Riflessioni sulla lingua nel dialogo tra la Chiesa armena e quella greca nel XII secolo

The letters that Nersēs Šnorhali exchanged with his Byzantine interlocutors between 1165 and 1172 about the possible union between the faithful of the two Churches also contain reflections on language. Nersēs insists that the language used in the dialogue should aim at communicating the truth of the faith, without mystifying it. A faith founded on sound scriptural and patristic principles, must be expounded according to truth, avoiding the linguistic virtuosity that could, if anything, serve to disguise an unclear, if not outright heretical doctrine, and to give it the appearance of orthodoxy. Communication between the two parties in dialogue can be hindered by the ignorance of one of the interlocutors. Ignorance spreads unhealthy words that, like a pathogen, make those who hear them sick, generating and propagating false ideas. But misconceptions can also arise from backbiting. The new dialogue between Armenians and Byzantines involving Nersēs began under the best auspices, with knowledgeable interlocutors intent on conducting a fruitful confrontation, both on one side and the other. But even in this case language shows all its divisive power. Nersēs reasons about the Christological terminology of his Church and seeks the points on which convergence with the language used by the Greeks can be found. In doing so, he perceives the conventionality of human language and the polysemy of terms that can be understood in different ways depending on the context in which they are used. This perception, which in Nersēs Šnorhali derives from the examination of specific terms and expressions, is referred to human language as such, thus receiving a kind of theoretical formulation, by Nersēs Lambronac‘i, great-nephew of Šnorhali, who continued the dialogue with the Greeks after the latter’s death.