Contrastive Linguistic 
and Cultural 
Backgrounds of the 
Two Latin Translators 
of the Life of Antony
Aleksandar Anđelović*  
 
and György Geréby**
INTRODUCTION
Soon after its composition, Athanasius’ Life of Antony (henceforth Life) 
was translated twice from Greek into Latin.1 One version originated 
in about 375 CE, written by Evagrius,2 a Christian intellectual from 
Antioch in Syria, a close friend and patron of Jerome, whose career and 
1 Athanasius’ authorship of the Life of Antony has been the subject of numerous 
debates. Apart from Athanasian paternity, the question has also been whether 
the Greek text preserved is a revision of an original, now lost, Coptic text and 
whether the Syriac Life that we have translates an original “Copticizing” Greek 
text or an original Coptic; for a brief overview, see Louth, “St. Athanasius and 
the Greek Life of Antony,” 504–5. Given the lack of evidence of any other Vorlage 
than the extant Greek Life, one can agree with David Brakke that the extant 
Greek Life of Antony is the earliest form of Antony’s biography; for details 
regarding his arguments, see Brakke, “The Greek and Syriac versions of the Life 
of Antony,” 53.
2 The critical edition of Evagrius’ translation (henceforth VE) used in this article 
is Vitae Antonii Versiones latinae, Vita beati Antonii abbatis Evagrio interprete, 
ed. by Bertrand, 3–103.
* Department of History, University of Vienna, Maria-Theresen-Straße 9, 1090 
Wien; aleksandar.andjelovic@univie.ac.at.
** Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University, Quellenstraße 
51, A-1100 Wien, gerebygy@ceu.edu.
doI: https://doi.org/10.4312/clotho.3.2.5-28
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ALEKSANDAR ANĐELOVIĆ AND GYÖRGY GERÉBY6
personality are relatively easy to trace3 in the extant ancient sources.4 
Evagrius’ Latin translation became very popular in the Latin West. It 
was widely read during the Middle Ages, as witnessed by more than 
four hundred manuscripts in which it has survived. It was composed 
in a high register of Latin. Evagrius sprinkled the text with classical 
quotations such as Vergil and Horace, and it was written probably for 
a late-antique elite readership. 
Evagrius’ translation (henceforth VE) was long believed to be the only 
translation of the Greek Life. In 1914, however, the French Benedictine 
medievalist and liturgist Dom André Wilmart found a manuscript in 
the Archives of the Chapter of Saint Peter in Rome.5 Wilmart identified 
it as an eleventh-century copy of an older Latin translation of the Greek 
Life of Antony produced some twenty years before VE. The first edition 
of the text was published some twenty-five years after its discovery.6 
This anonymous translator’s (henceforth AT) work, unlike Evagrius’ 
celebrated translation, was disregarded by scholarship as being too 
literal, labeled as “barbarous,” “low,” “monastic,” or “Christian” Latin, 
written for uneducated monks.7
Who was the AT? Unlike his later counterpart Evagrius, the author 
of the first Latin translation of the Life remains an unknown figure 
despite several attempts to uncover his identity.8 Henricus Hoppenbro-
uwers speculated that he was a prominent Egyptian monk named 
Isidore. Lois Gandt, the most recent editor of the anonymous trans-
3 In any case, both translators worked with the Greek text they believed to have 
been authored by Athanasius; for the current purposes, the question of whether 
there existed an earlier redaction of the Life of Antony in Coptic or “Copticizing” 
Greek is irrelevant. The critical edition of the Greek Life of Antony (henceforth 
VA) used in this paper is Bartelink, Sant’Antonio Abate, based on the Greek text 
of the VA published by Bartelink, Vie d’Antoine.
4 For an overview of Evagrius’ life see Rebenich, Hieronymus und sein Kreis, 52–75. 
See also Bertrand, “Die Evagriusübersetzung der Vita Antonii: Reception – 
Überlieferung – Edition,” 24–28.
5  Available online in the digital database of the Vatican Library, “Arch.Cap.S.Pi-
etro.A.2,” DigiVatLib.
6  Garitte, Un témoin important. The critical edition of the anonymous translation 
(henceforth VV) used in this article is Vitae Antonii Versiones latinae, Versio 
uetustissima, ed. by Lois Gandt, 107–177.
7  For a brief overview of the theories on “Christian” Latin developed by the so-cal-
led Nijmegen school, see Burton, The Old Latin Gospels, 153–54. The notion of 
“Christian” Latin as Sondersprache is now outdated, and it never lacked critics, 
see, for example, the most recent publications on this topic, Denecker, “Among 
Latinists,” as well as “The Nijmegen School.”
8 For the little that is known about the AT, see ed. Gandt, 205–8. 
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TWO LATIN TRANSLATORS OF THE LIFE OF ANTONY 7
lation (henceforth VV), identified this AT with another well-known 
Egyptian erudite monk, Ammonius.9 Still, it is unlikely that one will 
ever know the actual name of the translator. Therefore, while one 
can agree that the AT probably originates from Egypt,10 rather than 
attempting to identify him with one or another well-known figure 
of fourth-century Egyptian monasticism, this paper will try to glean 
information on the AT from the translation’s text. This approach, 
particularly beneficial in the case of the AT, works even in Evagrius’ 
case. His text has not been fully quarried for information about its 
translator either.
In particular, given that the Greek Life is suffused with biblical 
quotations as Athanasius widely quoted the Bible in shaping Antony 
as a normative and monastic model,11 the biblical quotations that both 
translators translated from Greek in their versions of the Life reveal a 
lot about the two translators’ distinctive modus operandi. When saying 
this, one can have in mind the direct quotations (i.e., quotations with 
no or minimal change in respect to their original formulation in the 
Greek Bible, henceforth verbatim) from the Bible rendered into Latin 
that each translator did in his way. Thus, the translations of verba-
tim biblical quotations from Greek into Latin have the potential to 
reveal more about the two translators’ approaches to translation and 
about their linguistic, cultural, and theological background than is 
known so far.
Did the AT of the Life use any of the existing Latin translations of 
the Bible to translate the biblical quotations he found in the Greek 
original, or did he translate them himself, without recourse to 
trans lations already available? What does the AT’s “literal” and “low- 
9 Another fourth-century desert ascetic and one of the Tall Brothers, the four 
monks from Nitria known for their exceptional height as well as for erudition, 
see Gandt, “A Philological and Theological Analysis,” 298.
10 Primarily because of his familiarity with the Egyptian desert, as rightly noticed 
by Gandt, see ibid., 73.
11 It is difficult to give a precise number, but the biblical quotations in the Life seem 
to come in hundreds. See, for instance, Bartelink, “Die literarische Gattung,” 
52, where the number of Bible-related passages is estimated at two hundred. An 
even more generous assessment is given by Tim Vivian, who performed a “rough 
count” resulting in “some four hundred references or allusions” in Athanasius, 
The Life of Antony, xxvi, trans. by Tim Vivian and Apostolos N. Athanassakis. 
The text of the Greek Old Testament used in this article is the latest standard 
edition of the LXX, published by Rahlfs and Hanhart, Septuaginta. The text of 
the Greek New Testament used in this article is Karakolis, Novum Testamentum 
Graece.
