The Slavonic Translation of the Introduction to Isaac of Nineveh’s Sermones Ascetici (The Epigramma on Silence, Stillness, and the Quiet Life)
The Slavonic Translation of the Introduction to Isaac of Nineveh’s Sermones Ascetici (The Epigramma on Silence, Stillness, and the Quiet Life)

Summary/Abstract: This article introduces into scientific circulation the Homily on Silence, Stillness, and the Quiet Life, an anonymous text that appeared around the mid-fourteenth century in part of the codices containing the Greek translation of the ascetical homilies (Sermones ascetici) of Isaac the Syrian, Bishop of Nineveh. In a Slavonic environment, this homily began to be used as an introduction in all the lists of the so-called Second Translation of the works of Isaac the Syrian. The Slavonic translation itself, Middle Bulgarian, demonstrates the literal adherence to the Greek original that is typical of the period. Its text is published as a diplomatic edition based on the copy dated 1381 and kept at the Holy Trinity-St Sergius Lavra, collated with another nine of the twelve known copies of the homily. The cases in which the Slavonic text differs from the Greek are presented and commented upon, assuming that the translation was made from a Greek Vorlage differing from the Greek text we know today (which has no critical edition, since the Greek tradition of this homily has not been studied). On the basis of the lexical variants between the Slavonic copies, some preliminary relationships within the Slavonic tradition are formulated that can be used in further work with the witnesses of the Second Slavonic Translation of Isaac the Syrian.

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