NEOGRAECA MEDII AEVI V

AvaBpotKa Kat TipoBpotKa

APPROACHES TO TEXTS
IN EARLY MODERN GREEK

edited by Elizabeth Jeffreys and Michael Jeffreys

Oxford 2005
" The Story of /osop the Wise and How He Lived:
A medieval Slavonic translation of the Life ofAesop

I. Toth

The Story of Josop the Wise and How He Lived is the title of a medieval adaptation
of the well-known fictional biography of Aesop. This adaptation has been
preserved in a Slavonic translation that dates before the second half of the fifteenth
century, and it has been transmitted within the framework of medieval Slavonic
literature. 1 Surviving in a relatively small number of manuscripts, and in a
language other than Greek, the Josop-Story represents an isolated phenomenon on
the margins of the tradition of the Life of Aesop, and is only one among many
variations that can be identified in the long and prolific history of this novelistic
biography.
This paper deals with aspects of the transmission of the Story of Iosop the Wise
among the Slavs in the Middle Ages. It addresses issues of the manuscript
tradition, the contents, and the intended readerships of this literary composition. It
also raises the all-important question of the relationship between the Iosop-Story
and its Greek source; for, closer investigation of the Slavonic text has indicated
that its unknown Greek archetype is very likely to have been different from
anything that, according to our knowledge, has survived in the Greek tradition of
Aesop's fictional biography. Thus, the objective of the present discussion of the
available Slavonic material is twofold: it provides further evidence for the
existence and influence of the Life of Aesop beyond the borders of the Greek-
speaking world, and it invites a reassessment of our understanding of what the
function and the context of this writing was in the Greek Middle Ages.
*
The Life of Aesop is an anonymous narrative, a product of ancient Greek prose
fiction. It concerns itself with the life and adventures of the famous fable-inventor
and fable-teller. The manuscript tradition of this story testifies to its long-lasting
popularity and continuous influence on other literary works both in ancient and
medieval times, as well as Iater. 2
The most elaborate and the earliest surviving version of the Life of Aesop
reveals a story whose main lines were to remain relatively unchanged for many

The date of the Slavonic translali n is based on the dating of its earliest surviving
manuscript. For details on the manuscript tradition of the losop tory, see below notes 13,
14.
2
The Life of Aesop has been the subject of numerous studies. An abundant
bibliography is annotated in: Beschorner 1992, and partly updated in Papademetriou 1997,
85- 93.

Ava8po11ai Kaz flpo8po1K<i. Neograeca Medii Aevi V, Oxford, September 2000, ed. E.
and M. Jeffreys (Faculty of Modern Languages, University of Oxford ; Oxford, 2005),
115-26.
116 I. Toth

centuries after its appearance. 3 In its introduction, we read how the unsightly and
mute slave Aesop was rewarded for his piety with the divine gift of eloquence. The
central plot of the life takes place on the island of Samos where Aesop is sold as a
slave to the philosopher Xanthos. At first, he plays practical jokes on his master
and outwits him on a number of occasions, but later he helps Xanthos out of
various difficult situations. Aesop is given his freedom when he warns the Samians
of the imminent danger coming from King Croesus of Lydia. He subsequently
wins Croesus's favour by telling him a fable and thus saves Samos from being
conquered. Later, Aesop moves to Babylon where he acts as advisor to the King of
Babylon in his contest with the King of Egypt. He travels to Egypt, solves the
riddles challenged by his master's opponent, and wins great wealth for his king.
After his sojourn in the Orient, our hero moves to Greece, and enjoys a great
success as a logopoios there. However, in his arrogance he insults the people of
Delphi, who plot against him, and sentence Aesop to death for sacrilege. In spite of
his fame and oratory skills, Aesop ends his life in disgrace, thrown off a cliff.
At a first reading, the life of Aesop seems like a string of chronologically
linked but otherwise only loosely connected episodes. Nevertheless, structural
analysis of the oldest version has proved it to be a carefully organised narrative,
which consists of a series of well-tied episodes, with a number of Aesopic logoi
employed in them. It appears that the anonymous author of the Life used the
material available on Aesop and characters similar to Aesop to produce a new and
clearly thought out literary creation. He adapted the framework of the life to
resemble a fable with a strong moral, and applied some further structural principles
to strengthen his story, thus achieving a complete and well-rounded narrative of
Aesop's biography.4
As to the date of this work, modern scholars still disagree about when it first
appeared. Some date its archetype as early as the fifth century BC, while others
ascribe it to the Hellenistic period. There have also been attempts to place the life
in the time between the beginning of the first century BC and the end of the second
century AD. Today we even read about hypotheses that the work belongs to the
late Roman period.5 The place of origin of the Life has been equally disputed, with
opinions divided mainly between Egypt and Syria.6
The genre of Aesop's fictional biography has been examined at length and
currently we have no unified view on this matter either. Next to its attribution to