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ALEKSANDAR ANĐELOVIĆ AND GYÖRGY GERÉBY8
register” style tell us about the translator? What version of the Bible 
did he use when translating the Bible in Latin or Greek? On the other 
hand, what does Evagrius’ “high” and stylistically sophisticated and 
improved Latin tell us about Evagrius? Whom does he write for, and 
what do his readers expect from him? This paper aims at answering 
these questions.
THE ANONYMOUS TRANSLATOR: WHAT WAS  
THE LANGUAGE OF THE BIBLE HE USED –  
AND WAS LATIN HIS NATIVE LANGUAGE?
An initial research question is whether the biblical quotations in Latin 
that the AT rendered from Greek as part of his translation of the Life 
are attested in other Latin writings of the period – or did he translate 
the biblical quotations by himself? The same question will then be 
asked about Evagrius and his translation. The answer determines the 
extent to which the AT and Evagrius used any translation of the Bible 
circulating in the fourth century.
In chapter 48.3 of the Life, Athanasius justified the miracles per-
formed by Antony with a quote from the Gospels: Πολλά τε καὶ 
ἄλλα δι’ αὐτοῦ πεποίηκεν ὁ Κύριος, ὁ λέγων· Αἰτεῖτε, καὶ δοθήσεται 
ὑμῖν.12 The AT rendered this as follows: Multa et alia per seruum suum 
Dominus fecit qui dicit: Postulate et dabitur uobis.13 On the other hand, 
Evagrius translated the same passage as Multa et alia miracula per 
illum Dominus operatus est, et merito: qui enim promisit in Euangelio: 
Petite et dabitur uobis.14 The biblical quotation in Athanasius’ Greek 
text reproduced Matt. 7:7 or Luke 11:9 verbatim, and the different ways 
the two translators rendered this short passage illustrate their different 
modus operandi.15 First, how the AT, on the one hand, and Evagrius, 
on the other, introduce the quotation is particularly interesting. While 
the AT, apart from translating “through him” (δι’ αὐτοῦ) as “through 
12  VA 48.3 (ed. Bartelink, 298) quoting Matt. 7:7 and Luke 11:9: “Many other things 
through him [Antony] did the Lord, who says: ‘Ask, and it will be given to you.’” 
(Trans. Vivian and Athanassakis, 161–63, slightly changed.)
13  VV 48 (ed. Gandt, 145): “Many other things through his servant did the Lord, 
who said: ‘Require, and it will be given to you.’” Translations of the VV from 
Latin into English are by the authors unless indicated otherwise.
14 VE 48 (ed. Gandt, 54): “The Lord also worked many other miracles through 
Antony, and justly so, for He who promised in the Gospel, Ask and it will be 
given to you” (trans. White, 38).
15 In the Bertrand-Gandt edition, this passage is not recognized as a verbatim 
biblical quotation.
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TWO LATIN TRANSLATORS OF THE LIFE OF ANTONY 9
his servant” (per seruum suum),16 simply renders ὁ λέγων ([the Lord,] 
who says) as “[the Lord] says” (dicit), Evagrius used a different verb, 
“he promised” (promisit), which enhances the meaning of the original 
and can be considered an exegetic translation, as opposed to the simple 
translation of the AT. What is more, Evagrius added a precise textual 
reference “in the Gospel” (in Euangelio), absent from both the Greek 
original and the earlier AT. Evagrius may have wanted to demonstrate 
his accurate knowledge of the Bible, or, more probably, he deemed 
it necessary to provide his readers with an immediately identifiable 
context. This case further raises the question of his intended reader-
ship that could have made necessary such an indication about the 
origin of the biblical passage quoted. Possible alternatives are that his 
intended audience was made up of recent converts to Christianity or 
elite non-Christians unfamiliar with the Bible, or an elite readership 
already familiar with the Bible for whom he was providing not just 
instruction but also reassurance about the message of the text (promisit) 
as a means of articulating a specific Christian identity.
The difference between the verbal forms postulate used by the 
AT and Evagrius’ petite is significant; petite et dabitur uobis was the 
“standard” rendering of this biblical passage, widely used in the 
late-antique texts, and, in addition to Evagrius, also attested in the 
revised Old Latin Gospels that became part of the Vulgate.17 It was 
also adopted by Ambrose,18 Ambrosiaster,19 Arnobius,20 Augustine,21 
Hilary of Poitiers,22 and Jerome.23 The choice of the AT, postulate, is 
never attested outside his translation. It suggests that the AT trans-
lated without knowing about the existing Latin translation of the 
Gospels. On the other hand, Evagrius was undoubtedly familiar with 
an established and widely circulating Latin version.
16 Lorié’s claim that the AT’s seruus always corresponds to Athanasius’ δοῦλος 
(“slave”) is therefore incorrect, as evidenced by this biblical quotation of the VA, 
where the AT’s per servum corresponds to δι’ αὐτοῦ (“through him”); cf. Lorié, 
Spiritual Terminology, 87. 
17 The text of the Vulgate used in this article is Biblia Sacra iuxta vulgatam versio-
nem, ed. Robert Weber, 5th ed. by Roger Gryson; available, without the critical 
apparatus, in a searchable electronic format in the Library of Latin Texts (LLT).
18 Cain et Ab. 1.6. The abbreviations used in this paper are made according to the 
“TLL Digital Index,” Thesaurus linguae Latinae (TLL), available online.
19 Quaest. 115.82.
20 Praedest. 3.12.
21 In Psalm. 139.17.
22 Tract. 60.4.
23 In Matth. 1.
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ALEKSANDAR ANĐELOVIĆ AND GYÖRGY GERÉBY10
This example further shows that the AT may have operated with a 
standard equivalence for αἰτέω, “ask for, demand,” always translated 
with postulare, both in direct Bible quotations and in the other parts 
of the Life.24 This translation choice, apart from illustrating the literal 
nature of the VV, also offers a clue to the linguistic background of the 
translator, who elsewhere constructed the Latin verb postulare with 
a direct object in the accusative (Dominum, “Lord”).25 This usage is 
rarely attested in standard Latin,26 where an indirect object in the 
ablative with the preposition a, “from,” would have been the more 
common option, as Evagrius’ rendering of the same construction 
illustrates.27 This peculiar choice of the AT can be explained as a 
mirror translation of the Greek syntactic structure. The verb “to ask 
for” (αἰτέω) is typically constructed with the accusative.28 This kind 
of equivalence is a characteristic feature of translations produced by 
bilingual speakers with insufficient command in the target language.29
This example is by no means the only one where the translations 
produced by the AT strongly suggest that he was unfamiliar with 
the versions of the Latin Bible text circulating in the second half 
24 See, for example, the reference to John 16:23–24 in VA 83.3 (ed. Bartelink, 404): 
Αἰτεῖτε, λήψεσθε. “Ask, and you will receive.” (Trans. Vivian and Athanas-
sakis, 237.) See also VV 83 (ed. Gandt, 169): Postulate et accipietis. Compare 
this to the non-biblical context in VA 29.3 (ed. Bartelink, 249): Εἰ γὰρ ἴσχυσεν, 
οὐκ ἂν ᾔτησεν. “If he had had power, he would not have asked.” (Trans. Vivian 
and Athanassakis, 125.) See also VV 29 (ed. Gandt, 132): si enim ualuisset, non 
postulasset.
