Abstract

«TRY TO MAKE FRIENDS AMONG THE BEST AND NOT AMONG THE WORST!». MAXIMUS THE GREEK AND THE LETTER OF PATRIARCH PHOTIOS TO PRINCE BORIS • The Greek text version of the Letter of Patriarch Photios to Prince Boris dates from the last years of the first patriarchate of Photios, (shortly before 867) and has come down to us in a number of codices, the oldest of which dates from the first half of the tenth century. The Church-Slavonic translation of the Letter, for its part, survives in fifteen Russian manuscripts, dated from the beginning of the sixteenth century onwards. There is no scholarly agreement on when, where and by whom the text was translated into Slavic. Several arguments have led some scholars to attribute the Slavic translation to Maximus the Greek, at the time of his stay in Muscovy. However, on the grounds of cultural-historical, linguistic and textual evidence, it can be argued that the Letter was translated in fourteenth-century Bulgaria, and then reviewed in sixteenth-century Muscovy (and Maximus the Greek is certainly the best candidate for such a task). This scenario is supported by the comparison of the evangelical verses quoted in the translation with the textual tradition of the Slavic gospels.