In February 2017 the international conference ‘Tradurre Tradire Tramandare: I Padri greci nell’Occidente latino e nell’Oriente siraco’ was held in Rome as the capstone event of a three-year project funded by the Italian government through its Progetti di Rilevante Interesse Nazionale (PRIN) scheme. The conference papers explored how the works of Greek church fathers were translated in late antiquity with individual contributions exploring either the Latin translations that arose in the West or the Syriac translations that were made in the East. The papers from this conference form the backbone of this edited volume, with an introduction written by the editors followed by fifteen chapters (eight in Italian, six in English and one in Spanish) divided into three sections: ‘Greek Fathers in the Syriac World’, ‘Greek Fathers in the Latin World’ and ‘Further Directions’. The volume concludes with two indexes: a list of the manuscripts referred to and a list of ancient and medieval authors and works.
The introduction lays out the scope of the volume, including the decision to avoid ‘biblical, intertestamental, or apocryphal literature’ in favour of ‘authors and texts perceived as additional literary subjects and products … that extend beyond scriptural boundaries’ (p. 8). A useful synopsis of recent scholarly endeavour in the field of late antique translation studies follows, as the editors set about ‘creating bridges across otherwise individual approaches to each language domain’. This ambition is never fully realised in the volume, in part owing to the structure that separates the Syriac chapters from the Latin chapters, but also because there is very little reflection on what is learnt from studying both Latin and Syriac translations. An epilogue could have done this work, or comparative reflections in the conclusions to individual chapters, which by and large restate briefly what has already been argued in detail. This overall criticism should not, however, detract from the many insightful and innovative pieces of scholarship within the volume, which range across a diverse field of topics. In this review I offer brief synopses and discussions of each individual chapter.
M. Pavan’s chapter analyses the Syriac translation of the Letters on Virginity written by Ps.-Clement of Rome. The chapter begins with a methodological reflection on the field of modern translation studies. This paves the way for Pavan’s characterisation of his own methodology, which is highly attuned to the context in which translations are made, including the translator’s immediate context, secondary data related to the activity of the translator such as their reflections on the nature of translation or language learning and teaching, and the reception of a translation within a specific culture. His analysis then details the reception context of Clement of Rome in the Syriac tradition, before turning to a detailed assessment of the manuscript tradition of the LV, which enables Pavan to claim that a translation of the LV likely emerged prior to the sixth century.
Berti analyses the Syriac translations of Theodore of Mopsuestia, Diodorus of Tarsus and Nestorius of Constantinople. Like Pavan, Berti is very much focused on interpreting these translations in the light of their historical context, in this case the history of the East Syrian church in the fifth and sixth centuries. The analysis then turns to the work of the Nestorian patriarch Mar Aba I, who was a pivotal figure in guiding the reception of Theodore’s and Nestorius’ work in the East Syrian church.
C. Tavolieri’s chapter focuses on the Syriac versions of Palladius’ Lausaic History. This involves a detailed assessment of the manuscript tradition and a series of specific case studies, chosen to illustrate the four main ways in which Syriac translators altered Palladius’ text, by transforming, adapting, omitting and amplifying the original language. It would have been useful if Tavolieri had included all of the Greek and Syriac alongside his translations, as other chapters do, since R. Draguet’s edition is not available digitally (at least to my knowledge). The analyses are precise and convincing.
J.W. Childers’s chapter analyses the Syriac versions of John Chrysostom’s Homilies on Matthew. This is a topic that Childers is ideally suited for, given his longstanding interest in the Syriac reception of Chrysostom’s homilies on the New Testament, beginning with his 1996 D.Phil. at Oxford and continuing through subsequent publications. The early date of the Syriac versions, earlier than any of the Greek manuscripts, enables Childers to infer the character of the text in the Greek tradition prior to the oldest extant manuscripts.
A.C. Pirtea’s chapter assesses the Syriac, Arabic and Armenian translations of Evagrius Ponticus’ Antirrheticus, focusing specifically on how these texts translate biblical passages quoted by Evagrius. This focus enables Pirtea to make meaningful comparisons between source and target text, by exploiting differences in the translations to infer what Greek version of the bible was originally consulted by Evagrius and, conversely, to establish the relative position of manuscripts in the tradition depending on whether they preserve nuances in the Septuagint text used by Evagrius or adapt biblical quotations to the standard Syriac biblical text, the Peshitta.
