Medieval Bulgarian Literature

THE SERMONS ON ELIAH BY KLIMENT OF OHRID AND GREGORY TSAMBLAK IN THE CONTEXT OF BIBLICAL TRADITION
AND BYZANTINE LITERATURE
(Intertextual nets and strategies of selection)
Analysing the complex intertextual relations of two medieval Bulgarian sermons to the biblical narrative and a group of Byzantine texts dedicated to prophet Eliah, the authors studied the strategies applied by the Slavic eulogists in their selection of sources and reinterpretation of this popular biblical motif. Unlike the earlier encomium by St Kliment of Ohrid, more concerned with praising thе prophet and his whole life, Tsamblak's work concentrates on three particular
episodes providing both expressive narrative and theological interpretation. The study shows that Tsamblak follows closely the structure and contents of two Byzantine sermons - by Basil of Seleuca and by Pseudo-Chrysostom, but expands the deictic elements in each episode. In Tsamblak’s sermon there are exact quotations of 3 Kings 17: 8-24, which is a biblical reading in Prophetologia (Parimejniks) and Triodia. The comparison of different Slavonic versions of this biblical text shows that Tsamblak followed the revised version of this biblical pericope included in the Triodia newly compiled on Mount
Athos in the first half of the fourteenth century by the Bulgarian monk Joseph in accordance with the Jerusalem Typicon (the so-called New Redaction Triodia).
Further the article argues that the story of the raven that deserts its offsprings which has been wrongly regarded as an original part of Armenian Physiologus has in fact its roots in Byzantine literature.