Silk in the Slavonic Scriptures

Ralph Cleminson Silk in the Slavonic Scriptures Silk, as an imported commodity in Europe, is designated either by loan-words or neologisms in European languages. There are several of these in Slavonic languages, notably свила in South Slavonic and шьлкъ in East Slavonic. The use of the latter on two occasions in the Slavonic Book of Esther is part of the evidence for the East Slavonic origin of the Ausgangstext of this book. However, the word that it renders, either ץוּבּ or βύσσος, does not mean ‘silk’, but ‘linen’ (although confusion between βύσσος and silk appears to be endemic throughout mediaeval Europe). On the one occa-sion on which silk really is mentioned in the Bible (Revelation 18:12), none of the established Slavonic words for silk is used, but, in most manuscripts, the hapax legomenon шикъ or сикъ , evidently a corruption of сирикъ for σηρικόν, left untranslated. The occasional substitution of чрьвлень further complicates the picture of how the word was, or was not, understood.

(приклади ѡ въстании) for which no Greek original is known (though it is manifestly a translation): in the oldest manuscript (Moscow,gim,Syn. 108,f. 209v), съмотри чрьви иже исебе свилоу точить. This manuscript was written at the end of the twelfth or beginning of the thirteenth century in the East Slavonic area, but it is probable that the word свила in such a context is a South Slavonicism, reflecting the earlier history of the text.
In the East Slavonic area only we find the word шьлкъ, which is a borrowing from Old Norse 3 . Its first attested use is probably in the Canonical Responses of John Prodromus, written during his tenure of the metropolitan see of Kiev (1076/7-1089) and presumably translated into Slavonic immediately 4 . The thirty-third of these begins: Онѣмьже аще подобаѥть иже богу отлученьѥ иѥрѣѥмъ облачитисѧ в ризꙑ различнꙑꙗ [var. add: и въ] шелковꙑꙗ..., as the editors say, "место вообще весьма темное". It is moreover unfortunate that the Greek text survives only in a very late and abbreviated form, in which this passage is not present, but Pavlov (1873: 20) points out a partial correspondence to the beginning of section 10 of the Greek: Καὶ τοὺς ἱερομένους δὲ σπουδάζειν ἱματίοις ἐκ μετάξης, ἢ ἐκ λίνου εἰργασμένοις... 5 The presence of the word шьлковъ is part of the evidence for an East Slavonic origin for the Ausgangstext of the Slavonic Book of Esther, which was "made most probably by a scribe in the western East Slavic lands in the mid-1300s" (Lunt, Taube 1998: 7). It occurs twice, at 1.6, бобръмь и оутринъмъ и чьрвемь сниманънъ вьрвьми шьлковыми, и лептугъ на главахъ сребреныхъ, and 8.15, where there is something of a reprise of the vocabulary of the former verse, и мардъхаи выниде ѿ лица царева въ свитѣ царстѣи и въ черви и въ оутринѣ, и вѣньць ꙁлатъ великъ [на главѣ его], и оушьвъ шьлковъ лептужьнъ 6 . The earlier history of this text is highly problematic. It is uncertain when and where it was originally translated, or even from what language: whether from a lost Greek intermediary (Altbauer, Taube 1984) or directly from Hebrew (Lysén 2001). The question remains open (Pereswetoff-Morath 2002: 71-79), but further arguments in support of a Greek intermediary have been advanced by Kulik (2008: 58-62). If the original was Hebrew, the word here translated as шьлковъ was buts ‫,)בוץ(‬ and if Greek, βύσσινος, neither of which means 'silk' , but rather 'fine linen' . 3 Vasmer 1987, iv:423-424. The unfounded conjecture found in some older etymological dictionaries of the Scandinavian languages that the Norse word is a borrowing from Slavonic has evidently been abandoned in more recent scholarship. Whereas s > š in Slavonic borrowings from Old Norse is well attested (Sobolevskij 1910: 186-187), š > s in Nordic borrowings from Slavonic is improbable. 4 Edited in Pavlov 1880: 1-20; the base text is from gim, Čud. 4 (Varsonof 'evskaja kormčaja), written at the end of the fourteenth century. 5 Pavlov 1873: 11. The gist of both passages is the same: that priests must wear the prescribed clothing when performing their priestly duties, but at other times some latitude is permitted in accordance with the customs of the country. 6 As edited in Lunt, Taube 1998: 24, 46.

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The Greek word βύσσος (and the corresponding adjective βύσσινος) is used in the Septuagint to translate not only buts, but also bad ‫;ּבד(‬ but this may also be translated as λίνον or left untranslated) and shesh ‫שׁש(‬ ׁ ֵ ; particularly frequent in the book of Exodus). All of these words refer to linen of high quality, and this is the correct meaning of βύσσος, which is a Semitic loan-word in Greek. The word itself is well established 7 , but its precise meaning does not seem to have been widely familiar in the Greek-speaking world: it appears to have suggested the quality of the fabric rather than its material 8 . This leads to a confusion with the other luxury fabric of ancient and mediaeval Europe, silk. This confusion, which is endemic to the entire continent, is seen even in the Vulgate, where the distribution of byssus/byssinus (allowing for the occasional divergences between the texts) is almost the same as in the Septuagint: but at Esther 8.15 the word is sericum. Up to early modern times "the word was to English writers often a mere name to which they attached no certain meaning, except that of fineness and value" (oed, s.v. byss¹). In Slavonic, βύσσος is translated as вѵссъ or вѵссонъ, suggesting that it was not identified with any known material; evidence of the same confusion is found in East Slavonic where вѵссъ is glossed as шида (Sreznevskij 1893(Sreznevskij -1912(Sreznevskij : 1592(Sreznevskij -1593, another word for 'silk' , borrowed from German or Swedish 9 . The only place in the Bible where silk really is mentioned is in the Apocalypse (18.12). The early history of this book in Slavonic is almost as obscure as that of the Book of Esther. The earliest manuscripts (n1 and possibly Rum) date from the fourteenth century; the vast majority are East Slavonic 10 . All either contain the commentary of Andrew of Caesarea or show signs of being descended from manuscripts which contained it. Obviously the commentated text is not Methodian (since in translating the whole Bible one would not translate a commentary for one book only), but it is uncertain whether it represents an independent, later translation, or the translation by Methodius (which, on the testimony of the Vita Methodii, must be assumed to have existed) to which commentary was subsequently added; in the latter case some revision to the text would typically have taken place at the same time.
There are a number of variants in the Slavonic version of this passage that allow the manuscripts to be grouped -not something that one would normally do on the basis of such a small portion of text, but since the results agree with those of more comprehensive text-critical studies of the book (Alekseev, Lichačeva 1987; Grünberg 1996; Trifonova 2016) they may be taken as valid. In the majority text (corresponding to Grünberg's families d and e, which do not differ at this point; for the purposes of the present study, n1 Rog11 Rum tsl6 tsl120 tsl121 tsl122 Vol) 13 σηρικοῦ is translated, not with any of the known Slavonic words for 'silk' , but by a hapax legomenon. Along with сѣмене дѣлѧ (сѣмене Rog11 Rum tsl122), it is one of the distinctive readings of this text-type, presenting in two forms, шика Rum tsl120 tsl121 tsl122 and сика n1 tsl6 Vol).
