50-ე ფსალმუნის (მიწყალეს) განმარტების ახლადგამოვლენილი ხელნაწერი
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Date
2023
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ივანე ჯავახიშვილის სახელობის თბილისის სახელმწიფო უნივერსიტეტის გამომცემლობა
Abstract
The largest collections of Georgian manuscripts are kept in the Georgian National
Centre of Manuscripts, as well as in other museums and book repositories both in Georgia
and abroad. Some manuscript books are also preserved in private collections.
In this article, we present one of the manuscripts held in a private collection in Tbilisi
-“Commentary on Psalm 50.” The manuscript was translated from the Armenian language
in the first third of the 19th century, specifically in 1821, by priest Egnate Ioseliani. The
size of the book is 375x230 mm, and it includes 246 folios. The manuscript is complete.
The text consists of a preface (6r–13r) and 22 chapters (15r–240r), all titled. This newly
found manuscript is Egnate Ioseliani’s autograph of the “Commentary on Psalm 50;”
given the codicological characteristics of the manuscript, we conclude that this is his draft
version.
Egnate Ioseliani (1766-1843) was one of the prominent clergymen of the 18th-19th
centuries of Georgia and served at St. George Court’s Church during the reign of the last
king of Kartl-Kakheti, George the XII (1798-1800). Ioseliani was close to the king and
actively participated in Court life. He was a skilled writer, knew Armenian, and often
helped the King communicate with the representatives of the Armenian Church. After the
death of King George, Ioseliani was among those who tried to maintain the independence
of the kingdom, but unsuccessfully, as subsequently it was abolished by Alexander I in
1801. Georgia then became the governorate of the Russian Empire. The dramatic events
that unfolded in Georgia in the first third of the 19th century did not prevent Ioseliani
from being active in his literary career; in the National Center of Manuscripts in Tbilisi,
there are 21 manuscripts related to his name.
In order to define the place and significance of Egnate Ioseliani's “Commentary on
Psalm 50” in the Georgian literary heritage, we looked for all manuscripts with the same
title in the book repositories of Georgia. As a result, we found only four in the collections
of the National Centre of Manuscripts (S-3029 b, S-2548, S-3644, and Q-1439).
Based on this search, we conclude that Egnate Ioseliani is not the only one among the
18th–19th century figures interested in the exegesis of Psalm 50. According to the
description, manuscript S-3644, “Commentary on Miserere Mei,” was considered to be
the original work of Katholikos Anton I. But now we can prove that, in reality, it is a
compilation made by an unknown author, where each verse is accompanied by the
commentaries of the three prominent Church fathers, Cyril of Alexandria, Athanasius the
Great, and Hesychius of Jerusalem. We think that the “Commentary on Miserere Mei,” written by Anton I, is lost, and probably, as P. Ioseliani indicates, we should look for it in
the fond of the Synod archive of the Russian State Archives.
The newly found manuscript examined in this paper, “Commentary on Psalm 50,” is
preserved in a private collection; we conclude that it is the autograph of Egnate Ioseliani.
It is the complete draft version of “Commentary.” Two other incomplete autographs of
Egnate Ioseliani preserved in the National Center of Manuscripts, namely, manuscripts
S-3029 b (which contains the preface and two chapters) and Q-1439 (which contains the
preface and 13 chapters), are white pages of the complete text of the “Commentary.” As
for the manuscript S-2548, we believe that it represents a later, literary adaptation of the
complete text of the “Commentary on Psalm 50,” translated from Armenian by Egnate
Ioseliani. Thus, the Armenian source that Ioseliani used and the author of manuscript
S-2548 remain to be determined.
Description
ეძღვნება აკადემიკოს ზაზა ალექსიძის ხსოვნას (1935 – 2023)/
Dedicated to Memory of Academician Zaza Aleksidze (1935 – 2023)
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Citation
აღმოსავლეთმცოდნეობა, №12, თბილისი, 2023, გვ.: 106-120/ Oriental Studies, №12, Tbilisi, 2023, pp.: 106-120