Department of Medieval History

Not a single contemporary Byzantine source mentions the Christianization of Ethiopia in the fifth century, the Byzantine attempts to convert Persia at the end of the sixth, the creation of the Slavic alphabet in the ninth, or the baptism of Rus’ in the tenth. These great achievements of Eastern Christianity left the Byzantines themselves perfectly indifferent. Byzantium produced a number of ardent and committed missionaries, but much more visible were the Greek intellectuals who believed that it was easier “to whitewash an Ethiopian” than to Christianize a barbarian. When Leo V acquainted the pagan Bulgars with the Christian sacraments, Theophanes Continuatus castigated him for “casting the pearls of faith before the swine.” In the end, the missionary zeal of a few enthusiasts lost out to the haughty isolationism of Empire. “Pearls before Swine” focuses on the complex relationship between the Christian pledge to “teach all nations” and Greek cultural snobbery.


ISBN : 9782916716534

Le présent volume est dédié à la mémoire de Gilbert Dagron. Il est en grande partie issu du colloque, homonyme du volume, qui s'est tenu à Paris en mars 2017 et dont les communications ont fait écho aux thèmes de l'œuvre de Gilbert Dagron selon le fil rouge de la capitale byzantine qui y tient une place centrale. Ses amis et admirateurs en ont parcouru après lui les rues et les places, les bureaux du Palais ou de ses tribunaux, les églises et les monastères, explorant à la suite les idées comme les réalités de Byzance et son rayonnement par-delà les mers.

The book contains the publication and an extended analysis of the oldest Slavonic translation of the Life of Basil the Younger,presumably carried out in Rus’ at the end of the 11thcentury. The translation in question, the Egorov Manuscript from the Russian State Library, is the earliest extant version which was not part of the Great Menaia collection compiled by the Metropolitan Makarij. The  Greek original, drawn from a previously unexplored and underestimated Byzantine manuscript copied in 1328 and kept in the Athos Dionysiou Monastery, is published “en regard” to the Slavonic text. This version is  closest to the Slavonic text and much closer to the 10th century Byzantine protograph than the Moscow manuscript published in 2014. The research part of the book defines the place of the published Slavonic text among other Old Russian translations of the Pre-Mongol period. Also described are the peculiarities of the original Byzantine  text  from which both the Slavonic Egorov version and the Greek Dionysiou version derive. The edition is aimed at philologists specializing in Old Rus’ studies, Paleoslavists, Byzantinists,cultural historians, art historians and those with a general interest in the culture of Old Rus’.