This version is known as the Vita G or Perriana . For details about it, see below note
9.
On the composition of the oldest surviving version of the Life of Aesop and the
narrative technique employed in this work, see: Holzberg 1992a; idem 1993, 7-11.
5
On the dating of the Life of Aesop, see: Hausrath 1940; Adrados 1999, 647-85;
Perry, 24-6; idem 1952, 5; La Penna 1962, 270-1; Holzberg 1992b, 390-403; Luzzatto
1996, 359-60.
On the place of the Life's origin, see: Perry 1952, 2-4; La Penna 1962, 271-2.
 A medieval Slavonic translation of the Life of Aesop 117
..
the broadly defined phenomenon of ancient prose fiction, the Life of Aesop has
been described as a Greek novel, a fictional biography with some elements of
comical-realistic novels, a fringe novel, a forerunner of the gospels, the Byzantine
hagiography and the picaresque novel, as well as a work which represents a genre
of its own. 7
The textual transmission of the Life is abundant and equally complex. The work
has survived fragmentarily in half a dozen papyrus scrolls dating from the second
to the seventh centuries AD, and in its complete form in a number of medieval
manuscripts commencing at the end of the tenth century. The papyri and the
manuscripts attest to three different versions of the Life and bear witness to its
longevity and popularity in both ancient and Byzantine times. 8
The oldest surviving version of the Life, named the Vita G after the codex
which contains it, or the Perriana after its first editor, exists in a sole manuscript
dated to the late tenth century. The archetype of this version can be traced back to
ancient times, and it is probably very close to the earliest written fictional
biography of Aesop. 9
An abbreviated and revised version of the Life of Aesop, named the
Westermanniana after its first editor, is preserved in some fifteen manuscripts. The
earliest among them dates from the eleventh century, while the majority belong to
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The archetype of this version has been dated
to the end of the fifth century AD or later. 10 The manuscripts of the
Westermanniana branch fall further into two groups and form two recensions of
this version. 11
Furthermore, one incomplete and corrupt manuscript of the Westermanniana
was used by the well-known thirteenth century Byzantine scholar, Maximos
Planoudes, to compose a new paraphrase of the Life of Aesop. This version, known
as the Planoudea or Accursiana (after its publisher of 1479) was very popular and
has survived in more than thirty manuscripts altogether. Judging by the number of
surviving manuscripts, after its appearance, the Vita PI must have been the most

