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Three Paradoxes of the Cyrillo-Methodian Mission

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Ihor Ševčenko
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Extract

One book, one article, and a series of archaeological finds have contributed the largest part to the progress of Cyrillo-Methodian studies in the past thirty years. The book was by Father Dvornik: Once and forever its author established the reliability of the Vitae of the Slavic Apostles—our two principal sources for their mission—by carefully fitting them into the framework of Byzantium’s history in the ninth century. The article was by Fathers Meyvaert and Devos: In a few pages it demonstrated more mathematico what many foremost scholars had already suspected—that the Vita of Constantine–Cyril was in existence by 882 (before Methodius’ death), and that, by this time, it existed in Slavic. The latter demonstration was a hard pill for Byzantinists to swallow. The archaeological finds were made in Southern Moravia. By unearthing several ninth-century towns, archaeologists were able to provide an explanation for the strength of the Great Moravian state; by discovering a number of early churches, they were able to demonstrate how well established Christianity was in Great Moravia even before the Cyrillo-Methodian mission had arrived.

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Discussion
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 23 , Issue 2 , June 1964 , pp. 220 - 236
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1963

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References

1 F. Dvornik, Les Légend.es de Constantin et de Méthode vues de Byzance (Prague, 1933).

2 Paul Meyvaert and Paul Devos, “Trois énigmes cyrillo-méthodiennes de la Légende Italique’ résolues grâce à un document inédit,” Analecta Bollandiana, LXXIII (1955), 375- 461.

3 For quick orientation, cf. Father Dvornik's preceding article, notes 2 and 3; J. Poulík, “The Latest Archaeological Discoveries from the Period of the Great Moravian Empire,” Historica, I (1959), 7-70; idem, “Velká Morava ve světle nejnovějšich archeologickÝch objevů,” in Velká Morava: Tisíciletá tradice statu a kultury (Prague, 1963), pp. 39-76 (with bibliography); V. Vavřinek, “Die Christianisierung und Kirchenorganisation Grossmährens,” Historica, VII (1963), 5-56.

4 The mission's survival in Poland is a moot question. On this point, I tend to agree with a pessimist like T. Lehr-Spławiński, cf., e.g., his “Nowa faza dyskusji o zagadnieniu liturgii słowiańskiej w dawnej Polsce,” reprinted in the same author's Od pietnastu wieków … (Warsaw, 1961), pp. 51-67, rather than with an optimist like K. Lanckorońska, Studies on the Roman-Slavonic Rite in Poland (Rome, 1961) (full bibliography). Cf. the negative review of Lanckorońska by J. Szymański in Revue d'histoire ácclesiastique, LVIII (1963), 911-20.

5 M. Kos, ed., Conversio Bagoariorum et Carantanorum (Ljubljana, 1936), § 12, p. 139.

6 Recent research, to which Father Dvornik has contributed so much, has taught us not to project the later picture of the irreconcilable ecclesiastical and cultural split between the East and the West back into the ninth century. Still, the very years of the Cyrillo- Methodian mission were also the years of the Photian controversy. The basic unity of Christianity continued to be held as a self-evident—and untested—truth, but just to make sure, incriminating dossiers, emotional and doctrinal, were compiled on both sides. Ever since 867, the filioque dispute filled two of the thickest folders.

7 Cf. Kos, op. cit.: Methodius … noviter inventis Sclavinis litteris linguam Latinam doctrinamque Romanam … vilescere fecit cuncto populo, ex parte missas et evangelia ecclesiasticumque officium illorum qui hoc Latine celebraverunt.

8 An opinion current among the Frankish, Venetian (and some Roman?) clergy in the 860's asserted that God should be praised only in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, three languages which must be “principal” or exceptional on account of their use on the Saviour's cross. This was nothing new in the West: more than two centuries earlier Isidore of Seville asserted that sacrae legis lingua triplex est, Hebraea, Graeca et Latina (Jacques P. Migne, ed., Patrologiae cursus completus: Series latina [Paris, 1844-64], LXXXIII, col. 182C; hereafter cited as Migne, PL or PG). In 870 and 880, the papal chancery did officially turn against this opinion, dubbed “trilingual heresy” by the adherents of the Slavic liturgy. However, this seems to have been a wise but unusual stand. The crucial passage of 880, dealing with the matter of liturgical languages (cf. Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Epistolae, VII [1928], 223, line 36, to 224, line 9), sounds like an excerpt from a memorandum submitted by Methodius or a member of his party, rather than a reflection of the Chancery's thinking on this subject. I suspect that the routine thinking in Rome was close to that of the “trilingual heretics.” In 865, the papal secretary (Anastasius Bibliothecarius?) was called upon to defend the dignity of the Latin tongue. The first thing that issued from his pen when he came to grips with the matter was a reference to the trilingual tablet on the Saviour's cross: cf. Pope Nicholas I's letter to Emperor Michael III, MGH, Ep., VI (1925), 459, 5-14.

