Saints Constantine and Methodius - Slavic apostles

Experience their complete life story On the 1100th anniversary of the repose of St. Methodius, Archbishop of Moravia The life and exploits of Saints Cyril and Methodius are an inexhaustible source for research thought. Russian literature dedicated to the holy First Teachers is extensive, 1 but there are not so many complete scientific biographies of them. In addition to the work of E.E. Golubinsky, we point out the fundamental research of professor of the Kyiv Theological Academy A.D. Voronov “Cyril and Methodius. The most important sources for the history of Saints Cyril and Methodius" (Kyiv, 1877), the continuation - "Saints Cyril and Methodius - Slavic First Teachers" (Kyiv, 1886) and the work of professor of the same Academy I.I. Malyshevsky “Saints Cyril and Methodius, Slavic First Teachers” (Kiev, 1886). The proposed study by E. E. Golubinsky was prepared for 1868 - the thousandth anniversary of the blessed death of St. Cyril. This study occupies a special place among those named - it is unique, since it is the very first attempt in Russian literature to describe a detailed biography of the holy First Teachers. Offering readers the work of E.E. Golubinsky, let us not lose sight of the fact that in Russia they first became acquainted with the scientific biography of Saints Cyril and Methodius in 1825: P.I. Koeppen, on the pages of his journal “Bibliographical Sheets,” published in Russian translation excerpts from the study of Abbot J. Dobrovsky “Cyril and Methodius - Slovenian Teachers” 2. However, the matter was not without misunderstandings. Well-known trustee of the Kazan educational district M.L. Magnitsky accused the publisher of not having the authority to publish excerpts from the work of Abbot J. Dobrovsky, based on Western legends about the holy First Teachers, which are different from the Church Slavonic chetiy-minain lives. The appointed church court, headed by Metropolitan Seraphim of St. Petersburg, recognized the argument of P.I. Köppen’s statement that J. Dobrovsky could not use the Chetiimi-Mineami was “satisfactory” and acquitted the publisher 3 . In the same year, Moscow University professor M.P. Pogodin published the work of Abbot J. Dobrovsky, completely translated into Russian. Let us note that our scientists did not immediately pay attention to the Chetiy-Minean Lives of Saints Cyril and Methodius; they were underestimated even by such an expert on Russian antiquities as Count N.P. Rumyantsev 4. The first to pay due attention to the Church Slavonic lives of Saints Cyril and Methodius in 1843 was Archpriest A.V. Gorsky. His famous article “On Saints Cyril and Methodius” 5 is a discovery of enormous significance. Briefly outlining the works and exploits of the Slavic First Teachers, Archpriest A.V. Gorsky reinforces the story of his life with historical news and chronicles; Thus, the venerable author proves the modernity of the Church Slavonic lives of Saints Cyril and Methodius, and therefore their importance among the sources concerning the exploits of the holy First Teachers. The article by Archpriest A.V. Gorsky offers a very specific plan and method for studying an invaluable treasure - the Church Slavonic Lives of Saints Cyril and Methodius. HER. Golubinsky is a student of Archpriest A.V. Gorsky. The spiritual focus of the teacher, the system he developed for studying the Church Slavonic lives of the holy First Teachers, was transferred into the work of a young bachelor of the Moscow Theological Academy, a gifted academician in the future. With what spiritual joy Ε.Ε worked. Golubinsky over his work, as can be seen from the lines of his letter to I.I. Sreznevsky: “As for the need for such a complete biography of the First Teachers, then, in my sincere and firm conviction, they belong to that highest category of our Slavic great people, of whom we certainly must and are obliged to have a complete biography, i.e. I want to say that they belong to this kind of our great people, that we are obliged to know not only the deeds they did for us, but for the sake of these latter, because of their greatest meaning and importance, and their whole life in general” 6. Work Ε.Ε. Golubinsky consists of two extensive parts: “The experience of a complete biography of saints Constantine and Methodius” and “A review of sources and ancient legends.” The first part offered to readers is based on the method of historical criticism of the source. The main idea of ​​Ε.Ε. Golubinsky is as follows. All sources concerning the works of the holy First Teachers are divided into Church Slavonic, Greek and Western. The Church Slavonic Lives are more detailed and are supported by historical evidence to a greater extent, which means they are the main ones, the rest are at best secondary or completely false. Church Slavonic, or so-called Pannonian, lives for E.E. Golubinsky are a kind of measure by which all other legends are tested, thus, if the Greek Life of St. Clement of Ohrid differs from the Church Slavonic lives of Saints Cyril and Methodius, then it is false. But such historical criticism is subjective. We must pay tribute to E.E. Golubinsky, he doesn’t hide it. In a review of the essay by Professor A.D. Voronov he writes: “...Everyone knows that criticism of the legends about Constantine and Methodius is something unique. Here the matter is primarily based not on direct and positive data, which are lacking, but on each researcher’s own considerations. But considerations are a very subjective thing: quite convincing for one, not the least convincing for another” 7 . The subjective method in research is not at all rationalism in church history, as it was assigned to Golubinsky after the speech at his doctoral defense of “History of the Russian Church” by professor of the Moscow Theological Academy N.I. Saturday 8. Ε.Ε. Golubinsky in his work defends Church Slavonic evidence vividly, originally, convincingly, but we still have to say about a kind of extreme in his thought. For example, as I.I. noted. Sreznevsky in a review of the work of E.E. Golubinsky, the author considers the testimony of the Life of St. Clement, Bishop of Ohrid, false, and “neither in himself nor in the reader does he want to allow any possibility of defending the testimony of the Life of Bishop Clement as important or, at least, unintentionally incorrect. He searches and, of course, finds evidence against the Life.” A similar approach to resolving this issue, according to I.I. Sreznevsky, “cannot help but harm the cause” 9. However, this drawback did not prevent I.I. Sreznevsky concludes that Golubinsky’s work is “a very remarkable phenomenon, like the work of a person who is well acquainted with the work and is passionate about it, complete work in its own way, embracing the entire range of the chosen task, as work that challenges others to similar work” 10. For research on Saints Cyril and Methodius E.E. Golubinsky was awarded the full Uvarov Prize by the Academy of Sciences. But to this day the work of Ε.Ε. Golubinsky was not published. This fact was repeatedly mentioned with regret by the famous Slavic philologist Academician I.V. Yagich 11. His point of view on the works and exploits of the holy First Teachers E.E. Golubinsky has repeatedly expressed this in reviews of studies that have appeared in print. For his review of I. Platonov’s essay “The Life and Deeds of the First Teachers of the Slavs, Saints Cyril and Methodius” 12 in 1868, Golubinsky was awarded a gold medal by the Academy of Sciences. In a positive review of the work of A.D. Voronov “Cyril and Methodius. The main sources for the history of Saints Cyril and Methodius”, presented for the Uvarov Prize, Golubinsky once again emphasized that Church Slavonic lives are reliable and belong to “the contemporaries and disciples of Saints Cyril and Methodius” 13. The remarks of E.E. deserve the closest attention. Golubinsky 14 for the research of Academician V.I. Lamansky “The Slavic Life of St. Cyril as a religious-epic work and as a historical source” 15. V.I. Lamansky is a Slavophile, his idea is that Rus' was baptized not during the time of Prince Vladimir, but much earlier - by Saints Cyril and Methodius during their so-called Khazar mission, and therefore, the Holy Scripture was translated by them not during the Moravian journey (this fact is considered by V.I. Lamansky to be a fable), but at the time of the “mission of the holy First Teachers to Rus'” (according to Lamansky). For a Russian person, such an idea is tempting, and that’s all. Lamansky is trying with all his might to impose this idea on the reader. For him, Church Slavonic Lives are no longer an authority, because they say the opposite of his idea. Essay by V.I. Lamansky is paradoxical: what is not characteristic of the Slavophile way of thinking becomes the most desirable for him. What does Lamansky defend and what does he base his research on? On the “Vita cum translationes S. Clementis” - the so-called “Italian Legend” 16, which in some vague hint speaks of the preparation of a translation of the Holy Scriptures by Saints Cyril and Methodius, supposedly for the Khazar mission. Oddly enough, Lamansky himself is surprised by this uncertainty of the “Italian Legend” 17, but he wants to believe it with all his might. The fact that the “Italian Legend” was compiled in the 13th–14th centuries was proven at one time by P.A. Lavrovsky in the article “Italian Legend” 18 regarding the work of the Jesuit Martynov “La legende italique des S. S. Cyrille et Methode” 19. And V.I.’s choice was completely unfortunate. Lamansky found at the beginning of the 18th century. by the Benedictine Anselm Bandurius, “The Greek Legend of the Baptism of Russia” 20, where, not to mention a more private confusion of events, Saint Methodius is called Athanasius. All the misconceptions of V.I. Lamansky are broken by E.E. Golubinsky with his characteristic merciless delicacy. In any case, reading Golubinsky’s remarks, you come to the conviction that Lamansky is building his “historical building” out of sand. It is not possible to cite in the preface all the objections of E.E. Golubinsky - they are given by us only in a general form. To summarize, what can be said about the views of academician E.E. Golubinsky on the works and exploits of the holy First Teachers? Most definitely, these are the views of the Orthodox Church historian. At the doctoral disputation E.E. Golubinsky uttered wonderful words regarding the comments of his opponent Professor N.I. Subbotina: “I only prepared the work for future historians; I am one of the workers who will be followed by many others. I don't consider my book to be real history; there is no real story" 21 . This statement could serve as an epigraph to the study “Constantine and Methodius - the Slavic Apostles.” Research by E.E. Golubinsky is published with abbreviations