCE onwards and is attested in Attic inscriptions from ca. 400 BCE (see Threatte 1980, 560). Accordingly, the -κν- cluster of old Attic becomes -γν- in later Attic and in the koine (Schwyzer 1939, 414; see also Blass, Debrunner 1976, 27 on New Testament Greek). In light of its many occurrences in inscriptionsInscriptions, κναφεύς/γναφεύς, alongside anthroponyms, is particularly useful word to track this sonorisation process: for a list of inscriptions attesting the different forms of κναφεύς, see Threatte (1980, 560). For what concerns papyrologicalPapyri evidence, Gignac (1976, 77) notes that in papyri, ‘the γν- spelling predominates in γναφεύς and derivatives in Roman documents, κν- in Byzantine’. Compared to ἄγναπτος, ἄγναφος shows a further transformation of -πτ- into -φ-. The voiceless fricative -φ-, resulting from the fricativisation and deaspiration of stops in koine Greek (see Horrocks 2010, 170–1; CGMEMG vol. 1, 115), is likely also due to the influence of κνάφος (see DELG s.v. κνάπτω; for occurrences of ἄγναφος in papyri of the 2nd century CE, see Gignac 1976, 78); the formation of the adjective ἐπίγναφος (‘clean’, said of cloth in Poll. 7.77Poll. 7.77) may be attributed to the same reason. An analogous development may be observed for derivatives of the verb ῥάπτωῥάπτω (‘to sew’, see DELG s.v.), from which we have both forms with the cluster -πτ-, such as ῥαπτός (‘sewn’) and πολύρραπτος (‘well-sewn’), and forms with φ, such as ἄρραφος (‘unsewn’) and πολύρραφος (‘well-sewn’), these latter under the influence of ῥαφή (‘seam’).

The verb κνάπτω is used metaphorically in tragedyTragedy to indicate human flesh mangled as a wool cloth combed with sharp teeth. With this meaning, it is used twice by Aeschylus, in Pers. 576 (C.1, on the subject of the Persians mangled by the sea) and in PV 513, referring to Prometheus’ torture, and once by Sophocles in Ai. 1031 (C.2, referring to Hector’s body dragged by Achilles’ cart). Although the manuscript tradition of these texts is inconsistent, κν- is duly preferred to γν- by modern editors as the correct Attic spelling in the 5th century BCE (see Finglass 2011, 432; Garvie 2009, 245). However, Aristophanes, who prefers the spelling κναφεύς in V. 1128 and in Ec. 415, in Plutus (C.3) adopts the more recent verb γναφεύωγναφεύω (in the proper sense of ‘to full’, ‘to be a fuller’), a denominative verb in -εύω formed on κναφεύς/γναφεύς. This form is first attested in the Plutus and does not occur elsewhere in literature until the Byzantine age, being attested only in erudite sources. Although Pollux (B.2) adopts the spelling with the voiceless stop in quoting it, the spelling γναφεύω is metrically guaranteed in Aristophanes’ passage (C.3), In which the initial γν- causes the preceding syllable to scan long, whereas κν-, where correptio Attica is the rule, would require the heterosyllabic treatment of muta cum liquida (see Willi 2003, 42, and Allen 1987, 108: ‘voiced plosive + nasal never permits light quantity’). Attic literature of the 5th and 4th centuries BCE shows an alternation between the two spellings in derivatives of κνάπτω: Lysias employs forms in γν- alongside forms in -κν- (e.g. Contra Simonem 15.5: γναφεῖον ‘fuller-shop’, plus three more occurrences) as do Plato (Sph. 227a.3: γναφευτική, ‘belonging to a fuller’) and Demosthenes (54.7.9: Παμφίλῳ τῷ γναφεῖ, ‘Pamphilus the fuller’).