E. Fiori’s chapter explores the Syriac translations of Gregory of Nyssa, a field of inquiry that has largely been neglected by modern scholarship. Fiori does well to limit the scope of his inquiry to the single oldest manuscript (BAV, Vat. Sir. 106), which contains several of Gregory’s major works, given the confines of pursuing this extensive topic in a single chapter. It would have been useful if Fiori had selected and quoted specific passages to compare, rather than provide a table comparing the Greek to the Syriac that runs to nine pages followed by a translation that runs to eight.
Y. Moss’s chapter analyses Syriac translation techniques in their wider context, drawing on the works of Severus of Antioch as the primary case study. This chapter is a real highlight in the volume and could perhaps have been better placed at the start of the section on Syriac translations since Moss’s early claims provide a clear historical account of how late antique Syriac translations emerged. Moss’s account of why seventh-century Syriac translators preferred more relaxed translations of the Greek texts is compelling; under pressure from the shifting geopolitical climate of the Persian occupation and Muslim conquest, these translators looked to preserve and promote Greek knowledge in a readily accessible form, as opposed to the sixth-century translators, whose concerns were more theopolitical and therefore more focused on preserving linguistic exactitude in their translations.
C. Lo Cicero and S.A. Robbe’s chapter explores Rufinus’ version of Eusebius’ HE and Basil’s Homilies. The inclusion of these two texts enables the authors to make specific comparisons, but it is a missed opportunity as this takes place mainly in the conclusion rather than throughout the chapter. This is perhaps a consequence of Lo Cicero’s focus on Basil and Robbe’s focus on Rufinus (understandably given her brilliant 2016 monograph on this topic). The overall argument that Rufinus thought deeply about his audience and adapted his translations to reflect their interests is well made.
Colombi’s chapter analyses ‘anomalous’ biblical quotations in the Homilies on Matthew by Pseudo-Origen. Colombi notes the existence of a significant amount of Origenic pseudoepigrapha, which exploits the hermeneutics of presenting a work as a translation of a Greek original, even when the work is not a translation, but a new composition, written originally in Latin. Curiously, of the 150 biblical quotations in the Homilies only a quarter conform to the Vulgate, which Colombi largely explains by applying R. Houghton’s concept of ‘flattening’, whereby changes are made to the biblical quotations to incorporate them more seamlessly into the homilies’ exegetical passages.
M. Cerno’s chapter offers a longue durée analysis of how Greek and Latin manuscript transmission led to ‘alterations in the texts, titles and authorial attributions’ (p. 359). This is a vast topic that Cerno narrows to the Latin translations of the ante-Nicene Greek fathers. Even with this more narrowed focus Cerno must negotiate the challenge of condensing a multi-year project into a single, relatively short chapter; and while some of the claims are interesting, the relevance of the chapter hinges on the methodological approach that Cerno offers.
M. Veronese’s chapter analyses the Latin translation of Clement’s letter to James attributed to Rufinus. A detailed stylometric analysis underpins Veronese’s claim that the text was not translated by Rufinus, but was more likely translated in Gaul in the fifth century. The former argument is more convincing than the latter, especially if one assumes that Rufinus’ mode of expression when translating remained largely consistent irrespective of the genre or style of the text translated.
S. Fernández studies Hilary of Poitiers’ translation of Greek theological documents into Latin, especially those related to the Arianist controversy. A sustained series of close comparative readings between Hilary’s Latin and his Greek source texts enables Fernández to determine how Hilary understood Greek theological terms and looked to share that understanding with others in the Latin West.
G. Ferrazza analyses Pope Zacharias’ Greek translation of Gregory the Great’s Dialogi. He clearly demonstrates that the differences between Zacharias’ Greek and Gregory’s Latin reflect Zacharias’ efforts to update the relevance of the text for Rome in the eighth century, which was his immediate cultural, social and political context. Ferrazza’s use of small, easily readable comparative tables that include the Latin and Greek and translations of both make his analysis easy to follow.
A. Rotondo explores the genre of biblical paraphrase in both the Latin and the Greek traditions, before turning to the Greek paraphrase of John by Nonnus of Panopolis. The analysis is compelling, but one wonders at times whether the inclusion of another biblical versifier might have enabled Rotondo to illuminate more clearly Nonnus’ distinct approach.
F. Candido’s chapter analyses the Slavonic translation of Methodius of Olympus’ De lepra. She argues that the translator’s changes, especially the omissions, sometimes reflect the cultural context in which the translation was made. The chapter concludes with the unique aspects of Methodius’ concept of original sin in De lepra, as opposed to his other works.
Overall, this is an erudite and useful volume that has much to offer specialists in the study of late antique manuscripts, translation and early Christianity.
