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Vernacular Psalters and the
Early Rise of Linguistic Identities
e Romanian Case
museikon studies 1
Vernacular Psalters and the
Early Rise of Linguistic Identities
e Romanian Case
Consiliul Judeţean Alba
Muzeul Naţional al Unirii, Alba Iulia
Arhiepiscopia Ortodoxă a Alba Iuliei
:
Centre national de la recherche scientique ()
Centre d’Études Supérieures de Civilisation Médiévale, Poitiers ( 7302)
Biblioteca Academiei Române, Filiala Cluj-Napoca
Patriarhia Română - Biblioteca Sfântului Sinod, București
Biblioteca Centrală Universitară ”Lucian Blaga”, Cluj-Napoca
Eparhia Reformată din Ardeal – Biblioteca Documentară ”Bethlen Gábor”, Aiud
Biblioteca Judeţeană Mureș – Biroul Colecţii Speciale / Biblioteca Teleki, Târgu-Mureș
Proceedings of the conference edited by
Vladimir Agrigoroaei and Ileana Sasu
Exhibition catalogue by Florin Bogdan
Exhibition and presentation texts by
Ana Dumitran and Vladimir Agrigoroaei
Vernacular Psalters and the
Early Rise of Linguistic Identities
e Romanian Case
museikon studies 1
București 2019
: Florin Bogdan, translated by Ileana Sasu.
: Vladimir Agrigoroaei (..) and Ana Dumitran
(..) with the help of Iosif Camară (..) and Lidia Coţovanu (..);
translated by Vladimir Agrigoroaei and Ileana Sasu.
/ : Vladimir Agrigoroaei.
, : Vladimir Agrigoroaei.
: Anca Crișan, from a miniature painted in the
Psalter and Book of Hours, ms. Bucharest, Holy Synod Library, 294.
: Vladimir Agrigoroaei – mouse and open
book (Psalter?) in a trompe l’oeil cupboard painted in a niche of the
St Valentine church in Termeno sulla Strada del Vino / Tramin an der
Weinstraße (close to Bolzano, Italy), early 15th century (see page 8).
: Ileana Sasu (articles of Ana Dumitran and
Alin-Mihai Gherman).
: Ileana Sasu & Vladimir Agrigoroaei.
Descrierea CIP a Bibliotecii Naţionale a României
VERNACULAR PSALTERS AND THE EARLY RISE OF LINGUISTIC
IDENTITIES THE ROMANIAN CASE. Conference (2018 ; Alba Iulia)
Vernacular psalters and the early rise of linguistic identities the
Romanian case : proceedings of the conference, 2018, Museikon -
Alba Iulia / ed. by Vladimir Agrigoroaei and Ileana Sasu ; exhibition
and presentation texts by Ana Dumitran and Vladimir Agrigoroaei ;
