Life

From the first days of its existence, the Christian Church collects information about the life and work of its ascetics and reports them to the general edification. The Lives of the Saints is perhaps the most extensive section of Christian literature. Apart from the apocryphal Gospels and tales of the apostles , which contain a lot of detailed information about the first figures of Christianity, then the first tales of the life of the saints were tales of martyrs. Even Clement, the bishop of Rome , during the first persecution of Christianity , put seven notaries in various districts of Rome for daily recording of what happened to Christians in places of executions, as well as in dungeons and courts. Another bishop of Rome, Fabian ( 236 - 251 ), entrusted this business to seven subdeacons . St. biographer Cypriana mentions that the names of martyrs, even of the simplest rank, have been recorded by churches since ancient times for celebration and remembrance. Despite the fact that the pagan government threatened the writers with the death penalty, the recording continued throughout the persecution of Christianity.

Under Domitian and Diocletian, a significant part of the records died on fire, so when Eusebius (d. 340 ) undertook the compilation of a complete collection of tales of the ancient martyrs, he did not find enough material for that in the literature of martyrdom , but had to do searches in the archives of institutions, trial the martyrs. Eusebius’s work on the martyrs has not survived to our time, but his other work is known: “ The Book of the Palestinian Martyrs .” From the first three centuries, several “messages” about martyrdom from one church to another have reached us. After Eusebius, the legends of martyrdom were collected by St. Marufa , Bishop of Tagret (c. 410 ), author of The History of Persian Martyrs . The monk of the Benedictine monastery of St. Herman near Paris , Usuard (c. 876 ), was one of the oldest martyrologists in the West ( Usuardi martyrologium , published in Louvain, 1568 , and Antwerp , 1714 ). The later, more complete collection and critical publication of acts of martyrs belongs to Benedictine Ruinart: “ Acta Martyrum sincera et selecta ” (Paris, 1689 ).

In addition to the martyrology of Usuard, the following ancient western martyrologies are known: Troubles († 735 years ), Flora ( Florus de Lyon ) († c. 850 years ), Raban Mavra († 856 years ), Vandelbert († 870 year ), Adon († 875 year ), Notker († 912 year )

The literature on the lives of saints of the second kind — the reverends and others — is more extensive. The oldest collection of such legends - Dorotheus of Tire - the legend of the 70 apostles. Of the others, the following are especially remarkable: “The Lives of Honest Monks ” by the Patriarch of Alexandria Timothy ; then the collections of Palladium , Lavsaik ( Historia Lausaica, s. paradisus de vitis patrum , Historia christiana veterum Patrum 1582 , as well as Opera Maursii , Florence , 1746 , vol. VIII) follow .

In the West, the main writers of this kind in the patriotic period were Rufin of Aquileia (" Vitae patrum s. Historiae eremiticae "); John Cassian (" Collationes patrum in Scythia "); Grigory Tursky , who wrote a number of hagiographic works ( Gloria martyrum , Gloria confessorum , Vitae patrum ), Grigory Dvoeslov ( Dialogi ), etc.

Since the 9th century , a new feature has appeared in everyday literature - a tendentious (moralizing, partly political-social) trend that adorned the story of the holy fiction with fantasies. Among such hagiographers, the first place is occupied by Simeon Metafrast , a dignitary of the Byzantine court, who, according to some sources, lived in the IX, according to others in the X century or XII century . His " Lives of the Saints " became the most common source for subsequent writers of this kind, not only in the East, but also in the West.

Many of the lives of the saints are in collections of mixed content, such as prologues, sinaksari , Mineas , paterikas . A prologue is a book containing the lives of the saints, along with directions for celebrations in honor of them. For the Greeks, these collections are called sinaxars. The oldest of them is the anonymous sinaxar in the manuscript of Bishop Porfiry of the Assumption ( 1249 ), followed by the sinaxar of Emperor Vasily - dating back to the 10th century. Other ancient prologues: Petrov - in the manuscript of Bishop Porfiry - contains the memory of saints for all days of the year, except for 2-7 and 24-27 days of March; Cleromontansky (aka Sigmunts), almost similar to Petrov, contains the memory of saints for a whole year. Our Russian prologues are alterations of the sinaxar of Emperor Vasily with some additions. Mineas are collections of voluminous tales of saints and festivals, arranged by month. They are official and Minei-Chetii : in the first they are important for the biographies of the saints, the designation of the names of the authors over chants. Handwritten Mineas contain more information about saints than printed ones.

