Subject: tc-list Why Not Latin?

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 11 Feb 1999 12:24:45 -0500 (EST)

1. Thank you for your thoughtful, interesting, and valuable responses to my
January query on cruxes.  They are most helpful to me.

2. Please humor me as I ask another undergraduate-like question:  If, as I've
read, "Mark" was written ca. 70 CE in Rome to Roman Christians, and if textual
studies suggest that the author knew Latin, why would it not have been written
in Latin rather than in Greek?

Thanks,

Robert A. White
English Department
The Citadel

---

From: "William L. Petersen" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 11 Feb 1999 16:15:26 -0500

At 12:24 PM 2/11/99 -0500, Robert White wrote:

[snip]

>in Latin rather than in Greek?

As for Mark in Latin, I know of no serious treatment in modern scholarship
arguing for composition of Mark in Latin.  For an overview of the original
language/authorship matter, see Vincent Taylor, *The Gospel according to
Mark* (2nd ed.; London: Macmillan, 1966), pp. 1-25 (history of scholarship)
and 26-32 (author, provenance, date).  Another handy resource is the
*Anchor Bible Dictionary,* whose article on Mark is by Paul Achtermeier.
Both of these scholars note that the "Latinisms" in Mark's text are in no
way proof of composition in Latin for, as Taylor puts it (pp. 44-45):

"Special interest belongs to Mark's use of...'Latin' words...  The 'Latin'
words are [list in Greek].  Of these words [subset of list] are found in
other Gospels, but [second subset of the list] are peculiar to Mark.  The
presence of almost all [in a note, Taylor lists only one exception to what
he is going to say...] these words in the [Greek] papyri shows that they
belonged to the Koine, but their frequency in Mark suggests that the
Evangelist wrote in a Roman environment."

In other words, there is no clear-cut evidence that (as you put it) "the
author knew Latin," nor do "textual studies" suggest composition in Latin.
The Latinisms are (1) evidenced in the papyri as words known and used in
Koine Greek (just as we in English use "fin-de-siecle"--which does not mean
we wrote the sentence in French--or "Sitz-im-Leben" without writing the
whole article in German);  and (2) appear part of the general "Sprachgut"
of that time and place.  Hence, no argument for Latin as the original
language of Mark can be based on such evidence.

As a parallel:  Zuntz wrote a famous article titled:  "Melito -- Syriac?"
in the journal *Vigiliae Christianae* in 1952 (pp. 193-201) in which he
argued against the suggestion that Melito of Sardis wrote his *Peri pascha*
in Syriac.  His most devastating argument was simply to point to "Asianic
Greek"--the popular Greek of that time and place--which, although Greek,
had acquired the artifices of Semitic diction, with *parallelismus
membrorum,* anaphora, etc., etc.  Therefore, said Zuntz, each and every
item adduced as a "Syriasm" in Melito could be paralleled in texts which we
*knew* were originally composed in Greek--albeit Asianic Greek.  Since the
MS tradition of Melito was Greek, *in dubito, pro tradio":  when in doubt,
opt for the tradition--which for Melito means Greek.

Looking at the Vetus Latina of Mark, it clearly seems to be a translation
from the Greek.  The division of the tradition in Latin when there is none
in the Greek confirms this.  One example:  at Mark 16:5, one finds the
women (in the Greek text) seeing a "neaniskon" (youth, young man) sitting
in the tomb.  The Vetus Latina divides in its translation:  one MS reads
"adulescentem" (ff2) while others read "iuvenem" (rell).  In other words,
faced with the entire Greek MS tradition unified behind a single word,
"neaniskon," the *later* Latin *translator*s*, working separately, and in
different times/places, often differ in translating the same Greek word.
In this case, some render it with a rough equivalent of the English
"adolescent" (adulescentem), while others give "youth" (iuvenem).  This
split at such an early stage in the Latin tradition (I'm using Vetus Latina
evidence here, not the Vulgate) clearly suggests translation from the Greek.

I cannot resist a second example:  in the same verse (Mark 16:5), where the
Greek tradition is united in reading "leuken" ("white"), the Latin once
again does what two undergrad students would do, if translating from a
foreign language:  for "maison" in French, one student uses "house" and the
other uses "home."  Here, the Latin divides between "candidam" and
"candida" (dazzling white) on the one side, and "albam" (white) on the
other side.  This split in the early Latin tradition is best explained by
assuming that the Latin is being translated *from* another language--and
therefore Greek wins by default.

Incidentally, such "splits" in translation number literally in the hundreds
(probably thousands);  it is not just vocabulary, but also splits in
rendering the Greek grammar:  another (third) example, in Mark 16:6:  Greek
= autais ("to them" [dative];  D is the only MS [apparently] with a
variant:  autois ["them", dative pl. masc. (!)]); Latin = "eis" (*dative [=
Greek]*:  to them [fem.]) or "ad illas" (to those [fem.] [accusative]) or
"illis" (*dative [= Greek]* to those [fem.] )--all attempting to render the
Greek.

Other examples from the same 2 verses:

v. 5:
Latin, introeuntes -- ingresse -- ingresse -- intrantes -- introissent, all
rendering the Greek eiselthousai or elthousai
Latin, coopertum -- amictum -- indutum, all attempting to render the Greek
peribeblemenon
Latin, obstipuerunt -- expaverunt -- hebetes factae sunt, for the Greek
exethambethesan

v. 6:
Latin, expavescere -- timere -- stupetis, for the Greek ekthambeisthe
Latin, surrexit  -- resurrexit, for the Greek egerthe
Latin, posuerent -- fuit positus -- positus erat, all trying to render the
Greek ethekan.

This constant, repeated (at least 9 times, in 2 verses) division of the
Latin--the *Vetus* Latina--tradition, suggests that it is translating a
text from another language.  (This patten repeats throughout not just Mark,
but all the gospels and the rest of the NT in the Latin....)

Did you get this idea from a source?  Or did the thought occur to you
spontaneously, having read about some "Latinisms" in Mark?  If there is a
source that proposes this, would you be so kind as to identify it?  Thanks.

--Petersen, Penn State Univ.  (in haste and not proofed)