25 VA 83.3 (ed. Bartelink, 404): αἰτήσητε τὸν Πατέρα, in VV 83 (ed. Gandt, 169), 
translated as postulaueritis Patrem meum.
26 On the standard usage of postulare, see the Oxford Latin Dictionary (hence-
forth OLD), 1557 s.v. postulo, section 1. For the very few attested examples of the 
so-called ablative of person, see Löfstedt, Commento Filologico, 274–275.
27 VE 34 (ed. Gandt, 40): ab auxiliatore Domino postulare.
28  See Diccionario Griego–Español, 121–122, s.v. Αἰτέω.
29 Apart from mirror translations, the AT also employed mechanical translations, 
for example, his de cetero was used automatically as an equivalent of λοιπόν, 
either in a biblical quotation or elsewhere in Athanasius’ text. See, for example, 
VA 6.4 (ed. Bartelink, 170): οὐδεμία μοι λοιπόν ἐστι φροντὶς περὶ σοῦ, “ from 
now on I am not going to pay any attention to you” (trans. Vivian and Athanas-
sakis, 73), and the AT’s nulla de cetero sollicitudo est de te, VV 6 (ed. Gandt, 113): 
“no care about you anymore.” The same equivalence occurs with λοιπόν in 
VA 3.7, 4.2, 6.1, 7.7, 14.7, 23.6, 25.3, 31.1, 37.2, 50.9, 90.6, 91.9, and de cetero in the 
corresponding chapters of VV (Bertrand and Gandt, Vitae Antonii Versiones 
latinae).
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TWO LATIN TRANSLATORS OF THE LIFE OF ANTONY 11
of the fourth century.30 His ignorance in this and other cases of the 
existing versions of the Bible in Latin suggests that the Bible text 
he regarded as authoritative was in a language other than Latin. In 
several instances, the AT produced a text different from the original 
Greek text of the Life and Evagrius. In these instances, one finds the 
AT either omitting a portion of the Greek text or adding a (more) 
complete form of a biblical quotation absent from Athanasius’ text. In 
the latter case, the AT’s Latin translation often corresponds precisely 
to the relevant passage in the Greek Bible. The following example 
aims at providing arguments for the hypothesis that the Bible the 
AT used was in Greek.
At the beginning of the Life, Athanasius’ Antony discusses tradi-
tional philosophical topics, like the definition of virtue, the transient 
nature of wealth and success, and the importance of an unceasing 
daily ascetic discipline.31 To corroborate his statements, he refers to 
the Bible: Οὕτω καὶ ἐν τῷ  Ἰεζεκιὴλ ἠκούσαμεν.32 In the original, this 
reference to a passage from the Book of Ezekiel is vague and does not 
contain the actual biblical text to which it alludes. Evagrius rendered 
the passage exactly as it stood in the Greek original: Quod prophetica 
per Ezechielem uoce testatur.33
The AT, on the other hand, expanded the original reference with 
several quotations from Ezekiel which, as mentioned above, he could 
not have found in the Athanasian text that served as the basis for 
his translation: Sic enim et in Ezechiel propheta audiuimus dicentem 
Dominum: Iustus si recesserit a iustitia sua et fecerit facinus, uiuo ego 
dicit Dominus, quia non memorabo iustitiae eius sed in eo quod fecit, 
in illo morietur.34 Interestingly, although constructed as one sentence, 
as quoted by the AT, this biblical passage is a combination of phrases 
taken from at least three passages of the Book of Ezekiel (known for 
its repetitive phraseology). These are as follows: Ezek. 3:20 (cf. 18:24 
and 26): “when the righteous turn away from their righteousness and 
30 For further examples, see Anđelović, “Between the Literal and the Literary,” 
28–58.
31 VA 16–20. See also Rousseau, “Antony as Teacher,” 95.
32 VA 18.3 (ed. Bartelink, 212): “Thus we have also heard in Ezekiel.” (Trans. Vivian 
and Athanassakis, 103.)
33 VE 18 (ed. Bertrand, 25): “as testified by the words of the prophet Ezechiel” (trans. 
White, 21).
34 VV 18 (ed. Gandt, 123): “Thus we have also heard in the prophet Ezekiel the Lord 
saying: If a righteous person turns away from his righteousness and commits a 
crime, as I live says the Lord, [I am telling you] that I will not remember his 
righteous ness, but in what he did, in that he will die.”
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ALEKSANDAR ANĐELOVIĆ AND GYÖRGY GERÉBY12
commit iniquity,”35  Ezek. 33:13: “none of their righteous deeds shall be 
remembered, but in the iniquity that they have committed they shall 
die,”36 and the oft-repeated formulation found, for instance, in Ezek. 
5:11: “(as) I live, says the Lord.”37
Even though the phrase “I live, says the Lord” (uiuo ego dicit Do-
minus) is present in Jerome’s translation of Ezekiel, later included in 
the Vulgate, it is unlikely that the AT and Jerome shared the same 
version of the Bible. It seems that the AT here quoted Ezekiel from 
memory and directly from the Greek. Such a “hybrid” quotation, 
or flattening, is characteristic of quoting from memory.38 The AT 
associated Athanasius’ vague reference to Ezekiel with some of the 
most well-known phrases of the Book of Ezekiel, such as the formula 
“I live, says the Lord” (uiuo ego dicit Dominus),39 a word-for-word 
translation from ζῶ ἐγώ, λέγει κύριος into Latin, which he used as a 
link between the other two quotations that he supplied from the text 
of Ezekiel. This formula is attested no less than thirteen times in the 
Book of Ezekiel alone.40 The other quote, “if a righteous turns away 
from his righteousness and commits a crime” (iustus si recesserit 
a iustitia sua et fecerit facinus), is “flattened” out of at least three 
quotations similar to each other.41 The wording of these quotations 
from Ezekiel by AT is unattested elsewhere in Latin. The most likely 
explanation for how the AT rendered the additional material is that 
35 Ezek. 3:20 (ἐν τῷ ἀποστρέφειν δίκαιον ἀπὸ τῶν δικαιοσυνῶν αὐτοῦ καὶ ποιήσῃ 
παράπτωμα), 18:24 (ἐν δὲ τῷ ἀποστρέψαι δίκαιον ἐκ τῆς δικαιοσύνης αὐτοῦ καὶ 
ποιήσῃ ἀδικίαν), 18:26 (ἐν τῷ ἀποστρέψαι τὸν δίκαιον ἐκ τῆς δικαιοσύνης αὐτοῦ 
καὶ ποιήσῃ παράπτωμα ἐν τῷ παραπτώματι).
36 Ezek. 33:13 (πᾶσαι αἱ δικαιοσύναι αὐτοῦ οὐ μὴ ἀναμνησθῶσιν· ἐν τῇ ἀδικίᾳ 
αὐτοῦ, ᾗ ἐποίησεν, ἐν αὐτῇ ἀποθανεῖται).
37 Ezek. 5:11 (Ζῶ ἐγώ, λέγει κύριος).
38 For the process of flattening, see Houghton, “‘Flattening’ in Latin Biblical Cita-
tions.”
