AN OLD RUSSIAN ANTI-JUDAIC TREATISE, ITS GREEK ORIGINAL AND THE PROBLEM OF ITS ORIGIN

In a 13th century miscellany at the Russian National Library (call number: Q.p.I.18) we read a text entitled Rěči k židovinu o vъčlověčenii syna božija (= Words to a Jew about the Incarnation of the Son of God; ff. 180r5–196v21). The text was first published in 1987, but the Greek original became available only in 1994 with José H. Declerck’s edition of „Anonymus dialogus cum iudaeis saeculi ut videtur sexti” (Turnhout – Leuven, Corpus christianorum, Series graeca 30). There are also Georgian and Armenian translations of the Greek treatise. The Greek text has 13 chapters whereas the Old Russian translation contains only excerpts from chapters 1, 3, 4, 5, 12, and, possibly, 13 Apart from that there are some pieces of text the original of which could not be identified, as yet. Most of the texts in the miscellany originated in Bulgaria, but it comprises also some texts which are not of Bulgarian origin, e.g. parts of the commentary on Gregory of Nazianzus by Nicetas of Heracleia, as well as the Gospel commentary of Theophylactus of Ohrid. The ascription of the translation of the Greek Anti-Judaic treatise to an East Slavic author of the 12th century is based on Scriptural quotations corresponding to East Slavic counterparts as well as on lexical elements originating from Rus and unknown in other Slavic territories.