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The Syriac Version of Lucian's De Calumnia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

M. D. Macleod  and
M. D. Macleod
M. D. Macleod
Affiliation:
The University of Southampton,
M. D. Macleod
Affiliation:
The University of Southampton,
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Extract

The literary legacy of Aramaic-speaking Christianity consists predominantly of ecclesiastical works—theological treatises (both original and translations), sermons, hymns, and the like; it is for the most part, one must admit, rather dull stuff. Distinguished from the rest, and of peculiar interest to classical students, are secular works, translated from the Greek, which include, apart from medical and scientific treatises, a handful of writings by Plutarch, Lucian, and Themistius. Baumstark suggests that the translator of these three Greek writers be identified as Sargis (died 536), a learned priest and ⋯ρχιατρός in Theodosiopolis, with a somewhat chequered ecclesiastical career (he changed sides in the christological controversy, starting out as a monophysite and ending up in the Chalcedonian camp), who is known as the translator of a number of philosophical and medical treatises. Sargis has his place in the history of thought, for it was in the first place through his Syriac translations that the Arabs became acquainted with Galen, whose works eventually assumed almost canonical status with them.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 20 , Issue 2 , December 1970 , pp. 297 - 299
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1970

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References

page 297 note 1 and the lost.

page 297 note 2

page 297 note 3 and the lost.

page 297 note 4 Geschichte der Syrischen Literatur (Bonn, 1922), 169.Google Scholar

page 297 note 5 Quaestiones Lucianeae (Berlin, 1888), 92–9.Google Scholar

page 297 note 6 Inedita Syriaca (Vienna, 1870).Google Scholar

page 297 note 7 Göttingische gelehrte Anzeigen (1871), 1201 ff.Google Scholar

page 297 note 8 Cf. the verdict of the Teubner Plutarch: ‘Libere agens ac saepe in breviorem formam reddens’ cf. also p. 299 n. 1.

page 297 note 9 Die Ìberlieferung Lucians (Vienna, 1911).Google Scholar

page 297 note 10 Lucianus, Fasc. 1. 2.

page 299 note 1 Cf. the verdict of Helmbold on the Syriac version of(Loeb, vol. 6, p. 91): ‘A free Syriac translation which helps occasionally in the constitution of the text’, and of Babbit (Loeb, vol. 2, p. 3) on the Syriac Πώς:The translation of this essay is rather an adaptation, but even so it gives light on the Greek text in a few places.’

page 299 note 2 See Dialogi Meretricii, ed. Mras, K. (Berlin, 1930), 5.Google Scholar

page 299 note 3 Despite the belief of Mras to the contrary, the weight of the evidence suggests that the lost part of Arethas’ Lucian, Harleianus 5694, was of the β class.