39 Bartelink noted how this formula found in the Old and the New Testament 
frequently introduced the oath of God and that the text of the AT differs consi-
derably from Ezek. 18:24 in the Vulgate version, where there is no uiuo ego but 
uiuet with iustus as a subject, see his commentary in Bartelink, Vita di Antonio, 
210, n. 14.
40 Ezek. 5:11, 14:16, 18, 20, 16:48, 17:16, 19, 18:3, 20:31, 33, 34:8, 35:6, 11: see Hauspie, “ζῶ 
ἐγώ, λέγει κύριος, εἶ μήν,” 4, n. 2. Ezek. 20:3 and 33:11, 27 only have “(as) I live,” 
without “says the Lord.” This formula is attested in the New Testament as well, 
for instance in Rom. 14:11: γέγραπται γάρ Ζῶ ἐγώ, λέγει Κύριος, ὅτι ἐμοὶ κάμψει 
πᾶν γόνυ, καὶ πᾶσα γλῶσσα ἐξομολογήσεται τῷ Θεῷ. 
41 Ezek. 3:20, 18:24, 18:26.
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TWO LATIN TRANSLATORS OF THE LIFE OF ANTONY 13
it resulted from quoting Ezekiel from memory in a language other 
than Latin, very likely Greek.42
One possible justification for such an intervention is that he 
deemed it necessary to provide his readers with immediately identi-
fiable quotations.43 This suggestion is supported by the fact that the 
above-discussed example is by no means singular; there are several 
other places in his translation where he added biblical quotations or 
references absent from the Greek text.44 This fact further raises the 
question of what his intended readership could have been. The AT 
regarded a biblical reference without quotation as insufficient for his 
readers to understand the full context of this part of the Life, from 
which one can further deduce that he may have viewed his target 
readership as not familiar enough with the Bible. Another possible 
explanation might be that he wished to demonstrate his knowledge 
of the Bible by quoting it in fuller form.
The AT’s ignorance of the Bible in Latin suggests that he was not a 
native speaker of Latin and had limited competence in the language. 
This deficiency is supported by several “mechanical” translations of 
Christian key terms in Greek.45 Fashioning Antony as fully adherent to 
“orthodox” theology was a powerful weapon in Athanasius’ anti-Arian 
campaign. In chapter 69 of the Life, he wrote that “the Arians lied and 
said that Antony held the same beliefs as they.”46 Here, Athanasius “de-
picted Antony as responding to this claim by appearing in Alexandria 
42 For instance, the use of the verb in 1st person sg. “I will not remember” (non 
memorabo) as a translation for 3rd person pl. οὐ μὴ ἀναμνησθῶσιν, unattested 
in other Christian writers of the time who quoted from Ezekiel, was influenced 
by the 1st person singular “I live” (uiuo ego).
43 The possibility that actual full quotations from Ezekiel may have been present in 
the initial text of the Greek Life should be discarded, as there are no manuscripts 
of the Greek Life that attest such a version of the text, see VA 18.3 (ed. Bartelink, 
212, with the apparatus ad loc.). As shown, there is no trace of these quotations 
in VE either.
44 See also VA 17.5, where the AT added the whole text of Eccles. 4:8, 6:2, absent from 
Athanasius’ text, or VA 51.1, where he added a reference absent from the Greek 
original, ut scriptum est in Iob, “as it is written in Job.” For other such interven-
tions of the AT, see Gandt, “A Philological and Theological Analysis,” 82–83.
45 The term mechanical is used in this article as equal to non-idiomatic and 
word-for-word approach to translation, resulting in an automatic equivalence 
between words translated from one language to another, in this case from Greek 
into Latin, as opposed to a language choice that is seen as idiomatic and dyna-
mic. For the use of such terminology see, for instance, Adams, Bilingualism, 37.
46 Trans. Vivian and Athanassakis, 205.
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ALEKSANDAR ANĐELOVIĆ AND GYÖRGY GERÉBY14
and publicly denouncing Arian thought,”47 which he characterized as 
“ungodly.”48 As usual, when treating critical theological issues, Atha-
nasius lent authority to Antony’s words by quoting the Bible:  Ὅθεν 
μηδεμίαν ἔχετε κοινωνίαν πρὸς τοὺς ἀσεβεστάτους Ἀρειανούς· Οὐδεμία 
γὰρ κοινωνία φωτὶ πρὸς σκότος.49 The AT rendered this as unde nolite 
habere cum impiis, ipsi Ariani, ullam communicationem, nulla enim 
communicatio lucis cum tenebra.50 VE of the passage reads as follows: cum 
Arianis sit uobis nulla coniunctio. Quae enim societas luci ad tenebras?51
The two translators’ renderings differ significantly. First, it should 
be noted that Athanasius’ “for light has no fellowship with darkness” is 
not a verbatim biblical quotation but instead his reworking of a question 
into a negative statement.52 The quotation that Athanasius “flattened” 
here is 2 Cor. 6:14, which reads: “what fellowship can light have with 
darkness?” (τίς κοινωνία φωτὶ πρὸς σκότος;).53 As it now becomes clear, 
this is precisely how Evagrius translated it, as a question. In other words, 
he recognized 2 Cor. 6:14 in the Greek text and decided to translate the 
rhetorical question of the biblical original, not Athanasius’ negative 
“answer” to it. Furthermore, it seems likely that Evagrius did not sim-
ply translate the Bible anew here but used an already existing version 
of 2 Cor.  6:14 in Latin, as attested in Rufinus’ translation of Origen,54 
Paulinus of Nola,55 Chromatius,56 Augustine,57 and Jerome.58
47 Ibid., 135.
48 Note that Athanasius here uses the adjective ἀσεβής, “ungodly, godless,” as 
opposed to εὐσεβής. These opposing terms play an essential role in Athanasius’ 
theological discourse and anti-Arian propaganda.
49 VA 69.4–5 (ed. Bartelink, 362): “As a result, you are to have no fellowship with 
the godless and iniquitous Arians, for ‘light has no fellowship with darkness.’” 
(Trans. Vivian and Athanassakis, 205.)
50 VV 69 (ed. Gandt, 159, slightly altered, retaining Bartelink’s reading communi-
cationem, which is that of the manuscript against communicatione printed in 
Gandt’s edition): “Hence, do not have with the godless, the Arians, any fellow-
ship, for light has no fellowship with darkness.”
51 VE 69 (ed. Bertrand, 76): “You must have nothing to do with the Arians. For what 
fellowship can there be between light and darkness?” (Trans. White, 52.)
52 The same as in the case of VA 9.2, “nothing ‘will separate me from the love of 
Christ’,” and Rom. 8:35, “who will separate us from the love of Christ?” See 
Anđelović, “Between the Literal and the Literary,” 28–30.
53 ἢ τίς κοινωνία φωτὶ πρὸς σκότος;
54 Orig. in Leu. 4.4.
55 Epist. 1.8.
56 In Matth. 31.
57 Spec. 32.
58 In Is. 14.52.
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TWO LATIN TRANSLATORS OF THE LIFE OF ANTONY 15
In contrast to VE, the rendering of the AT reflects his low-register 
Latin usage and is otherwise unattested,59 which suggests that the 
translator translated without prior knowledge of existing versions of 
the Bible in Latin. While κοινωνία, “fellowship,” which appears twice 
in the Greek original, was translated by Evagrius first as coniunctio 
and then, in keeping with the established form of 2 Cor. 6:14 in Latin in 
Late Antiquity, as societas, the AT used communicatio in both instances. 
