|
|
|
|
 |
Meister Eckhart Home / Works by Meister Eckhart - Quotes / Inspired by Eckhart / Studies / The Papal Condemnation / Mail & Announcements / Links / Books |
M. LAISTNER
Knowledge of Greek in Western Europe during the earlier Middle Ages
Chapter 10 (The Study of Greek) of Laistner's, Thought & Letters in Western Europe - A.D. 500 to 900, N.Y. 1931, pp. 238-250
Page 3
Walahfrid's contemporary, Servatus Lupus, can be credited with a similar smattering of Greek. In one letter he requests Einhard to tell him the meaning of certain Greek nouns and Greek phrases employed by Servius. He discusses the quantity of the second syllable in blasphemus, knowing that it is a Greek word, and points out on the authority of Prudentius that it is long. On the other hand, he notes that Graecus quidam - probably an Irishman with a little Greek rather than a Greek - had argued that the syllable was short, a view to which Einhard also adhered.[3] To Gottschalk he writes, in answer to a request to explain certain words, that he is postponing his explanation because for the moment he is not sure of the exact meaning of the words asked and is too busy to go further into the matter, and he adds that he is fully aware that the precise significance of Greek words had better be sought from Greeks.[4] It looks as if the good abbot was a little disingenuous and willing to leave an impression of greater knowledge than he possessed on his correspondent. Still, it is obvious that so widely read a man as Lupus must have picked up or at least recognized as Greek a good many words in the Latin authors that he studied. When he ventures on etymology he is no better than other men of his time; what he offers was the common property of the better sort of Carolingian schoolmasters, as when he expounds the derivation of fialas.[5]