from the manuscript of the Central State Historical Archive of the USSR (TSHIA), f. 1628, op. 1, d. 160. Notes to the text are given in the new edition. Archpriest Vladimir Sorokin, professor of the Leningrad Theological Academy, took part in preparing the text for publication. Saints Constantine and Methodius - Slavic apostles The fatherland of Constantine and Methodius was the Macedonian region of the Byzantine Empire, namely: the main city of the region was the famous Thessalonica, or Thessalonica. As for their origin, then, in our language, they belonged to the highest Byzantine nobility; their patrician family was one of the most noble and wealthy local Thessalonica families, so it was well known not only throughout its own province or province, but also in the capital, at the court of the emperor 22. The name of the father of Constantine and Methodius was Leo 23. He served in the army and was a drungarian, in our opinion, the head of a regiment, in the corps of troops of the Solunsky military district. Of all the children born to him, there were seven. Between our two brothers, the eldest was Methodius. Therefore, we will begin with the transfer of biographical information. It is unknown who Methodius was among all the children of Drungaria Leo. The year of his birth is also unknown; we could determine this last one if we knew how much older Methodius was than Constantine, but this is not said anywhere; approximately the year of his birth must be placed in the second decade of the 9th century. From the biographer we find some information about his childhood. When he began to grow up, he turned out to be one of those children who make his parents happy and proud: he turned out to be a young man with a beautiful appearance, a strong and healthy body, a lively character, and a sharp and at the same time serious mind. The soldier father and his son intended for military service; and therefore, there is no doubt, he sincerely rejoiced when he saw that the young man’s strong build and flourishing health promised him to be a good warrior. But Methodius should please his father even more with his spiritual abilities: he was so happily endowed with them and they began to appear in him so early that from the circle of elders who gathered in his father’s house, as a child he received the right to be a listener to their important speeches, and when he became a youth, he became their worthy interlocutor. Methodius's biographer tells us nothing about his teaching and his successes in the sciences. In all likelihood, he was not given any thorough or, in the proper sense, scientific education. He was not sent to Constantinople, and in Thessalonica, as can be seen from the Life of Konstantinov, there was no teacher of any science, therefore, it was possible to learn only reading and writing. The father did not bother to give his son a good education and did not send him to the capital, to the teachers there, no doubt because the military service for which the latter was being prepared did not require too much learning. Methodius subsequently made up for this lack of school education by diligently reading books. Constantly surrounded by generals and officers in his father’s house, Methodius, despite his excellent natural mind, of course, thought very little about books and dreamed with all passion about the delights of the military craft: did he know who he would be later? Methodius, in all likelihood, was sent to military service at a very early age. The father-general dressed his son in soldier's clothes and little by little began to accustom him to the military article, perhaps the last one had just come out of childhood. Methodius served in the lower ranks in an exemplary manner; he was so zealous in fulfilling his duties that, in the words of his panegyrist, “it was as if he had found himself”; As an excellent officer, he was loved by all his superiors. Methodius had to be in military campaigns and battles, and he showed experiments of the most undoubted courage 24. But he did not have to stay long in the subalterns; in his very young years, he was appointed by the emperor to a very important position, namely: the prince or governor of the Slavs, that is, the military and civil commanders of one region inhabited by the Slavs. What the Slavic region should mean is not indicated anywhere, but, in all likelihood, it was the region of the Thracian-Macedonian Slavs adjacent to the east of the city of Thessaloniki, who lived along the rivers Strymon (in Slavic Strum, now Karasu-Strimon) and Runkhin (which flowed into the Strymon or flowed not far from it and is unknown at the present time) and were called Strymonian and Runkhian 25. It may very well be that such a rapid rise of Methodius was partly facilitated by the rank and connections of his father, if only the latter was still alive at that time (for obtaining the position of governor of Strymon, the recommendation of the strategist or governor-general of Thessaloniki, under whose command Methodius’ father served, meant a lot); but at the same time there is no doubt that he mainly owed this to himself, to his own excellent qualities. The post to which he was appointed could not be occupied by some untalented, noble young man, and if Methodius had been one of the latter, then an honorary position of a completely different kind would have been chosen for him. Methodius's biographer says that the emperor appointed him to the Slavic governorship, recognizing his "quickness." What is meant by “speed”: whether it is quickness of mind or courage, is not clear. But in any case, the head of the Slavic region, firstly, had to have the abilities of a good ruler in order to be able to get along with restless people, and secondly, he had to be a good military commander in order to be able to suppress the repeated attempts of uprisings. There is no doubt that Methodius managed to demonstrate himself excellently before the emperor in both respects. When and how it happened, we do not know; It is very possible that he had to carry out his military campaigns under the personal command of the emperor and that it was then that the latter recognized him. The biographer of Methodius adds that the emperor later said: “When appointing Methodius as a Slavic prince, I seemed to foresee that he would be a great teacher of the Slavs and that he needed to learn all their customs.” But later, when Methodius became a teacher of the Slavs, the emperor was different, and not the one under whom he served in secular positions. Methodius spent quite a long time in the Slavic voivodeship, about 8 or 10 years. But fate called his husband, and from a general Methodius became a monk. How and why such a huge revolution occurred in his life, unfortunately, we cannot say anything. The biographer says that he left his reign and became a monk, “he saw many rumors that were disorderly in this life” 26. But what are these “many rumors”: is it commonplace in such cases or does it have any specific meaning? It could be that Methodius was called to monasticism by his natural inclinations, which in his youth, due to the special everyday situation, were drowned out by other dreams and thoughts, but which later, in a more mature age, were expressed with all uncontrollable force. Such transformations of generals into monks at that time were not at all uncommon, and Methodius’s act did not represent a very unusual event. Seeking in the monastery not a calm and warm life, but removal from the world, deprivation and labor, he chose for his stay not one of the rich monasteries of the capital and its environs, but one (unknown by name) of the desert monasteries located on the wooded slopes of Olympus Minor in Asia 27 . Methodius's real name is the one that was given to him when he was tonsured a monk; but what name did he have before he was tonsured? If we knew this last, then perhaps we would have more information about his worldly life. Recently, the former general and ruler of the region began as a simple monastic novice and with his zeal for the labors of his obedience and for the deeds imposed by the vows of monasticism, he soon began to surprise all the brethren of his monastery. Now, by the way, Methodius had time to make up for the lack of initial education, and he devoted all the time free from his direct duties to reading books. Here we have come to the time of the combined activity of both brothers, so we must leave Methodius for now to provide information about the initial life of Constantine. With children like Methodius, Drungari Leo has long been the happiest father. But in the seventh and last of his sons, our Constantine, God honored his old age with a new great happiness: this last son of his, the future great man, grew up as an extraordinary child. From the day he was born, he made his parents expect something special from himself. To feed the newborn, the mother took a nurse; but the child resolutely did not want to take someone else's breast, so the mother finally had to feed him herself. Of course, there was nothing miraculous or supernatural in this, but the love of parents firmly and hastily believes; the case was very rare, and this was already enough for father and mother to see in it a mysterious happy omen and indulge in the most joyful hopes. It could very well have happened that hopes and expectations would have been in vain and the strange event would later be remembered with bitterness, as an empty accident, or simply consigned to oblivion, but Konstantin’s father and mother were so happy that the sign created by the parent’s imagination turned out to be a true sign. But we still haven’t said anything about the parents of Constantine and Methodius themselves, what kind of people they were, that is, whether they were worthy of their family happiness. If a demanding reader wants to know how lofty the convictions of Drungari Leo were, how deep his moral principles are, that is, in general wants to know in detail the complete person in him, and not one or two external, often very deceptive features, then his desires are too immoderate. The ancient biographers of saints did not go so far, and from them one can look for an answer to only one question: was the famous person pious or not pious. In the Life of Constantine we find the same as in other lives; about his father it is said: “He was faithful and righteous, keeping all the commandments of God” 28. Based on these words alone, which are too vague and, in this case, too common to the lives of people, we, of course, could not say anything positive about the Drungarian Leo. We could say: maybe it really is so, maybe not, but in general it’s completely unknown. But, in addition to the general review, we find in the Life of Constantine some specific indications of the character of his parents; namely: the biographer says that Leo and his wife, having given birth to their seventh son, consulted not to return to the marital bed, and until the death of one of them, they lived as brother and sister for fourteen years. Such evidence, of course, does not yet give us the right to assure that Constantine’s parents were the most exalted personalities, but at least we have every reason to think that they were sincerely pious people. Let's return to Konstantin. When he began to grow up, his father and mother, of course, to their greatest joy, saw that the special expectations that he aroused in them while still in the cradle were not in vain: in his fifth or sixth year he showed extraordinary mental abilities. Konstantin's biographer lets us know this by telling an incident from his childhood life. In the eighth year, Constantine had a dream: it seemed to him that the general of Thessaloniki had gathered all the maidens of his city to himself and ordered him - Constantine - to choose a bride from among them, and he chose the one who was the most beautiful in face and most elegantly dressed; The chosen girl's name was Sophia. How Constantine had such a dream is not very difficult to explain: the strategus and the drungaria were people, of course, very close to each other; So someday at a family gathering they dreamed and wondered about the future of their children, and the first, jokingly or seriously, said something like that to their father or to Konstantin himself; the speeches heard could have been dreamed by the child. But that’s not the point, it’s how Konstantin’s father and mother interpreted the dream when he was the last to tell it. The story turned their thoughts not at all to what should have been expected, that is, not to dreams about the actual future brides of their son, but about a bride of a special kind. In the dream, their attention focused on the fact that the bride’s name was Sophia, and they understood the matter in such a way that the dream prophesies about the future spiritual marriage of their son with wisdom (the Greek “Sophia” in Russian means “wisdom”). With this last name, the dream, which at first made the parents laugh, suddenly took on a serious meaning in their eyes: the wise child saw in a dream a bride whose name means “wisdom,” and they immediately thought: indeed, our son, you have seen your true bride. Instructing his son about the dream, which was accepted as a sign from above, the father told him: “Son, keep the law of your father and do not turn away the punishment of your mother; The kings of wisdom: be my sister, and create wisdom for the one you know: for wisdom shines brighter than the sun, and if you have a ghost as a friend, you will get rid of a lot of evil with it” 29 . Some readers may begin to explain the matter to themselves in a simpler way than ours, that is, they will prefer to see a later fiction in the story of a dream. But such skepticism in this case, that is, regarding the Life of Konstantinov, which serves as our source, is completely unfounded. Other details that the Life tells about the childhood and youth of Constantine and which we have not the slightest reason to suspect, most certainly convince us that the author of the Life received his information about the first period of Constantine’s life, which was not directly known to him, from none other than Methodius. Methodius's entire behavior towards Constantine clearly shows that he deeply revered his great brother; and therefore there is no doubt that during his life, and especially after the death of his brother, he often told the students they both had in common about those years of Constantine’s life that were unknown to the latter; after the death of Constantine, this memory of him should have served as the best relief for Methodius from the feeling of great loss. Dwelling on the time of Konstantinov’s childhood, Methodius, as it goes without saying, carefully recalled and spoke with pleasure about those events that prophesied to the family that its youngest member would be an extraordinary person; but for him to want to fill out the story of Konstantinov’s childhood from his own imagination is absolutely in no way conceivable. In the eighth or ninth year, Konstantin was sent to school to study the elementary sciences, that is, reading and writing, the rudiments of Christian doctrine, etc. This first experience of teaching showed that Konstantin’s father and mother were not deceived or seduced when they found extraordinary abilities in him: he learned so quickly what he was taught, and was so ahead of his comrades that he brought everyone to the greatest surprise and seemed like a miracle among his peers and a phenomenon; The future excellent linguist, by the way, was distinguished by his extraordinary memory. Having learned to read and write, Konstantin, with all the fervor of children thirsting for knowledge, devoted himself to reading books. Children, like adults, have their favorite authors. Constantine's favorite author was Gregory the Theologian; He captivated our young scribe to such an extent that the latter learned passages from it by heart and, in his childish delight, wrote a small panegyric for him on the wall of his room. We believe that Constantine began his acquaintance with the works of Gregory the Theologian from a collection of his poems. This section of Gregory’s works, more than others, is accessible to children’s understanding and should have been more in line with children’s taste, and the fact that Constantine memorized passages from it also, of course, most of all points to poetic works. Those who have read the poems of Gregory the Theologian know that this is nothing more than the outpouring of a soul constantly disappointed by life. <…> In such cases, the love of a quiet contemplative life far from the human anthill, the idea that the earthly concerns of people are vanity of vanities, awaken in him with all the strength and liveliness and therefore serve as the main motives of the poems with which he consoled his sorrowful soul. We say all this to the fact that, in our opinion, Gregory was Constantine’s favorite author not due to some simple accident. The child, of course, was not disappointed in life and did not lose faith in people, but his natural inclinations were in some respects completely in harmony with the mood of the poet. Little inclined to live in the noisy company of his comrades and to live with its joys and sorrows, finding the greatest pleasure in spending his time alone with himself, Constantine had to treat with all the sympathy of his childish heart the speeches of that author who pleases quiet solitude, calls the reader to seek happiness in the desert in the company of his thoughts and nature, and this author was to become his favorite author. The more Konstantin grew up, the more decisively his inclinations as a future lover of ascetic and scholarly seclusion became evident. One day, Konstantin, along with other children of the Thessalonica nobility, went hawk hunting. But instead of the pleasures he was expecting, the hunt ended in misfortune for him: when he lowered his hawk, a terrible wind rose and knocked the bird off the circle and drove it so far that it never returned to its owner. This adventure, as is understandable, plunged Konstantin into terrible grief; he did not sit down at the table for two days and did not want to eat anything. Further, one would expect that the father would buy or give his son a new bird, the latter would be comforted, and everything would go on as before. But for our hero, with his well-known inclinations, this incident did not remain without a trace; on the contrary, it served as one of the accelerating impetuses for the final formation of his natural inclinations in him: when the grief passed, Konstantin, who had previously felt little attraction to the games and amusements of his peers, after the described incident suddenly felt completely cold towards them, leaving the house less and less, but becoming more and more addicted to his books. When Konstantin was fourteen years old, misfortune befell his family, namely, his father died. Lev's older children were all grown up and settled; as a real orphan, he left one, the youngest son, in the arms of his wife; but nevertheless, the death of her husband was an extremely grave grief for the latter, as for her mother. The youngest son was the most beloved child of his parents; his abilities and character forced them to think in the most joyful way about his future - and suddenly his child had to be left without paternal support to the mercy of fate and his own happiness. Forgetting herself, the wife of her dying husband cried inconsolably over her orphaned son. “I will endure everything,” she said, “but our child, how will it be arranged?” It was, of course, hard for a father to leave his son in the female care of his mother; but the dying man was strongly encouraged by precisely what especially brought tears to those who remained alive: the mother cried over the fact that without a father, the son’s wonderful gifts would never be lost, that God gave him talents, but did not give him happiness; the father hoped that with his wonderful gifts his son would become a man without his father’s support and help, he told his wife: “If God so generously endowed our son with His gifts, then in the future He will not abandon him with His mercy - believe me, God will be his father and trustee.” The future, indeed, justified the father's hopes and dried the mother's tears. Let's return to Konstantin's book studies. We said that his favorite author was Gregory the Theologian. Everything went well while our young man read and memorized poems and other, easier works of this writer (in all likelihood, on the instructions and under the guidance of his father), but when he, having re-read all the easier ones, moved on to such works, the main content of which is difficult theological and dogmatic truths, in which the author argues in scientific syllogisms and in which, finally, the speech often concerns historical facts, subjects of natural history, pagan mythology, etc., in general to such works, the reading of which requires not a child’s mind, but a scientific education, he had to suddenly stop: he was not able to understand his favorite author. Seeing himself in such a hopeless situation, the young man created for books fell into deep despondency. Finally, to his great joy, he learned that there was a way to help his trouble and in general to achieve the ability to understand everything sophisticated in books, this means was to learn the sciences. Konstantin passionately wanted to study; but... the grief was to become even more bitter for him when, having learned about the existence of sciences, he at the same time had to see that they were inaccessible to him: in Thessaloniki there were no teachers who could teach the sciences. Not every woman understands how