What does Decius Mundus mean?

Latin Learning Latin
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(Question) What does “Decius Mundus” mean in Latin?
This was the name of the Roman who tricked Paulina into having sex with him in Josephus’ Antiquities, Book 18.
It looks like the characters in Josephus’ stories of Paulina and Fulvia have allegorical meanings. In Paulina’s story, Decius Mundus fell in love with Paulina, a convert to Anubis’ cult, but Paulina was married to Saturninus. So Mundus’ female servant Ida paid Anubis’ priests to fool Paulina into thinking that Mundus was the god Anubis and into having sex with him. Then in Fulvia’s story, three Jewish swindlers tricked Fulvia, a convert to Judaism, into making a Temple donation, which they stole.

I see Paulina’s name as referring to the apostle Paul, who gathered donations from gentiles for Jerusalem’s Church. Ida’s name alludes to Judas, as both were involved in payments to or from priests for betrayal. I suppose that “Decius Mundus” means something about “Tenth” and “World”, referring to tithing. This is because tithing involved taking a “tenth” of income, and in particular tithing the gentiles or “nations” for Jerusalem’s Church as its spiritual “Temple”.

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In the Loeb edition, a footnote points out the similarity of the Mundus and Paulina episode to the older story of the Egyptian king Nectanebus II and Olympias, supposedly fathering Alexander the Great under the appearance of Zeus Ammon.

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Brian, Thanks for writing back. I can see how Mundus pretending to be Anubis to have intercourse with Paulina could have a parallel with king Nectanebus II pretending to be Zeus Ammon while having intercourse with Olympias,

Sorry if I wasn’t clear enough, but in this thread, I really wanted to first ask what is the meaning of the name “Decius Mundus”, from Latin into English.

As for Decius, Name Doctor.com says that Decius is a version of Decimus, and:

This name derives from the Latin “decem, meaning “ten”, … Cognates include, Ancient Greek déka ‎(δέκα). Decimus is a Latin praenomen, or personal name, usually abbreviated D. Although never especially common, Decimus was used throughout Roman history from the earliest times to the end of the Western Empire and beyond, surviving into modern times. The Latin personal name “Decimus”, means “the tenth born, or born in December”, which was originally given to the tenth child of the family or the tenth or youngest between ten members of the same family of the same name.

Wikipedia’s article on Decimus (praenomen) says:

Decimus is the Latin word for tenth, and it falls into a class of similar praenomina including the masculine names Quintus, Sextus, Septimus, Octavius, and Nonus, as well as the feminine names Prima, Secunda, Tertia, Quarta, Quinta, Sexta, Septima, Octavia, and Nona. It is generally believed that the name was originally given to a tenth child, a tenth son, or a tenth daughter. However, it has also been argued that Decimus and the other praenomina of this type could refer to the month of the year in which a child was born.
…
The Oscan praenomen Decius or Deciis is derived from the same root, and gave rise to the patronymic gens Decia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimus_(praenomen)

Wikipedia’ article on the Oscan language says:

Oscan is an extinct Indo-European language of southern Italy. … The language was spoken from approximately 500 BCE to CE 100.

This would have included Josephus’ era.

In Reconstructing Western Civilization: Irreverant Essays on Antiquity, Barbara Sher Tinsley writes that Sextus “was a common Roman first name, as were Quintus [Fifth], Septimus [Seventh], Octavian [Eighth}, and Decius [Tenth].”

Bible Hub’s Strong’s Concordance explains that δεκάτη, Dekate in Greek, means literally “tenth”, but it also means figuratively a “tithe”. For instance, Hebrews 7:2 says that “ᾧ καὶ δεκάτην ἀπὸ πάντων”, meaning that Abraham “gave a tenth part of all”, and Hebrews 7:9-10 says: “9. And as I may so say, Levi also, who receiveth tithes (δεκάτας), payed tithes in Abraham. 10. For he was yet in the loins of his father, when Melchisedec met him.”

According to WIktionary, Mundus means:

(1) ornaments, decorations, dress (of a woman)
(2) implement
(3) (Late Latin, Medieval Latin) the universe, the world, esp. the heavens and the heavenly bodies
Sic enim dilexit Deus > mundum > ut filium suum unigenitum daret ut omnis qui credit in eum non pereat sed habeat vitam aeternam. For God so loved > the world > that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
(4) the inhabitants of the earth, mankind
(> https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mundus> )

If “Mundus” means “world” only in Late Latin, used from the 3rd Century to the 6th AD, then it’s unlikely that Josephus used “Mundus” in this sense in the 1st Century, right?
(4), the world’s inhabitants, would fit with the context in Josephus, but is this also a late Latin term?