On the genre of the Life of Aesop, see: Kytzler 1997, 469-94; Momigliano 1993,
23-42; Holzberg 1992b; idem 1993, 1- 16; idem 1995, 14-9; Adrados 1999, 665-77; Wills
1997, 23-50; Ludwig 1997.
8
On the textual transmission of the Life, see: Marc 1910; Perry 1933; Perry 1966;
Papathomopulos 1999a, 31-5; Papathomopulos 1999b, Xll-XIX; Karla 2001, 19-45. For
the bibliography on the papyrus fragmen ts of the Life , see: Beschorner 1992, 165- 8.
9
n the sole manuscript containing this version of the Life, . ce: da Costa
Greene/Harrsen 1934, 7; Husselman 1935, 104-26; eadem 1938; Avery 1941. Modem
editions of the Perriana (Vita G) version: Perry 1952, 35-77; Papathomopulos 1990.
Further addenda and corrections to the editions: Papathomopoulos 1989; Papademetriou
1989, 32-83; idem 1991-2.
10
On the date of this version, see: Perry 1952, 27-32.
11
The editions of the Vito W: Westermann 1845; Perry 1992, 81-107;
Papathomopoulos l 999a, 37-206; Karla 200 I, 165-238.
118 I. Toth

widely read version of the Life . 12 However, it has to be stressed that the
manuscripts of the Westermannniana version continued their circulation after
Planoudes's work on the Life of Aesop. Therefore, at least three different versions
of this writing were available at the time when the Life started being translated into
different European languages: into Latin (and from Latin into a number of other
modem languages), into Modem Greek and, as we will now see, into Slavonic.
*
The first proof that the literate Slavic population of the Balkans was familiar
with some story lines and the main character of the Greek Life of Aesop comes
from the second half of the fifteenth century, in the form of a short text entitled
The Story of losop the Wise and How He Lived (SLOVO PREMOUDRA GO IOSOPA
KAKO B YST' ZITIJE EGO). As in the case of its better-known and thoroughly
examined Greek antecedents, the existing Slavonic tradition of the Life of Aesop
leaves many questions unanswered. What is more, almost nothing about it is
certain: its source, the place and the time of its origin, its Fortleben in Slavonic
literature (if there had been any at all), the influence it exerted on other literary
works, etc. Of all these, the existing manuscript tradition and the contents of the
losop-Story are the only two topics which can be discussed without too many loose
ends.
The Story of losop the Wise has come down to us in five different Slavonic
manuscripts, all dating to the period between the second half of the fifteenth and
the second half of the sixteenth century. 13 The texts of the losop-Story found in
these five manuscripts are very similar and they clearly originate from the same
archetype. 14

12
The only modem edition of the Vita Planudea has been prepared by: Eberhard 1872,
226-30. M. Papathomopoulos is reportedly working on a new edition. On the Vita PI, see
also: Hower 1936; Perry 1936, 208-28.
13
he five existing manuscripts are: ( I) M n . 677 in the Na tional Library Kiri/ i
1\lfetodij in o lin, Bulgari a, dated to the second hair of the titlccnth century: Naeov 1892,
1893, 1894; (2) MS no. I I 61 C lAM in the Museum of hurch Histo ry and Archaeology in
olia, Bulgari a, dated to lhc s ixteen th ccnLUry: Milte nova I 982. 37 - 9; (3) MS no. I 26054
dated 10 ea. 1566, today in the Uni vcr ity Li brary in Vienna: Birkfcll11er 1975, 2 10- 14 (4)
MS no. 740 in the State Archive in Bucharest, dated to the first half of the sixteenth century:
Petriceicu-Hasdeu I 879, 181-3; (5) MS no. 13.2.25 BAN in the Library of the Russian
Academy of Sciences and Arts (in the Jacimirskij Collection) in Sankt Peterburg, dated to
the sixteenth century: Miltenova 1982, 144-6.
14
So far, only two of the five manuscripts of the losop-Story have been edited: MS no.
740 in the State Archive in Bucharest by : Syrku I 883, 90- 8, and, MS no. 677 in the
Nati onal Library in olia by : Nafov 1894. 164- 72 . At the li me whe n they prepared their
edition s, yrk u and Naco v we re not awa re of the existence of the rema ining th ree
manusc ripts. In the nea r future, I intend lo prepare an editio n or a ll live manuscripts and
demonstrate their close relationship.
A medieval Slavonic translation of the Life of Aesop 119

