APOCRYPHA

Submitted on Tue, 08/19/2025 - 16:00

Apocrypha in Monastic Miscellanies: Accident or Premeditation?

Апокрифи в монашеските сборници: случайност или преднамереност?

  • Summary/Abstract

    Monastic collections intended for individual (cellular) reading are often not associated with dates in the church calendar or the celebration of the cult of saints but are instructive reading. The Apocrypha that is included in them has a different function: (a) texts with a cognitive account of persons and events from the Old and New Testaments (re-reading the Bible); (b) works related to eschatology and apocalyptic; (c) readings related to natural phenomena and applied knowledge. Topics group some of them, while others are included in cycles according to formal criteria. Apocryphal works are completely “legalized”; they aim to enlighten readers, elevate them spiritually, and serve as reference materials. This feature is typical of manuscripts from monasteries in the Balkans in the 14th and 15th centuries. Of particular interest are manuscripts created in large monastic centres, such as the Hilendar Monastery on Mount Athos, in which rare copies of apocryphal works appear, e.g. Revelation of the Apostles. The author examines the causes of this phenomenon and its consequences.

    Subject: Scripta
The Pseudepigraphal Prophecies on the Virginal Birth: From the Slavonic, Greek, and Georgian to the Second Temple Jewish Background Scripta & e-Scripta vol. 19, 2019 floyd Tue, 10/08/2019 - 14:22 The study is dedicated to the prophecies on the virginal birth of the Messiah ascribed to the Old Testament prophets other than Isaiah with his famous Isaiah 7:14 LXX. Such prophecies are collected within a florilegium put into the mouth of archdeacon Stephanus in some recensions of the Passio Stephani. The “pre-Stephanic” origin of this florilegium remains unknown. The relevant recensions are BHG 1649d and 1649h with the Slavonic version slightly different but very similar to them, as well as the (unknown in Greek) Georgian recension whose earliest manuscript is dated to 864 AD (whereas the earliest Greek manuscript is of the 10th century). The prophetic florilegium in Georgian is shorter than in Greek/Slavonic but preserves some older features. The prophecies are either explicitly mentioning the Virgin or without any mention of Virgin at all but dedicated to a “stone/rock”. Therefore, the second group is somewhat surprising. Nevertheless, it goes back to the messianic prophecy about the rock in Zion ascribed to Joshua and preserved in the Dead Sea Scrolls (4Q522, fr. 9, col. ii), which would have been easily re-edited as referring to the Virgin. Indeed, in the Georgian, a prophecy explicitly mentioning the Virgin is ascribed to Joshua. The Greek/Slavonic florilegium does not mention Joshua but ascribes the same prophecy to Nathan. Under the name of Nathan, it became especially popular. It is quoted in the Slavonic The Prophecy of Solomon (its 13th-cent. Greek original is lost) and represented at a ninthcentury fresco in the Sabereebi cave monastery in Georgia (the first publication of this fresco is provided in the article). In the Greek/Slavonic recension, this prophecy of Nathan quotes, in addition to the properly prophetic part, a little studied story of Nathan preserved within the Sondergut of recension D of the Testament of Solomon). Subject: Language and Literature Studies Language studies Studies of Literature Philology Theory of Literature Keywords: APOCRYPHA PSEUDEPIGRAPHA APOCRYPHAL PROPHECIES BYZANTINE APOCRYPHA SLAVONIC APOCRYPHA GEORGIAN APOCRYPHA PROPHECY OF NATHAN 4Q522 APOCRYPHON OF JOSHUA TESTAMENT OF SOLOMON PROPHECY OF SOLO
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