Flaying Angels: Аn Early Byzantine Edifying Tale Preserved Only in Slavic Translation

Sergey A. Ivanov

Flaying Angels: Аn Early Byzantine Edifying Tale Preserved Only in Slavic Translation

Sergey A. Ivanov

Abstract

On the basis of four existing manuscripts, a Byzantine “spiritually beneficial tale” is published for the first time. This is an obvious translation from Greek but its original is nowhere attested. The action takes place in Jerusalem and its surroundings, the actors are pre-Islamic Arabs. In all probability, the story was written down at the beginning of the 6^th century; the hidden message of the legend is the questionability of “barbaric” conversions as such.

DOI: 10.31168/2305-6754.2021.10.1.1

Keywords

Byzantine hagiography; “spiritually beneficial tales”; Jerusalem; Arabs; conversion

Full Text:

PDF (Русский)

References

Chistiakova M. V., Istochniki individualʹnykh pouchenii kievo-sofiiskoi redaktsii Prostogo prologa: sentiabrʹ–fevralʹ, N. Morozova, ed., Slavianskaia pisʹmennostʹ Velikogo Kniazhestva Litovskogo: kharakternye cherty i spetsificheskie osobennosti, Vilnius, 2014, 73–116.

Dols M. W., The Origins of the Islamic Hospital: Myth and Reality, Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 61/3, 1987, 367–390.

Ivanov S. A., “Pearls Before Swine”: Missionary Work in Byzantium, Paris, 2015.

Kuelzer A., Byzantine and Early Post-Byzantine Pilgrimage to the Holy Land and to Mount Sinai, R. Macrides, ed., Travel in the Byzantine World, London, New York, 2017, 149–161.

van Nuffelen P., Deux fausses lettres de Julien l'Apostat (La lettre aux juifs, Ep. 51 [Wright], et la lettre à Arsacius, Ep. 84 [Bidez]), Vigiliae Christianae, 56/2, May, 2002, 131–150.

Shahid I., Byzantium and the Arabs in the 6th Century, 2/2: Economic, Social, and Cultural History, Washington, 2009.

Ševcenko I., ed., Chronographiae quae Theophanis continuati nomine fertur liber quo Vita Basilii Imperatoris amplectitur, Berlin, 2011.

Turilov A. A., Iuzhnoslavianskie pamiatniki v literature i knizhnosti Litovskoi i Moskovskoi Rusi XV — pervoi poloviny XVI v.: Paradoksy istorii i geografii kulʹturnykh sviazei, Slavianskii alʹmanakh, 2000, Moskva, 2001, 247–285.

Turilov A. A., Zabytye i maloizvestnye fakty iz istorii drevneishego perevoda Prologa u iuzhnykh slavian (k probleme “pervogo vostochnoslavianskogo vliianiia”), Slavianovedenie, 2, 2011, 28–26.

Voltaggio M., “Xenodochia” and “Hospitia” in Sixth-Century Jerusalem: Indicators for the Byzantine Pilgrimage to the Holy Places, Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins, 127/2, 2011, 197–210.

Refbacks

There are currently no refbacks.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Username
Password
Remember me