Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.31820/f.36.1.11
ON PENANCE, SAINT MARGARET AND THE DEVIL – A COMPELLING COMPILATION IN THE GRŠKOVIĆ MISCELLANY
Marija-Ana Dürrigl
; Staroslavenski institut
Abstract
The pastoral text Ot pokaêniê grihovь (On repentance for sins) in the Gršković Miscellany from the 16th c. is typical for a group of moral-didactic works preserved in the Croatian Glagolitic tradition. It is a compilation of various sources, with an unknown origin. Two larger sections are compiled into one, loosely connected by the motif of fasting and prayer. The first part of the text is exhortation to do penance. Examples of Biblical figures are given (Moses, David, Daniel, Paul), and three saints (Nicholas, Gregory the Great, and Benedict), each of whom has benefited from prayer and fasting. This is a commonplace element which has been compiled from various texts, such as a specific addendum to the apocryphal debate between Jesus and the devil in the desert. Here it is the first part of the compilation, in which the narrator addresses the audience in the manner/mode of preacher. It is amplified by the marginal note titled “On the power of fasting and prayer”. The second section in the Gršković Miscellany introduces a debate between Saint Margaret and the devil, a free interpretation of a popular motif from the saint’s legend. This part of the compilation is highlighted by the marginal note “On the power of St Margaret”. In this context the debate changes into an exchange of questions and answers, with the (defeated) devil taking on the role of the teacher. This leads to the effect of past, present and future being deeply intertwined: the saints were helped in the past, the devil’s enumeration of sinners depicts their evil present, while the promise of St Margaret’s intercession offers hope for the future. The repeated motif is that of conversion, expressed succinctly by two verbs pertaining to (spiritual) movement: turn away from sin (“obratimo se”) and rise (up) to do good (“podvignimo se”). The main message of the text is common to many preserved Glagolitic sources, and it reflects the compilational character of numerous religious, pious medieval works – it is also typical because it indicates the phenomenon of mouvance in medieval texts and their parts, as well as of the memorial nature of medieval culture.
Keywords
Croatian Glagolitic prose; compilation; decomposition; debate; Saint Margaret; Gršković Miscellany
Hrčak ID:
319452
URI
Publication date:
20.7.2024.
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