The current publication is divided into two parts. The first part contains a de scription of the manuscript tradition of the Chapters on Knowledge of Rabban Aphnīmāran, an East Syriac mystical writer of the 7th c. For the first time a description of the newly identified West Syriac manuscript tradition of Rabban Aphnīmāran’s Chapters, as well as a description of the Arabic version of this text is provided (the Arabic version was identified in 2019 by the authors of the present paper). The second part contains a critical edition of the first thirteen chapters of Aphnīmāran’s work, as well as the Anonymous commentary on them, and a Russian translation of Syriac and Arabic texts. This publication will be continued with other articles that finally will cover the rest of the Chapters on Knowledge.

For the first time are publishing in Russian a full translation of the «Acts of John», one of the oldest Christian apocryphal works (2nd century). The following texts have been translated: fragments from the «Epistle about Virginity» of Pseudo-Titus, from POxyr. 850, from «Liber Flavus Fergusiorum» and the surviving Greek part of the Acts. Translations are provided with commentary and an indication of the most important discrepancies. It was prefaced a brief description of the text.

The article (being the 1st part of the cycle) is dedicated to the ascetic themes in Mār Aphrem the of Nisibis (St. Ephrem the Syrian) treated in different parts of his corpus. Asceti cism is reflecxted in mār Aphrem under three main forms: city asceticism, wandering asceticism (xeniteia) and the sub-form of the latter, boskoi-asceticism. The wandering tradition got strog criticism in the Latin and Greek tradition as gyrovagi and ‘messalians’. In the Syriac tradition, the competition between wanderinf and coenobion lasted much longer. Aphrem’s mêmrā (metrical homily) On the hermits and solitaries belongs to the ascetical cycle and is interesting, first of all, by its description of the local forms of asceticism (īḥı ̄ḏayūṯā) in Upper Mesopotamia and Syria. It describes the practices of desert hermitage and social self-isolation, which are associated with the initial stage of the ‘messalian’ movement which turns to be a form of the national Syrian asceticism. The translation of verses 1–100 of the memra accompanies the text.

The publication is the first part of a study on the use in Eastern Christian theological literature of the theme of the penetration of fire into iron to describe uniting with God, from Origen to Gregory Palamas. Through the example of penetration of fire into iron I consider the ways, whereby the Stoic natural philosophical paradigm of total blending was naturalized by the Early Christian and Byzantine theologians who wished to describe the penetration of the divine into the created and the conjunction of the created with the divine, with the condition that the created does not dissolve in the divine but remains within its own nature while being penetrated by the properties of deity. The character of this paradigm carries the presence of distinctive and uniting potentials within itself because it presupposes interaction of two natures remaining different but uniting in a certain respect. This paradigm seems to have first appeared in the writings of Origen, who spoke of the conjunction of Christ’s soul with God through the example of the penetration of fire into iron. The further development of this topic by the Byzantine theologians comprised two principal lines, already adumbrated in Origen: these are the Christological line and the line of theosis. In the present article, I am interested mostly in the latter, in the context of one more line, which uses the example of iron and fire in order to clarify the distinctions in modes of existence for the created and the divine. I examine this line as rep resented by the Cappadocians and Cyril of Alexandria, and show as this line has made actual

There is explored in the article a hypothetical attitude of the authors of pseudepigrapha, given that they had a religious consciousness, to their literary work. For such a purpose there is revealed a specifity of pseudepigraph as a special type of text, and different types of literary creativity and its motivation are examined in order to identify the most relevant motives. There is also undertaken the review and criticism of existing hypotheses of the nature of the pseudonymity in parabiblical literature, including concepts relating to the background and conditions for the creation of a «rewritten Bible». There are clarified the reasons for which pseudepigraph, differing from both the canonical text and the literary fiction, but representing what its creators themselves consider to be a record of revelation, could not but be pseudonymous in conditions of the literary process of the era that gave rise to it. At the end of the article, conclusions are drawn about the nature of relation between the pseudepigraphic corpus of texts and the canonical one.

The article is devoted to the analysis of how post-structural notions of «text» and «textuality» influence academic biblical studies and traditional exegesis. The author shows, through a variety of examples, that the critical approach of Derrida’s philosophy helps the reader of Scripture who adheres to the traditional principles of traditional interpretation to defend his right to such a hermeneutic program in the face of biblical criticism and the challenges of academic rationality. In studying this influence, the author draws on the works of famous French philosophers: Jacques Derrida, Julia Kristeva, Roland Bart.

The present paper provides an overview of all the publications (by the beginning of 2020) devoted to Joseph Ḥazzāyā, an East Syriac mystical writer of the 8th century, and also deals with the main publications on the related topics where an analysis of Joseph’s mystical teaching is provided. The overview proceeds in four sections that deal with 1) reference works on Joseph Ḥazzāyā; 2) editions and translations of his writings; 3) studies of his mystical teaching and its sources; 4) works dealing with the condemnation of Joseph Ḥazzāyā on the Counsil summoned by patriarch Timothy I, as well as with the subsequent acquittal of this mystical writer.