The Greek Archetypes of the Old and Middle Bulgarian Translations of the Life of Saint Anthony the Great
The Greek Archetypes of the Old and Middle Bulgarian Translations of the Life of Saint Anthony the Great

Summary/Abstract: All three versions of the life into Church Slavonic translation survive in manuscripts from the 14th century, so it is not immediately obvious which of them is older. Thus, one may conclude with some degree of certainty that the first translation is based on, in Bartelink’s terms, a pre-metaphrastic or non-metaphrastic manuscript. The second is probably based on a pre-metaphrastic manuscript, but might also be based on a manuscript belonging to the mixed metaphrastic group, whereas the third belongs with certainty to the metaphrastic “vulgate”. These findings are not surprising when it comes to the first translation, but support the hypotheses that the first translation is a Preslav translation from the beginning of the 10th century, before the metaphrastic menology was made. If the first translation had shown common traits with the metaphrastic tradition, then it would be more plausible that it had been written in the 11th century in Ochrid. Regarding the second translation, it is surprising, certainly in view of Speranskij’s work, that it does not show strong resemblance to the metaphrastic tradition. This is a sign that Speranskij might have been wrong in assuming that the complete metaphrastic menology had been translated into Church Slavonic as a large project. The third translation, being a separate translation of a metaphrastic manuscript is a further argument supporting the view that the existing corpus of translated metaphrastic manuscripts emerged step-by-step over a long period of time, and not as a single, separate project to create a complete set of Church Slavonic reading menologies.

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