one can be killed by sadness from the inability to study science, and therefore it is very likely that Konstantin’s mother could not enter into his position enough to fully sympathize with him in his grief; but she passionately loved her brainchild, and this was enough for her to do everything she could to satisfy it. There was not a single one among the Thessalonica teachers who knew science, but they decided to try their luck - to see if there was any simply educated person who would agree to give lessons to the young man. The attempt was indeed a success, but as if in order to arouse in Konstantin a passion for learning to the very last degree. Happiness only teased him. The teacher was found. It was some kind of expert in grammar, that is, verbal sciences, visiting Thessaloniki; but he turned out to be one of those who do not want to share their learning with anyone. Whether this was a man who was decidedly disgusted with teaching due to previous experiences of some outrageous ingratitude on the part of his students, etc., whether he came with a sick mind to the conviction of the uselessness or harm of science, whether he was obsessed with misanthropy, or simply infected with awkward eccentricity, whatever all this may be, only to all the ardent requests and entreaties of the young man did he resolutely answer: “Boy, don’t bother: he renounced.” There is no way to teach this to anyone in my days” 30. Constantine offered him (of course, with the consent of his mother and guardians) from his part of his father's inheritance the most generous payment for teaching that he wished, but the stubborn owner of knowledge did not succumb to this either. Thus, our hero had to experience a state of painful uncertainty for some time: will he find teachers for himself? This time, after bitter disappointment, the most complete satisfaction he could wish for awaited him. Constantine's elder brother Methodius served in military service; There, of course, Leo’s other eldest sons also served after their father, if there were any. Thus, according to the general family example, military service was the natural path to everyday happiness for Konstantin. At his age, his older brothers, if not yet in active service, were at least already registered in the regiments; but the last in the family was not destined to become its last representative in the clan public field. The inclinations and character of the young man, which were completely clearly identified, were so decisively against military service that his mother and all relatives, with or without regret, had to abandon any thought about it: the young man, who did not at all look like a warrior, passionately wanted to study and did not want to hear about anything else. Thus, the thoughts and concerns of the mother and relatives, willy-nilly or not, had to follow the thoughts of Constantine himself towards schools and teachers. On this last road, after several sad failures, as we said, happiness suddenly turned its whole face towards them. Precisely, not having found teachers for himself in Thessalonica, Constantine suddenly got the opportunity to listen to science at the Constantinople Palace School from the best professors in Greece: he was taken in by State Chancellor Theoktistus, one of the guardians of the 31 then-young Emperor Michael III, so that he could study with the latter. How it happened that Constantine got into the palace is unknown; his biographer says that the imperial guardian sent for him to study with the king, having heard about his beauty, wisdom and diligent teaching. The widow of Drungaria Leo had acquaintances among the courtiers and was herself known at court by her husband, therefore, she had the opportunity to lobby for her son to be admitted to the palace school. And the latter’s orphanhood gave him preferential rights to government education over others; This is how Constantine could have the good fortune of being allowed to listen to the court teachers. The rest, in all likelihood, he actually owed to himself 32 . With his excellent abilities, his ardent passion for learning, his excellent disposition and, in conclusion, his graceful appearance, Constantine could stand out sharply among his comrades and, having attracted general attention in the palace, finally become known to the imperial guardian. Having recognized the young man from the best side, the guardian could take him in to bring him into contact with the young emperor. Constantine was far from being the same age as the emperor; on the contrary, he was 12 years older than him, so when he was taken to the latter, he was about 17 or 18 years old, and the other was about 4 or 5 years old. From this it is self-evident that he could not be assigned to the emperor in order to study with him. Of course, he was made under the emperor something like the main trusted servant or page and, perhaps, also had to take lessons in the elementary science of reading with the latter as a tutor or tutor. It was fortunate for Constantine that he did not have to enjoy the enviable position of being close to the emperor for very long; otherwise, he would have to be an unwitting spectator of the most vile scenes and deeds: it is known that Michael III, as soon as he emerged from childhood, showed himself to be an outrageously immoral person to the last degree. The circle of education at that time consisted of the so-called seven liberal arts, namely: grammar, rhetoric and dialectics, under the name trivium, which served as subjects of study in the lower classes, and arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy, under the name quatrivium, which represented the course of the upper classes. He completed grammar, with which, as usual, the teaching of Constantine began, in just three months. Such rapid successes, on the one hand, show the passion with which Konstantin began to study, on the other hand, they are explained by his special ability and inclination for linguistics: subsequently, as we will see, he studied several foreign languages ​​with extraordinary ease and undertook philological work. After grammar, Konstantin gradually listened to all other sciences. Among his mentors were two famous people: the first of them was Leo the Philosopher, a man who in his time surprised not only his compatriots, but also foreigners with his extensive and deep learning, and was famous especially as an excellent expert in mathematics, astronomy and mechanics; the second was Photius, later the Patriarch of Constantinople, whose learning, as we know, is still admired to this day; Photius was a very important state dignitary, but, despite this, he not only did not consider the profession of a teacher humiliating for himself, but, on the contrary, in the fact that he saw himself surrounded by crowds of young men with whom he could share his multifaceted and deep information, that is, in the fact that he could be a teacher, he believed his greatest happiness. The time of Konstantinova’s young life was the time of the last litigation of iconoclasm and icon veneration. Since the majority of educated people of that time were generally against icons, one of the mentors of Constantine we named, namely Leo, also belonged to the enemies of icon veneration. The teacher's way of thinking, as we will see, in this regard had no influence on the student's mind. As for another of the mentors, Photius, he soon honored Constantine with the most sincere friendship. The successes of our young man in the sciences in general were the most brilliant, but after philology, his especially favorite science was philosophy, so that his later nickname as a philosopher, in all likelihood, dates back to his school days and was first given to him by his mentors and comrades. Konstantin was famous among his comrades as an excellent expert in philosophy, and his teacher was curious to find out what kind of philosopher was within the walls of his house. “Come on, philosopher,” he once asked Konstantin, “tell me what philosophy is.” A great state dignitary could not have the time or desire to think much about philosophy, and the question was proposed, of course, with no other purpose than simply out of curiosity to see what the young man, whom everyone calls a philosopher, would say. But Konstantin unexpectedly captivated the examiner with his speech to such an extent that he actually wanted to get to know philosophy better. After the question, proposed as a joke, Constantine had a number of serious philosophical conversations with him and, finally, at his request, wrote him a condensed summary of the said science 33. The teacher honored the young man, capable of arousing interest in science in the elderly, to such an extent that he began to have him as his constant adviser in everything. The time for teaching quickly passed, and at the same time the moment was approaching faster and faster when Constantine had to leave the house of his benefactor. But the thought of separation from the young man dear to him was extremely difficult for the latter, and he decided to tie him to himself by ties of kinship. Having no daughters of his own, he wanted to marry his goddaughter to him. Having come up with such a plan, she turned to Konstantin with a proposal: “You made me love you deeply; I have a girl whom I perceived from the font, she is beautiful, with a very rich dowry and from the most noble family - marry her; As for your position, I undertake to arrange it in the best possible way: with my efforts, in five or six years they will make you a strategist.” Konstantin's teacher, perhaps, did not have not only daughters, but also sons, that is, he was a completely childless person; in this case, it was especially important for him that the young man agreed to his proposal, because through marriage with his goddaughter, he, without a doubt, wanted to acquire a son in him. It was very difficult for him to expect that his dreams of forever keeping his pupil with him as a real member of his family could somehow be destroyed. The conditions of the proposed marriage were so brilliant that anyone would be dizzy with happiness. If it was possible, by one’s own choice, to find an equally good and profitable bride, then only the imperial guardian could offer such a career with the hand of a bride; the rank of strategist corresponded to the rank of full general and gave the position of military and civil commander of the province, that is, in our current opinion, governor-general; Konstantin was offered this title some five or six years after leaving school, while his father could not achieve it throughout his entire life. But the future apostle of the Slavs had other dreams and thoughts; his calling was to serve society on a path other than that which was opened before him, and the calling was so strong in him that he was not able to change it, not because of any temptations or