During one century of its transmission, our Josop-story is found exclusively in

the types of Slavonic miscellanies known as the sbornici (i. e. collections) of
mixed content, which were the most popular type of non-liturgical manuscript
books among the Slavs of the Balkans during the long period between the
fourteenth and the eighteenth centuries. These sbornici are thought to have been
the most significant literary phenomena in the South Slavonic literature of the time
and they have been examined by modern scholars in detail. 15 Thus, we know that
the Josop-Story came to be incorporated into the so-called "second type" of the
miscellanies, which emerged in the fourteen and fifteenth centuries. This story
appeared in them alongside the Apocrypha, Erotapokriseis, some patristic and
hagiographic writings, the Physiologos, the Story of Troy and other popular texts of
both secular and religious character. The existence of some of these texts had
already been noted in Slavonic literature before they appeared in this new context,
when we find them mostly in their new translations or new redactions, while a
smaller number of other writings, like the Story of Josop, occurred in this particular
type of codices translated into Slavonic for the first time. Unfortunately, little is
known of the ways in which all these texts were initially included in such Slavonic
compilations and, indeed, of how such compilations were related to similar
Byzantine ones. A study dedicated to these specific problems would probably shed
some light on the unsolved questions concerning the origin of the Josop-Story and
the course which this work took immediately before it reached medieval Slavonic
literature. At present, such studies are not available and the link between the Greek
and Slavonic traditions of the Life ofAesop remains unidentified.
As to the Josop-Story found in the aforementioned miscellanies, it opens with a
description of the leading character, although - surprisingly - this description
appears greatly reduced. In this narrative, Iosop is portrayed only as mute, deaf and
wise. There is no emphasis on his appalling looks, nor do we find the sequence of
adjectives which have been traditionally used to depict Aesop in the Greek
tradition of the Life. 16 Because of this, the transition from the introduction to the
first episode is swift. In the Slavonic text, as in the Greek, God rewards Iosop for a
good deed. Iosop is sent to bring some fruit for his master, but he stops on his way
to help a thirsty soldier to the nearest water. The soldier prays that God may
reward his benefactor, and, in turn, Iosop receives the divine gift of eloquence and
hearing. 17 Subsequently, our hero descends to the sea and is captured by Saracen

15
On the sbornici, see: Miltenova 1980, 22-36; Miltenova 1982, ibidem; lvanova
1985, 173-82; Miltenova 1992.
16
On Aesop's depic tion, see: Papndemetri ou 1997, 13-42.
17
losop's deafness and the divine girl of hearing seem to be the features unknown in
the Greek tradition of the Life of Aesop. However, in his edition of the Greek Vita G, B. E.
Perry has interpreted one of the adjectives which depict Aesop in the prologue of the
narrative as cropllor;, lat. surdus (Perry 1952, 35, I). This reading has been disputed by
Papathomopoulos and others: Papathomopulos 1990, 37, 1, and the apparatus criticus.
120 I. Toth