9 This was the gist of the decision. For a different opinion, which amounts to hairsplitting, cf. the stimulating but too speculative work by Z. R. Dittrich, Christianity in Great-Moravia (Groningen, 1962), pp. 277 and 282.

10 This is how I understand the unclear Item in Stephen V's Commonitorium of the year 885/886, MGH, Ep., VII (1928), 353. At stake is the addition of the word filioque to the text of the Symbol (usually said not to have been definitely made by Rome before the early eleventh century), rather than the doctrine of the Filioque (which the papacy favored by the time of Cyril and Methodius).

11 In the course of time, several archbishoprics, all Latin (Esztergom, Gniezno, Mainz), divided the territory of the Great Moravian State among themselves.

12 Anastasius Bibliothecarius and Gauderich of Velletri, Leo of Ostia, and Jacobus de Varagine. For the Cyrillo-Methodian tradition in the medieval Slavic West, cf., e.g., Roman Jakobson in Harvard Slavic Studies, II (Cambridge, Mass., 1953), 53-55 (bibliography).

13 Jacobus de Varagine, Legenda Aurea [The Golden Legend, trans, and publ. by William Caxton, Westminster, 1483], fols. 382v-383r.

14 Theophylactus of Ochrida, Vita dementis, in () (Sofia, 1955): § 48, p. 68; § 53, p. 70.

15 Theophylactus of Ochrida speaks of 3,500 “select people” receiving instruction from St. Clement, of schools where children were taught to read and write (in Glagolitic?), and of three hundred readers, subdeacons, deacons, and priests assigned by St. Clement to each of the (seven?) Bulgarian dioceses. Cf. Vita dementis, in (), op. cit., §§ 57 and 59, p. 72.

16 Clement viewed Methodius as his model. Ibid., § 65, p. 76.

17 For the date, cf. Dittrich, op. cit., p. 250.

18 Sub anno 898.

19 Cf. Epiphanius the Wise's Life of St. Stephen of Perm, reprint of V. Druzhinin's edition in Apophoreta Slavica, II (1959), ed. D. Čiževskij and C. H. van Schooneveld. St. Stephen (d. 1396) Christianized the Zyrians, invented an alphabet for them, and translated the Gospels into their language. Epiphanius not only compared his hero with Constantine- Cyril and called him “the new Philosopher” (Apophoreta, p. 69; Druzhinin, fol. 728), and not only copied—and improved upon—some parts of the tenth-century treatise O pismenexi) by the Monk Khrabr (Apophoreta, pp. 69-73; Druzhinin, fols. 728-32v), but also (a fact which seems to have passed unnoticed) freely adapted the first chapter of the Slavic Vita Constantini (i.e., the Life of Cyril) and applied some of its quotations and phraseology to Stephen. Cf. the combination of I Tim. 2:4 and Ez. 33:11 occurring in Stephen's Life (Apophoreta, p. 32; Druzhinin, fol. 686v) and at the very beginning of the Vita Constantini (text, e.g., in T. Lehr-Spławiński, Żywoty Konstantyna i Metodego … [Poznan, 1959], p. 3; subsequent quotations from the Vitae will follow this edition, to be referred to as Lehr-Spfawiriski); cf. also the following parallels: Apophoreta, p. 69 (Druzhinin, fol. 727v): No B(o)gb, Vita Constantini, 1: Bogb milm( i)l(o)stivyi £(e)l(ov£)koljubecB, i2e vse; ustraea na ostivbi… oiidaj? pokajanBJe pol'zu ljudem’ si, i ne ostavlea roda £(e)l(ovS)ce bez ilovSc'i.sko, da bo vtsi stpaseni razuma, no vseCesky privode na razurm i na sp(a)- byli i v% razurm, istintn^i prisenie, ize poScadfi i pomilova ljudi per'mBskag(o) hli … ne ostavljajett HovSca jazyka, Vbzdviie i ustroi imt, jakoi(e) drevle Veseleila roda ottpasti … v-b I(zra)ili, i napolni m(u)drosti i xitrosti, tako i jako isprtva daze i do nyng … sego Stefana; muza dobra i bl(a)gogov£ina, i posla k VhzdvigT, narm ufitelja sego. nimi. In his treatise, Khrabr praised the Slavic alphabet and translation in defiance of the Greeks. Somewhat incongruously, he invoked the Greek Cyril's name as the decisive argument in the dispute: Slavic letters were more hallowed and honorable than the Greek ones, for they had been invented, all at once, by one saintly man, Cyril; as for the Greek alphabet, it was created in several consecutive stages by a number of heathen Hellenes. Epiphanius repeated the same argument (except that in his version Cyril invented “Russian,” not “Slavic,” letters), but went one step fürther: In inventing the alphabet and translating the Gospel, Cyril was often assisted by Methodius; Stephen, on the contrary, had no helper but God in creating his alphabet. Thus Stephen was made slightly “more equal” to Cyril.