exhibition catalogue by Florin Bogdan. - București: Dark Publishing,
2019
Conţine bibliograe
ISBN 978-606-94751-5-7
I. Agrigoroaei, Vladimir (ed.)
II. Sasu, Ileana (ed.)
III. Dumitran, Ana (ed.)
IV. Bogdan, Florin (ed.)
811.135.1
Table of Contents
:
‘Captatio benevolentiae’. A Dierent History
of the Early Romanian Psalters (p. 7)
:
Perfect Psalms for Perfect Men:
e Use of Lollard Biblical Translations in Middle
English Vernacular Preaching (p. 39)
:
e Old Czech Psalter and its Manuscript
Tradition in Late Medieval Bohemia (p. 47)
:
e New Old Czech Translation of the Psalter
in the First Printed Bibles (p. 55)
:
Hungarian Psalm Translations and
eir Uses in Late Medieval Hungary (p. 64)
, :
e Sources of the Oldest Romanian
Versions of the Psalter (p. 79)
:
e Inuence of Johannes Piscator’s Scholarship
on the ‘Preface to the Reader’ Published in the
‘Alba Iulia Psalter’ of 1651 (p. 99)
:
Making the Best of Both Worlds. e Historical
Background of the Protestant and Orthodox
Romanian Early Modern Psalters (p. 119)
:
Bibliographical Abbreviations (p. 162)
:
e First Psalters in Old French and eir
12th Century Context (p. 29)
Psalter with commentaries (manuscript,
17th-18th c.) / Psalter (Blaj, 1764) / Psalter and
Book of Hours (manuscript, 18th-19th c.) / David’s
Psalms in Hebrew (Leida, 1615) / Greek Psalter
(Snagov, 1700) / Slavonic Psalter (Venice, 1546) /
St Joseph Mary Tomasi , Psalter with canticles
(Vienna, 1735) / St Augustine, Commentary on
the Psalms (Basel, 1489) (p. 10)
Károlyi Gáspár, Holy Bible (Vizsoly,
1590) (p. 62)
Coresi, e Romanian Psalter (Brașov, 1570) /
Psalter (Alba Iulia, 1651) 2 (p. 88)
Louis Gauvain, A New Version of the Psalms
in French Verse (Jena, 1677) / Jean Le Preux,
eodore Beza, George Buchanan, e Holy
Psalms (Morgiis, 1581) / David’s Psalms in
German (Hanau, 1612) / John Viski, Psalter
(manuscript, Sântămărie Orlea, 1697) (p. 108)
Stephen Istvánházi, Psalter (manuscript, Râu
de Mori, 1703) / Szenci Molnár Albert, Psalter
of David the Prophet (Hannoviae, 1608) / Szenci
Molnár Albert, e 150 Psalms of David the King
and Prophet (Cluj, 1681) / Tofeus Mihály, Inter-
pretation of the Holy Psalms (Cluj, 1683) / Enyedi
György, e Old and the New Testament (Cluj,
1619) / Szatmár-Némethi Mihály, St David’s
Psalter (Cluj, 1679) / Dosoei, e Metrical
Psalter (Uniev Monastery, 1673) (p. 126)
Dosoei, Slavonic-Romanian Psalter (Iassy,
1680) / Psalter (Iassy, 1743) / e Psalter of
David the Prophet and Emperor (Bucharest,
1694) (p. 156)
e Literary Status of the Metrical Psalters (p. 145)
e Sources of
the Oldest Romanian
Versions of the Psalter
Iosif Camară,
Mădălina Ungureanu
Institute of Interdisciplinary Resear,
Department of Social Sciences and Humanities,
“Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University, Iassy
e 16th century Romanian Psalters are among the oldest “monuments”
of Romanian language. According to paper dating, one of these Psalters
is actually the oldest text wrien in Romanian. e Psalms were trans-
lated from Old Church Slavonic, the fact that these texts contain many
words of Latin origin suggested that a Latin source may have also been
used in the translation or revision processes. It is thus essential to discuss
these sources and to verify if both Slavonic and Latin sources were used.
Four manuscript Psalters (, b, , ) and four printed ones
(, 1, 2, – a single fragment was preserved from the last one)
date back to the 16th century. Nothing is known about the now lost
Săulescu Psalter. In addition to these eight Psalters, there are several
isolated Psalms preserved in 16th century miscellany manuscripts. All
these Psalters are monolingual (, , ) or bilingual (, 1, 2, ,
b) – with an accompanying Slavonic version. ree of them, namely
, , and , have particularly piqued the interest of researchers, as
they belong to the category of the so-called “rhotacising texts”, due to
the presence of the rhotacism phenomenon.1
e one hundred and y Psalms and the non-canonical Psalm 151
are grouped, according to the Orthodox typikon, into twenty kathismata,
each kathisma having three staseis. e Psalms are followed by ten bibli-
cal songs (the Old Testament canticles). e Scheian Psalter includes an
additional Athanasian Creed containing the Filioque, which led Ion Gheţie
and Alexandru Mareş to the conclusion that this text must have been
added later.2
As proven by Al. Mareş, all the 16th century Romanian Psalters derive
from a common translation carried out at an unknown time.3 eir stem-
ma is dicult to determine due to the numerous intermediary copies
and revisions made over time. Of all the versions, the one that stands
out is the Hurmuzaki Psalter, because it underwent a thorough revision
at some point.
