Neither Pseudo-Athanasius nor Palaea: Historia de Melchisedech as a Part of the Slavonic Abraham’s Cycle

Abstract

Abstract The Story of Melchizedek (Historia de Melchisedech) has been handed down in various languages, especially in Greek and Old Slavonic, and there are already editions of several versions of this apocryphon. In the German edition by Christfried Böttrich (2010) three Slavonic versions have been also considered. These are the so-called Pseudo-Athanasius version, a section of the so-called Historical Palaea, and the short "prolog" version in the Eastern Slavonic tradition. However, it has gone unnoticed in the context of the Western debate that many Southern Slavonic miscellanies (sborniki) contain two versions which are different from all three of them. Both these versions form an integral part of the Slavonic Abraham Cycle, a collection of Jewish-Christian apocrypha, which has received too little attention in the Western scholarship. The article tries to make first steps towards a correct placement of these Southern Slavonic versions within the tradition of the Story of Melchizedek.