Vestnik Pravoslavnogo Svâto-Tihonovskogo Gumanitarnogo Universiteta: Seriâ III. Filologiâ (Dec 2021)
Anti-calvinist treatises of two primates of the Antiochian Church from the Maniscript collection of the National Library of Russia
Abstract
In the article two manuscript documents of the National Library of Russia (NLR), viz. the Anti-Calvinist treatises compiled by the Antiochian Patriarchs Macarius III Ibn al-Zaim in AD 1671 and Neophytus in AD 1673, are introduced into circulation between researchers for the first time and examined in detail. They entered the Imperial Public Library in the early 19th century AD as part of the collection of Pierre P. Doubrovski and are kept at present in the Sector of Western Funds of the Manuscripts’ Department of the NLR under the numbers 1 and 2 inside the file bearing the book-mark Doubr. Aut. 60. The Treatise of Macarius III, which is extant in several copies, was edited according to the manuscript Arabe 224 of the Biblioth?que nationale de France. While its contents prove to be identical with those of the copy of the NLR, the latter differ from it with the absence of some clerics’ testimonies. As to the treatise of Neophytus, it was previously known only by its French translation made in the beginning of the 18th century AD from the manuscript kept now in the NLR. The comparison of the contents of both treatises in consideration of their division into sections is drawn. Besides that, the composition of the witnesses, who signed each of those treatises, is thoroughly analyzed. At the end of the article the certification records of these documents compiled in Middle French by the Ambassodor of France in Constantinople Charles Fran?ois Olier Marquis de Nointel as well as by its Consul I Sayda Baltazard de Bonnecorse. The author formulates a hypothesis that these treatises were ordered and delivered to France within the framework of activities aimed at preparing the abolition of the ?dit de Nantes.
Keywords
