Who was Philo of Carpasia and why do we care?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The name of Philo of Carpasia is known to… practically nobody. [1]  I’d never heard it until a couple of weeks ago, when I learned that a long section of his Commentary on the Song of Songs existed in a manuscript in Ge`ez, classical Ethiopian, and indeed has been printed with Italian translation.[2]

This Carpasia or Karpasia – or even Karpathos, apparently – was an ancient Greek town in the Karpas peninsula of Cyprus, and this Philo was ordained bishop there by Epiphanius of Salamis in the late 4th century AD.  We know this from chapter 49 of the hagiographical Vita of Epiphanius[3], an unusual text in four sections, where the opening section is from notes by Epiphanius’ disciple John, but the remainder somewhat later by an otherwise unknown Polybius of the 5-6th century.  Unfortunately c. 49 is by the latter.

The Suda tells us that a “Philo of Karpathos” composed a Commentary on the Song of Songs, and we have 10 Greek manuscripts listed in the Pinakes database which contain such a commentary which attribute it to “Philo of Carpasia”.  One in Modena is 12th century; Vaticanus Barb. gr. 334 (13th century) is online here.  Two more are 15-16th century, and the rest are later.

Vat. barb. gr. 334, fol. 1r (excerpt showing the author)

There are also extracts from the Commentary in the medieval Greek bible commentaries, the catenae, and four passages in Cosmas Indicopleustes in his Christian Topography  10, 57-8.

As well as the Greek manuscripts, we have an ancient translation of the work into Latin.  This was made in the 6th century at the request of Cassiodorus.  It is preserved in a single manuscript of… the 6th century, which must therefore have a fair chance of being the autograph or copied directly from it.  This ancient manuscript is online, MS Vaticanus latinus 5704.  Comparison of the Latin with the Greek reveals that the Greek text has been abbreviated in places.  Unfortunately Cassiodorus thought that the commentary was composed by Epiphanius of Cyprus, as he says in his Institutions, book 1, 5:4. After mentioning  commentaries on the Song of Songs by Origen, as translated by Jerome and Rufinus, he adds:

Post quos Epiphanius antistes Cyprius totum librum Graeco sermone uno volumine sub brevitate complexus est.  Hunc nos ut alios in Latinam linguam par amicum nostrum virum disertissimum Epiphanium fecimus Domino iuvante transferri.

After them, Epiphanius, bishop of Cyprus, treated the whole book in one brief volume in Greek. I have had this book like others translated into Latin with the Lord’s aid by my learned friend Epiphanius.[4]

Thus on folio 4v the Vatican manuscript states: Incipit expositio Epiphanii episcopi Cyprii in Canticis Canticorum.

The ancient Latin translation is important in biblical studies because it quotes from the Old Latin text of Song of Songs, itself not well preserved.[5]

There are extracts from the Commentary in an Old Slavonic catena known as the “Commentary of Philo.”  These seem to come from the catenae.[6]  The Ge`ez text seems to be from the original full Greek text, although the translator apparently struggled to translate the ideas from the Greek text into the less flexible Semitic language of Ethiopian.

There is no modern critical edition of the Greek text, although the ancient Latin translation was critically edited with an Italian translation by A. Ceresa-Gastaldo.[7]  The 1750 editio princeps by Foggini is online here, which appeared in Rome under the title S. Epiphani Salaminis in Cypro episcopi Commentarium in Canticum Canticorum.

The Greek text of the Commentary was first printed in 1772 in Rome by Giacomelli, 1772, Philonis episcopi Carpasii enarratio in Canticum Canticorum, with notes and his own translation into Latin.  It is online here. This edition is reproduced in PG40, cols. 27-154.  The same text was reprinted by without notes by K. Hadjioannos / [Chatzēiōannou, Kyriakos], Ἡ ἀρχαία Κύπρος εἰς τὰς Ἑλληνικὰς πήγας / Hē archaia Kypros eis tas Hellēnikas pēgas, vol. 3, Leucosia: Ekd. Hieras Archiepiskopēs Kyprou (1975), together with a modern Greek translation.

A couple of bits of the Commentary have been translated into English by Brian Duvick, and are accessible on Academia.edu here and here.

There are two very useful articles on the Commentary by S. Sagot (1981)[8] and M.A.Barbara (2019).[9]

We also have two Greek manuscripts containing the Letter to Eucarpius by Philo of Carpasia.  I will post a translation of this shortly. Update 24/09/24: This is also Letter 42 of Basil. See here.

Finally there are also two fragments of an Ecclesiastical History by a certain Philo (CPG 7512) preserved in works ascribed to Anastasius of Sinai (7th century).   A recent article and edition argues that the author should be identified with Philo of Carpasia.[10]

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  1. [1]For more information, please consult the marvellous article by Solange Sagot, ‘Une récente édition du “Commentaire sur le Cantique des Cantiques” de Philon de Carpasia’, in: Vigiliae Christianae 35 (1981), pp.358-376.  JSTOR. (http://www.jstor.org/stable/1582998. ↩
  2. [2]Details in Tedros Abraham, “The Gǝʿǝz Version of Philo of Carpasia’s Commentary on Canticle of Canticles 1:2-14a: Introductory Notes”, in: Aethiopica 15 (2013), 22-52. PDF download here. ↩
  3. [3]BHG 596-9, PG41, col. 85, English translation forthcoming from Claudia Rapp in the TTH series↩
  4. [4]Translated by J. Halporn in TTH 42, Liverpool (2004), p.123.↩
  5. [5]Vide Ceulemans and Dimitrova.↩
  6. [6]Reinhart Ceulemans, Margaret Dimitrova, “The Slavonic Catena also known as the ‘Commentary of Philo’ and the Greek Catena Hauniensis on the Song of Songs” in: The Literary Legacy of Byzantium: Editions, Translations, and Studies in Honour of Joseph A. Munitiz SJ, Brepols (2019) pp.109-144.  https://doi.org/10.1484/M.SBHC-EB.5.117146↩
  7. [7] A. Ceresa-Gastaldo, Commento al Cantico dei cantici / [di] Filone di Carpasia ; nell’antica versione latina di Epifanio Scolastico, Series: Corona Patrum 6 (1979).↩
  8. [8] S. Sagot, “Une récente édition du _Commentaire sur le Cantique des Cantiques_ de Philon de Carpasia” in: Vigiliae Christianae 35 (1981), 358-376↩
  9. [9] M. A. Barbara, “Note sulle traduzioni latine del Commentario al Cantico dei cantici di Filone di Carpasia,” In: In ricordo di Sandro Leanza.  Giornate di studio di  Letteratura cristiana antica, a cura di M. A. Barbàra – M. R. Petringa, Sicania,  Messina 2019, pp. 41-52. ISBN: 978-88-7268-155-8. Online here.↩
  10. [10] L. Van Hoof &c, “Philo of Carpasia, Ecclesiastical History (CPG 7512)” in: Revue d’Histoire Ecclésiastique 112 (2017), 35-52. https://doi.org/10.1484/J.RHE.5.113225↩

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