The Slavonic-Russian Pseudepigraphon Jacob’s Blessing to His Sons: Some Textological and Linguistic Observations

Abstract

This article demonstrates the apocryphal character of Jacob’s Blessing to His Sons (based on Gn 49), which is known according to the Palaea Interpretata. However, the Blessing was transferred to the Palaea together with the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs as their textual convoy, therefore the Blessing escorts the Testaments of the full redaction in the two copies known: in the so-called Archival Chronograph from the end of the 15th century (RGADA, f. 181, No. 279) and in No. 730 from the collection of the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius (RGB, f. 304.I) from the early 16th century, which contains the more correct version of both the Testaments and of the Blessing. The Slavonic-Russian Blessing is undoubtedly a translation from Greek, although the original Greek text has not yet been found; there is no such convoy in the Greek copies of the Testaments. One also cannot find any relation to the apocryphal Testament of Jacob known in Coptic, Ethiopic, and Arabic versions. Some connection can be detected between the Slavonic Blessing and the Commentary on Jacob’s Blessing by St. Hippolytus of Rome, which was preserved in the Greek version as well. The importance of textual study of the Slavonic Blessing is enhanced by the fact that this work—in the exegetical commentary on the blessing to Dan—contains the Slavonic Hebraism mashliakh ‘Judaic Messiah (in the Christian sense: Antichrist)’ borrowed directly from Hebrew, with no Greek mediation, and hence this fact can indicate direct Judeo-Slavic contacts in the medieval Slavia Orthodoxa.