METROPOLITAN DANIEL’S “SOBORNIK” (“COLLECTED WRITINGS”) AND PREACHING CULTURE IN MUSCOVITE RUS IN THE XVI CENTURY (ON THE PROBLEM STATEMENT)
L.I. Zhurova
Institute of History of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IH SB RAS), Russia, 630090, Novosibirsk, Akad. Nikolaev str., 8
Keywords: митрополит Даниил, «Соборник», учительная литература, проповедь, рукопись, книжная традиция, церковный писатель, XVI в, Daniel the Metropolitan, “Sobornik” (“Collected writings”), didactic literature, sermon, manuscript, book tradition, church writer, XVI century
Abstract
The collection of 16 author’s Words (Speeches) is the most important manuscript in Metropolitan Daniel’s heritage. Its appearance was due to the moral and educational state of the Russian society in the first half of the XVI century. Daniel’s Words were intended to educate the Orthodox Christians by the means of enlightenment and didactics. It is proven that church writers’ sermons were based on the principle that one should not express his opinion but teach on the behalf of the Holly Writ and in accordance with it. That is why the Scriptures play such a significant role in Daniel’s Words. His writings have a three-part structure which was considered incoherent by the researchers in the XIX century. The second part comprising up to 88 per cent of the whole txt contains quotations from the Bible and Fathers of the Church. The researchers of the XIX century considered it unnecessary to study and publish those quotations. The article draws attention to the need to revise the existing views on Daniel’s practice of writing. The elements creating the integrity of the content and the composition of the author’s collection are shown on the basis of analysis of several writings from the “Sobornik” (“Collected writings”). These elements allow determining the logic of the Words’ structure. The “Sobornik” (“Collected writings”) concerns the issues of theological doctrines and worldly life such as false prophets and true preceptors, the sign of the cross and Calvary, the Holy Tradition, the incarnation of the God, relationships between church and secular authorities, human morality. Prophetia, pastoral pathos and uniformity of the Words’ design served as unifying elements. V. Zhmakin regarded Daniel’s writings as the genre of treatise. The article suggests that the genre is synthetical and has a compilation structure. Large narrative forms were the general trend of the book-publishing development in the XVI century. Daniel thought it was most important for a person not to seek the truth by himself but to follow a theologian’s interpretation of the holly texts. This position determined the architectonics of the Words.
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