Stihuri din Sfânta Scriptură pentru multe lucruri (Ioan Marginai) între imitație și originalitate
Verses from the Holy Scriptures about Various Things (Ioan Marginai) between Imitation and Originality

Summary/Abstract: In the medieval European culture, there was a real preoccupation for making anthologies where they gathered words of wisdom and beauty originated in the profane and in the religious aspects of life. The most ancient model of this kind of collections is Manipulus florum by the clergyman Thomas Hibernicus (about 1270 – about 1340). In the Romanian speaking area, the first collection of this kind, called Stihuri din Sfânta Scriptură pentru multe lucruri [Verses from the Holy Scriptures about various things] was made by an 18th century author who was unknown until recently. It is Samoil Micu in his Scurtă cunoştinţă a istorii românilor [Brief history of Romanians] written between 1792 and 1796 that first mentions his name: Ioan Marginai. All these details have been mentioned by us in the introductory study of the original edition in 2009. The main aim of this paper is to identify the Western pattern that the author could have followed when realizing his anthology. Supposing that Ioan Marginai made his anthology in Blaj, we had to identify the potential pattern in the book collection originated in Blaj. Since in this book collection can only be identified one single thematic Bible concordance, published in Trnava in 1768, we can conclude that this anthology of biblical quotations collected by Marginai could have taken this work as a model. By the innovative character of his work, Ioan Marginai is a pioneer in the Romanian theological literature and the fact that he had a Western model does not diminish the value of his work.

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