The Monastic Rules of Visigothic Iberia - eTheses Repository ...

to the concomitant dismissal of the tumor, which has an important role to play in post-
classical Latin writing. As a literary trope, it is perfectly in fitting with the kind of technique
expected from Asianic writers, and the influence of such a style was always close to writers
at this time. The tumor is a technique perfectly fitting with the Asianising tendencies of post-
classical Latin writers. Its provenance lies in rhetorical word-play, but the feature had by the
seventh century become a stylistic technique drawn on popularly by Latin writers.
4.9.4 Semitic Influence
It should be noted that another suggested origin for the tumor is as a Semitic
borrowing; since much scripture was originally written in Hebrew or Aramaic, it follows that
the Greek koine into which they were translated was subject to the influence of Semitic
(Palmer 1980: 194-196; Horrocks 1997: 92-96). Sittl, for example, opined that its origins lay
in Semitic influence, since it is well established that Hebrew, as well as other Semitic
languages, regularly uses what is known as a paronomastic genitive to denote a superlative or
to add value to a noun (Reckendorf 1909).
This was a popular opinion of nineteenth-century scholars, who believed the Greek of
the New Testament to have been heavily Semiticised. Since translators would have been
careful in their work not to alter meanings or texts, it is natural that syntactic and lexical
features might be transposed into Greek; “even though the New Testament was composed in
the main by men without a higher education […] it was nevertheless written in an area where
Aramaic was the first language of the majority, and some books at least are probably
translations from Aramaic originals” (Horrocks 1997: 92; see also Greenspoon 2003). It is
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