New Sources of the Text of the Life of Saint Pancratius of Tauromenia

Abstract

The article is devoted to establishing the new sources of the text of the Life of St. Pancratius of Tauromenia. As a result of the analysis, several sources of its text were identified such as the novel “Leucippe and Clitophon” by Achilles Tatius (2nd century C. E.), autobiographical poems of St. Gregory of Nazianzus (late 4th century), the “Augustan History” (Historia Augusta, late 4th — early 5th century) and, separately, the writings of ancient historians for the legend of Taurus and Menia. In addition, parallels were found with the Syriac version of the “Acts of St. John” (5th century), which, perhaps, in some cases is closer to the Life than the Greek version of Pseudo-Prochorus. A special attention in the article is paid to the literary techniques and methods that are used by the author during his work with the sources of the Life. The sources considered in this article reveal the same methods described earlier in historiography, which the author of the Life uses when working with texts from other sources. The study carried out led to the conclusion that the author of the Life of St. Pancratius was an outstanding representative of the “dark ages” period of Byzantine literature (middle of the 7th — middle of the 9th centuries) and wrote for a “classically” educated audience or customer.