pirates, who take him to Constantinople, in order to sell him. There, Iosop is
bought by a nobleman named Xathio. This and the subsequent three episodes in the
Slavonic narrative closely follow the respective story lines of the Greek Life of
Aesop. Iosop is purchased by Xathio only after his future master is convinced of
his wisdom (here, too, asked what he knows how to do, Iosop claims that he does
not know how to do anything, because his fellow slave, knowing everything, has
left him with nothing to know). Correspondences between the Greek and Slavonic
traditions extend to the section in which Xathio sends Iosop with food for "the one
who loves me the most", which the slave feeds to his master's female dog, instead
of giving it to his wife; to Iosop reporting that he has seen no man in a great crowd
of bathers and, finally, to him convincing Xathio's wife, who has left her husband,
to return home by telling her that her husband has found himself a new bride. In all
these episodes, which, together with the introduction, comprise approximately one
half of the entire story, losop plays tricks on his master just as he does in the
Samas section of all Greek versions. The second half of the narrative proves more
challenging, as, by contrast, we find no immediate parallels with the existing
Greek tradition of the life of Aesop. Here, events and characters from the
Babylonian, Egyptian and Greek sections of the Greek life are combined with
entirely new elements, episodes and characters that have no place in Aesop's
original fictional biography.
In the second part of the Story of losop the Wise, the Emperor Digin (most
probably Digenis, since the explanation, "Born of Two Races" follows 18) orders
his noblemen to estimate how much he and his empress are worth. All the
noblemen, fearing punishment if they fail the task, seek advice from Xathio. He
can not help either, and they all depend on Xathio's servant Iosop for an answer.
Iosop agrees to appear before the emperor only when the noblemen promise him
money and introduce him as Xathio's cousin. Finally, losop casts his judgement:
the emperor is worth less than thirty silver coins, for he cannot be worth more than
God, who was sold for the same amount of money; his empress is less useful and
therefore worth less than a sheep. Impressed by these words, Digin takes Iosop to
his palace and makes him advisor and ruler of his domain. Thereafter, Iosop

Accepting Perry's reading, J.-Th. Papademetriou has used this feature as an "error
coniunctivus" to suggest that the circulation of the Perriana may not have been as limited as
generally believed and that this version of the Life may have been either the immediate or
ultimate source of the "Slavic paraphrase": Papademetriou 1997, 51 and note 82. I am
inclined to believe that the two traditions are not related in such a way. Not only is the
reading cr6p.Soc; in the Vita G doubtful, but we also find no other cross-reference to Aesop's
deafness elsewhere in the life . On the other hand, the losop-Story is consistent in describing
how the deaf and mute hero was subsequently granted the ability to speak as well as to hear.
18
It reads as follows: I PAKY DIGIN' CAR'. ize narecet S\l dvoeroden' zapoveda
bolerom svoim' sice rek' ... ("And then the Emperor Digin, who is called 'Born of Two
Races', ordered his noblemen, saying this: ... ").
A medieval Slavonic translation of the Life of Aesop 121

introduces his two nephews to the court: they are also made rich and govern many
towns. However, one day the nephews invite Iosop to a feast and then, without any
apparent reason, they capture, flog and execute their benefactor. As losop's life
ends, he is deeply bitter, and condemns every man who elevates his own family.
Upon reading the Iosop-Story, we are left with a strong sense of discrepancy
and discontinuity between the two traditions, Greek and Slavonic. It becomes clear
that the Slavonic text differs greatly from anything that, as far as we know, was
produced in the centuries-old tradition of Aesop's fictional biography. In order to
be precise, it should be mentioned that the existing Greek versions of the Life, from
the earliest through to those contemporary with the Iosop-Story, are not uniform
either: they vary considerably in style, in language and in length. However, these
variations resulted from constant editorial endeavours to alter the register of the
language, or else to include or omit certain episodes of the Life. The new
development in the transmission of Aesop's biography brought forward by the
fosop-Story is of another nature, and implies that whoever was responsible for it,
created an entirely new literary work. Once again, as at the time when the Life of
Aesop was first written down, an author had appeared who used the available
material on Aesop, and characters similar to Aesop, to produce his own literary
creation. He composed a new story about the life and adventures of his hero, that
responded to the spirit of his time and the taste of his literary public.
One of the most striking features of the Slavonic narrative by comparison with
its extant Greek predecessors is its extreme brevity. Not only are many Greek-
Aesop episodes omitted, but they are also radically shortened and condensed
almost beyond recognition. The entire Slavonic text comprises approximately
twenty manuscript folia, or some five to eight pages of printed text. All known
Greek versions are substantially longer, even the abbreviated ones, like the
Westermanniana and Planudea, or some of their subsequent translations. The
collation of the existing textual material has not revealed any direct link between
the known Greek versions and the Slavonic one. The Slavonic narrative is so
syncopated that it cannot be traced back confidently to any of the known Greek
versions. On the basis of some, although very remote, similarities as well as
considering the number and distribution of Greek-Aesop manuscripts at the time
when the fosop-Story appeared, it is possible to suggest that the Slavonic account
has some connection to the Planoudean Life of Aesop. More importantly, the
research done so far has indicated that allowance must be made for the existence of
an unidentified Greek text of the Josop-Story, which provides the archetype for the
Slavonic translation, and closes the existing gap between the two traditions. 19