Al. Mareş resumed the discussion regarding the dating of the Hurmu-
= Coresi, Psalter, Brașov, 1570;
b = Ciobanu Psalter (Rom. Manu-
script no. 3465, Romanian Academy
Library);
1 = Coresi, Slavonic-Romanian
Psalter, 1577;
2 = Coresi, Slavonic-Romanian
Psalter, 1589;
= Hurmuzaki Psalter (Rom.
Manuscript no. 3077, Romanian
Academy Library);
= Iorga Psalter (a bilingual Psalter,
1576-1578, cf. Gheţie/Mareș 1985,
305);
= Scheian Psalter (Rom. Manu-
script no. 449, Romanian Academy
Library);
= Psalter from Voroneț (Rom.
Manuscript no. 693, Romanian
Academy Library).
Abbreviations
1 Rhotacism is a phonetic
phenomenon, the conversion of the
intervocalic // into // in Romanian
words of Latin origin.
2 Gheţie 1973; Mareş 2010.
3 Mareş 1982b.
Notes
Vernacular Psalters and the Early Rise of Linguistic Identities: e Romanian Case, 2019, p. 79-87 | 79
80
81
zaki Psalter aer a new examination of the watermarks present in the texts
of the time.4 He identied two watermarks in this manuscript: a ship and
an anchor. Based on this discovery, he considered that the Hurmuzaki
Psalter manuscript must have been produced before 1516, without exclu-
ding the possibility of it dating back to the 15th century. is lack of
precision is due to the fact that it was not possible to identify the exact
variant of the two watermarks in the archives kept in northern Italy. e
author concluded: “Such an early dating as the one we suppose requires a
new approach to the old age of translations in Romanian and to the cul-
tural-religious initiatives that determined their emergence”.5 If the Hur-
muzaki Psalter were a copy dating back prior to 1516, the primitive Ro-
manian translation (from which all the 16th century Romanian versions
derive) would date back to the beginning of the century or even earlier.
e Old Chur Slavonic source of the Romanian Psalters.
In the very rst studies of the Old Romanian Psalters, it was assumed
that the source of their translation was Old Church Slavonic. e con-
trary cannot be true, since the text copiously uses loans and calques from
Old Church Slavonic, the names are Slavonic, and the sentence structure
oen follows the Slavonic model as well. e rst scholar who tried to
identify the Slavonic original was Ion Aurel Candrea, who argued that
the source was a version close to Branko Mladenović’s 1346 Serbian
Psalter (Bucharest, Romanian Academy Library, Slavonic Ms. no. 205),
but without any evidence to support his assumption.6 Various other
opinions expressed since then were assessed by Al. Mareş, for whom the
only positive result of the previous studies is the verication that the
translation was made from Slavonic.7
But what is the real liation between the Romanian and the Slavonic
versions? When answering Gheorghe Mihăilă, according to whom there
should have been a perfect correspondence between the two texts,
Al. Mareş examined the Old Church Slavonic versions of , b, and
2, he compared them to the Romanian ones, and argued (based on
textual evidence) that the Romanian text could not rely on the Slavonic
type present in the four bilingual Psalters.8 Resuming the hypothesis of
I.-A. Candrea, Al. Mareş tried to show that Mladenović’s Psalter is dierent
from the other Slavonic versions kept at the Romanian Academy Li-
brary and that it belongs to the manuscripts of the new Slavonic redac-
tion.9 is “new redaction” has also undergone some changes over time.
