Старозаветни ексцерпти с юридическа функция: текстова история и културен код
Old Testament Excerpts with Juridical Function: Text History and Cultural Code

Summary/Abstract: The article aims to trace how the Old Testament compilation known in the Byzantine juridical literature as Νόμος Μοσαϊκός (Nomos Mosaïcos), or Moses’ Law (Laws), functions in the Slavonic translation, through what manuscript sources it was disseminated, and how it differs from other Slavonic translations of Old Testament books made for liturgical or non-liturgical (individual reading) purposes. The analysis is focused on the earliest known copy of this compilation from the Ilovik Kormchaia of 1262, which reproduces St. Sava’s Zakonopravilo (Legal Code) and is known as the South-Slavonic Kormchaia with commentary. In this fundamental compendium for all Balkan Slavs, Nomos Mosaïcos appears as Chapter 48, in the portion of the manuscript written by the copyist priest Bogdan, on leaves 249б–255а. Comparison of the Slavonic text to approximately 40 Byzantine copies from the 11th through the 16th centuries reveals two main typological peculiarities. First, the translation and text history of Nomos Mosaïcos exhibit in Slavic milieu an independence similar to that of other, secular, Byzantine legal texts (e. g., the Ecloga, Procheiros nomos, Nomos Georgikos). Second, it was copied mostly within the Kormchaia, which became for the Slavs the natural context for reproducing Old Testament normative legal texts. Its presence in the Kormchaia culturally codes not only the prestige of Old Testament law as eternal model and norm and the influence of the Greek prototype upon the Slavonic translator(s) (the closest Byzantine counterpart is Vat.gr.1167), but also the need to establish a legal basis for the new Serbian Archbishopric of 1219-1220. On the other hand, the fact that a copy of Nomos Mosaïcos appears in the Ilovik Kormchaia allows us to explore the tradition of Slavonic Old Testament excerpts back to the 13th c,, almost a century prior to the date of the first extant Slavonic translation of the Pentateuch.

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