Although communicatio was not uncommon as a Latin translation for 
κοινωνία in biblical contexts,60 the AT used communicatio and com-
municare as standard equivalents for κοινωνία and κοινωνέω of the 
Greek original as if working with a dictionary or a bilingual glossary.61 
In contrast, VE of the same passages renders these terms with a more 
lexical variety in a more idiomatic and rhetorically elaborated fashion.62
The examples discussed indicate that the text of the Bible that the 
AT used in personal and liturgical contexts was not in Latin but very 
likely in Greek. Bearing in mind the importance of the Scriptures in 
Christian monastic circles in the fourth century, this would thus further 
59 The apposition in the nominative ipsi Ariani is, according to Bartelink, a low- 
register construction. See his commentary ad loc. in Bartelink, Vite dei Santi, 
253, n. 12. Also, the use of tenebrae, -arum in the singular (such as in “cum tene-
bra”) is rarely attested in standard Latin, see ibid., n. 13, as well as the OLD, 2115, 
s.v. tenebrae.
60 See TLL, s.v. communicatio, coll. 1953, I A.
61 Of course, that the AT used a glossary or a dictionary is, although probable, 
beyond any proof. However, he might have operated with some kind of a Greek- 
Latin bilingual glossary that merged Greek words and phrases with Latin ones 
in the form of a vocabulary list, which was not uncommon in late- antique Egypt 
among Greek speakers at an early stage of learning Latin, see, for example, 
Adams, Bilingualism, 735. On Greek-Latin glossaries as Latin-learning material 
in general, see Dickey, Colloquia, 11–12.
62 Thus, in VA 94.1 (Καὶ μηδεμία ἔστω ὑμῖν κοινωνία πρὸς τοὺς σχισματικούς), the 
AT has: et non sit uobis communicatio cum schismaticis (VV 94). Compare this 
to Evagrius’ rendering of the same passage: Schismaticorum quoque et haere-
ticorum uenena uitate (VE 91). Further examples are VA 89.4: μηδὲ κοινωνίαν 
ἔχειν τινὰ πρὸς τοὺς Ἀρειανούς, with the AT’s VV 89: Neque aliquam commu-
nicationem habueritis cum Arianis, in contrast to VE 89: neque cum Arianis 
in commune iungamini. See also VA 74.4: ἀνείληφε σῶμα ἀνθρώπινον ἵνα, τῇ 
ἀνθρωπίνῃ γενέσει κοινωνήσας, ποιήσῃ τοὺς ἀνθρώπους κοινωνῆσαι θείας 
καὶ νοερᾶς φύσεως, and the two translator’s renderings of κοινωνέω in VV 74: 
assumpsit corpus humanum ut per communicationem humanae natiuitatis faciat 
communicare cum diuina illa et intelligibili proprietate, and VE 74: ob salutem 
nostram humanum corpus assumpserit, ut societate mortalitatis nos ueheret ad 
caelum participesque naturae caelestis efficeret.
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ALEKSANDAR ANĐELOVIĆ AND GYÖRGY GERÉBY16
suggest that Latin was not the native language of the AT; otherwise, 
the Bible that he would hear in the church would have been in Latin. 
Not being his native language, Latin would explain the issues the AT 
faced when translating and the solutions he devised.
EVAGRIUS OF ANTIOCH: LATE-ANTIQUE  
CHRISTIAN ELITE AND RHETORICAL MASTERY
Let us now shift our focus to the AT’s counterpart, Evagrius, and his 
handling of biblical material in his Latin translation of the Life. In 
contrast to the AT, VE is characterized by the translator’s familiarity 
with existing versions of the contemporary Latin Biblical text and 
his intention to upgrade these existing versions stylistically. Further-
more, the following discussion hopes to demonstrate that Evagrius’ 
decision to adopt such a “free” and “literary” approach to translation 
was not only of a purely stylistic nature, but that the reasons might 
be philosophical and ideological as well.63
In one of many addresses delivered to his fellow monks on the 
ascetic and spiritual life, Athanasius’ Antony draws on Paul’s Epistles 
to the Romans (Rom. 8:28) and the Corinthians (1 Cor. 15:31), re-
spectively: Παντὶ τῷ προαιρουμένῳ τὸ ἀγαθὸν συνεργεῖ ὁ θεὸς εἰς τὸ 
ἀγαθόν. Εἰς δὲ τὸ μὴ ὀλιγωρεῖν ἡμᾶς καλὸν τὸ τοῦ ἀποστόλου ῥητὸν 
μελετᾶν, τό Καθ’ ἡμέραν ἀποθνῄσκω.64 The AT offers a literal rendering 
of Athanasius’ passage: omni uolenti bonum Deus cooperatur in bono. 
[…] bonum est meditari Apostoli dictum quod dicit Cotidie morior.65 
Evagrius, however, provides a somewhat different translation of the 
same passage: omni proponenti bonum et Deus cooperatur. […] Apostoli 
praecepta replicemus quibus se mori quotidie testabatur.66
63 A perfect example of a “free,” exegetic and stylistically upgraded Evagrius’ trans-
lation that reflects his rhetorical training and mastery is his per Filium suum 
propriis Ecclesias ditauerit eloquiis (VE 81, ed. Bertrand, 88): “and that through 
His Son He enriched the churches with His own words” (trans. White, 60) for 
διὰ τοῦ ἰδίου Υἱοῦ λελάληκεν ἡμῖν (VA 81.3, ed. Bartelink, 394), “has spoken to 
us through his own Son” (trans. Vivian and Athanassakis, 229). See Anđelović, 
“Between the Literal and the Literary,” 66–8.
64 VA 19.1–2 (ed. Bartelink, 214): “God helps everyone to do good who deliberately 
chooses to do good. Now with regard to losing heart, it is good for us to meditate 
on the Apostle’s statement: ‘I die daily.’” (Trans. Vivian and Athanassakis, 103.)
65 VV 19 (ed. Gandt, 123): “To everyone who wants good God assists in good. […] It 
is good to meditate on the Apostle’s saying which says ‘I die daily.’”
