The apostles’ creed (symbolum apostolorum) in the church Slavonic translation by Dm. Gerasimov. Introduction. Interlinear edition

In the present paper the Church Slavonic translation of the Latin Apostles’ Creed with commentary, made by the famous Novgorodian translator Dmitriy Gerasimov in the rst half of the 16th century, is published for the rst time. The text is based on all ten known manuscripts of Bruno’s commented Psalter, within which the Apostles’ Creed is included. The Slavonic translation consists of four parts: 1) a short introduction, where the different meanings of the term “Simvol” are explained; 2) a note on the Creeds used in the Christian Church, namely the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed and the Athanasian Creed, to which the mysterious Symbolum iuris is added; 3) the text of the Apostles’ Creed and 4) the question-and-answer commentary on it. The rst and second parts, going back to Latin medieval lexicographical works ( Catholicon and Vocabolarius iuris utriusque ), testify to the translation technique adopted by Dm. Gerasimov, who used to explain hard-to-translate terms with lexical commentaries, taken from Latin sources. The Slavonic translation and the Latin original are given interlinearly. The edition is preceeded by an introduction, in which some information about the complicated transmission of the Latin text is provided, the different sources used by the translator are discussed and, nally, some textual and linguistic features of the Slavonic text are shortly described.