Panegyric of Antonius the Roman: the early version of the text

The article analyzes the well-known historical and cultural phenomenon, which consists in the use of the works of authoritative Byzantine and Russian authors in original works of Russian literature, in particular in the Panegyric of Antonius the Roman. The purpose of the study was to establish the possible time of creation and the author of the early monuments of Antonius’ hagiographical cycle. Novelty in the approach is a return to Byzantinocentric model, which turned out to be more productive than Eurocentric model. For the first time, the borrowings from the Praise of Saint Arsenius by Theodorus Studita and the Panegyric of Sergius of Radonezh by Epiphanius the Wise have been identified. On the basis of the new data, it was concluded that the Life of Anthonius the Roman in edition A and the Panegyric of Antonius the Roman in edition A were compiled by the same author. This conclusion is consistent with the earlier findings that Life in edition A, Life in edition B, and Panegyric in edition B were presumably composed by the same author, and that edition A of Panegyric was compiled in 1581-1582. Thus, the first edition of Life and Panegyric should be attributed to the early 1580s. The hypothesis about the involvement of Abbot Andreas (1147-1157) in the compilation of the Life must be rejected. The Appendix to the article contains the text of the older version of the Panegyric according to six manuscripts.