benefits. Constantine was one of those people who feel an irresistible need to devote themselves exclusively to the inner life of thought, to devote themselves undividedly to books and knowledge and who, being completely alien to all everyday calculations and views, have a decisive aversion to any obligations of external life, since these latter, one way or another, could require much or little both care and time. So, no matter how brilliant the proposal was, Constantine firmly refused what he did not find any inner calling in himself; Having sincerely thanked his benefactor, he answered him: “What you offer would be too great a gift and happiness for me if I had other inclinations, but my fate is different - for me there is nothing more expensive than teaching, and I absolutely do not want to oblige myself with anything; there,” he added, hinting at the wealth that he voluntarily let go of, “when I gather my mind through teaching, I will look for the wealth of our great-grandfather,” that is, the wealth of Adam, left in paradise. Thus did Constantine put an end to ambition and worldly aspirations, destroying the dreams of his teacher; He accomplished his famous feat of self-control when he was 22 or 23 years old. Upon leaving school, he, of course, expected to settle somewhere in solitude in order to lead a lifestyle in accordance with his inclinations and indulge in his favorite activities with complete freedom. But the people whom he made to love him, one way or another, still did not want to part with him; his teacher went to the palace and said to the empress, the mother of the young emperor: “My young philosopher does not like life, but at least we will not let him go from us: we will make him a priest and make him the patriarchal librarian in St. Sophia.” If there was anything that could be done to keep Konstantin, then, of course, it was to offer him a similar position: he himself strove with all passion for books, and only for books and studying them. And indeed, this time the teacher’s calculations turned out to be completely correct: seeing the opportunity to become the owner of such book treasures as the patriarchal library, Constantine abandoned the idea of ​​solitude and agreed to stay in the capital; Before entering his position, as it was decided, he was ordained a priest as a single man. It would be expected that Constantine would remain for a very long time in a place that was so consistent with his character; but it turned out differently: whether along with the position of librarian they imposed on him many other and completely different kinds of duties, or was it something else, there is no doubt that, having been assigned to books, he was deprived of the opportunity to deal with them, and Constantine secretly disappeared from the capital. For six months, all the searches for him undertaken by his former teacher were in vain. Finally, they opened it in one of the monasteries located on the coast of the Sea of ​​Marmara, and again returned it to the capital. But Konstantin never wanted to take over his previous position; since they did not want to let him into his former solitude, he agreed to read philosophy at the school where he himself had recently studied. “I begged and,” says the biographer, “the teaching table to receive and teach both the foreigner and the foreigner” 34. By strange or foreign, in all likelihood, one should mean the baptized Macedonian Slavs, among whom knowledge of the Greek language was as widespread as knowledge of the Slavic language among the Thessalonica Greeks; the biographer, perhaps, it was from this time that he became a student of Constantine and, perhaps, that is precisely why he made his remark about the strange. Actually, we know nothing about Constantine’s educational activities, but from this time of his life we ​​know two cases: a debate about icons with the former Patriarch of Constantinople John and a trip for a theological dispute to the Saracens. John, or, as the Orthodox reproachfully called him, Annius, who was nicknamed a grammarian due to his occupation, was a famous scientist of his time, but, together with the majority of educated people of that time, he belonged to the opponents of icon veneration. He was the mentor of Emperor Theophilus, and the latter mainly owed his hatred of icons to him. His former student elevated him to patriarchy upon his accession to the throne; he was deposed and sent to prison shortly after the death of Theophilus during the restoration of icon veneration. Although the majority of society had long been accustomed to changing dogmas according to the instructions of the government and accepted icons when, after the death of Theophilus, their veneration was proclaimed, the party of iconoclasts still remained very significant; the patriarch driven from the throne, as a matter of course, was its head. A hater of icons to the point of savage fanaticism due to his convictions (while in exile, he ordered the eyes of one icon to be gouged out), their most fierce enemy, especially after he lost the throne because of them, John should have greatly embarrassed the Orthodox, because he enjoyed the authority of an extremely intelligent and extremely learned man. Opponents of icon veneration, pointing to their leader, could say that they should not be called blind, led by a blind man; many of those who returned to Orthodoxy could again fall back to their previous opinions, seeing that such a person as the former patriarch not only does not want to accept icons, but advocates against them with all kinds of bitterness. The veneration of icons was restored by the Council precisely after the Orthodox managed to defeat their opponents in the debates that took place there; but since John was not admitted to this Council, he claimed that they had deposed him from the throne and restored the veneration of icons through simple violence, that if he had been allowed to speak, no one would have been able to defeat him. Therefore, for the imperial government in the person of the Empress Mother, who zealously sought to suppress iconoclasm, it was very important and desirable to defeat the opponents in their very dangerous leader, destroying the charm of the name of Patriarch John and blocking his lips. It was decided to arrange a public debate with him, and our Constantine was chosen as an opponent to the iconoclast. Why did the choice fall on Konstantin? All the then few representatives of learning, among whom John was supposed to look for an opponent, were gathered in the court school; they were: the rector of the school Lev the Philosopher, Theodore, Theodegius, Comsta and our Konstantin. Lev far towered over the other four: these were people either still very young, or in any case just beginning their academic careers; on the contrary, he was a long-recognized scientist with the most brilliant reputation. But the choice could not fall on Leo, because he was John’s own nephew and, if not openly, then at least in his soul, was the same sworn iconoclast as the latter. All that remained was to choose from the remaining four; here the lot fell on the youngest, that is, on Constantine, perhaps because his comrades were not specialists in theology, or, perhaps, because Constantine was really considered the best and most reliable among all of them, and most likely because the other three, like the rector and their former teacher, were not supporters of icon veneration. <.„> What a dangerous opponent Patriarch John was, we said above; thus, if we were absolutely sure that in a debate with him Constantine would not bring shame on his side, then, leaving unresolved the question of his relative position among his comrades in the service, we must conclude that, regardless, we had an extremely high opinion of him. There was a famous scholar outside the court school, secretary of state and senator Photius; why was he not invited to speak out against Patriarch John? Let's turn to the debate itself. The deposed patriarch was very old; Therefore, he too contemptuously and arrogantly received the enemy witness who arrived with a deputation when he saw that the witness was an almost beardless young man. “You don’t even hold a candle to me,” he met Konstantin, “so how can I argue with you?” But our philosopher, being completely confident in himself, was not at all embarrassed or confused by such a puzzling beginning. “Do not adhere to human custom,” he answered the man who was reputed to be a sage, but who did not act like a true sage, giving preference to old age solely for the sake of old age itself, “do not adhere to human custom, but remember God’s commandments: if you look at your gray beard and your old body, then your old body is exactly the same from the earth, and not from another material, like my young one, and looking at earth, there is nothing to be proud of, but my soul is just as much from God as yours.” Without having time to confuse the young man with his first words, the old master of dialectics suddenly turned in the opposite direction. “In autumn,” he told Konstantin, “they don’t look for flowers, and old Nestor is not sent off to war like some young man; “Aren’t you ashamed to demand that I, at my decrepit age, argue with you?” But the young opponent, with his answer, got the better of him here too; he pointed out to him that he was being called to this kind of war, in which old men were more likely to count on victory than young men. As for the disputes related to the very essence of the matter, Constantine’s biographer conveys them too briefly. Firstly, he presents two main and very minor objections on the part of Konstantinov’s opponent, the main significance of which is that they were calculated on the defendant’s lack of resourcefulness. When the latter was easily able to answer them, then, according to the biographer, the objector asked him: “God commanded Moses: do not make for yourself an idol or any likeness; How do you bow to icons? Constantine responded to this: “If it had been said: do not create any likeness for yourself, then you would have the right to refer, but it is said: do not create anything, that is, create only a worthy likeness.” To this last point, the enemy seemed to have nothing to object to and, humiliated, fell silent. It is very possible that the opponent found something to object to, and in any case there is no doubt that the dispute was not at all as brief as it is presented by the biographer; on the other hand, there really cannot be any doubt that Constantine, having forced or not silenced the enemy, remained the winner in the dispute. We might, perhaps, not believe the rather unfounded testimony of the biographer in this case, but this is most undoubtedly indicated by the fact that soon after the dispute we indicated, he was given another assignment of the same kind, incomparably more important and difficult, namely, the