GRAMMATICAL ARCHAISMS IN THE SYNODAL MANUSCRIPT OF HILARION’S SERMON ON LAW AND GRACE

The main copy of Hilarion’s Sermon on Law and Grace (the manuscript GIM, Sin. 591, 2nd half of the fifteenth century) is unique not only because it is the only complete original version of the work, but because it retains ancient characteristics of the eleventhcentury text. In the majority ofdiscrepancies between the manuscripts, variant readings of Sin. 591 are more correct, while other manuscripts reflect changes in the ancient text under the influence of linguistic and other factors. Alongside properly textual differences (omissions, insertions, rearrangement of words and phrases) in which primacy of the readings of Sin. 591 is detected by means of philological criticism, the uniqueness of this copy manifests itself in linguistic archaisms which it preserved despite the scribe's efforts to follow certain language norms of his time.