Byzantine versions of the life of St. John Climacus: the issue of the hagiographic canon evolution

The article provides a comparative analysis of two fundamentally different Byzantine versions of the Life of St. John Climacus conventionally referred to as the “early version” and the “late version”. The material for the analysis included the texts published by Jacques Paul Migne in the Patrologia Graeca (the early version) and by Archimandrite Ignatius (the late version). Both versions became originals for early Slavonic translations. The early version formed the basis of the Preslav and Athos translations and, thanks to the extreme popularity of the Athos translation, became well known to the Slavonic reader. The early version became widely known to the Russian reader, as it was used by the Optina monks in their Russian translation of the Life of St. John Climacus. The late version formed the basis of the Tarnovo and Serbian translations and received limited distribution in the Bulgarian and Serbian lands in the XIV-XVI centuries. The comparative analysis of the Byzantine versions of the Life led to the conclusion that the main goal pursued by the editor was to strengthen the sacred component of the content of the text. All means from the editor’s arsenal were used to reach this goal, with inserts and lexical variations playing a special role. At the heart of all the editor’s decisions is the desire to show the ideal image of the Saint. The editor eliminates lexemes with possible negative connotations from the text, saturates the text with biblical allusions, updates quotations from the Holy Scriptures, adds fragments showing the philanthropy and generosity of the Lord, the power of prayer, etc. The late version clearly shows the evolution of the hagiographic genre in Byzantine literature. Since the late version remained unknown to the Russian reader, a promising task for philologists is to translate this version into Russian and prepare the academic edition of the Life of St. John Climacus as an important source for the study of the hagiographic canon.