L8 Texts and Translations – the Ancient East


Early translations of the Bible are of intrinsic interest for many reasons. They are some of the earliest surviving examples of the language. They provide glimpses into the way the Bible was understood by different populations. They offer some of the best evidence for how Christianity spread throughout the ancient world. In this presentation, two ancient Eastern versions are considered. The Syriac version of the Bible provides evidence for the strength of the Christian movement on the eastern edges of the empire. The Coptic language developed in Egypt from the 3rd century C.E. and is extant in versions of the Bible as well as in Gnostic literature that challenged the traditional canon.


  1. The early versions of the Christian Bible is useful in several ways.

    1. The languages of the Bible were Hebrew and Greek but also translations appeared in multiple languages.

    2. Jewish Bible had only three ancient versions: Greek (LXX), Aramaic (Targums) and the 10th century translation into idiomatic Arabic by Saadia Ben Joseph.

    3. In Christianity translations of the Bible into some languages represents the first time such languages were written. Christianity spread to different lands outside the interest of imperial historians. Compositions in distinct languages shows how different cultures understood the scriptures.

  2. The Syriac Scriptures form part of a complex development in early Christianity that is only partly known.

    1. Syriac is a northwest Semitic language with 22 consonants and no vowels based on the East Aramaic dialect of Edessa. The New Testament tells us how Christianity came to Antioch, a center of Hellenistic culture but not how it spread to East Syria. Edessa is modern day Urfa in Turkey and churches were there by mid-2nd century.

    2. Syrian Christianity was known for its intensity and divisiveness. Tatian a noted ascetic was Syrian. Compositions e.g. Acts of Thomas represent this ascetic practice. There were theological disputes between Syriac-speaking Christians in the 5th century. The two major groups were the Nestorians in East Syria under Persian influence and the Monophysites in Western Syria under Byzantine influence.

    3. Historical complexity is matched by convoluted character of the Syriac translations of the Bible. East and West Syrians developed distinct dialects based on how vowels were pronounced. The first part of the New Testament translated into Syriac may have been the Ditessaron of Tatian. In the 19th C, two manuscripts were discovered with a Syriac version of the four Gospels in the Sequence: Matthew, Mark, John, Luke.

    4. The Syriac translation of the Bible dates about 4th C. In the New Testament there were 22 books (lacking 2 Peter, Jude, and 2, 3 John).

    5. The Palestinian Syriac version is really a form of Aramaic used by Christians in Palestine but it also has Syriac script lettering dating between 300 and 600 C.E.

  3. Coptic translations provide some of the earliest information concerning Christianity in ancient Egypt.

    1. Best known in the city of Alexandria, home to Clement and Origen, early Christian theology is evident in their writings.

    2. Native population in Egypt spoke Coptic (Copt derives from an Arabic corruption of the Greek designation Aigyptoi meaning Egyptians.)

    3. Coptic was the last stage of the language of ancient Egypt – with 24 Greek letters, plus 7 that represent sounds in Coptic not made in Greek.

    4. Upper Egypt was an important center of monastic life, found described in “Lives of Saints” and “Sayings of the fathers’ both written in Coptic.

    5. Adherence to the Monophysite heresy, the Egyptian church was isolated and was conquered by the Arabs in 642.

    6. We find translations of the New Testament in several dialects of Copic.

    7. Several Gnostic Christian writings were translated from Greek into Coptic or written in Coptic during the 3rd through 6th centuries, examples were found in the Gnostic library at Nag Hammadi in 1945.

  4. In both Syriac and Coptic, an extensive Christian literature developed on the basis of and in concert with the production of the Bible in these languages.

    1. Many liturgical and theological tractates in Coptic were translated from the greek.

    2. Syriac Christian literature is much larger, extending from 3rd to 13th centuries.


Nestorianism is the doctrine that there were two separate Persons in the Incarnate Christ, one Divine, the other Human, as opposed to the orthodox doctrine that the Incarnate Christ was a single Person, at once God and man. Nestorius (c 451) from whom the heresy takes its name was a Syrian, a monastic educated in the Antiochene theological school. He had a great reputation as a preacher and was named Bishop of Constantinople. He got caught up in a controversy regarding the term theotokos: God bearer an important aspect of devotion to the Virgin as the Mother of God. Cyril of Alexandria won an appeal at a Council held in Ephesus in 431. Nestorius was sent back to his monastery at Antioch. In 435 Nestorius was banished to Upper Egypt where he died several years later. The Nestorian movement went further into Persia, but when Mohammed died in 632, Arab conquest of Persia allowed Nestorian practice to continue as a protected class. Subsequent leaders were more severe and in 1295 Islamic fundamentalists drove the Nestorian Christians into Kurdistan where their descendants have survived until modern times under the name of the Assyrian Christians.


Monophysitism is the doctrine that in the Person of the Incarnate Christ there was but a single, Divine Nature. Orthodoxy taught that Christ was of two nature but unified in one substance. Monophysitism arose from the debates at the Council of Chalcedon (451) which formally defined the two persons of one substance – doctrine of Christology. During the 5th and 6th centuries, efforts were made at reconciling the Monophysites to the Catholics but finally they aligned with the Copts, Syrian Jacobites, and Armenians. All these groups accept the fathers of the Church prior to Chalcedon and in their official professions of faith and their liturgical documents appear to confess the orthodox Christology but in Monophysite terms.


Council of Chalcedon affirms the definitions of Nicaea and Constantinople about the orthodox faith: Person of Christ is two natures, Divine and human, and one in substance with the Father. Theologically we use the term incarnation to describe the divinity and humanity of Christ. Incarnation underscores the theology of Grace and of the Sacraments.