Between Branko Mladenović’s Psalter and the Romanian texts there is a
signicant number of dierences, which means that the Romanian proto-
type cannot be linked directly to this Psalter. According to Al. Mareş, there
may be two hypotheses: (1) the Romanian prototype could have been
translated from a version of the Mladenović Psalter; (2) the Romanian
prototype resulted from a Mladenović version, and, when preparing the
bilingual Romanian version, the text was revised by comparing it to the
adjoining Slavonic version. is second hypothesis may explain why it
is impossible to identify a Slavonic Psalter that brings together all the
particularities present in the Old Romanian texts. According to the same
researcher, the Hurmuzaki Psalter would be a secondary version of the
Romanian prototype relying on a much older Slavonic version, dierent
from the Mladenović type.
e merit of Al. Mareş’ work is that he proved the relation of the
Romanian Psalters with the Slavonic type represented by Branko Mlade-
4 Mareş 2000.
5 Mareş 2000, p. 683.
6 Candrea 1916, p. 112.
7 Mareş 1982a.
8 Mareş 1982a, p. 202-203.
9 Mareş 1982a, p. 202. e “new
Slavonic redaction” is the revision of
the Slavonic Psalter carried out at the
beginning of the 14th century.
Notes
e Sources of the Oldest Romanian Versions of the Psalter |
Hurmuzaki Psalter, f. 97v.
ms. Bucharest, Romanian Academy
Library, Rom. 3077.
© Biblioteca Academiei Române -
Fondul de manuscrise.
Coresi’s Slavonic-Romanian Psalter
of 1577, last page of the printed book.
Drawing aer an online facsimile
available at hps://tiparituriromanesti.
wordpress.com
82
nović’s 1346 Psalter and the absence of any relations between the Roma-
nian versions and the Old Church Slavonic ones in the bilingual manu-
scripts. Over the past few years, Catherine MacRobert has thoroughly
studied the origin of the Slavonic Psalters, which now facilitates the
study of the source of the oldest Romanian Psalters.10 As regards the
revision of the Romanian versions, the discussions excluded the Latin
sources hypothesis, which could have unpredictable consequences for
the study of the texts’ origin and liation.
e Latin source.
e hypothesis of a Latin source for the Old Romanian Psalters is relatively
recent. However, it should be pointed out that I.-A. Candrea compared the
Romanian text with the Psalterium Romanum, especially with regards to
the verses where the Romanian translation is no longer literal (word for
word), without however issuing any theories on the relations between
the Romanian and Latin Psalters.11
Ion C. Chiţimia put forth the hypothesis of a Latin source for the trans-
lation of the Psalter into Romanian.12 He considered that the primitive
translation of the Psalms (the version underlying the translations preser-
ved to date) relied on an older translation from Latin – due to the presence
of Catholicism and due to its missionary actions. In his opinion, this
rst translation from Latin, carried out before the arrival of the Slavonic
cultural inuences in the Romanian lands, must have been then revised
based on a Slavonic text. He argued that:
(a) a series of Latin words were preserved only in the three rhota-
cising versions of the Psalter (and especially in the Scheian Psalter):
mesereare ‘compassion’; pănătare / părătare ‘suering’; păraț ‘the top
of the mouth’; (a) vence / vânce, învence, prevence ‘to defeat, to beat’; a
deșidera ‘to desire’; and a deștinde ‘to descend’. As these words were rare,
he considered them “lexical relics”, kept from the old translation of the
Psalter from Latin, which may have been later replaced by equivalents
of Slavonic origin or by terms with a wider circulation or a more stable
position in the Romanian language system;
(b) the comparison between the Scheian Psalter (which has, from a
lexical point of view, the most markedly Latin appearance) and the Vulgate
reveals lexical coincidences. Eugen Munteanu calls this phenomenon
“etymological araction”: out of all possible choices, the translator
chooses the word that is etymologically close to the original, something
that may only be explained by the use of a Latin source.13
Ion Gheţie also assessed I. C. Chiţimia’s arguments, subjecting them
to a thorough methodological examination.14 In his opinion, the rare use
of a word in these texts cannot be taken for proof of its antiquity. ese
words may as well originate in the language of translators or copyists. In
fact, some of the words in I. C. Chiţimia’s list of “relics” were still circu-
lating in isolated areas in the 19th century, while others were present in
texts dating back to the 17th and 18th centuries. Regarding a deștinde, this
is not a rare word. Its many aestations show that it was usual at the
time.15 Relying on a list of Latin terms characteristic to the 16th century by
Ovid Densusianu,16 I. Gheţie identied six words that occur exclusively
in the Scheian Psalter: a deșidera; mărit ‘married man, husband’ from Lat.
