Margarita A. Korzo, Holcot “Anonimous” That Is, The Heritage of Robert Holcot OP (ca. 1290-1349) in the 17th-Century Orthodox Literature: Two Cases

SUMMARY

The given study focuses on two cases of how excerpts from Robert Holcot’s OP (ca.1290–1349) works (In Librum Sapientiae and Moralizationum Historiarum) spread in the 17th-century Orthodox literatury. The English Dominican was one of the most prominent theologians and intellectuals of his time, belonging to the group of the so-called “classicizing friars” (Beryl Smalley). Fragments of Holcot’s works were known mostly ‘second hand’ in early modern times, their authorship having been forgotten. In this anonymous form, Holcot’s texts also reached adherents of the Orthodox Church — both in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and in Russia. The article analyzes an example of a funeral sample-sermon (from the Orthodox Ritual, Vilnius 1621), a sermon and a poem of Simeon of Polotsk (Obed duševnyj, Moscow 1681; Vertograd mnogocvetnyj, 1676–1680) based on Holcot’s ten arguments against excessive mourning for the dead, and the transformation of Holcot’s ‘verbal picture’ Picturam amoris sive amicitiae in a sermon on marriage (Ritual, Lviv 1644 and 1645).