On Latin Stackexchange, Sergio Felicori wrote that Mundus is “late”, but he doesn’t say how late:

The original latin word for world was ‘orbs’. Mundus is a late translation > for the greek word ‘kosmos’. This greek word conveys the idea of order and order in a greek point of view means the right measure, symetry, harmony and beauty. It was so because the world or the universe was thought in Greece to be that way: orderly constructed, harmonious and beautiful. Mundus is something clean and tidy. It doesn’t offer all the meaning possibilities the greek kosmos does but it was the best translation the latin language could make.
(> https://latin.stackexchange.com/questions/950/how-did-mundus-come-to-mean-both-world-and-clean> )

The Latin Dictionary on WIkidot says that mundus means world: (http://latindictionary.wikidot.com/noun:mundus)

In “The Origins of Greek Kosmos and Latin Mundus”, Jaan Puhvel writes the 1st century BC writer Varro “opined that kosmos had its name ab ornatu and mundus ‘unverse’ was named a puritia; mundus muliebris was of course a munditia.” (De Lingua Latina 5.129) I think that this means that Varro saw “universe” as one of the meanings of “mundus.”
Puhvel also notes that Sextus Pompeius Festus, a late 2nd century Grammarian**, “explained mundus as caelum, terra, mare et aer on one hand,** and as ornatus mulieris on the other…” Maybe this is close enough to Josephus, who wrote in c. 100 AD.

A New Latin Dictionary, by Charlton Thomas Lewis (p. 1175), says that mankind or the earth’s inhabitants is one of the definitions of mundus, citing Pliny, a first century writer.

So it looks like Decius Mundus, translated from Latin into English means “Tenth/Tithe World/Universe/Mankind.” I interpret this as alluding to Josephus’ story of the three Jewish swindlers taking money (a tithe) from the Roman Fulvia on the pretense that it was for Jerusalem’s Temple. I think that Josephus in turn was alluding to Paul’s collection of money from the gentiles in Rome for the Church in Jerusalem.

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Crazy talk here, sorry Paulina has nothing to do with the apostle Paul, and Decius Mundus has nothing to do with Latin mundus. Decius is an Oscan name, the equivalent of Roman Decimus (“Tenth”), and I suspect that Decius Mundus originated as a corruption of Decius Mus, the name of a famous trio of Roman plebeian consuls featured in Livy’s account of early Republican history. However that may be, the story is not to be thought of as historical.
(And please don’t enquire what Mus means.)

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I think you’re stretching things.

Mundus is an adjective originally meaning something like “neat”, “clean”, “adorned” or “elegant”. One meaning of the masculine form is “cosmetics”, but it is also used to mean “the world” or “the universe”, as a calque on Greek κόσμος, which is the etymological source of English “cosmetics”. The use of mundus to mean “world/universe” begins in the classical period, in fact in the Republican era, as Lewis & Short show with citations to Cicero, Catullus and Vergil, among others:

http://perseus.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/philologic/getobject.pl?c.11:2559.lewisandshort

Mundus as a Roman nomen is likely derived from the adjective. Decius Mundus seems like a perfectly ordinary Roman name. No one would take Decius to mean anything other than a praenomen, even though it may be derived from the Oscan word for “ten”; the word for “tenth” in Latin is decimus.

Paulina is the feminine name derived from the Roman cognomen Paullus or Paulus, a name with a history that goes back at least to the time of the Punic Wars. The name Paulina would be given to the daughter of someone named Paulus. A number of Roman women bore this name, without any connection to the apostle Paul.

Decius Mundus and Paulina are purely Roman proper names, with no significance beyond that.

Edit: cross-posted with mwh, as we sometimes happen to do.

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Thanks for writing back, MWH. Your idea that it is a corruption of Decius Mus makes sense as a famous figure. One option is that Josephus changed it to “Mundus” as a literary device in order to allude to the “world” or nations, which was being tithed. When you say that the story is not to be thought of as historical, I think that you mean that the consul Decius Mus’ story is not considered historical.

Regarding exegesis of Paulina’s and Decius Mundus’ story in Josephus, I can see why you would not interpret it as a fiction. Josephus was generally writing history and presenting it in a straightforward, factual way. So the plain reading is that he was recording a factual story here too. My own opinion though after reading Josephus’ writings was that sometimes he does include literary fiction or fictionalized elements. For instance, in his Vita, he says that he studied under a hermit named “Banus” who used immersions for asceticism. The name “Banus” though literally is related to the concept of a “Bather” or “Bathing” in Latin and Hebrew, so my guess is that “Banus” was not his teacher’s literally name, but rather a title that the teacher had. The plain reading is that it was the teacher’s real name, but I think that it was a title.

