SOME SLAVONIC SOURCES OF THE INTERPOLATIONS IN THE OLD RUSSIAN VERSION OF FLAVIUS IOSEPHUS’ «THE JEWISH WAR»

This article deals with the Slavonic sources of three interpolations in the Old Russian version of Flavius Iosephus’ The Jewish War. The text of the first interpolation (about The Adoration of the Magi) is preserved in the Interpolated redaction of The Tale of Aphroditianus in a more authentic form; it may be a modified version of the apocryph about the Magi (known for instance from the Velikiye Chet’yi-Minei) which is close in content but not in wording to the interpolation of The Jewish War and The Tale of Aphroditianus. In the second interpolation the apostles are named kaližnici ‘shoemakers’ in accordance with some Slavonic sources in wich St. Paul is referred to as usmošvec ‘currier; shoemaker’. The third interpolation mentions piyavicy solomon’skiya ‘the leeches of Solomon’ (allusion to Proverbs XXX 15–16) – this utterance derives presumably from the translation of 13 Orationes of St. Gregory of Nazianzus made in the 10th century in Bulgaria. In the light of these facts, together with the borrowings from different Slavonic sources in other interpolations within the Old Russian version of The Jewish War which have been identified earlier, the use of Slavonic sources may be considered a common feature of the interpolations of the Old Russian version.