19
So far, it has been assumed that the Slavonic version of the Life of Aesop has
resulted from a translation and adaptation of the Greek Planoudea: Mat! 1955, 429-30;
Murko 1971, 132. These suggestions have been based on the outdated and somewhat partial
results produced at the end of the nineteenth century by P. Syrku and N. A. Nacov, the
122 I. Toth

Next to the question of origin, other noteworthy aspects of the Story of losop,
particularly in comparison to the Greek Life of Aesop, concern the features of the
main character and the structural elements of the work itself.
As to the character of Iosop, it does not depict a hero whose striking features
and grotesque appearance produce a comical effect and make his sharp wit and
wisdom stand out even more, as is the case with Aesop in the Greek narrative. In
the whole Iosop-Story there is only one casual remark regarding Iosop's unpleasant
looks, and it seems to bear no relevance to the course of events and the

representation of the main character. 2 Furthermore, Iosop is not a fable-inventor
and fable-teller nor is he in any way connected to fables. The Medieval Slavonic
literary tradition itself was not familiar with fables, Aesopic or others, and instead
substituted them for another collection of animal-stories, the Physiologos.
Therefore, Iosop in the Josop-Story loses most of Aesop's initial appeal and
remains solely a wise, if unsightly, slave and advisor to his master.
The method of simplification and reduction to bare essentials found in the
Iosop-Story does not apply to the portrayal of the main character only. It extends to
the entire plot. The author of the Iosop-Story was evidently motivated by a desire
to abandon everything he considered irrelevant: rhetorical passages and lengthy
descriptions, all comical elements, Aesop's travels and his service to foreign rulers,
etc. Furthermore, the framework and the strong moral of the Greek Life are
nowhere to be found in the Story of Iosop. The former narrative technique, the
employment of different types of logoi and a three-stage development of the story-
lines, already almost entirely obliterated in the medieval versions of the Life, are
lost without trace in the Iosop-Story. The overall result works to the disadvantage
of the Slavonic narrative. The story does not function as a compact whole, many
narrative threads are left loose, the main character is not an obvious role-model and
the moral of the entire story is nearly beyond comprehension. It appears that the
intention of the author was to produce a reasonably simple narrative with a strong
Christian moral, but it is clear that he did not cope well with the abundance of
source material at his disposal. As a result, his literary product did not find wide
recognition, even with a public that expected their reading to be edifying and to
offer spiritual guidance, rather than literary excellence and amusement.

editors of the two manuscripts of the /osop-Story (see above, n. 14). My own opinion, based
on the analysis of the existing Greek and particularly Slavonic tradition of the Life of Aesop,
is that the immediate source of the Slavonic Iosop-Story is by all means a Greek biography
of Aesop, but not the Planoudean version. I continue to work on the questions of the Greek
archetype of the Josop-Story and its literary sources, and intend to publish on these topics
in the near future.
20
The remark appears at the point when Iosop is being sold to Xathio as an explanation
for the low cost of the slave purchased: "i koupi ego za deset' perpereh poneze be grozen' ot
vuseh (and he [ XathioJ bought him for ten gold coins because he was the most unsightly of
all).
A medieval Slavonic translation of the Life of Aesop 123

