The ''Codex Marianus'' is an

Old Church Slavonic Old Church Slavonic or Old Slavonic () was the first Slavic languages, Slavic literary language. Historians credit the 9th-century Byzantine Empire, Byzantine missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius with Standard language, standardizing the lan ...

fourfold

Gospel Book A Gospel Book, Evangelion, or Book of the Gospels (Greek: , ''Evangélion'') is a codex or bound volume containing one or more of the four Gospels of the Christian New Testament – normally all four – centering on the life of Jesus of Nazar ...

written in

Glagolitic script The Glagolitic script (, , ''glagolitsa'') is the oldest known Slavic alphabet. It is generally agreed to have been created in the 9th century by Saint Cyril, a monk from Thessalonica. He and his brother Saint Methodius were sent by the Byzan ...

, dated to the beginning of the 11th century, which is (along with

Codex Zographensis The ''Codex Zographensis'' (or ''Tetraevangelium Zographense''; scholarly abbreviation ''Zo'') is an illuminated Old Church Slavonic canon manuscript. It is composed of 304 parchment folios; the first 288 are written in Glagolitic containing Gospe ...

), one of the oldest manuscript witnesses to the

language, one of the two fourfold gospels being part of the

Old Church Slavonic canon Old Church Slavonic or Old Slavonic () was the first Slavic literary language. Historians credit the 9th-century Byzantine missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius with standardizing the language and using it in translating the Bible and other ...

History

Most of the Codex (172 folios, 171 according to some sources) was discovered by

Victor Grigorovich Victor Ivanovich Grigorovich (russian: link=no, Ви́ктор Ива́нович Григоро́вич; 30 April 1815 – 19 December 1876) was a Russian Slavist, folklorist, literary critic, historian and journalist, one of the originators of ...

Mount Athos Mount Athos (; el, Ἄθως, ) is a mountain in the distal part of the eponymous Athos peninsula and site of an important centre of Eastern Orthodox monasticism in northeastern Greece. The mountain along with the respective part of the penins ...

during a journey to the

Balkans The Balkans ( ), also known as the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throughout the who ...

in 1844-45, in a hermitage belonging to the "Monastery of the Holy Mother of God" (the Blessed

Theotokos ''Theotokos'' (Greek: ) is a title of Mary, mother of Jesus, used especially in Eastern Christianity. The usual Latin translations are ''Dei Genitrix'' or ''Deipara'' (approximately "parent (fem.) of God"). Familiar English translations are " ...

), and thus the manuscript was named ''Codex Marianus'' in Latin. Grigorovich took the found folios to Kazan', and after his death in 1876 the Codex was transferred to

Russian State Library The Russian State Library (russian: Российская государственная библиотека, Rossiyskaya gosudarstvennaya biblioteka) is one of the three national libraries of Russia, located in Moscow. It is the largest librar ...

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

where it carries the catalog number грнг 6 (M.1689). Croatian diplomat and amateur scholar

Antun Mihanović Antun Mihanović (10 June 1796 – 14 November 1861) was a Croatian poet and lyricist, most famous for writing the national anthem of Croatia, which was put to music by Josif Runjanin and adopted in 1891. Klanjec, his birthplace, holds a monumen ...

acquired 2 folios (containing Matthew 5.23 - 6.16) some time before Grigorovich made his discovery, and sent it to renowned Slovene Slavist Franz Miklosich, who had them published in 1850. After Miklosich's death, the two-folio fragment was deposited in the Austrian National Library in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

under the catalogue number Cod. Slav. 146. The Codex was first published by Croatian Slavist

Vatroslav Jagić Vatroslav Jagić (; July 6, 1838 – August 5, 1923) was a Croatian scholar of Slavic studies in the second half of the 19th century. Life Jagić was born in Varaždin (then known by its German name of ''Warasdin''), where he attended the elem ...

in 1883 in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

as ''Quattuor Evangeliorum versionis palaeoslovenicae Codex Marianus Glagoliticus'', transcribed in

Cyrillic script The Cyrillic script ( ), Slavonic script or the Slavic script, is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic languages, Slavic, Turkic languages, Turkic, Mongolic languages, ...

and with extensive philological commentary in

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

. The reprint was published in

Graz Graz (; sl, Gradec) is the capital city of the Austrian state of Styria and second-largest city in Austria after Vienna. As of 1 January 2021, it had a population of 331,562 (294,236 of whom had principal-residence status). In 2018, the popul ...

in 1960.

