Sopio Guliashvili
Research Fellow
Tamaz Beradze Institute of Georgian Studies, the University of Georgia
ORCID: 0009-0009-4225-9946
s.guliashvili@ug.edu.ge
Tinatin Jikurashvili
Research Fellow
Tamaz Beradze Institute of Georgian Studies, the University of Georgia
ORCID: 0009-0002-7752-5537
t.jikurashvili@ug.edu.ge
Old Georgian Translated Hagiography: Premetaphrastic and Metaphrastic Versions of the Life of Theodora of Alexandria
Old Georgian literature is rich in both original and translated monuments, among them numerous hagiographical works. In recent years, the refinement of research methods in the study of translated literature, together with progress in Byzantine hagiographical studies, has made the investigation of Georgian translated hagiography increasingly important. It is known that Georgian translations of kimenic (premetaphrastic) and metaphrastic Lives of saints reflect different stages of Byzantine hagiographical development almost synchronously. This circumstance lends particular significance to the Georgian texts – including the translations of the Life of Theodora of Alexandria – for the study of both national and Byzantine literature.
Theodora of Alexandria, a saint of the fifth century, was highly venerated in the Christian world. Her Life contains the rare and ancient “disguised saint” narrative, regarded as one of the earliest plot types in hagiography. Both premetaphrastic and metaphrastic recensions of Theodora’s Life have survived in Georgian. The metaphrastic recension exists in two distinct translations: (1) in the September menologion of 1565, preserved at the Kutaisi Historical-Ethnographic Museum (shelfmark K-4), and (2) in a manuscript of 1081 from the Iviron Monastery on Mount Athos (Ivir. georg. 20), translated by Teopile the Priestmonk. The premetaphrastic recension survives in ten Georgian manuscripts, the earliest being a menologion copied between 1038-1040 at the Monastery of the Cross in Jerusalem, today preserved in the Bodleian Library, Oxford (Bodl. Georg. 1). This source has not been published.
The earliest surviving Greek manuscript of the premetaphrastic version dates from the 11th century and is preserved in the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF Paris. gr. 1468, fols. 12v-16v). The text was published from this manuscript in 1889 (K. Wessely, Die Vita S. Theodorae, Fünfzehnter Jahresbericht des k. k. Staatsgymnasiums in Hernals, Vienna, 1889, pp. 25-44). Although the Life is also included in another 11th-century manuscript (MS. Holkham Gr.15), the relevant section (fols. 1r-6r) is considered a later, 14th-15th century addition. Scholarly literature also records a 7th-century papyrus fragment, written in Greek majuscule and discovered in Fayum, Egypt, which preserves parts of the Life (P. Louvre Hag. 3).
The metaphrastic recension was formed in the 10th century and it's earliest Greek manuscript dates only to the 14th century (BnF Paris. gr. 1526, fols. 093v-109v). The text was published in Patrologia Graeca (PG 115, cols. 452-468). Therefore, the Georgian translation of metaphrastic text in Ivir.Geo.20, copied in 1081 and containing Teopile the Priestmonk's rendering of the text, is of exceptional importance, predating the earliest Greek witness by three centuries.
The paper will consider the premetaphrastic and metaphrastic recensions of the Life of Theodora of Alexandria, their mutual relationship, and their correspondence with the Greek originals. Special attention will be paid to textual structure, adaptations, and the classification of differences.
Keywords: Georgian Translated Hagiography, The life of Theodora of Alexandria, Byzantine Hagiography, Metaphrastic Hagiography, Premetaphrastic Hagiography.
This work was supported by Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundation of Georgia (SRNSFG) [FR-24-7685, "Corpus of Georgian Translated Hagiography, I"].