Once Again about the Multifold Slavonic Translations and their Context: “On Prayer” by Evagrius of Pontus (CPG 2452)

Abstract

The article examines the history of the Slavic translations of the work On Prayer by Evagrios (Evagrius) of Pontus (CPG 2452). The witnesses are more than 35 – in manuscripts of Russian, Serbian, Bulgarian and Moldavian-Wallachian provenance, from the 12th to the 17th century. Two translations are analysed, which are distributed in monastic collections compiled in different ways. The first of these can be situated in the context of the early parenetic literature of the First Bulgarian Kingdom (10th c.), and the other is related to the literary tradition and ascetical practices of Hesychasm in the 14th century. A version of the first translation, which appeared in the 14th century in the Bulgarian milieu is also considered. The comparison of the language of the translations with their Greek original allows for extremely interesting observations on the translators’ approaches. The reception of the text On Prayer is a key to understanding the processes that take place in the Slavic literature over a long period, characterized on the one hand by the continuity, and on the other by the introduction of new phenomena, both in the selection of vocabulary and in the compositions of the manuscripts as a whole. The history of the work On Prayer sheds light on the connections of the monastic centres on the Balkans, Russia, and Mount Athos.