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Document Details :

Title: Osservazioni sulla versione siriaca del settimo Carmen arcanum di Gregorio Nazianzeno
Author(s): SEMBIANTE, Antonio Stefano
Journal: Le Muséon
Volume: 135    Issue: 1-2   Date: 2022   
Pages: 1-28
DOI: 10.2143/MUS.135.1.3290649

Abstract :
The present paper examines the Syriac version of Gregory Nazianzen’s poem Περὶ ψυχῆς, the seventh of the so-called Carmina Arcana (= carm. I 1, 8 in the Maurist edition). This poem, which counts 129 verses, is only partially present in the Syriac tradition, which preserves the first 24 verses in the MS Vaticanus Syriacus 105. After a brief status quaestionis on the Syriac translations of Gregory’s poems, the Author establishes a comparison between the Greek text and the Syriac translation of the seventh Carmen Arcanum. The present analysis shows, on the one hand, the effort of the Syriac translator to render exactly the Greek Vorlage, and, on the other, several inexactitudes, which have to be attributed to misunderstandings of the Greek text, but also to errors already present in the MS/MSS used to accomplish the translation. Finally, a new edition of the Syriac text is provided.

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