Life of Anthony Pechersky – a monument of Old Russian literature, one of the oldest monuments of Old Russian hagiography, created no later than the 1090s and about the life and asceticism of the Monk Anthony, the of the Kiev Caves Monastery and one of the founders of Russian monasticism. The life has not survived in its entirety and is the result of reconstruction.
Content
Anthony was born in the city of Lyubech, not far from Chernigov. Received monastic tonsure in one of the Athonite monasteries. For some time he lived on Athos, then returned to Russia. According to the reconstructed ancient life, Anthony settled in the Varangian cave on the banks of the Dnieper no later than the beginning of the 1030s. At this time, the Monk Moses Ugrin came to him, then Hilarion, the future saint and Metropolitan of Kiev. In the life, Anthony appears in the dignity of a hieromonk, who tonsures into monasticism and ordains him a priest. Anthony made Barlaam hegumen, after which he retired to the seclusion, where he stayed for 40 years and died.
Textual criticism and history
Among the sources about the life of the Monk Anthony, one can distinguish between the “Antonievskaya” and “Feodosievskaya” Pechersk written traditions, in a number of cases, in particular, in terms of chronology, which differ significantly from each other. The „Antoniev” tradition includes significant traces of the Life of Anthony, known in the „Tale of Bygone Years” (1110s) and in the Kiev-Pechersk Patericon of the 1230s. The „Feodosievskaya” tradition includes data from the Life of the Monk Theodosius of the Caves, one of Anthony’s disciples and the first abbot of the monastery, and a number of testimonies from the annalistic Legend of the founding of the Caves monastery.
The history of the emergence of the Kiev Caves Monastery in the Life of Anthony differs significantly from the traditional version reflected in the monuments of Kiev literature, therefore, according to S.P. Rozanov, the Life was written not in Kiev, but in Chernigov or Tmutorokan.
According to A. A. Shakhmatov’s assumption, the Life was used in the compilation of the Primary Code, created in the Kiev-Pechersk Monastery in the 1090s, from where information from it was borrowed into the Tale of Bygone Years. Especially the Life was used in the „Legend, for which the Caves Monastery was nicknamed” available in the Primary Code, preserved as part of the „Tale of Bygone Years” under the year 1051. A number of significant contradictions in the presentation of the history of the emergence of the monastery between the legend and the Life of Theodosius of the Caves is explained by the correction according to the Life of the original text of the legend.
The Life was also used in the compilation of the Kiev-Pechersk Patericon. From the Life were borrowed information about the tonsure of Anthony Hilarion, the future saint and Metropolitan of Kiev, the legend about Eutratus Postnik, about Moses Ugrin, about the miracle at the laying of the stone monastery church, information about the Varangian cave. The Patericon also contains direct links to the Life. They were contained in the story about the beginning of the Pechersk monastery and about its first ascetics, created in the last quarter of the 11th century and lost between the mid-13th and mid-16th centuries.
Starting from the turn of the XIV-XV centuries in the lists of the Prologue of the second edition from North-Eastern Russia (for example, the Spaso-Prilutsky and Uspensky Prologues of 1410-1425) under May 7 (less often under May 3), an alteration of „Legends, for which the Pechersky Monastery was called” , called „The Word about Anthony” or „The Dormition of Anthony” (beginning: „To Prince Yaroslav, son of Volodymyr, reigning in Kiev”). Presumably, there were also earlier copies of the Prologue, created in Vladimir-Suzdal Rus, since this species is characterized by a great archaic composition, which makes it possible to attribute the formation of the collection to the pre-Mongol period.
In the middle – the third quarter of the 15th century, perhaps simultaneously with the writing of the service, a new version of the „Lay of St. Anthony” was created, called the life in the title (beginning: „To Grand Duke Volodymer Svyatoslavich reigning in Kiev, while blessed Anthony was from the city of Lyubech” ). It was also created on the basis of the „Legend of the Caves Monastery”. The text is placed on July 10 and includes the verse: “Anthony, having loved the dark cave, spat upon earthly kindness, beaming with light. Even to Anthony he will flow, he accepts forgiveness by sin. Anthony comes from the earthly to God. ” The work is included in the Ukrainian-Belarusian copies of the Stishny Prologue of a special edition of the 15th-16th centuries. A. A. Turilov suggests that Pakhomiy Logofet is associated with the creation of this edition.
Probably, the ancient Life was not significantly widespread in the written tradition, presumably due to its discrepancies with the traditional version of the history of the Kiev-Pechersk Monastery. According to the of the deacon Isaiah, in the 1570s his lists were no longer in the monastery.
The Life of is mentioned among the books “in the courtyard” of Boris Godunov. DI Abramovich believed that we are talking about the text of the „Legend of the beginning of the Caves Monastery.”
Life from the printed Kiev-Pechersk Patericon
As part of the old printed Kiev-Pechersk Patericon of 1661, another Life of Anthony is also known, which is not associated with the ancient Life. It is a compilation of the 17th century, based on the Kiev-Pechersk Patericon, the Life of Theodosius of the Caves and other sources.
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