There are much more applicable examples than what I just gave. In The Myth of Masada: How Reliable Was Josephus, Anyway?, Elon Gilad writes that Josephus must have deliberately fictionalized a major portion of his writing on the fall of Masada:

Surely, Josephus wouldn’t make things up out of nowhere. The Jewish War is a work of history, not fiction – isn’t it?
That question would be applicable to any modern historian, less so to one in antiquity. Josephus may have been a historian but then, scribes didn’t feel constrained to stick with naked truth as they knew it. Historians in ancient Greece and Rome did not cavil at writing, probably in perfectly good faith, that gods lay behind a tragedy or victory, or writing the version of affairs that the powers that be wanted them to write.
…
But even granting the possibility that Josephus did have sources for the events [in the Siege of Masada and the destruction of the Temple] that transpired, it does seem a bit suspicious that the end of the siege at Masada is so similar to the end of the siege at Yodfat in his telling. Furthermore, Josephus provides a beautiful speech allegedly made by the leader of the Sacarrii, Eleazar Ben-Yair, to the bravest of his men: “We have it in our power to die nobly and in freedom. Our fate at the break of day is certain capture, but there is still the free choice of a noble death with those we hold most dear.”
Josephus clearly made up this speech, since by his own telling, all those who would have heard the speech would have killed themselves.
We must conclude that Josephus had no problem making stuff up. This is not surprising. It was the norm among ancient historians to sacrifice truth and accuracy for beauty and rhetoric.

https://www.haaretz.com/archaeology/.premium.MAGAZINE-the-myth-of-masada-how-reliable-was-josephus-anyway-1.7375157

Similarly, I found scholars who don’t consider the story of Paulina and Decius Mundus to be purely historical, either. Loeb’s edition of Josephus’ Antiquities has a footnote that

C. Pharr, ‘The Testimony of Josephus to Christianity’> … remarks that this story of Mundus and Paulina in its present literary form has been influenced by the classic story of the trick of Nectanebus II, the Egyptian king who, according to Pseudo-Callisthenes… deceived Olympias, wife of King Philip of Macedonia, into believing that he was Zeus Ammon, and through her became the father of Alexander the Great.

In James the Brother of Jesus, Robert H. Eisenman writes:

For some this [set of stories] could represent a subtle if malevolent burlesque of Christian infancy narratives. The Fulvia episode has to do with fundraising activities overseas on the part of a teacher, condemnded for Lawbreaking in palestine and three of his associates. … it overlaps later information in Suetonius about how during the reign of Claudius (41-54 CE) the Jews were banished from Rome for making propaganda on behalf of one ‘Chrestus’. … There is something very peculiar about these stories, which are immediately followed up by descriptions of additional tumults and Pilate’s repression of what are obviously Messianic disturbances among the Samaritans. It is impossible to say what is going on, but at least in the Mundus and Fulvia stories, Josephus appears to substitute titillating trivia for more substantial turns of events. Additionally, the parody of Christian birth narratives about Jesus, represented by the Mundus and Paulina story, would be typical of Josephus and others of a similar frame of mind.

In the late fourth century, a writer using “Hegessippus” as a pseudonym rewrote the story of Paulina as a satire of the Christian gospel story. Albert Bell writes in his essay “Josephus the Satirist”:

In [Book] II, 12.1 [“Hegesippus”] retells the sory of Paulina and Mundus as an example of the ludibrium typical of the Rome which killed Christ. … Hegesippus then introduces the element of pregnancy, which is altogether lacking in Josephus: de se quoque et illa deum esse generandum persuadet mulieri. To the Christian audience for whom he was writing this must surely have suggested the Annunciation in Luke I. THe words used to describe Paulina’s reaction… when compared to certain phrases in Luke’s Gospel heighten this impression…

Bell suggests that as a result, Josephus’ original writing of the Testamonium likely referred to Jesus’ virgin birth in a derogatory way, and proposes:

If [in the story of Paulina], Josephus has just satirized the founder of Christianity, could not [Fulvia’s story], in light of its context, be understood as satirizing the new sect’s foremost propagator, Paul? … The apostle’s converts included large numbers of women, such as Lydia, his first convert in Europe… and Priscilla… Women are prominently mentioned in the salutations to the letters to Colossae and Rome. … And of course his collection of funds for the Jerusalem Christians was a major aspect of his third missionary journey.

SOURCE: https://www.scribd.com/document/118004185/Josephus-the-Satirist-A-Clue-to-the-Original-Form-of-the-Testimonium-FlavianumMy guess is that Josephus wasn’t writing sarcastically about Jesus in the story of Paulina, though. I found more scholars writings on the topic, but I think that this is enough from me on the topic here. I know that this is a linguistics forum, and I am grateful for the help that you have been providing.

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Thanks also for your feedback, Hylander. It was most helpful when you wrote, “The use of mundus to mean “world/universe” begins in the classical period, in fact in the Republican era, as Lewis & Short show with citations to Cicero, Catullus and Vergil, among others:”. You also made a good point that adorned is a major definition of Mundus. I take it that “Mundus” is either an adjective or a noun, and inflection is not needed to switch between adjectives and nouns for this word. Wiktionary says:

Adjective
mundus (feminine munda, neuter mundum, comparative mundior, superlative mundissimus, adverb munditer);

Noun
mundus m (genitive mundī); second declension
Case Singular Plural
Nominative mundus mundī

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Many Roman names began as adjectives applicable to a specific individual but became just proper names in subsequent generations. Clodius Pulcher is an example. I suspect Mundus is similar.

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This was a helpful discussion. Thanks for your answers, Hylander.