Talk:Codex Fuldensis

Ther exists no official English translation of the Codex Fuldensis Gospel, even in the smallest of parts. Most of the critics of this work have never read it, nor even seen it, let alone in English. Most indeed are quoting earlier authorities without question. I have read it in both Latin and English, and I believe the voice of authority here should be questioned.

I have been studying the Codex Fuldensis Gospel, as transcibed by Sievers from the Codex Sangallensis.

I have read from multiple critiques of the CF Gospel that this is a translation into Latin of a Syriac original, by the method of 'Fragment Substitution' using a Syriac Gospel set as the source key, and Jerome's Vulgate Gospels as the Target key.

Searching, but not finding, even a partial translation into English, and having developed a skill in Fragment Substitution in English text, practicing with translations of Ciasca's Latin of the Arabic, I set to attempt, using Fragment Substution, the translation of Sievers' text into English.

In my early attempts at FS, using English texts, I observed common errors in my results, where I failed to notice the omission of a word or two in the source text, from the source key, so I thus inserted the equivalent 'foreign' word into the target text. Also, there were occasions where a text suture did not match any source key, and my approximation to a match produced a repetition across the suture. Now this is working English to English, both texts being my native tongue, and yet I could easily make such errors.

Syriac is a Semitic Language whose syntax is grossly foreign to Latin. The source keys and the target keys would have been a very poor match, and the translated text would thus, as is the English of the Arabic, littered with the sort of errors I have reported.

What I found, in translating the CF Gospel into English, was a TOTAL lack of these errors in the source text. Such of such errors in the target text are of my own making, and in the first approximation to a translation, they were not few. Subsequent filtering processes have reduced these errors, but they still yet turn up.

Thus I am convinced that this text was not translated from a Syriac original, but was composed, or compiled in LATIN.

Yes, the source text very closely resembles that of Jerome. Indeed, for over 99%, it is word for word, if not letter for letter, the same. But yet there are differences which cannot be blamed on error or deliberate mutation. Most commonly a word following a preposition, in the CF text is in the ablative case, whereas in Jerome's text, the accusative is used. In Jerome's time, the ablative case was falling into dissuse, so the strange occurrances of the ablative case indicates to me that this text is older than Jerome's, and thus depends on a Latin Gospel set which Jerome used as a linguistic model for his new translation from the Greek. Indeed it seems to me that for the most part, Jerome only very lightly edited the wording of the Latin text he was using as a model. What Jerome may also have done is to re-arrange the sequence of blocks of text to match the Greek sources he was consulting. For ALL writers say that Tatian, (some say Ammonius) 'Took verses in sequence from Matthew, and incorporated or substituted as was appropriate, verses from the remaining three gospels' Now there is no hint in the text of Matthew which suggests that a better match is achieved by varying the sequence of blocks of Matthean text, so I am inclined to believe that the sequence of the Matthean text found in the CF gospel, is the sequence found in the Vetus Latina that Tatian, or Ammonius was using as a matrix upon which to build the harmony.

Further, Victor, Bishop of Capua, in his preface to this gospel, apportions the name 'Diapente', from five, to this work, implying a fifth source. It is CLEAR that this gospel is only very loosely dependant on the work witnessed by Ephrem Syrus, as the major blocks of text are not only in a different order, but some blocks seen by Ephrem are not present, and present are some he saw not. Victor was not, as imputed by some a poor scholar of Latin and Greek, indeed, he was well skilled in Classical Latin and Greek, and would not have so erred by accident. He thus plainly says 'From Five' and must be taken seriously, and the implication is that this CF gospel is a 'new' compilation, taken from Latin gospels, using the old Syriac Diatessaron as an outline guide.

If this was the work of Tatian as Victor suspects, or of Ammonius as Eusebius suspects, then the vorlager gospels would have to be the VL of Carthage, reported about AD 200.

On my web-site, I offer an English translation of this gospel, which is relatively unrefined, in three columns, reflecting the two columns that Sievers transcribes, with the Latin and Saxon, (Old High German), columns present, and my English placed between them, with interactive cross-references to Jerome's Gospels.

I would welcome educated criticism thereof.

My conclusions can be easily verified by studying my work.

For those who wish to get an appreciation of the English, I offer an eBook version absolutely free to download and circulate, but not to print, accessible from the index page.

My home page can be found at:

 (edited 18/Nov/2008) BT have closed the websites which they allocated, so now I no longer have a web site. However, I do post my work on Archive.org, and you can find my work on various subjects, including this at: https://archive.org/details/@daveat168 Mon 8 Feb 2021. 2A00:23C6:408B:EB01:747F:4692:2E94:3914 (talk) 00:24, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

Best regards,

David R Smith.


 * Thank you for posting this. I consider it to be a significant achievement.   Repentance  15:20, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

I have subsequently gained access to an image pdf of Ranke's transliteration of CF. I am presently re-typsetting this book, and the work in progress can be seen on my site.

One conclusion I have been forced to is that San Gall 56 is not a direct copy of CF, and neither is CF the actual document from the hand of Victor of Capua. Rather it is an 8th century Irish copy of an earlier document, as is San Gall. However, both are clearly copies, maybe indirect, of the same document, and such differences which have crept in are probably due to the hand of the intermediate copyists. Sievers clearly believed that the San Gall version was closer to the original than is CF, and from the content, I am inclined to agree. Best regards, David R Smith.

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"Old High German, Eastern Frankish and Old Saxon"
I'm not sure what this means. What is Eastern Frankish? I suppose it is a High Franconian dialect, i.e., a dialect of OHG. Or is it a variety of Low Franconian? Are there really three languages here or just two? Srnec (talk) 16:43, 13 September 2020 (UTC)