The Venetian Φιλοκαλία in the translation work of Paisius Velichkovsky

Abstract

The article deals with the composition and sources of the Hesy chatascetic anthology printed in Venice in 1782 and known as “Philokalia”, as well as the use of the texts contained therein in the extensive translation and editorial work of Rev. Paisius Velichkovsky, which he undertook after moving to the monastery of Dragomirna (1763) until his death (1794). His systematic works differed significantly from the activities of the compilers of the “Philokalia”. A prerequisite for Paisius Velichkovsky was the use of “trustworthy Hellenic Greek originals”, whereas in the preparation of the Venetian edition, they made use of late lists and the condition of the published texts was not taken into account. During the translation and in the process of repeated sequential editing of previously completed translations, Paisius Velichkovsky sought not only to accurately convey the source text, but also to the linguistic uniformity of the translated texts, while the compilers of the “Philokalia” used both the original Greek texts and their modern Greek periphrases. At the same time, Paisius Velichkovsky, unlike the compilers of the “Philokalia”, had no intention of preparing any anthology of Slavic translations of Byzantine texts of ascetic or Hesychastic content, and as the main source for translation and editing, he used less than a third of the total volume of the texts contained in the Venetian anthology.

Keywords

• patristics
• philokalia
• hesychasm
• manuscripts
• paisius velichkovsky
• translations
• editing
• source studies
• textual studies