Les pécheresses repenties et les saintes travesties dans l’hagiographie géorgienne

Abstract

The article offers a study of the old Georgian versions of the Lives of eight women saints : Thais, Pelagia, Marina, Anastasia the Patrician, Mary of Egypt, Mary the niece of Abraham, a canonised Virgin of Constantinople and an anonymous prostitute of Alexandria. The texts are edited on the basis of the two oldest manuscripts : that of the Bodleian Library, Oxford, copied around 1040 in the Georgian monastery of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem, and A-95 of Tbilissi, copied in Tao-Klardjetia at the end of the 10th century. The peculiarities of the Georgian texts are noted, with comparisons to the known Greek and other eastern languages (Syriac, Coptic, Arabic). The Georgian version appears to have been made from the oldest preserved Greek tradition. The study of the relation of the various versions of the text is useful also for the history of Eastern Christianity.