Abstract
This essay focuses on the relationship between Latin translations and the authority of the Greek texts on which they were based. Groundbreaking Greek editions, arguably the greatest scholarly achievement of the sixteenth century, only initiated the contest over authoritative readings. Greek manuscripts were rare, their competing authority difficult to interpret, with translation hampered by increasingly apparent philological difficulties. Translation involved not only the striving after some equivalence of expression in the target language, but, for those who undertook to emend as they translated, critical engagement with the state of the source text. An editio princeps — the first printed edition of a work in its original classical language — instead of stabilizing a text, could instead foment debate of its authority. Those with access to manuscripts other than those on which the printed edition depended could contest the readings and carp over misleading representation of the author. Moreover, translations based on these printed texts could be subject to related charges.
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Notes
C. B. Schmitt, John Case and Aristotelianism in Renaissance England (Kingston, ON, 1983), 59–60;
J. W. Binns, Intellectual Culture in Elizabethan and Jacobean England: The Latin Writings of the Age (Leeds, 1990), 218. See also id., ‘Latin Translations from Greek in the English Renaissance’, Humanistica Lovaniensia, 27 (1978), 128–59.
See The Reception of the Church Fathers in the West: From the Carolingians to the Maurists, ed. I. Backus, 2 vols (Leiden, 1997); J.-L. Quantin, The Church of England and Christian Antiquity: The Construction of a Confessional Identity in the 17th Century (Oxford, 2009).
See J. F. McDiarmid, ‘John Cheke’s Preface to De superstitione’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 48 (1997), 100–20.
For example, A. J. L. Blanchard and T. A. Sowerby, ‘Thomas Wilson’s Demosthenes and the Politics of Tudor Translation’, International Journal of the Classical Tradition, 12 (2005), 46–80 (68–70). For Henrician and Marian exiles, see P. Marshall, Religious Identities in Henry VIII’s England (Aldershot, 2006), ch. 11 and the appendix.
For example, W. P. Haaugaard, ‘Renaissance Patristic Scholarship and Theology in Sixteenth-Century England’, Sixteenth Century Journal, 10 (1979), 37–60; M. Vessey, ‘English Translations of the Latin Fathers 1517–1611’, Backus, II, 775–835.
Philo Judaeus, In libros Mosis de mundi opificio, historicos, de legibus. Eiusdem libri singulares. Ex Bibliotheca Regia (Paris, 1552). L. D. Reynolds and N. G. Wilson, Scribes and Scholars: A Guide to the Transmission of Greek and Latin Literature, 3rd edn (Oxford, 1991), 173.
A. Grafton, Joseph Scaliger: A Study in the History of Classical Scholarship, 2 vols (Oxford, 1983), I, 71–100, esp. 85–8.
L. Labowsky, Bessarion’s Library and the Biblioteca Marciana (Rome, 1979). For a catalogue of the Greek manuscripts in the Marciana, see Graeca D. Marci Bibliotheca codicum manu scriptorum per titulos digesta, ed. A. M. Zanetti and A. Bongiovanni (Venice, 1740).
Philo, tr. Christopherson (1553), b2r: ‘mihi certè inveteribus scriptoribus tum convertendis, tum emendandis ea religio et est, et semper fuit, ut nihil de meo addere voluerim, nihil confingere, sed cum munere fungerer interpretis, sententiam authoris verè exprimere, cum autem correctoris, exemplaria impressa cum manu descriptis diligenter conferre laborarim’. See T. Hermans, ‘The Task of the Translator in the European Renaissance: Explorations in a Discursive Field’, Translating Literature, ed. S. Bassnett (Cambridge, 1997), 14–40, esp. 34–6.
J. Durkan, ‘Henry Scrimgeour, Renaissance Bookman’, Edinburgh Bibliographical Society Transactions, 5 (1978), 1–32.
Impp. Justiniani, Justini, Leonis novellae constitutiones, ed. H. Scrimgeour (Geneva, 1558). See H. Omont, ‘Deux registres de prêts de manuscrits de la Bibliothèque de Saint Marc à Venise’, Bibliothèque de l’École des Chartes, 48 (1887), 651–86 (666, 668, 677).
See Durkan, 6; P. Lehmann, Eine Geschichte der alten Fuggerbibliotheken, 2 vols (Tübingen, 1956–60), zi, 98; J. Morelli, Jacobi Morellii Bibliothecae Regiae Divi Marci Venetiarum custodis bibliotheca manuscripta graeca et latina: tomus primus (Bassano del Grappa, 1801), 53.
J. Woolfson, ‘Reginald Pole and his Greek Manuscripts in Oxford: A Reconsideration’, Bodleian Library Record, 17 (2000), 79–95.
Gregorii Nyssae Pontificis [. ..] doctissimus in hexameron commentarius, tr. P. F. Zini (Venice, 1553), 5r; Sancti Joannis Damsceni adversus sanctarum imaginum oppugnatores orationes tres, tr. Zini (Venice, 1554), A4r. For Zini, see Ugo Da Como, Umanisti del secolo XVI: Pier Francesco Zini suoi amici e congiunti nei ricordi di Lonato (Bologna, 1928); T. F. Mayer, ‘When Maecenas Was Broke: Cardinal Pole’s “Spiritual” Patronage’, Sixteenth Century Journal, 27 (1996), 419–35 (430–1).
Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, II. 4. 2–3 and II. 18. 1, 8; Augustine, Contra Faustum (‘Against Faustus’), XII. 39; Jerome, De viris illustribus (‘On Illustrious Men’), 11. For a sense of where Christopherson would have encountered Philo in his reading, see D. T. Runia, Philo in Early Christian Literature: A Survey (Assen, 1993); id., ‘References to Philo from Josephus up to 1000 AD’, Studia Philonica, 6 (1994), 111–21.
For an overview of Philo, see C. Mondésert, ‘Philo of Alexandria’, The Cambridge History of Judaism, III: The Early Roman Period, ed. W. Horbury, W. D. Davies, and J. Sturdy (Cambridge, 1999), 877–900.
Still useful is A. C. Headlam, ‘The Editions and Manuscripts of Eusebius: Part I’, Journal of Theological Studies, o.s. 4 (1903), 93–102.
See T. D. Barnes, ‘The Editions of Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History’, Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, 21 (1980), 191–201;
R. W. Burgess, ‘The Dates and Editions of Eusebius’ Chronici Canones and Historia Ecclesiastica’, Journal of Theological Studies, 48 (1997), 471–504.
A. Tilley, ‘Greek Studies in Early Sixteenth-Century England’, English Historical Review, 53 (1938), 221–38, 438–56 (454).
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© 2011 Andrew W. Taylor
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Taylor, A.W. (2011). Humanist Philology and Reformation Controversy: John Christopherson’s Latin Translations of Philo Judaeus and Eusebius of Caesarea. In: Schurink, F. (eds) Tudor Translation. Early Modern Literature in History. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230361102_5
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