Linguistic variation in patristic commentaries of Biblical texts

Abstract

The article discusses the evidence of Church Fathers concerning linguistic variation in Latin and, to some extent, Greek, especially with regard to their Biblical exegesis. Biblical Latin has long been tapped as a source for ‘Vulgar Latin’, especially in vocabulary and grammar: the article endeavours to investigate the metalanguage used by Patristic writers to describe social, regional and pragmatic variation in Biblical Latin, and their awareness of the existence of a ‘popular’ register of Latin.