“And They Joined Him in Elphegor”: on the Relationship Between the Romanian Translation of the Palaea Historica and Its Slavonic Model

Abstract

The Palaea Historica, a Byzantine apocryphal text from the 9th century, was translated into Romanian between the late 16th century and the early 17th century via a Slavonic intermediary. Although the Romanian text was edited and published in full in 2001, recent developments in the academic discussion around the Slavonic version of the Palaea Historica have led to the publication of an edition of the second Slavonic translation in the year 2016, thereby raising the question of whether the Romanian text was solely influenced by the first redaction or not. This study is a continuation of the author’s previous research on the Romanian version’s relationship with the two Slavonic redactions, with more focus being given to grammatical peculiarities and loci obscuri that were highlighted by the editors of the Romanian manuscripts as having been stemmed from the Slavonic text’s influence. These passages are analyzed in comparison with the two Slavonic translations and the Greek original, allowing for a better perspective on how dependent the Romanian grammatical constructions were on their Slavonic model. Finally, this study refers to an onomastic confusion between Abraham’s brother and Abraham’s father, which is avoided or possibly Romanian version.