“I Am Looking for a Man” (Old Testament Prophets in the Works of Archpriest Avvakum)

Abstract

Avvakum made extensive use of the Prophetic Books, their symbols, images and language; he quoted and commented on them. He often cited biblical excerpts not in the redaction intended for reading but in the one used at church services. This was natural for a hereditary priest who had extensive liturgical practice. Avvakum also referred to apocryphal legends. In the “Book of Conversations”, denouncing moral decline, he cited the parable of the prophet Jeremiah, who in the daytime walked around Jerusalem with a burning candle in a fruitless search for a man. The parable is close to the Coptic translation of the apocrypha ”Chronicle of the Prophet Jeremiah”, made from the Greek original. The Old Slavic translation of this apocrypha from Greek (“Paralipomena Jeremiah”) is known in two redactions. However, this episode is not found in any of them. Obviously, Avvakum knew some other, possibly oral, intermediate source.