Ostromir Gospels

Ostromir Codex, beginning of the Gospel of John

Evangelist Luke

The Ostromir Gospel is an illustrated manuscript in Church Slavonic from 1056/57 from Novgorod . It is the oldest dated East Slavic parchment manuscript and the second oldest known East Slavic book. The Gospels contain the text of the Gospels in a South Slavonic version. As an apracose gospel or evangelist , it does not offer the four gospels closed one after the other, but rather the gospel readings in the course of the church year, and begins with the beginning of the gospel of John ("In the beginning was the word ..."). Three representations of evangelists have survived.

The manuscript was made for the Novgorod governor Ostromir , as a note at the end of the text explains. a. also contains the name of the scribe ("I, the Deacon Grigorij ...") and the exact period of time of preparation. On the cover there is an old ownership entry of the Novgorod St. Sophia Cathedral . The manuscript is now in the Russian National Library in Saint Petersburg .

language

Even if the language is very archaic and shows only minor differences to the Old Church Slavonic Gospel manuscripts such as the Codex Zographensis or the Sawwina kniga , there are some linguistic features that prompted August Leskien not to include the Ostromir Gospel in the canon of classical Old Church Slavonic. Such linguistic features are, for example, the use of the etymologically correct -ть instead of -тъ in the 3rd person singular of the present tense or frequent errors in the rendering of the Old Church Slavonic nasal vowels. In this respect, the Ostromir Gospel can be viewed as an archaic representative of the Russian-Church Slavonic written culture .

literature

Aleksandr Christoforovič Vostokov: Gospel Ostromiri . Sankt Peterburg 1843 (reprint Wiesbaden 1964).

Web links

Commons : Ostromir Gospels - collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

↑ The Novgorod Codex , a wax text from the late 10th or early 11th century, is the oldest known East Slavic text. Regardless of the usual name, this is not a code in the actual sense, but only four wax tablets.

[1] The Novgorod Codex , a wax text from the late 10th or early 11th century, is the oldest known East Slavic text. Regardless of the usual name, this is not a code in the actual sense, but only four wax tablets.