"The Seal of King Solomon": astrological bookishness of the Old Believers-Popovites of the XIX century.

Abstract

The subject of this article is the Old Believer astrological literature, which had previously been practically not studied. For the first time, the article analyzes the previously unexplored book monument "Seal of King Solomon". The author aims to analyze the structure of this book. To achieve this goal, the author solves a number of tasks. First, the author establishes the chronological framework in which the text could have been created, establishes the religious beliefs of the author of the "Seal ...", the reasons for its printing. Secondly, the attitude towards astrology in the Orthodox environment is analyzed. Thirdly, the author identifies the structural components of the text, the parts of which it consists. Fourth, the author of the article seeks to identify texts that were fully or partially included in the "Print ...". To achieve this goal, the author used both general scientific and private scientific methods, including: genetic, hermeneutical, content analysis. Mathematical methods were also used. In the course of studying this text, the author comes to the conclusion that the "Seal ..." was drawn up no earlier than 1862 by an Old Believer. During the analysis, it was concluded that the book consists mainly of a compilation of various sources, including Byzantine and Ancient Russian origin. The uniqueness of this monument lies in the fact that, from the point of view of the development of fortune-telling literature, this work was not relevant at the time of compilation. The Old Believer origin of this monument also makes it unique, since it was not previously known about the astrology of the Old Believers. It was concluded that the "Seal ..." consists of six independent parts. The first part literally borrows the text of "The Legend of King Solomon, what is the great seal and where and how it came to him." The second is represented by a separate part of the "Gromnik". The third focused on a single source, including the writings of Kirik Novgorodsky, Palea Tolstoy, seven thousand books and a certain moral text. The fourth part is the result of a creative attempt to combine events of various meanings under a single denominator "all creatures of renewal". The fifth part includes the "Moonlight". The sixth or final part is textually closest to the first.