20 At least forty-four out of fifty-nine manuscripts of the Vita Constantini, and fourteen out of sixteen manuscripts of the Vita Methodii. Cf. B. St. Angelov, () (Sofia, 1958), pp. 179-214, esp. pp. 181-86. For texts in which Cyril appears as the inventor of the Russian alphabet and as the translator from Greek into Russian, cf., e.g., idem, () II (1958), 47-48.

21 Much of what precedes is based on K. Lechner, Hellenen und Barbaren im Weltbild der Byzantiner . … (dissertation; Munich, 1954), passim.

22 Cf. Theophanes Cont., Hist., 408, 6, to 409, 5, Bonn (Romanus Lecapenus admonishing Symeon of Bulgaria); Leo Diaconus, Hist., 79, 13-18, Bonn (Nicephorus Phocas admonishing the Bulgarians); a Logos, () II (1894), 67, 15, to 68, 2 (Bulgarians and Byzantines united now, all called Christians). Cf. also Leo VI, Tactica, XVIII, 42 and 44, Migne, PG, CVII, cols. 956D and 957A.

23 For a different view, cf. D. Obolensky, “The Principles and Methods of Byzantine Diplomacy,” XII” Congrès international des études byzantines, Ochride 1961, Rapports, II (1961), 55.

24 Theodoretus of Cyrrhus, Graec. affect, curatio, V, 55-60, 66, 70-72, and 74-75; cf. also I, 10 and 25. Cf. John Chrysostom's Homily held in the Church of St. Paul, in Migne, PG, LXIII, esp. cols. 500-501 (word of God translated for speakers of foreign and barbaric languages: Scythians, Thracians, Sarmatians, Moors, Indians); 506 and 509 (God turns to barbarians first and is first proclaimed in a barbarian tongue). John Chrysostom is not pro-barbarian. He is anti-“Hellenic.” The defense of the merits of barbaric tongues goes back to St. Clement of Alexandria, cf. Stromata, I, 77, 3, to 78, 1.

25 In the twelfth century, Eustathius of Thessalonica insisted that God's word preached in any language was valid, but Eustathius was just scoring a preacher's point. Eustathii … Opuscula, ed. G. L. F. Tafel (Frankfürt am Main, 1832), XV, 34 (p. 133, 91-94).

26 From the fifth century to the seventh and from the thirteenth to the fifteenth, barbarians (including Slavs) were occasionally idealized for their truthfulness, simplicity, frugality, and self-control. This motif, which was always secondary, seems not to occur in the time of Cyril and Methodius (praise of Slavic hospitality and of the chastity of Slavic women found in Emperor Leo VI's [886-912] Tactica is borrowed from the Strategicon of Pseudo-Mauricius [sixth-seventh century]); its usual purpose was the indirect criticism of Byzantium's own society.