66 VE 19 (ed. Bertrand, 25): “To everyone who deliberately chooses [to do] good God 
helps as well. […] let us reflect upon the Apostle’s words when he claims that he 
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TWO LATIN TRANSLATORS OF THE LIFE OF ANTONY 17
First, it is worthy of note that Rom. 8:28 reads τοῖς ἀγαπῶσιν τὸν 
θεὸν πάντα συνεργεῖ ὁ θεὸς εἰς ἀγαθόν,67 and that the second part of 
the quotation, i. e., συνεργεῖ ὁ θεὸς εἰς τὸ ἀγαθόν, “God helps towards 
good,” is the only part that Athanasius quoted verbatim. This paraphrase 
of Rom. 8:28 is either a result of Athanasius quoting from memory 
or his rhetorical strategy in quoting. The first part of Athanasius’ 
passage, i. e., παντὶ τῷ προαιρουμένῳ τὸ ἀγαθόν, “to everyone who 
deliberately chooses to do good,” is thus added by Athanasius, and it is 
this wording that is particularly interesting for the analysis of our two 
translators’ renderings of this passage of the Life. The AT’s rendering is 
rather literal, preserving even the word order of the Greek original; the 
translator kept the two instances of the Greek term τὸ ἀγαθὸν and, as 
a result, has bonum twice in his translation. The second occurrence, 
i. e., in bono, implies that he was translating verbatim. He probably 
did so without recourse to any of the circulating Latin versions for 
Rom. 8:28 because in bono, in the ablative, in this biblical verse, is not 
attested elsewhere outside the AT’s work.68 Also, Athanasius’ προαιρέω, 
a critical philosophical term in Antony’s discourse meaning “to choose 
deliberately” was translated in the VV with a simple velle, “to want.”
Evagrius, for his part, instead of rendering Athanasius’ προαιρέω 
with a simple “to want,” translated it with propono, which implies 
primarily moral choice and likewise has a more specific meaning than 
the AT’s simple velle.69 By deciding to translate παντὶ τῷ προαιρουμένῳ 
as omni proponenti, Evagrius is in a sense more literal than the AT, 
however for different reasons than the latter in the examples dis-
cussed in the previous section. Evagrius seized the depth and moral 
meaning of Athanasius’ use of the verb προαιρέω, at the same time 
reducing both Athanasius’ two occurrences of τὸ ἀγαθὸν and the 
AT’s two bonum into one bonum, probably to avoid repetition and 
stylistically upgrade this quotation.70 Regarding the second biblical 
quotation from Paul’s epistles in this passage of the Life, i. e., 1 Cor. 
dies each day.” (Trans. White, 21, slightly altered.)
67 “To those who love God, [he] helps in all respects towards [doing] good.”
68 The Vulgate version, for instance, has quoniam diligentibus Deum omnia coope-
rantur in bonum, while Augustine (e. g., Civ. 18.51) writes et diligentibus eum 
omnia cooperatur in bonum.
69 See the OLD, 1644, s.v. propono, 11A.
70 Another example where Evagrius shortens a biblical quotation is in VE 55, where 
he rendered 2 Cor. 13.15,  Ἑαυτοὺς ἀνακρίνετε, ἑαυτοὺς δοκιμάζετε, and the AT’s 
uosmetipsos scrutamini, uosmetipsos probate, as diiudicate uosmetipsos et pro-
bate.
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ALEKSANDAR ANĐELOVIĆ AND GYÖRGY GERÉBY18
15:31, Athanasius quoted it verbatim: καθ’ ἡμέραν ἀποθνῄσκω.71 While 
the AT’s rendering matches all the other attestations of 1 Cor. 15:31 in 
Latin from Late Antiquity,72 Evagrius, by writing se mori quotidie tes -
tabatur, decided to incorporate the biblical quotation into the specific 
syntactic context of his rendering of Athanasius’ passage. However, 
the two translators’ rendering of this biblical quotation is too short to 
draw general conclusions.
As it was previously the case with Athanasius’ προαιρέω translated 
as propono by Evagrius, the latter in a similar way revised Athana-
sius’ μελετᾶν, “to meditate on [the Apostle’s statement].”73 While 
the AT simply translated it with meditari, Evagrius’ lexical choice 
was replicare, “to think about and duplicate, to go over and over 
again [the Apostle’s saying].”74 Replicare was not Evagrius’ lexical 
choice made out of purely aesthetic reasons but also a philosophical 
concept. A ruminative and repetitive nature of replicare enhances 
the message of Athanasius’ quote “I die every day” (καθ’ ἡμέραν 
ἀποθνῄσκω),75 which itself emphasizes the importance of repeti-
tiveness and constancy for ascetic discipline. Emphasizing certain 
concepts, at times staying close to the Greek original, while some-
times highlighting Athanasius’ message by offering a different verb 
71  “I die every day.”
72 The Vulgate has the same wording, as well as Tertullian (Resurr. 48.54), Rufinus 
(Orig. in Rom. 5.8), Jerome (In Is. 12.41 and Epist. 60.19), and Augustine (Epist. 
157.40). This, however, does not mean that the AT shared the same source with 
the authors as mentioned earlier writing in Latin. The AT could have trans-
lated this on his own, as there are not many other ways to translate καθ’ ἡμέραν 
ἀποθνῄσκω but cotidie morior.
73 On μελετᾶν with the meaning “meditatively uttering the words of the Scripture 
(and especially the Psalms),” see Vivian and Athanassakis, 177, n. 331.
74  See OLD, 1785, s.v. replico, 3.
75 Discussing the use of replicare by Hugh of St. Victor, Emily Runde has noted that 
“his use of replicare enforces a sense of cyclical movement, of turning over and 
unrolling, and of repetition. If they are not to be forgotten or to decay through 
long disuse (longa intermissione obsolescat), remembered things must be revi-
sited, even literally recollected and put to use.” See Runde, “Ways of Reading 
and Framing Collection,” 31. Replicare in general puts a strong emphasis on 
memory, and as such also means “to recount [events].” Evagrius used replicare 
four times in his translation of the VA, and, apart from the case discussed here, 
the other three times (VE 39, 65, and 82) he used it in the meaning “to recount 
[an event].” It is worth mentioning that in VE 82 (ed. Bertrand, 90), he did not 
translate anything literally from Greek, but rather quoted Vergil verbatim (Aen. 
2.12): horret animus replicare quae gesta sunt, “the mind recoils from repeating 
what happened.” (Trans. White, 61.)
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TWO LATIN TRANSLATORS OF THE LIFE OF ANTONY 19
but also keeping the original meaning, as is the case with replicare, 
suggests Evagrius’ not only different theoretical, but also different 
philosophical approach to translation than it was the case with the 
AT. The following example will further illustrate Evagrius’ concern 
for a crucial philosophical term such as “wisdom” (σοφία / sapientia) 
and how his interventions reshape the meaning of a term and that 
of Athanasius’ message.
In the episode in which Antony debates with philosophers over 
the true faith, pointing to their “erroneous” beliefs, he attempts 
to convince them by offering proof for his worship of God. At-
hanasius’ Antony stresses that, if the philosophers are expecting 
to hear logical proofs made out of wordy fabrications, he will not 
offer any, and further elaborates on this by quoting 1 Cor. 2:4: ἡμεῖς 
μὲν οὐκ ἐν πειθοῖ σοφίας  Ἑλληνικῆς, ὡς εἶπεν ὁ διδάσκαλος ἡμῶν, 
ἀποδείκνυμεν.76 The AT’s rendering of this passage is nos quidem non 
in suadela sapientiae paganorum, ut dixit magister noster, probamus,77 
while Evagrius translated it as ecce nos, ut dixit Doctor noster, non in 
gentili persuasione … suademus.78
First, it is noteworthy that the AT translated Athanasius’ “our te-
acher” (διδάσκαλος ἡμῶν), i. e., the apostle Paul, as magister noster, 
while for Evagrius he was doctor noster. The AT’s magister is a literal 
translation of διδάσκαλος. Evagrius’ lexical choice was, however, 
by no means literal nor accidental, as he used doctor not only here, 
but also in places where Paul is not named διδάσκαλος in the Greek 
original.79 Although doctor is indeed similar to magister in the mea-
ning “teacher,” Evagrius’ usage of doctor, always coming with noster, 
sermonum, or eloquium, and referring to Paul, implies that Paul for 
76 VA 80.1 (ed. Bartelink, 388): “We will not offer proof by means of ‘plausible 
wisdom’ of Greeks, as our teacher said.” (Trans. Vivian and Athanassakis, 227, 
slightly altered: from “plausible Greek wisdom” to “plausible wisdom of Greeks,” 
as  Ἑλληνικῆς, “Greek,” is not a part of the biblical quotation 1 Cor. 2:4 and 
Athanasius added it in the VA.)
