The Commentary on the First Timothy in the 14th-Century Tolstovskii Apostolus

Abstract

The article discusses the lexical and grammatical parameters of previously understudied commentary on the First Timothy, presented in the 14th-century Apostolos manuscript, containing the continuous text. In order to determine the commentary textological status in this manuscript, the author studied the linguistic material in two aspects: first, a search for similarities and differences with twenty other hand-written sources from the 12th-16th centuries was done; second, the degree of accuracy in following the Greek original was established. It proved the original position of the commentary in the Tolstovskii Apostolus: the main text of the epistle is similar to other sources, whereas, in the commentary, the lexical and grammatical variants of the Tolstoy manuscript are not supported at all. It may indicate the influence of the still unknown protograph containing the commentary. In terms of exactness of following the Greek primary source, the Tolstovskii Apostolus gives greater accuracy at the lexical level. At the grammatical level, inaccuracies can affect the transmission of Greek grammemes or syntactic constructions and can be due to the syntactic complexity of the Greek text. Also, certain errors and discrepancies not previously noted in the epistle and its commentary edition were commented on .