27 Agathias, Hist., 126, 1, to 127, 14, Bonn (shaft aimed at Chosroes).

28 Pope Nicholas I's letter 88 (to Michael III), MGH, Ep., VI (1925), 459, 6, 15, 18, 28, and 32 (date: 865).

29 Letter to Zachary, Catholicos of Armenia, in () XXXI (1892), 185, 11-24, and 233-34 (Russian translation). Cf. also F. Dvornik, The Idea of Apostolicity in Byzantium and the Legend of the Apostle Andrew (Cambridge, Mass., 1958), pp. 240-41. In his letter to Valpert, metropolitan of Aquileia (ed. I. N. Valettas [1864], p. 185), Photius says that Pope Leo III had the Symbol of Faith incised on tablets in Greek, so that “the teaching of piety” might not be “falsified through a barbaric language,” presumably through Latin.

30 Any reader of John Chrysostom's Homily quoted in note 24 supra did realize that once upon a time the Gospels were read in Gothic during the service in the “Gothic” church of Constantinople. Byzantine polemical tracts listed trilingualism (see note 8 supra) among Latin “errors,” cf. J. Hergenröther, Monumenta graeca ad Photium eiusque historian spectantia (Ratisbonae, 1869), p. 68, error 19, repeated in the text published by J. Davreux, Byzantion, X (1935), 105, error 33, and in Constantine Stilbes (early thirteenth century), ed. J. Darrouzès, Revue des études byzantines, XXI (1963), 63, error 9. Hergenrother's tract (which is not by Photius, cf., e.g., K. Ziegler in Georg Wissowa et al., eds., Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, XX, 1 [Stuttgart, 1941], col. 735, and Darrouzès, op. cit., pp. 55-56) seems to date from the eleventh-twelfth century, but some of its accusations may go back to the ninth century. In answer to a query, the learned twelfth-century canonist Theodore Balsamon approved the use of liturgical books in the vernacular by the Syrians and Armenians living in the Patriarchate of Alexandria, provided that these books went back to (were metagraphenta from) texts written “in Greek letters,” Migne, PG, CXXXVIII, col. 957B. To my knowledge, these four (actually, two) passages are the sum total of positive evidence adduced in the discussions of Byzantine attitudes toward national liturgies. Though this is perhaps enough to show that the Byzantines were prone to saddle the Latins with all sorts of errors and that they were perfectly ready to tolerate other languages in liturgy, it is hardly enough to substantiate the “fundamental Byzantine concept in favor of national languages.” The other piece of direct evidence customarily invoked comes from Cyril's forceful words in Vita Constantini, § 16, a not quite sound procedure if we want to assign to Cyril's ideology a place in the spectrum of current Byzantine attitudes. The perspicacious study by I. Duj£ev, “II problema delle lingue nazionali nel Medio Evo e gli Slavi,” Ricerche Slavistiche, VIII (1960), 39-60, is handicapped by this circular thinking. However, he does admit (p. 59) the existence of a current in Byzantium (a nonofficial one, he says) opposed to the use of the vernacular in liturgy.

31 For this Hellenization through Christianization, and through resettlement of Greeks on the Peloponnesus, cf. the so-called Monembasia Chronicle, best edition of the pertinent part in the excellent study by P. Lemerle, “La Chronique improprement dite de Monembasie: Le contexte historique et ldgendaire,” Revue des études byzantines, XXI (1963), esp. p. 10, lines 61 ft.

32 The way in which cultivated Byzantine ecclesiastics felt about the Slavic flock entrusted to their care may be learned from the writings of Theophylactus, archbishop of Bulgaria, who, toward the end of the eleventh century, had been sent from the glittering capital of the empire to the cultural desert of the autonomous See of Ochrida. Bulgarians of the early tenth century, among whom St. Clement was spreading the word of God, found little favor with Theophylactus. Bulgarian priests he considered to have been stupid; the rulers of Bulgaria, barbaric by nature, and the Bulgarians in general ignorant, wild, undomesticated, beastlike, and slow in acquiring the knowledge of God. When Theophylactus came to his own parishioners, his language grew even more colorful. Alluding to a passage in Matthew, he compared the Bulgarians to swine possessed by demons; himself, he likened to an eagle wallowing in mud, forced to live with frogs who leap upon the royal bird's back. He deplored the loss of his culture and polish in the midst of his barbarian surroundings and he exchanged books and complaints with a correspondent who was as unhappy as he was about turning into a barbarian in the midst of the Bulgarian population. Both worthy prelates behaved as English officials, jogging along in some far off colony of the empire, might have behaved half a century ago. Cf. Vita dementis, in (), op. cit., § 63, p. 74, 32-33; § 66, p. 76, 8-11; § 67, p. 78, 6-9; § 74, p. 84, 2-3; and the often quoted passages of the Letters, Migne, PG, CXXVT, cols. 464B, 308B, 320C, 396BC.

