Historicodogmatic Treatise by Elias Meniates and its 18th-century Serbian Translators from Greek

Abstract

The article discusses the history of translation by the 18th-century Serbian translators of the Greek treatise “Πέτρα σκανδάλου” (“Rock of Offence”) written by the theologian and preacher Elias Meniates (1667–1714) in which he deals with the causes of interconfessional polemic between the Orthodox and the Catholic Churches. The history of these translations is placed within the context of interest in Meniates’ works, evidenced in Europe and in the Christian East throughout the 18th century. The vivid style and argumentation of Meniates inspired Stefan Pisarev, inter alia, to translate “Πέτρα σκανδάλου” into Russian, which he did in 1744. In the focus of our research are manuscripts stored in several Serbian libraries and archive collections, namely, manuscripts of “Πέτρα σκανδάλου” translations made by Jovan Mladenović (in 1742) and Vićentije Rakić (in 1797/98). In the study we present, the biographies of the two authors of these unpublished translations are traced and defined more accurately. At the final stage of the study, we correlate the historical settings and probable reasons motivating Mladenović and Rakić to make the Serbian translations of the Greek treatise “Πέτρα σκανδάλου”, on the one hand, and the factors leading to the emergence of a Russian translation of the same treatise by Pisarev, on the other. As believed by the author of this article, the aforementioned translations will serve as a valuable linguistic source for historians of Slavic languages and letters in their comparative studies.