Nuove osservazioni filologiche e paleografiche su antiche traduzioni armene dal greco

The Armenian translations of classical or patristic Greek texts which were made from the fifth-sixth century A.D. onwards are a useful resource for a philological reconstruction of the Greek texts themselves, since often the translators made use of manuscripts dating back many centuries before all the extant Greek witnesses. Nevertheless, a translation can occasionally diverge from the original text in some places. This phenomenon can be due to early corruption that had already occurred within the Greek manuscript tradition, or to the translator’s misreading or misunderstanding; alternately, it can depend on a later corruption within the manuscript tradition of the Armenian version. In this paper, a few examples of this kind of translation “mistakes” are examined, and their palaeographical/philological genesis is explained. They have been chosen from various texts: Epiphanius’ De duodecim gemmis; John Chrysostom’s Ad Theodorum lapsum II; and the Physiologus.