33 See B. H. () II (Sofia, 1934), 265-69 (no source references, however); according to () (Moscow, 1960), pp. 363-75, there was no systematic assimilation policy on the part of the Byzantines in Bulgaria, but the results were the same as if there had been such a policy.

34 Vita Constantini, § 6 (Lehr-Spławiński, p. 25): a ofy nasi, SQH vtsja xodohstvtja ihla. Vita Constantini, § 9 (Lehr-Spławiński, p. 35) defends the Byzantine system of succession to the throne; § 11 (Lehr-Spławiński, p. 57) asserts that the Christian (i.e., Byzantine) emperor has been given power over all nations.

35 The only possible exception is Vita Methodii, § 5 (Lehr-Spławiński, p. 107), where Rostislav of Moravia, writing to Emperor Michael III, uses the phrase a my Slovene prosta ced%, “but we, the Slavs, < a r e > simple folk.“

36 Matt. 5:45.

37 Vita Constantini, § 16 (Lehr-Spławiński, p. 75). Cyril's argument may have been influenced not only by the words of Matthew (who does not refer to the air at all), but also by a passage in John Chrysostom's Homily quoted in note 24 supra; cf. col. 502: “even as the sun is common < t o a l l> and the earth is common and the sea and the air, in the like fashion, but to a higher degree, has the Word of the Message become common < t o all>.” Cyril may very well have been familiar with this Homily, which bore directly on the subject of proclaiming the Christian message in languages other than Greek.

38 Vita Constantini, § 14 (Lehr-Spławiński, p. 67).

39 Best edition by A. Vaillant, “La Préface de l'évangéliaire vieux-slave,” Revue des études slaves, XXIV (1948), 5-20.

40 Latest reconstruction by A. Vaillant, “Une Poésie vieux-slave: La Préface de l'évangile,” Revue des dtudes slaves, XXXIII (1956), 7-25; English translation by R. Jakobson in “St. Constantine's Prologue to the Gospels,” St. Vladimifs Seminary Quarterly, II, No. 4 (1954), 19-23 (revised version, ibid., VII [1963], 14-19).

41 So the manuscripts: sloveni vsi. But this gives thirteen instead of twelve syllables in the line. Therefore most editors (Sobolevsky; Vaillant, “Une Poésie …, “ p. 10; R. Nahtigal, Akad. Znanosti in Umetnosti v Ljubljani, filoz.-filol.-hist. razred, Razprave, I [1943], 93 and 100) write Slověne, si: “<hearken> ye Slavs, to this.” The difference is of importance, for several modern scholars construe the activity of Cyril and Methodius as destined for all the Slavic lands.

42 The words mědbna zvona in line 49 allude to khalkos ēkhēn of I Cor. 13:1; this seems to have escaped editors of the Preface. The Šišatovac Apostol (date: 1324) renders the Greek words by mědi zvbneštii. Cf. F. Miklosich, Apostolus … Šišatovac … (Vienna, 1853), p. 237.

43 In the first decade of the tenth century, Peter, archbishop of the newly Christianized Alania (north of the Caucasus) wrote Patriarch Nicholas I a series of letters in which he complained about his remoteness and the country to which he had been assigned. Cf. Nicholas’ answers in Migne, PG, CXI, cols. 244C, 245BC, 336B, 356A. I doubt that Cyril wrote similar letters to Photius half a century earlier. On Byzantine attitudes toward Slavic cultural independence, cf. now D. Angelov, ()… (Sofia, 1963), pp. 51-69. I note with pleasure that Professor Angelov's basic conception is quite close to mine. He may, however, be a bit too hard on Photius. Photius is not guilty of duplicity in attacking the Latins for their “trilingual” error while not breathing a word about it in his letter to Prince Boris of Bulgaria, for Photius is not the author of the anti-Latin tract in which the “trilinguists” are upbraided. For this tract, cf. note 30 supra.

