An Old Church Slavonic Tale about a Sinful Mother (Sinodik, Patericon, Synaxarion, Izmaragd) and Its Greek Original (BHG 1449d)

Abstract

The paper aims to identify the Greek original of an Old Church Slavonic tale included in the Old Russian Sinodik and known in manuscript copies from the 16th c. Previously, the tale was provisionally ascribed to the Latin tradition and thought to have reached the Old Russian literature via a Polish milieu. Recent attempts to identify its Greek original remained unsuccessful. The author argues that the tale is an Old Church Slavonic translation of the Byzantine text BHG 1449d, a spiritually beneficial writing ascribed to Paul of Monemvasia (second half of the 10th c.). The same translation is presented in East Slavonic manuscript copies of the Patericon, the Plain and Versed Synaxarion, and the Izmaragd. The earliest of the newly identified manuscript copies is dated to the first half of the 15th c. The article also contains an edition of the Old Church Slavonic translation (according to the manuscript copy in Moscow, Russian State Library, Collection of the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius, No. 701, Patericon, 1469) in parallel with the Greek original according to the scholarly edition of the manuscript version contained in a Greek codex of the 14th c. (ca 1330).