assignment to go argue with the Mohammedan theologians. If Constantine had not declared himself in the most brilliant way in the previous debate, such a matter would never have been entrusted to him, where the honor of the people and the people's faith were at issue. We turn to this debate between our philosopher and the Saracens. At first, the followers of Muhammed, like Christians of other times and places, had no idea what the path of rational testing and the power of free conviction were in the matter of religion. Knowing only “strong faith” and therefore limiting the whole matter of their preaching to the simple transmission of the commandments of the Koran through external coercive force, they did not at all think about scientifically contrasting their religion with other religions, as a conscious and proven system of dogmas - with other systems. But, having become acquainted with the Greeks, they soon borrowed enlightenment from the latter, and then the science of dogmatic and polemical theology 35 appeared among them. The Christian religion was, of course, the main one to be subjected to the learned attacks of the Muhammedan theologians: firstly, it was the strongest of all the religions that the followers of the Arabian prophet had to meet on their way; secondly, it was she who wanted to defeat other religions through reasonable, scientific evidence, and it was she who needed to turn the weapons of this evidence against her. And in Syria and Palestine, where Christians fell under the rule of the Muhammedans, the former constantly heard from the latter: will you prove to us how you believe in God, not one, but threefold, how you recognize Jesus as God, born of a woman, why do you bow to icons that are idols, etc.? Not content with such opponents, who, by their position in the Christian world, were responsible only for themselves, the Mohammedan theologians sometimes addressed their challenges to Constantinople, to the central representatives of the Christian religion and Christian theological scholarship there. Having become acquainted with Aristotle, the Arabs passionately began to study this great philosopher and, understanding him in their own way, developed that method of scientific thinking, which, after the transition from them to medieval Europeans, was known as the scholastic method, or scholasticism. That is, theological, philosophical and all kinds of scientific debates that dominated medieval European schools received their first origin from the Arabs and were their greatest passion. This passion for debate mainly found application in the struggle of some Mohammedan religious sects with others; but for famous fighters, of course, it could not be less pleasure to measure strength with opponents, that is, such opponents as the Christian theologians of Constantinople. Thus, both in the interests of religion and for other subjective, but no less strong motives, theological disputes with Constantinople scientists were a very desirable thing for Mohammedan scientists. A challenge to such a debate was made while Constantine, returned from his solitude, taught philosophy at the court school (precisely in 851). The Muhammedans sent envoys to the Greeks with the following speeches: “How do you, Christians, recognize one God and at the same time divide Him into three and say that it is God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit? If you hope to clearly demonstrate the solidity of your teaching, then send to us your learned men, who, by entering into debate with us, could prevail over us.” It was, of course, impossible to refuse such a challenge: even if this did not mean admitting defeat, then at least that’s how the opponents would have interpreted it. Of course, the Greeks could demand that the dispute, if the Muhammedans wanted it, take place with them, in Constantinople; but the embassy, ​​as most likely one should think, was sent not from some Muhammedan city bordering the empire and not from any of the regional governors or emirs, but from the Baghdad caliph himself. To state these demands to this latter would mean to offend the pride of the arrogant ruler of the “true believers,” which the Greeks could not have wished for, knowing from many bitter experiences his great military superiority over themselves and remembering, in particular, their defeats suffered shortly before that time 36. So, a council was assembled in the imperial palace to decide on whom to entrust the difficult embassy, ​​and the choice fell on our Constantine. They decided to send him, as we noted above, there is no doubt, mainly because he best proved his ability to carry out such assignments in a recent dispute with Patriarch John. It took a lot of courage to agree to the journey, not so much because the responsibility associated with it was great, but because everything could be expected from such a ferocious despot and such a hater of Christians as Caliph Jafar Matavakkil 37 . But Konstantin set the goal of his life not for himself, but for selfless service to society; having renounced all rights to participate in the blessings and joys of this life, he found no other motives to fear the most extreme thing that could happen to him, that is, martyrdom, for he accepted the commission with perfect readiness. “I am glad that I am going for the Christian faith,” he answered the challenge, “for what is sweeter for me in this world than to live and die for the Holy Trinity?” Konstantin was accompanied as his assistant by a certain asyncrit (that is, secretary) George. When Constantine appeared in the capital of the caliph, first of all his wit had to be tested. Mutawakkil, wishing to bring Jews and Christians to universal disgrace, among other things, ordered that written or various images of demons, monkeys and pigs be hung on the houses of both. So the future opponents of Constantine, pointing out to him the images of demons hanging on the houses of Christians, asked with ridicule: what, in his opinion, does it mean that some houses are marked in this way from others? Constantine gave them an answer that should have made them repent that they had asked the question. “I see,” he answered, “on the doors of houses there are images of demons and I think that Christians live inside the houses: the demons could not live with them, they fled from them; and where there are no signs outside, demons live inside houses, along with the inhabitants of the latter.” As for the debates between Constantine and the Mohammedan scholars, both theological and non-theological, the author of the Life, who had no record of them, does not give a detailed account of them, but reports only fragmentary information. “You see, philosopher, a wondrous miracle,” the Saracen theologians said to Constantine, wanting to show him the superiority of Muhammedanism over Christianity, “God’s prophet Muhammed brought us our good news from God, “and all of us, no matter how many people are converted by him, adhere to the same faith, without transgressing it in anything, and you, who hold the law of Christ, your Prophet, one this way, the other another, believe as you like.” The Saracens did not tell the truth; just like Christians, they had their own heretical sects, only due to the pettiness of the issues due to which heresies arose among them, the division was not as noticeable among them as among Christians. But this last circumstance did not speak at all in favor of their Koran; it showed that the shallow content of the Qur'an does not give room for deep research. Constantine chose to answer his opponents somewhat differently, without pointing out exactly this difference between their gospel and ours. The Christian Gospel, whose dogmatic teaching is filled with the deepest mysteries, and whose moral teaching is filled with the greatest demands, he compared with the depths of the sea; The Muhammedan Koran, whose dogmas do not represent a depth inaccessible to ordinary human understanding, and whose moral commandments are no more demanding than each person’s own will, he compared to a shallow and narrow stream. <...> “This is how it should be,” said Constantine, “so that many searches for wealth would take place in the depths of the sea (let the reader remember the opinion of the ancients that precious stones lie at the bottom of the depths of the sea) and together cruel shipwrecks would occur; but the narrow stream is easy for anyone to cross: both adults and children.” As for the debate about the main issue that was raised by the Muhammedan theologians in their challenge, that is, the debate about the dogma of the Trinity, the author, although he speaks about them too briefly, presenting Constantine as the winner, does not report anything particularly remarkable. After the dogmas, the Mohammedans also attacked the moral teaching of the Gospel, pointing out its supposedly incongruous demands. “In your gospel books,” they said, “it is written to pray for enemies, to do good to those who hate and persecute, to turn the cheek to the one who strikes, but you are doing the wrong thing: you repel the insults that some other people would think of inflicting on you with weapons.” Constantine answered with a question: when there are two commandments in the law, which person completely fulfills the law: the one who keeps one commandment, or the one who keeps both? Having received the answer that it was the latter, he continued: “In addition to those mentioned above, there is another one in our gospel books: “No one can show more love in this life, but let him lay down his soul for his friends.” “We keep,” he concluded, “the first commandment, but when we raise arms against enemies, we fulfill the instructions of this second, so that in work and captivity among the enemies, the souls of our brothers do not perish along with their bodies.” From theological questions, Constantine’s opponents moved on to questions of current politics, namely, to the then mutual relations between the Saracens and the Greeks, thinking of reproaching the behavior of the latter with their same Gospel. “You say that by defending yourself from enemies with weapons, you are acting according to the commandments of the Gospel, that by doing this you are saving the souls of your brothers; but what is the reason for our wars with you? The fact that you do not want to pay the next tribute to the great and powerful Ishmael people. Meanwhile, your Christ gave tribute both for Himself and for you. It would be better for you to follow His example and save the souls of your brothers in this last way. “We ask for little,” the Muhammedans added, “just one piece of gold, and for this we would maintain eternal, strong peace with you.” In explanation of the last words of the Muhammedan scholars, the following must be said. Under Empress Irene (780–803), as a result of the unfortunate war with the Saracens, the Greeks