77 VV 80 (ed. Gandt, 166, slightly altered: suadilla from Gandt’s edition and the 
manuscript to suadela, conjectured by Bartelink, Vita di Antonio, 150): “we will 
certainly not prove by the persuasion of the wisdom of the pagans, as our teacher 
said.”
78 VE 80 (ed. Bertrand, 86): “look how we convince not by means of the gen-
tiles’ attempts at persuasion […] as our teacher said” (trans. White, 58, slightly 
altered, from “pagans” to “gentiles”). Evagrius’ rendering of 1 Cor. 2:4 was 
apparently not recognized as a direct biblical quotation in the latest critical 
edition by Bertrand.
79 VE 7: doctor sermonum, VE 55: doctor eloquium.
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ALEKSANDAR ANĐELOVIĆ AND GYÖRGY GERÉBY20
Evagrius was primarily a teacher in Christian context.80 Other promi-
nent Latin patristic authors, with whom, as already shown, Evagrius 
shared versions of the Bible in Latin, also called Paul doctor gentium, 
“the teacher of the gentiles.”81
Furthermore, it is striking that the adjective “Greek,” (ἑλληνική [σοφία]), 
was translated with the term paganus in VV, while in VE it was rendered 
by gentilis. Though the discussion of all the terms for non-Christians in 
Late Antiquity and an overview of their history and semantic development 
deserve separate discussion,82 in the context of the Life and its translations, 
Athanasius’  Ἕλλην, “Greek,” and the translators’ paganus and gentilis 
were all used as negative religious qualifications for non-Christians. The 
AT resorted to paganus eleven times in his translation, whereas he used 
gentilis / gentes three times but only as translations for ἐθνικός / τὰ ἔθνη,83 
which is certainly not the same as ἑλληνικός.84 The AT thus seems to have 
been operating with an equivalence between   Ἕλλην / ἑλληνικός and 
paganus. On the other hand, Evagrius used the adjective gentilis thirteen 
times in his translation, as opposed to paganus, which is mentioned only 
three times in the VE.85 Thus, in contrast to the AT, Evagrius operated with 
both options, i. e., paganus and gentilis. The reason why gentilis, and not 
paganus, was still Evagrius’ favorite term for translating   Ἕλλην / ἑλληνικός 
or ἐθνικός / τὰ ἔθνη might have been that the meaning “non-Christian” 
for paganus was a semantic neologism, as reported by Augustine.86
As far as their translations of the biblical quotation are concer-
ned, the AT is the only one to use suadela, “persuasion,” to translate 
πειθώ in this context, which points to a high probability that he 
80 “St. Paul speaks of himself as a doctor of the Gentiles in faith and truth 
(1 Ti mothy 2:7), and Doctor gentium is one of the titles given to him in the 
liturgy. In the early Church, teachers in the catechetical schools were known 
as doctores audientium (Cyprian, Ep. 29); and finally, over time, some of the 
most illustrious theologians were designated as ‘Doctors of the Church.’” Pace, 
“Doctor,” in The Catholic Encyclopedia, available online.
81 For example, Ambrose (Noe 8.25), Rufinus (Orig. in. gen. 3.4), Augustine (Epist. 
157.11), Jerome (In Gal. 1.1).
82 For a detailed overview and discussion on paganus and its relation to gentes, 
gentiles, or nationes, see Cameron, The Last Pagans, 14–25.
83 VV 13, 45, and 69.
84 See Bartelink’s commentary ad loc. in Vite dei Santi, 253, n. 70.
85 In VE 70 and 72 for  Ἕλλην and in VE 82 for ἐθνικός. Similar is the case of 
Ambrose, for instance, using gentes nineteen times and never pagani, see Came-
ron, The Last Pagans, 16.
86 Epist. 184A.5: quos uel gentiles uel iam uulgo usitato uocabulo paganos appellare 
consueuimus.
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TWO LATIN TRANSLATORS OF THE LIFE OF ANTONY 21
was not aware of the existing versions of 1 Cor. 2:4 in Latin. On the 
other hand, Evagrius’ persuasio indicates that he was familiar with 
an already existing version of 1 Cor. 2:4 in Latin, as witnessed by 
Ambrose and Jerome.87 What is particularly puzzling, however, is not 
that VE, as it usually happens, has parallels in other writers’ writing 
in Latin in Late Antiquity, but that he altogether avoided translating 
Athanasius’ σοφία, “wisdom,” deeming it sufficient to translate only 
πειθώ, “persuasion.”
The Greek term σοφία, “wisdom,” appears four times in the Life. 
In all four occurrences and contexts, the AT translated it simply as 
sapientia, without revisions to the Greek text. Such a word-for-word 
translation is probably due to the translator’s adoption of the “one-
-word-one-concept” strategy, in which σοφία always equals sapientia. 
On the other hand, Evagrius, as mentioned above, did not translate 
σοφία from the Greek original at all. Judging by Evagrius’ compe-
tence in translating from Greek into Latin, the possibility that he 
simply overlooked such an important term in Antony’s debate over 
philosophers as σοφία should be discarded. Instead, a closer look 
into his rendering of σοφία throughout his translation offers further 
explanations for Evagrius’ particular choice in this case and explains 
how he employed sapientia.
Out of the four instances where σοφία appears in the Greek text, 
Evagrius translated it as sapientia only once and, even then, he added 
to it the explanatory term mundi, “of [this] world.”88 Most of the times 
in the Life, σοφία is mentioned with a negative connotation and in a 
polemic context, in Antony’s long speeches against non-Christians 
who relied on the wisdom of words and this world, as opposed to his 
“true” faith. Evagrius’ reluctance to present “wisdom” as necessarily 
negative becomes even more apparent when one notices that he 
attempted to incorporate the noun sapientia in other places in his 
translation where there was no σοφία in corresponding passages of 
the Greek original. Three times, he employed sapientia with a posi-
tive connotation: in a translation of φρόνησις as one of the Christian 
ideals that lead to heaven, then of νοῦς in Athanasius’ words of praise 
for Antony’s intelligence, and in a phrase sapientia bonum est as an 
addition in the form of an exegetic translation.89 On the other hand, 
in the Evagrian translation, there are precisely three occurrences of 
87 Ambrose, In psalm. 47.24.1: non in persuasione sapientiae uerbi; Jerome: Adv. 
Rufin. 1.17: non in persuasione uerborum.