44 See note 11 of Professor Dvornik's preceding article.

45 St. Gregory of Nazianzus; Ps.-Dionysius Areopagita.

46 Some of Cyril's Greek writings were translated into Slavic by Methodius, cf. Vita Constantini, § 10 (Lehr-Spławiński, p. 53), and were used by the compiler of Cyril's Vita. Cf. also E. Georgiev, () Slavisticna revija, X (1957), 119-28 (attributes too many writings to Cyril) and I. Dujćev, “Constantino Filosofo nella storia della letteratura bizantina,” Studi in onore di Ettore Lo Gatto e Giovanni Mover (Florence, 1962), pp. 205-22 (excellent).

47 M. Weingart, “Le vocabulaire du vieux-slave dans ses relations avec le vocabulaire grec,” Studi bizantini e neo-ellenici, V (1939), 564-77; K. Schumann, Die griechischen Lehnbildungen und Lehnbedeutungen im Altbulgarischen (Wiesbaden, 1958).

48 O. Grünenthal, “Die Übersetzungstechnik der altkirchenslavischen Evangelienübersetzung,” Archiv für slavische Philologie, XXXI (1910), 321-66; XXXII (1911), 1-48; E. Berneker, “Kyrills Übersetzungskunst,” Indogermanische Forschungen, XXXI (1912), 399-412.

49 V. Vondrák, “O církevněslovanském překladu evangelia…,” Danićićev zbornik (1925), pp. 9-27, esp. pp. 18-20 and 27; accepted by K. Horálek, “La traduction vieuxslave de l'évangile…,” Byzantinoslavica, XX (1959), 278; denied, however, by Weingart, “Le vocabulaire …, “ pp. 571-73.

50 A. Vaillant, ed., Discours contre les ariens de Saint Athanase (Sofia, 1954), esp. p. 11.

51 Cf. Vaillant, “La Préface …, “ pp. 15-17.

52 Cf. the severe judgment by A. Leskien, “Die Übersetzungskunst des Exarchen Johannes,” Archiv für slavische Philologie, XXV (1903), 48-66.

53 () I (1885-95), 366-517, esp. pp. 367, 369, and 420.

54 He insisted that to render ho pro aidnon theos one should say He prevllcnyi b(og)t, rather than simply prěvěćnyi b(og)z; thus he wanted the Greek article translated, too; his own translation of a Greek grammatical passage (cf. Jagic, op. cit., p. 482) is appalling gibberish (ti esti soloikismos? he akatallelos symploke ton lexeon—dto es(tb) solikizmo? edino sz drugim stpleteno leksia); on top of being nonsense, this translation attempts to state the opposite of the Greek.

55 For positive appreciation of the earliest Old Church Slavonic works, cf. N. van Wijk, “Zur sprachlichen und stilistischen Wiirdigung der altkirchenslavischen Vita Constantini,” Südostforschungen, VI (1941), 74-102, esp. 98, and K. Horalek, “K problematice cyrilometodSjske literatury,” Slavia, XXXII (1963), 328. R. Picchio, “Compilazione e trama narrativa nelle ‘Vite’ di Constantino e Metodio,” Ricerche Slavistiche, VIII (1960), 61-95, finds Vita Methodii superior to Vita Constantini; our tastes differ.

56 Compare, e.g., the borrowing from the famous funerary Oration on St. Basil by Gregory of Nazianzus, § 23 (Migne, PG, XXXVI, col. 525C), as it stands in the Vita Constantini, § 4 (Lehr-Spławiński, p. 11), with the same chapter 23 as it stands in a later Slavic translation of Gregory's Oration, ed. () (St. Petersburg, 1875), p. 33. The version of the Vita is a free simplifying rendering, the Greek having been well understood by the compiler; the version of the Slavic (tenth century?) translation, with its clumsy blagoveStijem,—- euphyia (dative) makes the reader doubt whether the translator knew what he was doing.