An attempt to identify the geographical and temporal context in which The

Story of losop the Wise and How he Lived was created and dispersed, reasonably
reliably indicates the area of the Balkans and the period of the fourteenth and the
fifteenth centuries. At that time and in that area there flourished a cultural tradition
common to the Greeks and the Slavs that crossed state and linguistic boundaries,
and introduced a cosmopolitan character not only to religious beliefs, social and
political ideas but to literary fashions as well. 21 It was then and there that a strong
literary movement resulted in a series of new translations from Greek into
Slavonic. Most of the translated works were ascetic and spiritual writings popular
in ecclesiastical and monastic circles, although aiming at a wider educated public
of both clergy and laity. Such an environment could easily have produced our
Josop-Story. The zone of intensive cultural exchange could have provided for a
corresponding creation, translation and transmission of the work. However, it
could not secure its wider popularity. Literary taste among the Greek and Slavonic
reading audiences in the case of this work followed the same criteria. The existing
manuscript tradition attests only to an isolated and relatively short-lived presence
of the Story of Josop among the Slavs of the Balkans in the Middle Ages, and to no
Greek counterpart to speak of. This outcome is clearly in contrast to the great
popularity of the Greek Life of Aesop, which lasted for many centuries and
eventually crossed the boundaries of Greek literature and the Byzantine world,
spreading out across, and beyond, the whole of Europe.
On the basis of the research so far completed into the medieval Slavonic
tradition of the Life of Aesop, it is possible to outline a description of a hypothetical
Greek archetype of the Josop-Story and its potential literary context. If ever a
manuscript containing an immediate source of the existing Slavonic version should
be traced, it would probably be of monastic provenance, possibly coming from the
principal monasteries of the Balkans, above all from Mount Athos. Secondly, the
archetype of the Josop-Story might well be included in a Greek miscellany which
would incorporate some of the writings found also in the aforementioned second
type of the Slavonic sbornici. It is likely that the Physiologos would also be among
these writings, as a work that not only often had shared manuscript transmission
with the Life of Aesop in their Greek tradition, but also appeared in the Slavonic
miscellanies next to the Story of Josop. Furthermore, the Greek archetype of the
Josop-Story may have Myo~, 13io~, or OtTJY'Tlcrt~ as one of the key-words in the title,
all being acceptable renditions for the noun slovo, featuring in the caption of the
Slavonic text. Equally, since there is no obvious phonetic justification for the name
"Aisopos" to be transliterated into Church Slavonic as "Iosop", we can speculate

21
Obolensky 1976, 3-26. The role of Hesychasm as a unifying cultural movement
among the Byzantines and the Slavs in the late Middle Ages has also been a subject of a
number of studies by D. Likhachev, D. Obolensky, G. M. Prokhorov, J. Mayendorf, A.-E.
Tachiaos and others.
124 I. Toth

that the main character in the Greek archetype could also be "Iosopos"/"Iosepos".
Finally, we could reasonably safely expect the Greek source of the Slavonic
translation to be concise, and, it would be very likely to be written in the
vernacular.
However, even before an eventual discovery of the immediate Greek source of
the Josop-Story, it is necessary to examine in more detail the existing Slavonic
tradition. To begin with, three of the five manuscripts containing the Story of losop
are still unpublished, and the editions of the remaining two need to be revised with
respect to the entire surviving manuscript tradition (see above, note 14). In addition
to this essential work, other aspects of research need to be readjusted: rather than
viewing the Josop-Story as an exclusive phenomenon of Medieval Slavonic
literature, or an inexplicable development with no clear origin and an even more
obscure transmission, the Story of Josop the Wise and How He Lived ought to be
examined as a literary phenomenon of the Slavonic Middle Ages, which not only
existed earlier in Byzantine literature, but also represents a translation of a Greek
work. This idiosyncratic and little known Slavonic text must be viewed in the light
of its tradition as a whole, and must be edited and commented upon accordingly, in
a form accessible to a wider circle of scholars. This is the only approach which will
allow for an interdisciplinary and more efficient study, and it would undoubtedly
produce better results than has been the case so far.

Bibliography
Adrados 1999. F. R. Adrados, History of the Graeco-latin Fable (Leiden, Boston,
Koln)
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