Folia Theologica 17. (2006)
Uwe Michael Lang: Early Christian Latin as a Liturgical Language
130 U. M. LANG The enormous influence of these Old Latin Bible versions accounts for the fact that Christian Latin was much more reticent than Christian Greek in the process of receiving the heritage of classical culture. Greek-speaking Christians were quite happy to take an already existing word from the classical tradition and invest it with a new meaning. Latin-speaking Christians, by contrast, tended to form a completely new word, or else used a Greek (or Hebrew) loanword. They were particularly keen to avoid any association with pagan ideas. 1 should like to illustrate these two different attitudes with a telling example. When speaking of the Jesus as 'Saviour', Greek Christians were happy to use the already existing word acûTfip, despite its pagan pedigree. We find already in Pindar and Aeschylus that the title ctcoTip was given to Greek deities, among them Zeus, Athena, and especially Asclepius, the god of healing. In the Hellenistic world, rulers were acclaimed as acorfip if they had liberated a city from oppression, siege or a similar threat. Despite this pagan use, cramp found its way into the Septuagint, where God is invoked as 'Saviour' (e.g. Ps 24:5; 26:9; Micah 7:7). In the New Testament cramp has a specifically christological meaning and refers to Jesus the Saviour (Lk 2:11; Acts 13:23; Phil 3:20 etc.). Latin speakers found it difficult to render this term in their own language, even before Christ. Cicero was already looking for an appropriate Latin word and declared that he could not find one; he used salus, parens (ac deus) salutis, servator and salutaris, or chose periphrastic expressions, such as qui salutem dedit.n Propertius and Livy employed the word servator, while Tacitus preferred conservator. These renderings were not accepted in Christian popular speech, let alone in theological writing, most likely because of their pagan religious overtones; however, conservator is later found in Christian poetry, often for the sake of the metre. Tertullian's invention salutificator did not have any success, nor had Arnobius's choice sospitator. After attempts at translating ocorip with salutaris, which was also used as an epithet of the god Jupiter, Latin-speak- 11 11 Cicero, In Verrem II, 2, 154: Itaque cum non solum patronum illius insulae, sed etiam Sotera inscriptum vidi Syracusis. Hoc quantum est? Ita magnum ut Latine uno verbo exprimi non possit. Is est nimirum Soter qui salutem dedit', for further reference, see P. Labriolle, ‘Salvator’, in Archivum Latinitatis Mediae Aetatis 14 (1939), pp. 23-36, at pp. 26-28.