57 On Old Church Slavonic poetry, cf. in addition to the works of Vaillant, Nahtigal, and Dujćev quoted in notes 40, 41, and 46 supra, and the reconstruction by Trubetzkoy quoted in note 58 infra, the brilliant if in part too speculative studies by R. Jakobson, () Slavistićna revija, X (1957), 111-18; “The Slavic Response to Byzantine Poetry,” XII” Congrès international des études byzantines, Ochride 1961, Rapports, VIII (1961); () VIII, No. 1 (1963), 153-66.

58 Cf. the interesting reconstruction in R. Burgi, A History of the Russian Hexameter (Hamden, 1954), p p . 5-9 (suggestion ad p. 9: in the Archive Manuscript, read Zakona gradiska [instead of grantska] glavy. This will introduce the more plausible “Civil Law” [nomos politikos] and will eliminate t h e “Law of Verse” a n d t h e postulated but otherwise unknown Old Church Slavonic treatise o n versification). N. S. Trubetzkoy, “Ein altkirchenslavisches Gedicht,” Zeitschrift für slavische Philologie, XI (1934), 52-54, has postulated that the praise of St. Gregory of Nazianzus contained in Vita Constantini, § 3 (Lehr- Splawinski, p. 9) is a poem, and obtained (by slightly changing the text) a seven-line structure of seventeen or sixteen syllables each (the sequence being 17, 16, 16, 17, 16, 16, 17) with a caesura after the fifth or seventh syllable, a n d with the last syllable of a line always unstressed. When, for the sake of comparison, we take an early tenth-century Byzantine inscription, i n hexameters, which happens to be seven lines long, we find that its verses have 17, 16, 16, 17, 17, 17, 16 syllables respectively, that the penthemimeres caesura (or rather, in P. Maas’ terminology, the Binnenschluss, always coinciding with the end of the word) stands after the seventh syllable in four out of seven cases, and that the final syllable is never under stress. For the text of the inscription, cf. A. M. Schneider, Jahrbuch des deutschen archdologischen Instituts, Archäologischer Anzeiger 1944/45 (1949), p . 78. I am leaving it u p to the specialists to evaluate this juxtaposition. A. Vaillant, Revue des études slaves, XIV (1934), 236, considers the praise of Gregory of Nazianzus to be in prose.

59 Cf., for t h e opposite view, the hyperbole in R. Jakobson, “ T h e Slavic Response …, “ p. 264. The classic article by P. Maas, “Der byzantinische Zwolfsilbler,” Byzantinische Zeitschrift, XII (1903), 278-323, should clarify (and make simpler) some of the problems dealt with by students of medieval Slavic poetry.

60 Cf., e.g., J . Kurz, “Vyznam iinnosti slovansk^ch apoStolu Cyrila a Metodfije v dejinach slovanske kultury,” Slavia, XXXII (1963), 309-26, esp. 315-18 (balanced; bibliography); W. Lettenbauer, “Zur Entstehung des glagolitischen Alphabets,” Slovo, III (1953), 35-48 (Glagolitic earlier t h a n the year 784). E. () (Moscow, 1963) (Cyrillic earlier than Glagolitic; pre-Christian Slavic script) is to be read with extreme caution on account of his faulty methodology.

61 Such, in the final analysis, is the position of I. () VII (1957), 241-67, although he sees in Vita Constantini, § 14, the proof that the Byzantines attempted to create a Slavic alphabet as early as 820, and has Cyril create the Glagolitic as early as 855. The latter date is based on the text of Monk Khrabr. But does Khrabr speak of 855 rather than 863 (using the era of 5500)? Cf., e.g., () I (1962), 117-18. The question has not yet been cleared up. A. Dostal, Byzantinoslavica, XXIV (1963), 237 and note 6, promises a “convincing” solution, soon to be given by M. Vlasek.

62 Cf. P. Peeters, “Pour 1'histoire des origines de l'alphabet arménien,” reprinted in the same author's Recherch.es d'histoire et de philologie orientales, I (Brussels, 1951), 171-207. Father Peeters’ masterful study is indispensable for students of the Cyrillo-Methodian question. Cf. also Karekin Sarkissian, A Brief Introduction to Armenian Christian Literature (London, 1960), pp. 16-17. For the latest approach to the origins of the Glagolitic from the comparative point of view, cf. T. Eckhardt, “Theorien iiber den Ursprung der Glagolica …, “ Slovo, XIII (1963), 87-118 (cf. pp. 100-102 for hints that the Glagolitic is an individual's invention).