undertook to pay them an annual tribute; Irina’s successor, Nikephoros (803–811), tried to refuse it, but, cruelly struck by the caliph, the famous Harun al-Rashid, had to pay it again, and in the most humiliating way: along with thirty thousand gold coins of the annual head tribute for the entire empire, he undertook to give the same tribute, signifying slavery, of three gold coins for himself and the same for his son. So it is precisely this shameful tribute, which the Greeks managed to get rid of after the death of Harun al-Rashid, that Constantine’s opponents mean when they say: “We ask for little, just one gold coin,” that is, by one gold coin they mean tribute from the emperor’s head; By saying “one gold coin,” and not three gold coins, they want to say that they are now ready to make a concession to the Greeks. The speech of the Muhammedans sounded with the greatest arrogance and the most daring mockery, and Constantine would, if only he could, answer them in the same coin; unfortunately, there was no way for a Greek, not privy to the weakness of Greek boasting, to dispute the great military superiority of the Muhammedans over their countrymen. Constantine tried to defend the honor of his fatherland, at least as much as it could be defended. “When Christ lived on earth and paid tribute,” he answered his opponents, “then the dominion was not Ishmael’s, but Roman, and therefore, it should not despise us, the Romans, that we do not want to pay tribute to another people,” that is, Constantine wanted to say: it was not always as it is now; Now we are trying only to avoid paying tribute to other nations, but there was a time when we ourselves collected tribute from other nations, when you, the Ishmaelites, were not yet in sight, and we, the Romans, controlled the destinies of the universe." Forced, with a not entirely sweet thought about his homeland, to yield to his opponents in one thing, Constantine soon rewarded himself in another. The Muhammedan scholars, seeing before them a representative of Greek scholarship, very naturally, wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to solve a question that was interesting to them: what is the mutual qualitative relationship between this and that scholarship? Therefore, far from limiting themselves to debates with Constantine about these issues for which he was summoned, they gave him a formal examination in all sciences. When our philosopher turned out to be far superior to his examiners in everything, the latter, having too much opinion of themselves, asked him: how do you know everything? Now the time has come for Constantine to boast about his homeland. The Arabs knew science for a week; Meanwhile, the Greeks were their original owners, from them they received their beginning and all their development; therefore, it was completely natural for any decent Greek scientist to be far superior to Arab scientists. This is what Konstantin pointed out in response to a question from his opponents. “One man,” he answered, “took out some sea water, carried it with him everywhere and said to everyone: “Look, here is the water that no one has except me.” But he once met a resident of the seaside; In response to his boasting, this one said to him: “Aren’t you crazy, that you’re running around like some kind of marvel with a bottle of rotten water? We have a whole sea of ​​this water of yours.” “So you too,” Konstantin explained his parable, “you have acquired a little enlightenment and think that you have the right to be proud; but all the sciences you borrowed from us.” Constantine’s opponents hardly had such high notions of themselves that they expected to win brilliant victories over the Greek representative of science in all parts of this latter, but, on the other hand, the thought that the Greek, in the consciousness of his superiority over them, would retire from them with feelings of triumph for his homeland, could not be very pleasant for them. Humiliated in one thing, they found that they had enough to curb the joy of their triumphant enemy; their great state power was something in which the Greeks were far from competing with them, and they did not fail to make sure that Constantine took with him a proper idea of ​​this latter. The powerful ruler of the “faithful” possessed the most magnificent palaces and countless treasures, and the Muhammedans made sure that all this was apparently Constantine in every detail. “Doesn’t the philosopher find,” they proudly said to the latter during the inspection, “doesn’t he find that the great strength and great wealth of the Amermuna (the supreme ruler, the ruler of the Saracens) should excite surprise?” “True,” answered Constantine, “but praise and glory belong to God, who created all this and gave it to people as a consolation.” In conclusion, the author of the Life unexpectedly reports the following: “Setney (finally) turned to his own anger, giving him poison to drink” 39. How to understand these words? Is this, of course, some kind of crude joke on the part of the Muhammedans, arranged with the aim of testing Constantine’s foresight, or did they really want to poison him? We assume the former rather than the latter, because from the author’s previous speeches it is not at all clear that anything very bad happened between Constantine and his opponents, and to think that the Muhammedans wanted to poison Constantine for no apparent reason, of course, would be too much. In the author's muffled speeches about this event one can suspect some intent; namely, one can assume that, to put it too vaguely, he wants to give the matter much more significance than what it actually had. Be that as it may, only, in the words of the author, “The merciful river God: even if you drink something mortal, do not harm you, deliver him (Constantine) and return the packs to your land in health” 40. This means that if they wanted to play some kind of rude joke on Konstantin, then he was deceived, and if he was in real danger of poisoning, then he managed to take some measures to avert it. Returning from the trip, Constantine remained for some time in his previous position, that is, as a teacher of philosophy at the palace school. But soon he left both the school and the capital and retired into solitude. What prompted him to do this is unknown. One might think that one of the reasons was a disagreement in the way of thinking with his comrades in the service. The rector of the school, Lev the Philosopher, as we know, was an opponent of icon veneration. It is unknown how long Constantine lived in his solitude. Having left him, he moved to his brother Methodius in his Olympian monastery. Here he spent his time as before, that is, after the labors of monastic prayer, he exclusively devoted it to his books. We said above that Methodius, after his tonsure as a monk, diligently devoted himself to reading books, wanting thereby to make up for the lack of his initial education. With Constantine’s move to Olympus, he had to find in his younger brother an excellent leader and mentor not only in reading books, but also in the real study of all sciences; It may very well be that Constantine moved to Olympus precisely at the request of Methodius, who had in mind to entrust himself as his disciple. Konstantin spent eight or nine years in quiet academic studies and labors of moral self-education. But no matter how much he loved solitude, he again had to part with it in order to go serve society: exactly ten years after the journey to the Saracens that we told us, he had to make exactly the same journey to the people who lived beyond the other border of the empire, namely, to the Khazars. The Khazars, a horde of Turkic or Turkish-Tatar tribes, crossed from Asia into Europe in the mid-7th century; their place of settlement was the steppes between the lower reaches of the Volga and Don and the right bank of the Kuban, that is, in the lands of the Don and Black Sea troops and the provinces of Stavropol and Astrakhan. The Khazars came to Europe as pagans, but after a century and a half, preachers of new faiths came to them, and as a result of this, a religious movement arose among them. At the end of the 8th century, persecution of the Jews was launched in the Greek Empire; this probably happened under the Empress Irina, who, having restored the veneration of icons, could take up arms against the Jews, as their fierce denigrators; fleeing persecution, the Jews found a warm welcome among the Khazars. Having settled in their new place of residence, they immediately set to work preaching and conducted it so successfully that they soon saw the Khazar Khagan and most of his court as their proselytes. Following the Jews, and perhaps a little earlier than them, preachers of the Muhammedan faith appeared among the Khazars, coming to them from across the Caucasus, from Turkestan and from Persia. These latter had particular success among the people. Finally, among the Khazars there were preachers and followers of Christianity, which could penetrate to them from the Taurian Bosphorus bordering their land and partly be spread by Greek captives who often lived with them. Between several faiths, none of which had a decisive advantage, it was natural for the most heated struggle to break out; This was all the more necessary because the Khazar kagans, like their later relatives, our Mongol khans, were distinguished by the most complete religious tolerance. Thus, the most heated and constant disputes among the Khazars must have occurred between representatives of different faiths. As can be seen, these disputes were not only held among the people and for the people, but often took place in the palace of the Kagan, that is, as can be seen, the Khazar sovereigns were not only distinguished by perfect religious tolerance, but also had a special interest in theology, or at least were lovers of theological debates; in this case, they again converged with the Mongol khans, being, like these latter, more or less indifferent to any positive dogma. Arranging theological debates in their palace, the Kagans could not help but see that not all the disputing parties had equally strong representatives: the Muhammedans had learned mullahs, the Jews had rabbis armed with books, but the small number of Christians did not find among themselves sufficiently knowledgeable and skillful defendants for their faith. It is very natural that the Khagans wanted to witness such a theological battle, where the forces of all opponents would be completely equal; and this desire itself should have led them to the idea of ​​asking the Greeks to send their learned people to them. The Khagans could have, in and of themselves, had a very strong desire to listen to the Greek scientists and see how the Jewish and Mohammedan scientists would turn out to them: the Khazars, like all the new European and Asian peoples who smashed