Pseudo-Caesarius

The Erotapokriseis of Pseudo-Caesarius (PsK), which originated in the mid-6th c., is one of the most interesting Byzantine works intended for individual reading: the main problem range of the work, consisting of 220 questions and answers, is theological and dogmatic, but the argumentative material includes explanations of natural phenomena, observations concerning human physiology, medicine, astrology, astronomy, geography, customs of different tribes and peoples, etc.
In the Slavonic manuscript tradition PsK is known under different title, which ascribes the work to St. Sylvester and the Reverend Anthony. The witnesses of the text are late, from the 15th–17th c., all without exception being Russian by origin and orthography, but numerous linguistic features prove that the translation was made in East Bulgaria in the first half of the 10th c. The text provides abundant lexical material, which is important for Preslav texts future research and for developing a clearer notion about the training, education and the technique of the bookmen, worked in 9th–10th c. at the Preslav literary center. The PsK Slavonic version is one of the most significant works from the Golden Age of Bulgarian literature.

The Slavic manuscripts containing the Erotapokriseis of Pseudo-Caesarius are late, from the 15th-17th century, all without exception being Russian by origin, orthography and linguistic features, but numerous lexical characteristics show categorically that the translation was made in East Bulgaria in the early 10th century. The paper deals with the editorial interventions made in the Russian tradition of the text. They are limited mostly to sporadic substitutions of outdated lexis. Taking into consideration data from a critical edition, textological and linguistic analysis, comparison with other texts, and medieval literary sources, the roots and the features of a new culture of reading in Russia are observed. Glosses and direct lexical substitutions in copies of Old-Bulgarian works and the contents of the so-called Azbukovniki are examined as a valuable layer of unclear and incomprehensible lexis for the Russian copyists, which is important as a source for extracting lexemes-isoglosses, providing reliable criteria for attribution and precising the chronology of texts originated in the early period of Slavic literacy.

“Eating foxes, forest cats, and wild boars, howling each other like wolves”: Pseudo-Maurice, Pseudo- Caesarius and Procopius about the Slavs before Maurice.
The examination of the early layer in the Strategikon by Pseudo-Maurice and dating it to the 530s raises the question about correlation of the data on the Slavs contained in this early layer with the data of other sources about the Slavs of this period (first of all, Procopius and Pseudo-Caesarius). Their comparison shows almost complete consistency of the resulting image of the Slavs in the first third of the 6th century: Slavic society and culture appear as completely archaic and patriarchal, egalitarian and based on a lycanthropic cult. At the same time, sources on the Slavs of the last third of the same century (the indicated passages of Pseudo-Maurice being excluded) suggest a Slavic society with a developed institution of leaders’ power. This allows us to make an assumption about a revolutionary development of the Slavs in the 6th century.

Pseudo-Caesarius, Anastasius, Pseudo-Athanasius: Some Thoughts on the Collections of Questions-and-answers in Greek Christian literature. The genre of questions-and-answers in Greek Christian literature is easier to understand if one defines it as a series of questions-and-answers, presented as such (and not as letters or dialogues, for example) dealing with a large variety of topics, which cannot be reduced to one single category of contents (biblical exegesis or scientific explanations, for example). So defined, the genre of questions-and-answers in Greek Christian literature is at its peak in the 5 th –8 th cent. in monastic milieus, open to worldly problems and questioning. This genre, with its great flexibility and vitality, allows for the handling of questions in a more accessible and free fashion than would have been possible in a homily or in a theological treatise.