Literary occurrences of ἄκναπτος (‘untreated’) are scanty. The form with the voiceless stop occurs only in lexica and erudite sources (see, e.g. schol. Ar. Lys. 933b, in which the word σισύρα, ‘goat's-hair cloak’, is explained with the expression ἄκναπτον ἱμάτιον). The plural ἄκναπτοι, attested in a fragment ascribed to Crates of Thebes that would constitute the first occurrence of the word, is more likely to be a form of the adjective ἄγναμπτος (‘unbending’): see Crat.Theb. fr. 352 SHCrat.Theb. fr. 352 SH: ἡδονῇ ἀνδραποδώδει ἀδούλωτοι καὶ ἄκναπτοι | ἀθάνατον βασίλειαν, ἐλευθερίαν, ἀγαπῶσιν (‘Instead of a slavish pleasure, unenslaved and unbending [people] prefer freedom, which is an immortal sovereignty’). Conversely, ἄγναπτος is better attested: its first occurrence is in Plato Comicus (C.4), and it is subsequently found, among others, in Nicander (Th. 205) and Plutarch (Quaestiones convivales 691d.1; 692a.1). The form ἄγναφος, which owes its diffusion to its earliest occurrence in the well-known parable of the new cloth on an old garment of the New Testament (C.5), becomes unsurprisingly the standard and more widespread form in later times, with roughly thirty occurrences in a variety of texts. It occurs, among other texts, in the Periplus Maris Erythraei in reference to imported cloths (6.46: ἱμάτια βαρβαρικὰ ἄγναφα τὰ ἐν Αἰγύπτῳ γινόμενα ‘non-Greek untreated garments produced in Egypt’). The vast majority of the adjective’s occurrences are found, at any rate, in lexicographical and erudite sources.

Ancient scholars were well acquainted with the issue of the alternation between κν- and γν- in κνάπτω and its derivatives, and an echo of the debate on these forms is also found in Lucian (C.6), who employs κναφεῖον/γναφεῖον and κνάφαλλον/γνάφαλλον as examples of the quarrel between Kappa and Gamma. Erudite sources are also not exempt from the fluctuation between the voiced and the voiceless spellings, although they generally favour the latter. Moeris’ entry (A.1) duly proscribes ἄγναφος and recommends the old Attic ἄκναπτος in its place. We do not know whether Moeris was also critical of the ‘intermediate’ form ἄγναπτος, which may have been more tolerated in light of its occurrences in 5th- and 4th-century literature. Pollux, whose interest in these forms is primarily semantic rather than orthographic, appears to use all three forms of the adjective. Although he predominantly uses the Attic spelling (see B.1, B.2, as well as Poll. 7.69 and 10.64), he may also employ (caution is necessary, given that the oscillation between κ and γ is not rare in the manuscript tradition) ἄγναπτος (4.119) and, even more remarkably, ἄκναφος, which is otherwise attested only in Achmet’s Oneirocriticon (156.41, 157.9). Hesychius uses once both ἄκναπτος (B.4) and ἄγναπτος (B.3); otherwise, he uses ἄγναφος more frequently as an interpretamentum.

The interest in the Attic voiceless spelling later appears to wane and survives primarily for descriptive purposes. The Synagoge’s gloss (B.5) permits both spellings without labeling either as preferable. The gloss focuses on morphologyMorphology, nominal, describing ἄγναπτος as a two-ending adjective of the first class and providing the reader with three adjective–noun pairs as an example. This attention to morphological features – which is unparalleled for this word in other erudite sources – may be attributable to the need to resist the tendency to supply a distinct feminine first-declension termination to second-declension adjectives. The spelling employed for these examples is -γν-, and ἄγναπτος is also the form that Photius employs in the part of the gloss that is missing in Σ^b, which addreseses the use of the adjective in Plato Comicus (fr. 240, C.4). In the Palaeologan era, a renewed interest in the Attic spelling is demonstrated by Thomas Magister, whose entry (B.6) has a clearly prescriptive intent and repeats Moeris’ precept (A.1), supporting it with the authority of Synesius (Epist. 43.46–9). To obtain a more complete view of the treatment of ἄκναπτος/ἄγναπτος in erudite sources, it is useful to also consider the doctrines focusing on κνάπτω/γνάπτω and κναφεύς/γναφεύς. The pair κναφεύς–γναφεύς is often deployed to emphasize the contrast between Attic and koine Greek, even where the perspective is descriptive and both forms are admitted, as in the Suda, which has both γναφεύς (B.9) and κναφεύς (B.10, the latter more articulated), Gregory of Corinth (B.14, who includes the use of κν- among the features of the Attic dialect), and Eustathius (B.12, B.13). Some entries posit an etymologicalEtymology distinction between κναφεύς and γναφεύς. Following Su. κ 1855 (B.10), while κναφεύς would derive from the verb κνῶ, the form γναφεύς would instead derive from γνάψις (‘starch’, see also Su. σ 329). Other erudite sources distinguish between κναφεύς and γναφεύς based on a difference in the technique used in cloth-treatment. According to the so-called Zonaras’ lexicon (B.11), the γναφεύς would whiten garments, while the κναφεύς would scratch leather skins. Such a distinction is supported by Tzetzes (B.15), who associates γναφεύς with βάπτω (‘to dye’) and κναφεύς with ξέω (‘to scrape’). The etymological association with the garments’ whitening in these sources is likely to have derived from NT Ev.Marc. 9.3: καὶ τὰ ἱμάτια αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο στίλβοντα λευκὰ λίαν οἷα γναφεὺς ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς οὐ δύναται οὕτως λευκᾶναι (‘And his garments became so shiny and so white that no washerman on hearth could whiten them so much’).