88 VE 78.
89 VE 17, 85, and 72.
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ALEKSANDAR ANĐELOVIĆ AND GYÖRGY GERÉBY22
sapientia with a negative connotation: apart from sapientia mundi 
mentioned above, he used it as uana et confutata sapientia as well as 
mundana sapientia.90
This is to say, Evagrius was fully aware of what “wisdom” (σοφία) 
meant in Athanasius’ discourse and theology and of its connotations. 
When used alone, sapientia in VE is always presented as a virtue 
and an advantage; when needed to present it as “empty” wisdom of 
non-Christians, Evagrius indicated so by adding explanatory terms. 
It indeed seems as if Evagrius wanted to find a balance between Atha-
nasius’ presentation of σοφία as a “sin” and what sapientia meant in 
Evagrius’ daily life among literati.
CONCLUSION
Ever since the discovery of the manuscript with the older anonymous 
Latin translation, the scholarly stances towards the two Latin trans-
lations of the Life of Antony were fixed and viewed them as striking 
contrasts. It has not been disputable that the VV stands for a literal 
and an excessively wordy translation, and that, on the other hand, 
Evagrius’ final product is a literary, free, elegant, and stylistically 
improved translation, composed in high-style Latin by a prominent 
fourth-century Christian intellectual from Antioch. While all these 
hold, the two Latin translations of the Life have not been thoroughly 
mined for all possible information about the two translators.
By discussing the modus operandi of the translators, this research 
has yielded several discoveries. Firstly, it became apparent that the 
AT rendered the biblical quotations he found in the Life from Greek 
into Latin himself without recourse to the available translations. His 
renderings are unparalleled in other texts that quote the Bible in Latin. 
In addition, it became apparent that the AT was familiar with the Greek 
Bible based on the exact verbal correspondences in the word order 
between several passages in the Greek Bible and the AT’s renderings 
of the biblical quotations, otherwise absent from Athanasius’ text. 
The main conclusion is that his literal and word-for-word approach 
to translation was not a translation preference but rather a limitation. 
Namely, the analysis of the AT’s mirror and mechanical translations 
of many terms and several syntactic structures from Greek resulting 
in non-idiomatic Latin supports the hypothesis that the translator 
was a bilingual speaker. However, he had insufficient command of 
the language he was translating into, in this case, Latin.
90 VE 80 and 93.
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TWO LATIN TRANSLATORS OF THE LIFE OF ANTONY 23
On the other hand, this study has shown that Evagrius was using 
the version of the Bible of which numerous textual parallels are atte-
sted in the works of other authors writing in Latin, such as Cyprian, 
Tertullian, Jerome, Augustine, Rufinus, or Ambrose. While Evagrius’ 
rhetorical education and his translating ad sensum have been noted 
by various scholars, this study has also shown that Evagrius occasi-
onally stylistically upgraded the language of the existing versions of 
the Latin Bible, as if he was not content with the material available to 
him. Evagrius exercised his mastery in rhetoric even on the text that 
was considered sacred by him and his Christian contemporaries. The 
investigation of his renderings of biblical quotations from Greek into 
Latin brought about other important discoveries along the way. For 
instance, even if Evagrius’ close ties with Jerome were acknowledged 
before, this study has shown that Evagrius and Jerome frequently sha-
red specific wordings of the Bible in Latin that no other Latin author 
used. This confirms anticipations that Evagrius belonged to the same 
circle of literati, i. e., the late-antique Christian elite, as Jerome did.
On these grounds, the investigation of how the two translators 
chose to articulate the text they considered sacred led to discoveries 
about their linguistic, ideological, and theological backgrounds. 
Rather than looking for “historical facts” and attempting to “reveal” 
identities, this article focuses on the very texts, which proved to be 
fertile research material. After all, this case reminds us of the impor-
tance and potential of returning to texts for any philological research.
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ALEKSANDAR ANĐELOVIĆ AND GYÖRGY GERÉBY24
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Primary sources
Athanasius. “Life of Antony.” In Early Christian Lives, edited and 
translated by Caroline White, 1–71. London: Penguin Books, 
1998.
——— . Sant’Antonio Abate: La sua vita. Edited by Gerhardus J. M. 
Bartelink and translated by Luca Bruzzese. Bologna: Edizioni 
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TWO LATIN TRANSLATORS OF THE LIFE OF ANTONY 25
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ALEKSANDAR ANĐELOVIĆ AND GYÖRGY GERÉBY26
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TWO LATIN TRANSLATORS OF THE LIFE OF ANTONY 27
ABSTRACT
The paper focuses on the direct Bible quotations that the anonymous 
translator and Evagrius of Antioch rendered from Greek into Latin as 
part of their versions of the Life of Antony, each in his own way. Did 
the anonymous translator use any of the existing fourth-century Latin 
translations of the Bible to translate the biblical quotations he found in 
the Greek original, or did he translate them himself, without recourse 
to translations already available? Which version of the Bible did he 
use when translating the biblical quotations, in Latin or in Greek? 
What does the anonymous translator’s “literal” and “low- register” 
style tell us about the translator? Was his non-idiomatic Latin a choice, 
“Christian” Latin, or rather a limitation in translating into Latin as his 
target language? On the other hand, what does Evagrius’ “high” and 
stylistically sophisticated and improved Latin tell us about Evagrius? 
Whom does he write for, and what do his readers expect from him? 
This paper aims at answering these questions.
KEYWoRdS: translation theory, Graeco-Latin bilingualism, 
hagiography, biblical quotations, late-antique literati, education
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ALEKSANDAR ANĐELOVIĆ AND GYÖRGY GERÉBY28
KONTRASTNO JEZIKOVNO IN KULTURNO  
OZADJE DVEH LATINSKIH PREVAJALCEV  
ANTONOVEGA ŽIVLJENJA
IZVLEČEK
Pričujoča razprava se osredotoča na neposredne biblijske citate, 
ki sta jih anonimni prevajalec in Evagrij Antiohijski prestavila iz 
grščine v latinščino v okviru svojih različic Življenja svetega Antona, 
vsak na svoj način. Je anonimni prevajalec Življenja uporabil katere-
ga od obstoječih latinskih prevodov Svetega pisma iz četrtega 
stoletja za prevajanje svetopisemskih citatov, ki jih je našel v grškem 
izvirniku, ali jih je prevedel sam, ne da bi se zatekel k že dostopnim 
prevodom? Katero različico Svetega pisma je uporabil pri prevajanju 
svetopisemskih citatov, latinsko ali grško? Kaj nam o piscu pove 
»dobesedni« slog anonimnega prevajalca in njegov skromni register? 
Je bila njegova neidiomatska latinščina izbira, je šlo za »krščansko« 
latinščino ali za omejenost pri prevajanju v latinščino kot ciljni jezik? 
Kaj po drugi strani o Evagriju pove njegova »visoka« in slogovno 
dovršena ter izbrušena latinščina? Za koga piše in kaj od njega 
pričakujejo bralci? Prispevek skuša odgovoriti na ta vprašanja.
KLJUČNE BESEdE: prevajalska teorija, grško-latinska dvojezičnost, 
hagiografija, svetopisemski citati, poznoantični literati, izobraževanje
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