St Marina’s Passion by Timotheus in South Slavic Manuscripts: Tracing a Text with Glagolitic Prototype and Floating Tradition Cover Image
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„Тимотеевото“ мъчение на св. Марина в южнославянските ръкописи: По следите на един текст с глаголически първообраз и отворена традиция
St Marina’s Passion by Timotheus in South Slavic Manuscripts: Tracing a Text with Glagolitic Prototype and Floating Tradition

Author(s): Maya Petrova-Taneva
Subject(s): Christian Theology and Religion, History, Language studies, Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature, Middle Ages, Theology and Religion, Philology, Translation Studies
Published by: Институт за литература - БАН
Keywords: hagiography; St. Marina; early Slavic translations; Glagolitic fragments; texts with floating tradition

Summary/Abstract: The article introduces to scholarship an unknown version of the Passion of St. Marina, preserved in the South Slavic manuscripts. This text undoubtedly represents an early Slavic translation (initially written in Glagolitic script) from a hitherto unknown original, probably a branch of the tradition of the so-called Passion of St. Marina by Theotimus (BHG 1165‒1167), but significantly shortened, devoid of the most fantastic moments and containing specific characteristics, e.g. the author's name is Timotheus (instead of Theotimus), the title of the saint’s torturer Olybrius is praepositus, and others. The version is found in Croatian Glagolitic fragments and in several Serbian copies from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century (most of them also in fragments). A comparison of the copies of the so-called Passion of St. Marina, on the one hand, testifies that they undoubtedly ascend to a common protograph, and on the other, reveals the great variability of the text typical of works with long manuscript transmissions and especially of those that become part of the low-level literature. On the basis of the available source material, it seems most likely that this Passion was translated from Greek by the disciples of Cyril and Methodius in Bulgaria. The text displays interesting lexical and grammatical features, only part of which being marked and analysed here. An edition of the earlier of the two preserved complete copies is provided (MS 219 from the Patriarchal Library in Belgrade from 1381).

  • Issue Year: 2021
  • Issue No: 63-64
  • Page Range: 128-161
  • Page Count: 34
  • Language: Bulgarian, Old Slavonic, Old Bulgarian