The Places of Composition of the Gospels according to the Subscriptions in Church Slavonic Tetraevangelia

Abstract

The Places of Composition of the Gospels according to the Subscriptions in Church Slavonic Tetraevangelia

This paper is dedicated to the examination of the so-called geographical modifier present in the subscriptions to the Gospels in handwritten and early  printed Tetraevangelia. The four Gospels sometimes have additional information at the end regarding where they were written, i.e., Jerusalem, Rome or Patmos. This paper analyses the presence and origin of these additions. The study points out that in early printed Tetraevangelia, a geographical modifier is present in one subscription (to the fourth Gospel) in all South Slavonic editions. It was inherited from a handwritten tradition, where it dates back to the first decade of the fourteenth century. A quarter of the studied manuscripts feature this addition. The examined manuscripts of Tetraevangelia prove that geographical modifiers in the subscriptions to the first three Gospel books are mostly late and rare additions. They are attested in codices dated usually to the sixteenth or sometimes to the second half of the fifteenth century. These additions are intrusions from succinct prefaces, which can follow the subscriptions to the Gospels. One Bulgarian manuscript from the second half of the thirteenth century is an exception in this case. Its affinity with some Greek Tetraevangelia of southern Italian provenance was confirmed by several textual variants.