Linguistic analysis and origin

Text of Codex especially abounds with the usage of asigmatic aorist, and very frequent is the assimilation of vowels in compound adjectival declension and present forms (''-aago'', ''-uumu'' instead of ''-aego'', ''-uemu''; ''-aatъ'' instead of ''-aetъ'' etc.). Analysing the language of the Codex, Vatroslav Jagić concluded that one of the scribes of the Codex came from the Eastern-rite

Štokavian Shtokavian or Štokavian (; sh-Latn, štokavski / sh-Cyrl, italics=no, штокавски, ) is the prestige dialect of the pluricentric Serbo-Croatian language and the basis of its Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin standards. It ...

area (see Serbian recension), on the basis of substitutions ''u'' - ''ǫ'', ''i'' - ''y'', ''u'' - ''vъ'', ''e'' - ''ę'' etc. The conclusion about Serbian origin of the Codex has been disputed by Russian slavist Alexander Budilovich who believed that the Codex was written in northern Albania, in northern Macedonia or Mount Athos, in Bulgarian language environment. At the same time the Bulgarian researcher Lyubomir Miletich analysing some dialectal characteristics, claimed Western Bulgarian origin (from

Macedonia Macedonia most commonly refers to: * North Macedonia, a country in southeastern Europe, known until 2019 as the Republic of Macedonia * Macedonia (ancient kingdom), a kingdom in Greek antiquity * Macedonia (Greece), a traditional geographic reg ...

) of the Codex. Codex Marianus, fol 36r

Later researchers as

Josip Hamm Josip Hamm (3 December 1905 – 23 November 1986) was a Croatian Slavist best known for his research on Old Church Slavonic language and literature. Biography Hamm was born in the village of Gat near Belišće and Valpovo. In 1924 he finished t ...

has warned that vocalization of

yer A yer is either of two letters in Cyrillic alphabets, ъ (ѥръ, ''jerŭ'') and ь (ѥрь, ''jerĭ''). The Glagolitic alphabet used, as respective counterparts, the letters (Ⱏ) and (Ⱐ). They originally represented phonemically the "ult ...

s (''ъ'' > ''o'', ''ь'' > ''e''), as well as the occasional disappearance of epenthetic ''l'', suggests Macedonian provenience. According to

F. Curta Florin Curta (born January 15, 1965) is a Romanian-born American archaeologist and historian who is a Professor of Medieval History and Archaeology at the University of Florida. Biography Curta works in the field of the Balkan history and is ...

, the book was "certainly of Macedonian origin", written "either in Ohrid or in one of the monastic centers in the region." According to H. G. Lunt, "Certain deviations from the theoretical norms indicate Macedonian influences, others possibly Serbian (if not northern Macedonian)". There are a number of arguments that link the Codex Marianus with Bulgarian territory that bordered that of Serbia. It is difficult to answer whether the Codex was created before the end of the First Bulgarian Empire (1018), or after its Byzantine conquest, i.e. into the

theme of Bulgaria The Theme of Bulgaria () was a province of the Byzantine Empire established by Emperor Basil II after the conquest of Bulgaria in 1018. Its capital was Scupi (or Skoupoi) and it was governed by a strategos. The local inhabitants were ''Bulgaria ...

. Lunt proposed the 1030s, but

David Diringer David Diringer (16 June 1900 – 13 February 1975) was a British linguist, palaeographer and writer. He was the author of several well-known books about writing systems. Biography Diringer was born to Jacob Munzer and Mirl Diringer on 16 June ...

dates it from the late 10th century.

Legacy

The book is enumerated in Bulgarian and Serbian historical literary corpus. Codex forms the base text for the contemporary rendition of the

New Testament The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Christ ...

on the basis of the Slavic recensions in the series ''Novum Testamentum Palaeoslovenice''.

Notes

References

* *

External links

Codex Marianus: images of the original manuscript, at Collected Manuscripts and Incunabula

at the Corpus Cyrillo-Methodianum Helsingiense

at TITUS project