These theories might depend on the fact that meanings of κναφεύς differed according to chronology and geographical area, and that it typically referred to workers who performed more than one specific task, as Pollux (B.2) already attests when he says that the κναφαῖοι (‘fullers’, note, however that the form is not attested elsewhere) can also be called πλύνται (‘washermen’). Dogaer (2020, 199–200), based on the correspondence with Demotic in the papyri, has also observed that perhaps ‘the artisans called fullers in Greek were de facto washermen in Ptolemaic Egypt, performing also the day-to-day cleaning of linen garments’. Dogaer’s hypothesis, although cautiously formulated, appears to be consistent with the information provided by lexicographers, since the garments’ whitening aligns well with the treatment of raw linen, and Pollux (B.2), Eustathius (B.13), and Tzetzes (B.15) treat γναφεύω as a quasi-synonym of πλύνω (Eustathius assigns γναφεύω to the field of wool weaving and πλύνω to the treatment of linen cloths; in Tzetzes’ passage, notice also the use of ἀποσπιλοῦν ‘to remove the stains’ and καλλύνειν ‘to beautify, to sweep clean’, linked to garment cleansing). Further evidence is provided by the Greek–Latin glossaries, which match κνάπτω/γνάπτω with the Latin verb polio (‘to wash’, ‘to clean’); on the occurrences of κνάπτω/γνάπτω in such glossaries, see Scappaticcio (2015). On the role of the fuller, albeit specifically in Roman Italy, see Flohr (2013).

The abundance of testimonies concerning these forms attests to the interest they aroused throughout the centuries at various levels, primarily on the grounds of their orthography, pronunciation, and semantics but also in relation to monosyllabic verbs (B.8) and adjectival inflection (B.5).

E. Byzantine and Modern Greek commentary

ἄκναπτος is unattested outside lexica and erudite sources in Byzantine literature. The form ἄγναφος is also very rare (Kriaras, LKN does not include either). Although it is attested from the 1st to the 13th century CE, ἄγναφος appears to have been in common use only until approximately the 4th century CE, when it is used by Clemens of Alexandria (Paed. 3, 11.55.3) and Oribasius (10.1.18). Later, the vast majority of its occurrences is limited to texts quoting or commenting on the phrase ῥάκους ἀγνάφου in NT Ev.Matt. 9.16 and NT Ev.Marc. 2.21 (C.5). In such commentaries, the adjective is sometimes explained with καινόςκαινός (‘new’): this may suggest that, at this time, it had fallen out of use and, when dealt with in the biblical context, required explanation (see, for instance, Euthymius Zigabenus’ Commentary on the four Gospels MPG 129.1.313.15). The only exception to the adjective's extinction is its occurrence in Nicholas Myrepsos’ Dynameron (38.106) in the 13th century.

Both κνάπτω/γνάπτω and κναφεύς/γναφεύς persist throughout the centuries. Byzantine authors appear to favour the Attic spelling in κν-, which is widespread in works belonging to different registers. Nevertheless, the two spellings coexist: even the spelling of the name of Peter the Fuller (Patriarch of Antioch) varies. The verb κναφεύω/γνάφεύω, which occurs for the first time in Ar. Pl. 166 (C.3) and is then virtually extinct in literature for a long time, is resurrected by Byzantine writers: aside from scholia and other erudite sources, it occurs in an epistle of John of Damascus, in the Epistula de hymno trisagio (5.32, 7th–8th centuries) and, in the Palaeologan age, in Manuel Philes’ Carmina (3.108.3, plus three other occurrences).

Several of these forms survive in Modern Greek, with the voiced spelling γναφέας (‘fuller’, ‘tanner’; on the ending -έας of masculine nouns, from the ancient -εύς paradigm, see CGMEMG vol. 2, 401–22), γναφεύω (‘to be a fuller’), γναφειόν (‘tannery’), γνάφαλλον or, more commonly, γνάφαλο (‘sheared wool’), ἀγναφος (‘untreated’ or, metaphorically, referring to humans and animals, ‘untrained’, also spelled ἀγναθος, in Chios, and ἀγναφτος in Thessaly and Chios; see ILNE s.v). Alongside these, the classical ξαίνω, meaning ‘to full’, has been resurrected.

F. Commentary on individual texts and occurrences

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