A remarkable work in the science of church law: [Rec. on:] Narbekov V. A., prof. Nomocanon of Patriarch Photius of Constantinople with interpretation of Balsamon

(Prof. V. A. Narbekov: Nomocanon of the Patriarchate of Constantinople Photius with interpretation of Balsamon. Part I. Historical and canonical study I-XIV 1–249. Kazan. Part II. Russian translation (Nomocanon) with preface and notes. I-X; 1–578 I-L Kazan. 1899). The named scientific work of the professor of the Kazan Theological Academy V. A. Narbekov represents a phenomenon long awaited by the science of church law. In essence, it represents only an addition to the enormous work of the Society of Lovers of Spiritual Enlightenment, already published long ago, under the title: Rules of the Holy Apostles, Ecumenical and Local Councils and Holy Fathers with interpretations of Zonara, Balsamon and Aristipus - it represents a translation of precisely the first part of the entire syntagma of Patriarch Photius - the so-called Nomocanon. The Society of Lovers of Spiritual Enlightenment left this part of Photius’s syntagma without translation, intending first of all to provide a translation of the interpretations of the canons or rules of the Universal Church and postponed for the future the translation of the 1st part, as setting out the imperial laws of Byzantium, which are currently of exclusively historical interest. G. Narbekov single-handedly completed the unfinished task of the Society and, it must be said, paying attention to the essence of the matter, completed the task - the most difficult one. The fact is that to translate the Nomocanon of Photius, it was not enough to know only the Greek or Byzantine language, as for translating the rules of syntagma, but it was necessary to study the artificial legal - Greco-Roman language of the Middle Ages Byzantium, which precisely sets out that set of civil laws regarding the church, which constitutes the main content of the Nomocanon of Photius and which sets out the scholia to it of Balsamon. G. Narbekov has long devoted his strength and his diligent work to the cause of this study. He presented his first experience of this study 10 years ago in his excellent dissertation entitled: Interpretation of Balsamon on the Nomocanon of Photius. Kazan. 1889. The author published his work in two parts: the first is a historical and canonical study of Nomocanon, which is like an extensive scientific prolegomena, which usually precedes scientific publications. In this part, Mr. Narbekov presented in a concise form, absolutely everything that hitherto learned literature, foreign and Russian, said about the authors of the Nomocanon, about the time of its original origin and the subsequent revisions and editions of it. Briefly characterizing this first part of the work under consideration, we must say that the venerable author on the issue of the Nomocanon of Photius stands at the height of modern science. But the main scientific merit of the author still lies, in our opinion, in the second part of his work - namely the Russian translation of the Nomocanon. The translation is read not only with interest, but also with pleasure. Yes, would it not be a pleasure for any discerning reader to encounter, at the beginning of the code of Byzanian laws, beautiful Russian verses constructed in Alexandrian hexameter? And the translation of the Nomocanon begins exactly like this: “Like burning stars, the apples of a mysterious night, The canons of (Christ's) glorious Apostles arose to life And the gracious Fathers of prophecy, full of glory. So the travelers of the sky shone, knowing no wanderings, The whole cathedral on the small plains is shedding rays.... The learned translator, of course, was not obliged to put any effort into maintaining in his translation even the metrical accuracy of the speech of the original, and if he did this, then, of course, he did what was superfluous. In the interests of legal science, of course, the accuracy and clarity of the translation of a legal monument is in the foreground. These qualities really distinguish Mr. Narbekov’s entire translation, from beginning to end. This required enormous and skillful work. Wanting to be accurate, the author should, as far as possible, maintain literal proximity to the original; and he indeed gave such a literal translation, but in fulfilling this task the author was in danger of being dark and unintelligible. The author avoided this danger with the help of his learned commentaries which dot the lower pages of his book. In the comments, artificial legal terms and phrases of the monument found a detailed explanation for everything found in the text. The author used both special legal dictionaries and courses and monographs on Greco-Roman law. With particular pleasure, the reviewer should note here that feature in the author’s comments, although it may have been formed by chance, is that they are compiled almost exclusively based on studies of Greco-Roman law by Russian scientists: in his comments the names most often appear: Bogolepov, Muromtsev, Pobedonostsev, Azarevich, Dydinsky, Matyukov, etc. But the author’s comments also contain other elements; the author carefully notes the variants of the text, then everywhere indicates the corresponding text citations of the Collectio const, eeclesiasticarum - the main source of the Nomocanon, Vasilik, the Syntagma of M. Vlastar and other monuments of Byzantine law: finally - and what is especially important - everywhere he indicates parallels of Vasilik’s quotations from the scholia of Balsamon and the Heimbach edition. At the end of the book, in the appendices, the author presents indexes of the primary sources of the Nomocanon, namely Justinian's institutions, the digest, the codex and short stories of Justinian and the primary sources of the scholia of Balsamon, the short stories of the Byzantine emperors of the later Justinian and the decrees of the Patriarchs of Constantinople and their synods. In short, the second part of Mr. Narbekov’s work is, in the strict sense, a scientifically commented edition of the Nomocanon of Photius in Russian translation, made with the assistance of mainly Russian Byzantine scholars. And I must admit that I have never found such a scientifically fully commented edition of the Nomocanon of Photius in foreign literature. Thus, the scientific work of Mr. Narbekov represents in the proper sense a national gift or contribution to the field of Byzantine studies. In the near future, Mr. Narbekov’s work will find application among zealous readers among those involved in the study of the canon law of the Orthodox Church; and we dare to assure the venerable professor that his present work will evoke the most sincere feeling of gratitude for facilitating the use of a monument hitherto “darkened by the cloud of wisdom” of the medieval Byzantine language. In the preface to the second part, the modest author says: “We cannot help but admit that in our translation there are inaccuracies and roughnesses, there may even be errors” (p. IX). We completely agree with the venerable author and already in a short time of using his translation we managed to come across some of the properties of his translation mentioned by him. For example, the author is unstable in translating words Βασιλευς, which he translates either with the word “King” or “Emperor.” The word αποδημια (Tit VIII) he translates with the word “journey”; it would be better to translate the word “absence.” The word “πειρανη” is translated by the phrase “if he dares”, it should be translated: “if he makes an attempt.” The term privilegium is replaced everywhere by Russian: “privilegia:” why on earth has an extra l grown here? On page 471 he categorically states: “The word: “Tom” (Τομος) in Russian actually means - decision." We are quite sure that Mr. Narbekov I’m quite convinced that tom actually means part in Russian, but we don’t know why he wrote something wrong. But, of course, these are such little things that are not capable of misleading the ignorant reader: and the knowledgeable one will only provide a reason for some initiative in the direction of the venerable author. You might be interested in: