Славянские переводы творений святого Мефодия Патарского. К вопросу о славянской версии ранних святоотеческих текстов, посвященных библейской экзегезе

Abstract

This article is about the work of the ante-nicene father Methodius, bishop of Patara (†304). The central topic of St. Methodius’ writings is biblical exegesis. According to scholars, apart from the debate with Origen, his most important contribution is the formulation of the theological basis of virginity practice, which anticipate the foundation of monasticism in the early Christian tradition. The preserved Greek corpus of St. Methodius’ works may be effectively completed with the old Slavic translations, most of which are to be found in Russian collections. The need for such a research was already noticed at the first Congress of Slavists (Prague 1929): the present article contains a brief survey of the studies of Western scholars such as N. Bonwetsch (†1925) and A. Vaillant (†1977) and of the Russian patrologists E. Lovjagin (†1909) and archbishop M. Chub (†1985). Furthermore, the author draws the guidelines for the edition of the complete corpus of St. Methodius works, on the basis of Greek and Slavic sources. By way of example, the appendix con-tains the Slavonic translation of Methodius’ De sanguisuga ad Eustochium, which is not preserved in the original Greek version. The text is the reproduction of a 16th century copy from the Mss. department of the Russian National Library.