Written Words. Vita Cyrilli III: 17
Written Words. Vita Cyrilli III: 17

Summary/Abstract: The article deals with the 17th sentence (according to the Grivec, Tomšič edition) from the third chapter of Vita Cyrilli, where it is said that St. Cyrill ''uche se izyust knigam stgo Grigoria". In several copies of the East Slavonic manuscript tradition the original Inst Pl "knigami" is changed to Dat Pl "knigam" and due it all available to me translations of the text explain that Cyrill learned from books of Grigory "by heart". In my opinion the verbatim text of the Vita in his right translation should read: "Constantin learned from the lips of Gregory with the help of books". The interpretation of the text proposed in the article, apart from the linguistic arguments, also supported by the ancient concept of reading. During the Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages reading act meant that the reader gave his own voice to the author voice, dumb because of letters. Furthermore, the idea of reading as the inspiration life in dumb letters with the help of voice of the reader occurs in metonymic meaning (voice = acoustic-phenomenal sign of the living, of the present person) in Christian literature. The most popular in this regard is the quote from 2 Cor. 3:6 – "the letter kills, and the spirit creates life".

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