Original scientific paper
The evolution of lexical variants in Old Church Slavonic translations of the gospel from the end of the 10th to the begining of the 14th century
Josip Vrana
Abstract
In the introduction of this paper I have stated the results of the research conducted so far as well as of my own research of the Old Church Slavonic Gospels. In all four of my papers on lexical variants of the twelve Old Church Slavonic, Russian, Serbian and Croatian Gospels according to Mathew, Mark, Luke and John from the end of the 10th century to the begining of the 14th century I have shown almost all the places where some Gospels have one variant which corresponds to Marian Gospels and others have a new, not always the same variant. From this I have determined the main characteristics of some Gospels and their lexical variants. I have not gone into the analysis of particular Gospel for this is a time consuming and a difficult task which will require many books and papers. But on the basis of these four papers a glimps can be caught of the origin and evolution of Old Church Slavonic Gospels, the most widely used text in Old Church Slavonic literature for this was the text which was used not inly in monasteries but in every parish as well. The first Old Church Slavonic translation was not perfect as some researches think, the later copyists not only corrupted it but also changed it under the influence of Greek or Latin Gospel or the more recent state-of-art in their language. How successful they were shall be seen when on the basis of the total number of positve and negative innovations in each of the mentioned twelve as well as other Gosples their character is determined. I can say already that in the text of the Gospel of Eastern Church there was no special redaction. These innovations were only sporadic revisions. In the text of the Gospel of the Western Church, i. e. in Croatian Glagolitic Gospels a thorough redaction according to the Vulgata took place when the texts were-inserted into new Franciscan Missals. In the oldest Russian texts a gradual russification took place. I don't analyze here the later development of Russian texts. Data on Serbian Gospels which I gave in my papers witness that in that area there was no unique revision.
I think that my data are a bases for further research of texts of Old Church Slavonic Gosples. When this research is completed a tabelar survey for each Gospel can be made as I have done in my book on the Omišalj Evangelistary and probably a final judgement on the charater and evolution of lexical variants of Old Church Slavonic Gospel as well as texts can be passed.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
14841
URI
Publication date:
30.9.1993.
Visits: 1.861 *