Early Textual Transmission and Development

Abstract

Abstract Addresses three textual problems: the transmission of the Latin text of the Serdican canons, the early history of the Greek text and its differences from the Latin, and the derivation of a third textual version of the canons known as the version of Theodosius Diaconus. All evidence points towards the probability that the Latin text of the canons arrived in Rome shortly after the Serdican council and that they were soon mistakenly identified as acts of the Council of Nicaea. It seems likely that the Greek text was first taken to Thessalonica and remained unknown elsewhere for over half a century. It is demonstrated in this chapter that by the use of the textual analyses in the chapters to follow the several instances of different meanings between the Greek and Latin texts in parallel passages were probably caused by later scribal or editorial changes, some accidental and others purposeful, in both the Greek and the Latin. The version of Theodosius Diaconus is an early Latin translation from the Greek text, which provides valuable evidence for the relationship between the Greek and the Latin.