maritus; păraț; a scura ‘to purify’, from Lat. excurare; a spărți ‘to separate’
from *expartire; and temoare ‘fear’ from Lat. timor. e presence of these
other words may be explained in two ways: (1) unlike the other two rho-
10 See e.g. MacRobert 1998.
11 Candrea 1916.
12 Chiţimia 1981.
13 Munteanu 2008, p. 83.
14 Gheţie 1982a.
15 See for this Densusianu 1938,
p. 195. Munteanu 2008 talks about
it not as a “lexical relic”, but as
a translation option due to
etymological araction.
16 Densusianu 1938, p. 492-502.
Notes
| Iosif Camară, Mădălina Ungureanu
Scheian Psalter, f. 14v.
ms. Bucharest, Romanian Academy
Library, Rom. 449.
© Biblioteca Academiei Române -
Fondul de manuscrise.
83
Vernacular Psalters and the Early Rise of Linguistic Identities (Exhibition) |
84
| Vernacular Psalters and the Early Rise of Linguistic Identities (Exhibition)
85
tacising Psalters, the Scheian Psalter may have preserved a larger number
of old Latin terms from the rst translation by chance. Or (2) the Scheian
Psalter may be the avatar of a text that underwent massive “Latinization”
(i.e. a Latin-based revision). As for I. C. Chiţimia’s other argument – the
lexical coincidences with the Latin Vulgate – I. Gheţie showed that their
number is small and that the comparison must be made with versions of
the Vulgate prior to 1500.
Although I. Gheţie’s tone was rather vehement, he rejected I. C. Chiţi-
mia’s reasoning and not the hypothesis of the use of a Latin source in the
translation of the Psalters into Romanian. He believed that a Latin source
could still have been possibly used only in one of the revisions underly-
ing the Scheian Psalter, and he noticed that the only way to demonstrate
the use of a Latin source is to undertake an entire comparative study of
the Romanian texts with the Slavonic and Latin sources, scrupulously
taking into account the variants of the Slavonic and Latin versions.
e discussion was later on resumed by E. Munteanu, who considered
that although I. C. Chiţimia’s reasoning was unsatisfactory, and the idea
that the source of the rst translation was Latin could not acceptable,
the hypothesis of the use of a Latin text at a certain stage in the process of
elaborating the rst versions of the Psalter was very likely,17 if not abso-
lutely certain.18 is had to be linked with the inuence of Catholicism
and Calvinism in the Romanian communities of the Banat and Hunedoara
region.19 E. Munteanu mainly discusses the Scheian Psalter, but the pieces
of evidence supporting his idea are: (1) a series of phrastic sequences
that do not correspond to the Slavonic text (E. Munteanu takes as reference
text the intraliniar Slavonic version of 1), but to the Latin Romanum
one;20 (2) the so-called “etymological araction”: lângoare for Lat. languor
(equivalents in other Psalters: boală [illness] in 2, neputere [lack of
power/ strength] in ); strat [layer] for Lat. stratum (așternut in );
(3) the verbs deșidera (and the noun deșiderat) ‘to desire’ and a deșcinde ‘to
descend’, which I. C. Chiţimia considered a reminiscence from an old trans-
lation of the Psalter into Romanian. ey are also discussed by E. Munteanu
in order to illustrate the phenomenon of “etymological araction”. is
means that the translator or reviser of the Psalter translation used them,
probably under the inuence of the Latin source, in order to render the
Lat. desiderare (and desiderium), respectively descendere, although the Old
Romanian language also oered other possibilities, which can be actually
found in later versions of the Psalters (a jelui / jelanie, jale, a pohti / pohtă,
respectively a pogorî). E. Munteanu therefore discusses the hypothesis of
a Latin source as being noteworthy. His reasoning is relevant in the same
sense of assuming the existence of a Latin source, and it necessarily needs
to be resumed and reinforced by a complete comparison of the texts.
