Article

Name: The discourse of Maximus the Greek appealing to “those ruling properly”: the issues of text attribution

Authors: Ludmila I. Zhurova

Institute of History of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation

In the section Study of literature

Abstract:

The manuscript heritage of Maximus the Greek was especially popular from the late 16th to the first third of the 17th centuries. New collections of his works compiled in Russia at that time significantly enlarged the whole corpus compared to the lifetime compilations. However, nowadays, scholars encounter the verification issue since the editors of the volumes would attribute the name of the scholarly monk to texts that he did not actually produce. Therefore, the author’s name on the title page of a medieval text cannot be considered an ultimate reference for its attribution. This study aims at establishing the authenticity of two writings preserved only in the written tradition of the 17th–18th centuries: “By Monk Maximus the Greek. An Epistle to Those Ruling Properly on Guiding…” and “By Monk Maximus the Hagiorite. On Truth and Grace.” Their content and narrative style are scrutinized in the context of two treatises of the author’s corpus, Chapters 24 and 25 of the Iosaf’s Collection. The common theme among all four texts is the admonitions directed towards “Those Ruling Properly” and the way in which they are presented. This similarity allows for the identification of a distinct discourse in the writings of Maximos the Hagiorite. The stages of this discourse generation are revealed, with a version regarding the addressee of the “Epistle to Those Ruling Properly on Guiding...” proposed. It is Boyar Vassily Mikhailovich Zakharyin-Yuryev, a voivode, a prominent courtier from Tver, and the cousin of the wife of Ivan IV.

Keywords: Maximus the Greek, collection of works, attribution, verification, discourse, “those ruling properly”, topos, truth and grace

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