Official language of the Church

[doctormirabilis]

Greetings!

I would like to know which was the official language of the Church prior to the Great Schism of 1054. Was it Greek in the Byzantine Empire and Latin in the West? Or was it Greek in both the East and West?

Thanks in advance.

[jonkon]

Prior to the fall of Rome, Greek was the common language of the Church and the people, hence the earliest Biblical manuscripts are in Greek. With the decline of Rome and accompanying decline in the use of Greek in the East, scholars like Boethius recognized the importance of preserving Greek literature in Latin translations. Jerome thus translated the Bible into Latin between 382 and 405. Jerome's Vulgate was the first official Latin version of the Bible, although there are numerous Latin manuscripts created on an ad hoc basis for the local use of Christian communities prior to Jerome, collectively called the Vetus Latina.

[himself]

And the Alexandrian church used Egyptian (Coptic) and the Antiochene church used Syriac (Late Aramaic), though it's easy to forget about those two. Seems to me that each patriarchate used the common language within their region. To write letters back and forth, Greek was more widely known: the primary language in the Constantinopolitan region and a second language in Egypt and Syria. And not unknown in the West, either. When Pepin the Short asked the Pope for Greek texts, Paul I supplied them "together with men to translate them."

[doctormirabilis]

And the Alexandrian church used Egyptian (Coptic) and the Antiochene church used Syriac (Late Aramaic), though it's easy to forget about those two. Seems to me that each patriarchate used the common language within their region. To write letters back and forth, Greek was more widely known: the primary language in the Constantinopolitan region and a second language in Egypt and Syria. And not unknown in the West, either. When Pepin the Short asked the Pope for Greek texts, Paul I supplied them "together with men to translate them."

In short, there wasn't such a thing as the official language of the Church before the Great Schism, right?

[himself]

Aug 11, 2011 23:10:09 GMT doctormirabilis said:

In short, there wasn't such a thing as the official language of the Church before the Great Schism, right?

They used the lingua franca of their time and place. I'm not sure that there had to be an "official language" unless it means the language used by officials. Although it occurs to me that, since different languages form concepts differently, it is useful to designate one as the standard and assure that all translations into other languages carry the same meaning as the standard rendition. Someone once said that the early heresies in Syria and Egypt were at root disagreements over Greek grammar.