Spiritual Teachings: Unvarying and Varying Features. The Evidence of the Epistle of the Monk Jakov to the Prince Dmitrij Borisovi?

摘要

The article focuses on the Epistle of the Monk Jakov to the Prince Dmitrij Borisovi? (Poslanie Jakova-?ernorizca k knjazju Dmitriju Borisovi?u), an East-Slavic text dating from the second half of the 13th century. The author aims to further investigate the hypothesis concerning the literary form used for spiritual teachings. As she demonstrated in previous articles, the Teaching to the Spiritual Son (Pou?enie k duchovnomu ?adu) by Georgij Zarubskij, the Epistle to Vladimir Monomach on Fasting (Poslanie Vladimiru Monomachu o poste) by mitropolit Nikifor I and the Epistle to Vladimir Monomach (Poslanie k Vladimiru Monomachu) by bishop Daniil (all texts possibly dating from the 12th century) belong to this literary genre. Here she assumes that these texts each represent a different textual sub-type. Textual analysis based on the functions of biblical quotations, together with data concerning the structure of the text, the social status and the cultural level of the sender and the addressee, allow the author to establish that Jakov’s Epistle belongs to the same textual sub-type represented by Georgij Zarubskij’s Teaching.