Last but not least, Eugen Pavel also tackled the issue by presenting
the arguments of his predecessors21 without bringing forth new facts,
and concluded that the problem is far from being solved.
Some basic facts.
e comparison of the Slavonic, Latin and Romanian versions may how-
ever lead to some results. In our comparison of the Old Romanian Psal-
ters with the Latin text, we relied on Psalterium Gallicanum and Psalte-
rium Romanum, just as Eugen Munteanu did.22
Research has yielded enough evidence to support that the Psalters are
not independent translations, but that they indirectly derive from the same
17 Munteanu 2008, p. 143.
18 Munteanu 2008, p. 130.
19 Munteanu 2008, p. 144.
20 Psalterium Romanum, critical
edition of 1953: Le Psautier Romain
et les autres anciens psautiers latins.
21 Pavel 2013. As regards Munteanu’s
reasoning, Pavel 2013, p. 27 showed
that sometimes the Romanian version
resembles more the Psalterium
Gallicanum than the Psalterium
Romanum.
22 It should be noted that Ion Gheţie
and Alexandru Mareş relied on
the Vulgate; admiing that many
dierences between the Latin text
and the Romanian ones are due to
the dierences between the versions
of the Vulgate, Gheţie 1982a, p. 184
stated that the comparison must rely
on the versions published prior to
1500. Candrea 1916, without expli-
citly stating it, compared the
Romanian text with Psalterium
Gallicanum whenever he encountered
translations that did not follow the
Slavonic text, but without factoring
in the existence of a Latin source.
Notes
e Sources of the Oldest Romanian Versions of the Psalter |
Psalter from Voroneț, f. 14v.
ms. Bucharest, Romanian Academy
Library, Rom. 693.
© Biblioteca Academiei Române -
Fondul de manuscrise.
86
‘primitive’ translation. Common translation mistakes, common omis-
sions, and particular translations of all versions were put forth as cases
in point.
When writing about the origin of the Psalters, Al. Mareş took into ac-
count the common language elements in all texts.23 Some of them proved
the existence of a common Slavonic source, which meant that the Roma-
nian prototype could have been translated from Old Church Slavonic.
Such an element is the presence of the same translation errors in all the
versions. For instance, in Ps 77:67-68, kol™no ‘1. knee 2. tribe, people’
(Miklošič 1862-1865, s.v.) (lat. tribus, gr. φυλή) is translated in all ver-
sions by genunche ‘knee’. Al. Mareş showed that this resulted from the
automatic equation of meaning 1, without realizing that the contextual
meaning was ‘people’.
According to I.-A. Candrea, the translator did not master Old Church
Slavonic very well, commiing “serious errors distorting the meaning of
the text in many places”.24 We analysed his examples, hoping to nd clues
regarding the source of the translation. Clear evidence of the Slavonic
origin is found in Ps 104:32 of the Scheian Psalter and the Coresi Psalter
of 1570, which contain the term cetate ‘fortress’. e Latin text uses grando
‘hail’, and the Slavonic one contains the term gradß. According to
I.-A. Candrea, the translator mixed up two homonyms, one meaning
‘hail’, the other ‘fortress’. e text of the Hurmuzaki Psalter distinguishes
itself from the one in the other Psalters by the fact that it translates
correctly using the word grindină ‘hail’.
