Review article

https://doi.org/10.31745/s.73.6

The Slavonic Translation of the Martyr Acts of St Erasmus of Formia, also Known as St Erasmus of Ohrid

Dieter Stern orcid.org/0000-0001-8057-495X ; Ghent University, Ghent

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Abstract

The Church Slavonic translation of the Martyr Acts of St. Erasmus of Formia deserves particular attention because the text, and with it the cult of the saint, found its main dissemination in the Western Church, while in the Byzantine cultural realm it played at best a subordinate role, so that the question arises as to how and under what circumstances the text was able to find its way into early Slavonic translated literature. Although a number of questions are still open and may remain unanswered in the future, the translation bears witness to an early relationship between the still young Slavic (Bulgarian) Church and southern Italy. The numerous deviations of the Slavonic text from the available Greek models suggest the necessity of a continued search for further Greek textual witnesses, but there is little hope that such a search could be crowned with success in view of the marginality of the tradition. The present overview is meant to critically assess the present state of research on the Slavic Martyr Acts of St. Erasmus, providing an outline of the research history as well as presenting the extant text witnesses, further suggesting a stemma codicum and finally addressing issues of text transmission and translation technique.

Keywords

Hagiography; Italogreek; Old Slavonic translations

Hrčak ID:

302670

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/302670

Publication date:

19.5.2023.

Article data in other languages: german croatian

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