Slavonic translation of the Ecloga

Slavonic translation of the Ecloga, a selection of Byzantine laws prescribing legal norms for daily life, was made by South Slavs, as the linguistic evidence shows. At the same time the text contains indubitable East Slav lexemes. They could have been inserted into the text neither by East Slav scribes while they correspond strictly to certain Greek legal terms, nor by East Slav editors while a huge amount of mistakes has been left uncorrected. The low quality of the translation contradicts the suggestion that the text might have been translated in Symeonic Bulgaria. Along with that, the same mistakes as those made by the translator of the Ecloga can be found in other translations made by South Slavs and containing East Slavic lexemes. The earliest of them is the Chronicon of George Hamartolus which cannot antedate 963, other texts — the Enarrationes in evangelia by Theophylact of Ochrid, Scholia in orationes Gregorii Nazianzeni by Nicetas of Heracleia, Pope Leo I’s Epistola ad Flavianum — date from the late 11th — early 12th century. The most similar in language to the Ecloga seems to be the Ephremovskaya Kormčaya (Nomocanon XIV titulorum) translated no later than the early 12th century. The Ecloga is probably translated by a South Slav for East Slav readers. The translator used East Slavisms when he needed legal terms missing from Old Church Slavonic.