The Names of the Books from the Biblical Corpus in Old Bulgarian Literature

THE NAMES OF THE BOOKS FROM THE BIBLICAL CORPUS IN OLD BULGARIAN LITERATURE

Tatyana Ilieva

The topic of this paper is evidence for the names of the sacred books in the biblical corpus, as found in Old Bulgarian written texts. As this is a preliminary study of limited size, the facts presented here are far from exhaustive. Work on the study is only at an initial stage, and the observations here are based mainly on the general lexicographic refer ence sources on Old Bulgarian, and on specific texts with which I am most familiar. A fuller collection of data, if this is possible, is a goal for a potential larger future project. I have used the following textual sources for this study: 1. The Nomocanon, i.e. the socalled Kormchaya Kniga, a collec tion of apostolic and conciliar canons (êáíüíåò) governing the inter nal order in the Church, and of imperial decrees (íüìïé) on the rela tionship between Church and State. The collection also includes the lists of books, allowed or forbidden by the Church. 2. John Exarch’s translation of ‘On the Orthodox Faith’ (8th c., ‘JoЕTheol’). The fourth book of this impressive collection on the ma jor theological and philosophical issues of that epoch discusses, in addition to matters related to the Resurrection and the Ascension, the sacraments of the Church, the veneration of saints and icons, the end of the world and the divine inspiration of sacred Scripture (ff. 310r– 313r). 3. Chapters II. 191 and 192 of the Miscellany of Tsar Simeon (the copy from 1073, hereafter ‘SimMisc1073’). The first chapter is a translation of the same excerpt from ‘On the Orthodox Faith’ by John Damascene that is found on ff. 310r–313r; the second is an excerpt from the works of Gregory the Theologian of Nazianzus. SimMisc 1073 is an anthology intended as a manual of exegetics and is divided into two large sections, on specific and general exegetics, respectively. The two chapters of interest here form a section on the general exegetic discipline of heuristics which covers, among other issues, the divine inspiration of the Bible; the rules governing the interpretation of the

Scriptures in accordance with Church doctrine; which books are ca nonical and which are not, which are heretical, which are apocryphal, and which are prohibited; and the sequence of the texts in the biblical corpus (Илиева 2007: 56–59). The books of the Old Testament canon (‘OT’) that are not named here are Nehemiah and Baruch; from the New Testament canon (‘NT’), the Book of Revelations is missing. In addition to the list of canonical books, the chapter entitled Áîãîñëîâöà îòú ñëîâåñú contains the first index of rejected books in the Slavonic tradition, containing only apocryphal texts on OT and NT themes, list ing 25 titles altogether. In SimMisc 1073, however, the last of the 25 titles has been crossed out (Иванова 1991: 29). 4. Information on the content, sequence, and names of the extant sacred books in the biblical corpus for liturgical and nonliturgical use, as well as quotations from Scripture in other ecclesiastical litera ture1.

GENERAL CONCEPTS The Old Bulgarian words êúíèã¥ (‘books’) and ïèñàíè¬ (‘scripture’) are exact renderings of the Greek ô@ Âéâëßá and ^ ãñá5Þ / ás ãñá5áß and mean ‘a collection with a strictly fixed volume’ and con tent that consists of books sacred to Judaism and Christianity. These terms for the biblical collection indicate that the sacred books, i.e. the Scriptures, stand so high above all other books that the common nouns ô@ Âéâëßá – êúíèã¥ and ás ãñá5áß – ïèñàíèÿ have become proper nouns naming books and scriptures that have special priority because God Himself inspired them, as witnessed by the Apostles (2Pet 1:21; 2Tim 3:16). It is by virtue of their having been inspired by God that these books are the genuine and infallible Word of God (Old Bulgar ian ñëîâî áæèå, Gk } ëüãïò ôï‡ Èåï‡) and not simply works of their authors. In connection with this, when books of the Bible quote from other parts of the Scriptures, no mention is made of the specific book or author, but instead the text states only ‘it is written’, ‘it was said’,

1 The present paper uses data from the classical Old Bulgarian writings listed in Старославянский словарь (SS), as well as information from works preserved in more recent, mainly Russian, copies that are considered with certainty by Palaeosla vonic scholars to have been written in the Old Bulgarian literary centre of Preslav in the 9th and 10th centuries. Less frequently, material from more recent texts has also been used for comparative purposes.