This may be compared with the text of the Bosnian group of manuscripts (family a), the closest of the other types to the majority text and, though without commentary, long recognised as having been extrapolated from the commentated text: И кꙋпьци ꙁемльни вьꙁридають и вьсплачꙋть се о неи, ѣко брѣмене ихь никьтоже не кꙋпить кь томꙋ. брѣмене ꙁлата и сьребрьна и камениѣ драгаго и бисьра и висона и ters and verses, in the present case including verses 11 and 12 and most of verse 13 of the eighteenth chapter. Here and elsewhere diacritics are not reproduced.
q is unusual in that the commentary is given separately (on ff. 41v-125) from the text (on ff. 1v-39), but paragraphs are numbered in each, so that the two can be correlated. This is evidently the first step in the extrapolation of the biblical text from the commentated version. The other manuscripts in this group have no commentary. Some of the variants (ѿ древа драгаго, omission of и амона and и вина, and transposed ѻвець и скота) also occur in the Greek tradition, and indicate (as does the hyperliteral не єще, οὐκ ἔτι) that the text of this group has been heavily revised against a Greek text that differed from the original Vorlage; it is not, however, an independent translation (Grünberg 1996: 66-71). It has been suggested that the revision was a very early one (Alekseev, Lichačeva 1987: 14 -"напоминает редактуру […] проведенную в Болгарии в x в."), in which case the reading сирика here and in Bosn is evidently primary, continuing the text as it was before the appearance of the distinctive variants of the archetype of the majority text (a corollary of this is that the Čudov New Testament is not a single translation, and the Apocalypse therein has a different origin from the Gospels and the Apostolos) 14 .
There is some mixing between this text-type and the majority text. tsl119 is a majority-text manuscript that has been corrected against a text of the q type; mda27 again contains basically the majority text, but with the q readings сири|ка, виннаго and семидала; vmč and the closely related tsl83 have double readings such as корица. и кинїамомꙋ. This suggests that the corrector of tsl119 and the scribe of mda27, at least, regarded the q text as superior.

kup'ci z(e)m(a)lni vsi | vsplačutь o nei êk(o) eže ni|samь nestь kto kupe zla|to ili srebro kamenie drago. | i biser' suk'ne bagrenice i s|uk' i kokin' i vsakoe drevo kr|as'noe. medь i železo mram|or' i kumiêmь i tьm'ênь muro | i livanь vino i olêi smid|alь i pšenice skotь
Both have a defective text (2Ber with a more serious lacuna), with shared omissions, and both have lexical changes, in one case introducing a Greek word (conceivably via Latin, cfr. kokcina, 1493), elsewhere apparently updating the vocabulary in line with changing norms (єже носимь, suk'ne, багрѣницѫ). The latter phenomenon is typical of the development of the glagolitic text, and is taken further (though not on the basis of the text represented by 2Ber) in Mosk and 1493, for example masti for muro and melkie muki for smidalь.
It appears, therefore, that the prototype of the Slavonic version of the Apocalypse did not translate the word for 'silk' , but retained the Greek word, along with others in this list for wares unfamiliar to the Slavs. Either Methodius could find no Slavonic word for it in Moravia, or a later generation did not recognise the obsolete σηρικόν as a synonym for μέταξα. Nor did copyists realise that сирикъ was the same as свила or шьлкъ. The word was not in their active vocabulary, and was thus easily distorted to сикъ (by simple omission -cfr. ⱄⱆⰽ' [suk' ] 2Ber), and thence to шикъ. The latter change is due to the neutralisation of /s/ and /š/ in Old Pskov dialects (Zaliznjak 2004: 52, Sobolevskij 1884 16 . Its persistence in manuscripts otherwise free of this feature is explained by the fact that scribes copying from such an exemplar could normally correct from their knowledge of the norm -except for a word that occurred nowhere else. Its meaning remained mysterious to readers and copyists of the Slavonic Apocalypse; it is only late in the transmission of the glagolitic version, in 1493, that it is replaced by a contemporary word with the correct meaning: dubalĵa.