Moreover, in Ps 108:23, where the source text uses ἀκρίδες, locusta, the
Romanian Psalters render it through mlădiţe () or nuiale (, , b),
both words meaning ‘sprouts’. I.-A. Candrea assumed that one must be
dealing with a misinterpretation of prøΩi« ‘locusts’ as prøti« ‘sprouts’,
but he pointed out that the same equivalence may be found in Coresi’s
Gospel translation of 1560-1561.25 In fact, this “paronymic araction”
explanation is not necessary. e Old Church Slavonic version copied in
the bilingual Psalters (b, ) uses the form vrß‚ïe ‘sprout’. Knowing
that the Romanian philologists have proven that the Old Romanian
bilingual Psalters are not related to the Slavonic versions copied in the
same manuscripts, one should take into account an argument used by
C. MacRobert. She revealed the existence of a number of East Slavic and
South Slavic manuscripts in which this verse appears to be translated
by prtĭnyi konĭci; prutniku ‘tips of shoots; shoots’, explaining these
translation choices through the inuence of the New Testament verses
depicting John the Baptist’s vegetarian diet.26 However, other transla-
tion choices remain unexplained: Ps 10: 6 Ωupelß ‘brimstone’ (Gr. θεῖον,
Lat. sulphur) is translated by văpaie ‘blaze’.
A long ignored question also refers to the source of the Hurmuzaki Psal-
ter’s revision. It is certain that this Psalter derives from a primitive Ro-
manian translation. e dierences between the Hurmuzaki Psalter and
the other Psalters are explained by Al. Mareş through a consistent revision
of this version’s text. It is however dicult to identify the source of the
revision. In Ps 21:23, the singular genitive leului ‘of the lion’ is explained
through a dierent Old Church Slavonic redaction, where the same sin-
gular occurs.27 However, the singular occurs both in the Greek and in
the Latin Psalters. e same situation appears in Ps 133:1, where the
singular curtea ‘yard’ resembles both the Slavonic vŭ dvorě occurring in
the Psalterium Sinaiticum and Psalterium Vindobonense, and the Latin in
23 Mareş 1982b.
24 Candrea 1916, p. 110.
25 Candrea 1916, p. 112; opinion
shared by Mareş 1982b, p. 216.
26 MacRobert 2007, p. 427.
27 Mareş 1982, p. 221.
Notes
| Iosif Camară, Mădălina Ungureanu
87
domo, unlike the other Romanian and Slavonic versions containing the
plural.
Al. Mareş found another important clue in the Slavonic versions’ title
of Ps 110, where one may nd the title Alliluia, while the Hurmuzaki
Psalter has Lăudăm Domnulu cel viu.28 According to Al. Mareş, this is
due to the use of another Old Church Slavonic version, in which the
interjection Alliluia is followed by its translation, as it appears in the
Psalterium Vindobonense: Alliluiě se tl’kuet se ubo hv(a)la živomu B(og)u
‘Hallelujah, which means ‘Glory to the Lord’. Relying on the liation of
the Slavonic Psalters provided by C. MacRobert, it is nonetheless worth
noting that the Psalterium Vindobonense and the 1346 Branko Mlade-
nović version derive from the same primitive Slavonic translation known
as the Pseudo-Athanasian Commentary.29 Before accepting that the
Romanian translation and / or revision derives from this Slavonic redac-
tion, it is thus necessary to compare the texts.
e current state of research allows only the conclusion that there is
lile certainty regarding the origin of the Old Romanian Psalters. How-
ever, a hundred years aer Ion Aurel Candrea’s statement that the issue
of the Psalters’ origin is insurmountable, we believe that the identi-
cation of the sources is no longer impossible, given the tools currently
available. It may be argued that the primitive translation of the Psalter
was carried out prior to Luther’s Reformation. It may also be argued that
the translation is rooted in a Slavonic version. e presence of a Latin
version on the translator’s or reviser’s table may, nevertheless, also be
admied.
28 Mareş 1982b, p. 222.
29 MacRobert 2007, p. 928.
Notes
e Sources of the Oldest Romanian Versions of the Psalter |
e beginning of the Athanasian Creed
in the Scheian Psalter, p. 525-526,
ms. Bucharest, Romanian Academy
Library, Rom. 449. Drawing aer the
facsimile published by Bianu 1889.