apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

MANUSCRIPTS AND VERSIONS.
^7
which he supposes to have been introduced by transcribers at a later
date, (ii)
With one exception (certain Martyrologies translated by
command of Gregory Martyrophilus, the catholicus of Armenia) no
translations are known to have been made from Syriac into Armenian
at a later date, (iii)
The Biblical quotations have no affinity
to the
Armenian version of the Scriptures, and appear therefore to be prior in
date to that version. Though these arguments seem to me to be
inconclusive, I cannot venture, with my very slender knowledge of the
language, to question the result. I will only mention one objection
which appears to me to be formidable. This early date seems hardly
to allow sufficient time for the successive stages in the history of the
Ignatian literature. If (as seems to be assumed) all the epistles were
translated into Armenian at the same time, room must be found for
the following facts :
(i) The forgery of the confessedly spurious letters,
which can hardly be placed earlier than the middle of the fourth
century; (2) The attachment of these to the epistles
of the Middle
form, for they originally proceeded from the same hand as the Long
recension ;
(3) The translation of the two sets of letters, thus combined,
into Syriac, for it will be seen presently that the Armenian
version was made from the Syriac ; (4) The corruption of the Syriac
text, for it is found also that very numerous and very considerable
errors had crept in before the Armenian version was made; (5) The
translation into Armenian.
One important fact— important not only as gauging the textual value
of the Armenian version, but still more as having a direct bearing on
the Ignatian question
— has been established irrefragably by Petermann.
It cannot be doubted, after his investigations, that the Armenian translation
was made, not from the Greek original, but from a Syriac version.
The arguments may be ranged under three heads, (i) Syriac constructions
and phrases appear in an Armenian dress, where otherwise
the translator would naturally have followed the Greek. Thus the
idiom of the indecUnable relative in the Shemitic languages is copied,
though in Armenian, as in Greek, the relative is declined. Finite
sentences are substituted for participial clauses, though the substitution
is not required by the genius of the Armenian language, as it is by that
of the Syriac. The degrees of comparison are rendered in the Syriac
way. Assertions are strengthened by prefixing the infinitive absolute
(with the sense of the Latin gerund) to the finite verb after the manner
of the Shemitic tongues, though there is
nothing corresponding in the
Greek; e.g. Magn. 7
'
tentando tentate,' Rovi. 4 'provocando provocate,'
Smyrn. 4 ' orando orate,' etc. The forms ' est mihi,' ' est illi,'