Old Russian literature of the lives of the saints of the actual Russian begins with biographies of individual saints. The model, according to which the Russian “lives” were compiled, were Greek lives of the Metaphrastian type, that is, which had the task of “praising” the saint, and the lack of information (for example, about the first years of the saints' life) was filled with common places and rhetorical devices. A number of miracles of the saint are a necessary part of life. In the story of life itself and the deeds of the saints, personality traits are often not visible at all. Exceptions to the general character of the original Russian "lives" until the 15th century (according to Professor Golubinsky) are only the very first ones in their lives - " Reading about the life and destruction of the blessed sufferers Boris and Gleb " and "The Life of Theodosius of the Caves ", compiled by St. Nestor , life Leonty of Rostov (which Klyuchevsky dates back to 1174 ) and the lives that appeared in the Rostov region in the XII and XIII centuries, representing a simple artless story, while the equally ancient lives of the Smolensk region (“Life of the saint Abraham ”and others) belong to the Byzantine type of biographies. In the 15th century, a number of compilers of life began with Metropolitan Cyprian , who wrote the life of Metropolitan Peter (in the new edition) and several lives of Russian saints who were part of his “ Deed Book ” (if this book was really composed by him).

The biography and activities of the second Russian hagiographer, Pachomius Logofet , are presented in detail by Klyuchevsky’s study, “Old Russian Lives of Saints as a Historical Source” (Moscow, 1871). He composed the life and service of Sergius of Radonezh , the life and service of Nikon of Radonezh , the life of Cyril Belozersky , the word about the transfer of the relics of St. Peter and his service; according to Klyuchevsky, he owns the life of the Novgorod archbishops Moses and John; In total, he wrote ten lives, six tales, 18 canons and four laudable words to the saints. Pachomius was very famous among contemporaries and offspring and was a model for other compilers of life. According to the researcher A. I. Lyashchenko, in his writings Pakhomiy was very “free about historical facts and, for the sake of the instructive story, was not shy about his own additions” ^[2] .

No less famous as the compiler of the lives, Epiphanius the Wise , who first lived in the same monastery with St. Stephen of Perm , and then in the monastery of Sergius, wrote the lives of both of these saints. He well knew the Holy Scriptures , Greek chronographs , paleya , Ladder , patericonians . He has even more vitality than Pachomius. The successors of these three writers introduce a new feature into their works - an autobiographical one, so that you can always recognize the author from the "lives" they compiled. In the sixteenth century, the business of Russian hagiography turned from urban centers into deserts and distant districts from cultural centers. The authors of these lives were not limited to the facts of the saint's life and panegyric to him, but tried to acquaint him with church, social and state conditions, among which the saint's activity arose and developed. The lives of this time are, therefore, valuable primary sources of the cultural and everyday history of Ancient Russia.

The author, who lived in Moscow Russia, can always be distinguished by the trend from the author of the Novgorod, Pskov and Rostov regions. The new era in the history of Russian lives is the activity of the All-Russian Metropolitan Makarii . His time was especially plentiful with the new “lives” of Russian saints, which is explained, on the one hand, by the intensified activity of this metropolitan for the canonization of saints, and on the other, by the “ great Minei-Chetimi ” compiled by him. These Mineas, in which almost all the Russian lives that were available at that time, are included, are known in two editions: the Sofia (manuscript of the St. Petersburg Theological Academy) and the more complete - the Moscow Cathedral of 1552 . The publication of this grandiose work was carried out by the Archaeographic Commission , which managed to publish several volumes embracing the months of September and October through the works of Pavel Savvaitov and Mikhail Koyalovich . A century later, Makarii, in 1627 - 1632 , appeared the Minei-Cheti of the monk of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery Herman Tulupov , and in 1646 - 1654 - the Minei-Cheti of the priest Sergiev Posad John Milyutin .

These two collections differ from Makariev in that they included almost exclusively the lives and tales of Russian saints. Tulupov contributed to his collection everything that he found in part of Russian hagiography, entirely; Milyutin, using the work of Tulupov, shortened and redid the lives he had under his hands, omitting from them forewords, as well as laudable words. What Makariy was for Northern Russia, Moscow, the Kiev-Pechersk archimandrites - Innokenty (Gizel) and Varlaam Yasinsky - for southern Russia wanted to be, fulfilling the idea of ​​the Kiev Metropolitan Pyotr Mohyla and partially using the materials collected by him. But the political turmoil of that time prevented this enterprise from coming true. Yasinsky, however, attracted to this case Demetrius , later Metropolitan of Rostov, who, working for 20 years on the processing of Metaphrastus, the great Chetyi-Minei Makarii and other manuals, compiled Cheti-Minei, containing the lives of non-South Russian only saints, omitted in the Mineas of Macarius, but the saints of the whole church. Patriarch Joachim reacted with disbelief to the work of Demetrius, noting in it traces of the Catholic teaching about the integrity of the conception of the Mother of God ; but the misunderstandings were eliminated, and Demetrius's work was completed.

