Tuesday 5 July 2011

Natalia Smelova - The homilies “On king Uzziah” by St. John Chrysostom in Syriac translation


A few years ago while working on the manuscript of the Homiliae Cathedrales (HC) by Severus of Antioch in St Petersburg (RNL, Syriaс New Series 10) I identified one leaf bound together with the HC manuscript as an unknown patristic text belonging to a 7th century manuscript (on the basis of its palaeography). The ‘unknown text’ proved to be a fragment of one of three homilies “On king Uzziah” by St. John Chrysostom in Syriac translation. The rest of homilies are preserved in another Syriac manuscript in St Petersburg dating in fact to the 7th century (RNL, Syriac New Series 12). 
In the Greek tradition the cycle “On king Uzziah” contains six Homilies properly named “On the words ‘In the year that king Uzziah died I saw the Lord’ (Isaiah 6:1) (CPG 4417). The original Greek text of all the six homilies has survived and their critical edition has been prepared recently by Jean Dumortier. Although the homilies are preserved in numerous manuscripts from the 9th to 16th centuries, there are textual problems related to them which are still to be solved.
There are three layers in formation of the cycle of homilies identified by Dumortier in accordance with their original quantity and sequence. The initial layer consists of four homilies: 2, 3, 5, and 6. This archaic tradition is attested by Armenian translation preserved in three manuscripts. Now his reconstruction can be supported by new evidence of the Syriac translation which has never been used by scholars studying the Homilies on Uzziah and not mentioned in CPG. This Syriac translation also includes four homilies on Uzziah: 2, 3, 5, and 6. So far only two Syriac manuscripts are known: one in the Russian National Library in St Petersburg and another one in the British Library (Add. 14612, late 6th - 7th century).
The paper presents some preliminary results of the work-in-progress collation of the two manuscripts as well as the study of language and peculiarities of the Syriac translation. 

No comments:

Post a Comment