And why is σηρικοῦ translated as чрьвлѥна? This at least is not wholly isolated. Silk is not often mentioned in the earliest Slavonic texts, but there are two passages of Byzantine canon law which refer to it and which were translated very early. These are Canon 45 of the Council in Trullo and Canon 16 of the Second Council of Nicaea. Both are quoted in the Sylloge of xiv Titles, which was translated in the First Bulgarian Kingdom (Naydenova 2005(Naydenova -2006 240 and the literature cited there) and is represented in the oldest Slavonic legal text, the Efremovskaja Kormčaja (gim, Syn. 227). The latter is also quoted in chapter 37 of the Pandects of Nicon of the Black Mount, of which there were two translations, the first made in the eleventh/twelfth century and the second, of which there is also a 'Euthymian' redaction, in the thirteenth/fourteenth (Bogdanova, Lukanova 2009: 358) 17 . It also mentions silk in chapter 23, in what is evidently Nicon's own text. The origin of the first translation is a matter of unresolved debate, but it is undisputed that the earliest witnesses belong to an East Slavonic recension; among the evidence cited for this is the lexeme шьлкъ in ch. 23 (Sreznevskij 1874: 296) 18 . The relevant phrases 19 are: Trull. 45 σηρικαῖς καὶ ἑτέραις παντοίαις στολαῖς въ чьрвлѥнахъ и инѣхъ всѧчьскꙑихъ риꙁахъ II Nic. 16 οὐδὲ ἐκ σηρικῶν ὑφασμάτων πεποικιλμένην ἐσθῆτα ἐνεδέδυτό τις ни ѿ чьрвлѥнааго свилиꙗ попьстреною риꙁою да не одѣваѥть сѧ къто (= Pand. 37) ни ѿ свильна тканьꙗ облачаше сѧ кто Pand. 23 εἴτε ἀργυροῦν, ἢ χρυσοῦν, ἢ ἐν σηρικοῖς ὑφάσμασι κατασκευασμένον ли срѣбръмь ли златъмь съ шелкъмь 20 тъканоѥ оустроѥно Elsewhere the old confusion of fabrics recurs, for βύσσος too is sporadically translated as чрьвена/чрьвеница in early texts ( Jagić 1913: 305). The reading of h474 is thus not a chance aberration, but a regular, if uncommon, rendering of σηρικός. The clue to the mys- 17 The second translation need not be considered here, as it consistently reads сурьскъ, implying that the original read (or was read as) συρικός. 18 Sreznevskij also finds the word in ch. 49 tery is probably to be found in ii Nic. 16: a scribe unacquainted with the origin of silk could easily copy *чрьвина свила as чрьвена свила, thus inadvertently creating a new synonym.
It appears from the above that for the translators, copyists and readers of the Slavonic Bible there was a general lack of comprehension where silk was concerned. In the book of Esther, and in glosses elsewhere, we observe a confusion with βύσσος/вѵссъ / вѵссонъ that extends beyond the Slavonic Scriptures and indeed far beyond the Slavonic cultural sphere. In the Apocalypse silk is equally unrecognised. For the Slavonic translators the word presented a problem either in understanding the sources or in finding an adequate translation. The Greek word was thus left untranslated, as сирикъ, and as such it does not seem to have conveyed very much to the reader, particularly at its one scriptural occurrence in a list including a number of obscure and untranslatable commodities. This left it open to textual corruption, and indeed it is the corrupt form шика that is found in the majority of manuscripts. Though only the most highly educated readers could have had any idea of what it meant, it proved highly resilient, persisting in the Ostrog Bible and in the 1663 Moscow edition; only in the Elizabethan Bible of 1751 does the vernacular (but comprehensible) шелка finally triumph.

Literature primary sources
H474 was consulted in a digital copy supplied by the Hilandar Research Library at The Ohio State University by kind permission of the monks of the holy Monastery of Hilandar. Drag was consulted in a digital copy kindly provided by Professor Anissava Miltenova. Otherwise, where no edition is indicated, the manuscripts were consulted online at the websites of their respective libraries. The point in the source where the relevant passage occurs in indicated in each case.