The first time of the Cheti-Minei Dimitry of Rostov was published in 1711 - 1718 . In 1745, the Synod entrusted the Kiev-Pechersk archimandrite Timofey (Shcherbatsky) to review and correct the work of Demetrius; after Timofey’s death, the assignment was completed by Archimandrite Joasaph (Mitkevich) and Hierodeacon Nicodemus (Puchenkov) , and in an amended form Chetii-Minei were published in 1759 . The lives of the saints in Chit-Minei Dimitri are arranged in calendar order: according to the example of Makarios, there are also sinaksari for holidays, instructive words on the events of the saint's life or the history of the holiday, belonging to the ancient Fathers of the Church , and partly composed by Dimitri himself, historical reasoning at the beginning of each quarter of the publication - about the championship of March of the year, about the indicator , about the oldest Hellenic-Roman calendar. Sources used by the author are visible from the list of “teachers, writers, historians” attached before the first and second parts, and from quotations in individual cases ( Metafrast is most often found). Many articles constitute only a translation of the Greek life or repetition with correction of the language of the life of Old Russian.

Lives of Saints in the 19th Century

Of all the individual lives of the old Russian saints, included and not included in the counted collections, there are 156. In the 19th century, a series of paraphrases and revisions of Chetyih-Miney sv. Demetrius:

• A. N. Bakhmetev “Selected Lives of the Saints, Briefly Outlined by the Guide of the Fours-Mineas” ( 1860 - 1868 )
• A. N. Muravyov “The Lives of the Saints of the Russian Church, also Iversky and Slavic” ( 1847 )
• Filaret , archbishop. Chernigovsky, “Russian Saints Honored by the Entire Church or Locally: An Experience of Describing Their Life” ( 1861 - 1864 )
• D. A. Eristov “Historical Dictionary of the Saints of the Russian Church” ( 1836 - 1860 )
• D. I. Protopopov “The Lives of the Saints” ( 1884 - 1885 ): The month of January-April , the month of May-June , the month of July-August , the month of September - October , the month of November-December .

More or less independent editions of the Life of Saints:

• Filaret , archbishop. Chernihiv:
  • "The historical doctrine of the fathers of the church" ( 1856 )
  • "Historical Review of Songwriters" ( 1860 )
  • "Saints of the Southern Slavs" ( 1863 )
  • "St. ascetics of the Eastern Church "( 1871 )
  • "Athos Patericon" (1860-1863)
  • "The highest cover over Athos" ( 1860 )
  • The Ascetics of Piety on the Mount of Sinai ( 1860 )
• I. Krylova
  • “The Lives of the Holy Apostles and the Tales of the Seventy Disciples of Christ” ( 1863 )
  • “Memorable tales of the life of St. blessed fathers ”(translated from Greek, 1856 )
• Archimandrite Ignatius , "Brief Biographies of Russian Saints" ( 1875 )
• Iosseliani , “Lives of the Saints of the Georgian Church” ( 1850 )
• M. Sabinina , "The Complete Biography of the Georgian Saints" ( 1871 - 1873 ).

Especially valuable works for Russian hagiography:

• prot. D. Vershinsky , “Months of the Eastern Church” ( 1856 ) ^[3]
• holy M. Miroshkina , “Slavic name-book” ( 1859 ) ^[4]
• I. Martynova, “Greek-Slavic Church Year” (“Annus ecclesiasticus graeco-slavicus”, Par., 1863 ; the Catholic tendency of the Jesuit author gives the composition in places a special touch: he also includes Josaphat Kuntsevich )
• Rev. Sergius , “Months of the East” ( 1875 - 1876 )
• V. Klyuchevskogo , “Old Russian Lives as a Historical Source” ( 1871 )
• N. Barsukova , “Sources of Russian hagiography” ( 1882 )

• Hagiography

• Barsov N.V. Lives of the Saints // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.
• Archbishop Sergius (Spassky) . Full month of the East. Volume I. Eastern Hagiology. Division A. 2. Martyrology.
• Archbishop Sergius (Spassky) . Full month of the East. Volume I. Eastern Hagiology. Division D. Chetia Minea.
• Zubov V.P. Epiphanius the Wise and Pachomius Serb (on the issue of the editions of "The Life of St. Sergius of Radonezh") // Transactions of the Department of Old Russian Literature of the Institute of Russian Literature. M .; L., 1953. T. 9.P. 145-158.
• Dmitriev L. A. Life stories of the Russian North as monuments of literature of the 13th – 17th centuries: Evolution of the genre of legendary biographical legends / Ed. ed. А. М. Панченко ; Институт русской литературы (Пушкинский дом) АН СССР. — Л. : Наука . Leningra. отд-ние, 1973. — 304 с. — 6850 экз.
• Ключевский В. О. Древнерусские жития святых как исторический источник. М., 2003.
• Лихачёв Д. С. Человек в литературе древней Руси. М., 1970.
• Ранович А. Б. Как создавались жития святых. — М. : Госполитиздат , 1961. — 72 с. — (Научно-популярная библиотечка по атеизму).
• Серебрянский Н. Древнерусские княжеские жития. (Обзор редакций и тексты). М., 1915.
• Троицкий С. В. Жития святых // Православная богословская энциклопедия . - SPb. : Издание Петроград. Приложение к духовному журналу «Странник», 1904. — Т. 5. — Стб. 582