the empires of the 4th century one after another, despised the Greeks as military opponents, but deeply revered their civilization and education. Finally, the Christians themselves could somehow suggest to the Kagan the idea of ​​an embassy to the Greeks for learned people; It was very natural for these latter to harbor dreams and hopes that Greek theologians would be able to convert the Kagan and his court from Judaism to Christianity. Be that as it may, it was only in 860 that Khazar ambassadors arrived in Constantinople, asking the Greeks to send their learned men to the court of the Kagan; The embassy was probably sent not exclusively for this purpose, but, having some state business as its main assignment, among other things it had to ask for the sending of scientists. As for the fact that the Khazar Kagan decided to make such a rather unceremonious and whimsical request to the emperor, there is nothing surprising or unnatural in this. He was such a strong and so necessary neighbor of the Greeks that he could demand such a service from them without any hesitation; fearing the Khagans as dangerous enemies, and seeking their alliance as good helpers against other enemies, the emperors generally showed them great honor and even sometimes entered into kinship alliances with them. At this time, Konstantinov’s former teacher was no longer alive, who could point to him as a person quite capable of accepting the assignment; he himself lived for so long at a distance from the court and the capital that it would have been time to forget about him long ago; Despite this, the choice of the imperial advisers fell on him, and immediately after the speeches of the Khazar ambassadors were heard, they sent for him to his monastery. There is no doubt that this happened because the court could not forget his journey to the Saracens ten years ago, that he managed to maintain his former fame and glory in his monastic solitude, and that his former mentor and friend Photius, then already the Patriarch of Constantinople, firmly remembered his brilliant talents. Undertaking a journey to the Khazars was something that not everyone could agree to with complete willingness; Having crossed the Black Sea, it was then necessary to travel from the mouth of the Kuban to the lower reaches of the Volga, on the banks of which was the capital of the Kagan, more than a thousand miles along roads where wheeled riding was completely unknown and where most nights had to be spent in the open air. But Konstantin volunteered for the trip with the greatest readiness; a sincere and deep zealot of the fatherly faith, he responded to the offer made to him: “I am glad to go without everything, on foot and barefoot, as the Lord commanded His disciples.” Having eliminated this last desire by the fact that he was not coming on his own, but on behalf of the emperor, he was sent accompanied by an honorary retinue. Together with Constantine, Methodius also went on a journey, becoming from that time his brother’s constant assistant in all his subsequent works. The elder brother did not want to part with the younger, but, as one of the biographers says, “serve, like a slave, the younger brother, obeying him” 41, that is, Methodius, being filled with ardent love with a feeling of deep respect for his brother and valuing his peace more than his own, wanted to share with him the troubles of the path and, if possible, ease them for him with his care for him. Constantine's sea road lay on the Tauride Chersonese, or Korsun; from here - near the eastern coast of Crimea into the Kerch-Eni-Kol Strait and the Sea of ​​Azov. Having reached Korsun, Konstantin stopped there for quite a long time; The main reason for the stop should have been the fact that he arrived in this city at a time when, firstly, further navigation on the Black Sea was extremely dangerous, and secondly, the journey to land on the shore at the end of autumn would be very difficult. For the five or six months that were free, Konstantin did not remain idle, but made the best use of their time. He studied the Hebrew and Samaritan languages ​​and rendered great service to the Church by discovering the relics of St. Clement, Bishop of Rome. The Hebrew language was necessary for Constantine on the upcoming journey, because the main opponents who expected him at the court of the Khazar sovereign were the Jews with their original Jewish code of the Holy Scriptures of the Old Testament. Starting to study the language with all possible diligence. Constantine, with his ability for linguistics, mastered it, as much as it was possible to master it at that time, in the complete absence of any scientific aids and means for studying it and with very poor knowledge of it by the Jewish scientists themselves, in a very short time, at the same time, partly motivated by the desire to achieve the greatest possible clarity and thoroughness in the study of the language, and partly, probably also carried away by the news and novelty of the subject, Constantine tried to make an experiment hitherto completely unknown Jews - the grammar of their language. (The experiment, no doubt, was very far from perfect, but in any case it is very remarkable in that it was the very first experiment of its kind and that Constantine, with his plan to write a grammar of the Hebrew language, forestalled the same plans of Jewish scholars themselves for a whole century.) The idea of ​​studying the Samaritan language was brought to Constantine by chance. One of the Samaritans living in Kherson went to him for reasoning and debate about faith, since he came to him with his books. Constantine, seeing that the Samaritan language is almost nothing more than a dialect of Hebrew, decided to study it too; he begged books from a Samaritan and locked himself in his apartment with them; when a month or so later the Samaritan came again to Constantine, he, to his greatest surprise, found that the latter could read his books completely freely. Constantine converted the Samaritan himself and his family to the Christian faith. In conclusion of the above news about the scientific works of Constantine in Korsun, in his biography we read the following: “Also found here (in Korsun) Constantine the Gospel and the Psalter, written in Russian letters, and a man who spoke that language; Having entered into a conversation with this latter, Konstantin, by comparing his speech with his own, decomposed the sounds of his language and expressed it in the letters of vowels and consonants and, to the surprise of everyone, began to read and speak Russian.” If it were only said that Constantine met a Russian in Korsun and soon began to freely communicate with him, there would be nothing special in this: Kyiv and other Russians living further south, since they had trade relations with Greece, were easy to meet both in Korsun and in Constantinople; the language of the Russian Slavs was very close to the Slavic dialect that was known to Constantine, namely Bulgarian. And therefore, he really would soon be able to communicate completely freely with his stranger. In this case, only the word “Russian” would present some difficulty; since our ancestors began to be called by the name of the Russians very shortly before the biography of Konstantinov was written, the author of the latter could hardly have known this. But this difficulty, of course, could easily be eliminated, namely: it would not be unnatural to assume that the author really had some kind of tribal name attached to the name of the Korsun stranger, that is, Kiev Slav, Tiverets Slav, Krivich, etc. etc., but that it was replaced by the word “Russian” from the copyists, since the latter name, soon after the time of the biographer Konstantinov, completely replaced the first. So, we say, nothing would be strange if it were simply said that Constantine met a Russian in Korsun and that he soon began to speak fluently with him in his language, but it is clearly said that he found a Russian in Korsun and also the Gospel and Psalter translated into Russian. What to think about the news in this form: was there really no Slavic translation of the Bible, or at least some parts of it, made before the time of Constantine and Methodius, and did Constantine really not take advantage of the perfect work before him? One must think that such a translation could really exist, but that in any case Constantine did not find it at all in Korsun. It is known that the southern and western Slavs began to accept baptism not only as individuals, but even as entire tribes long before our Constantine and Methodius; It is further known that the baptized Slavs, also long before Constantine and Methodius, mastered the art of writing, and, not yet having their own alphabet, some used the Greek alphabet, others the Latin. Thus, when the baptized Slavs became acquainted with the art of writing, they had the opportunity to attempt to translate the Bible. As for the actual implementation of this possibility, we can absolutely positively assert that there was no such translation of the Bible or some parts of it, which was introduced into general use among one or several Slavic tribes, but at the same time we have no right to affirmatively that there were no such translation attempts that remained known to the translators themselves and to other few specific persons. This last kind of translation of the Gospel and the Psalter could have been found by Constantine in Korsun, that is, the baptized Russian he met here either could have been this kind of translator himself, or had in his hands the work of another similar translator. But if, we say, Constantine really could have found a Slavic translation of the Gospel and Psalter in Korsun, then there is not the slightest doubt that he did not find it at all, that is, that the quoted words of the Life are nothing more than either a pure later insertion, or a later distortion of a place that was not talking about the Russian Gospel and Psalter at all. This is absolutely clear from the same Life. The author of the latter, when in his further story he comes to the Moravian embassy and to the translation undertaken by them by Constantine, he testifies in the most positive way that he knew nothing about any translation made before him and that he completed his work of inventing the alphabet and translation completely independently; and therefore, to admit that the above passage of the Life belonged to the same person with these now indicated evidence means to admit something completely impossible. So, we repeat, beyond any doubt or dispute, that our author of the Life could in no way be talking about the Russian Gospels and Psalms, or even about any Slavic translation of the Bible, and the strange passage in its current form does not belong to him at all. In all likelihood, this passage is not a pure insertion, which the ancient scribes rarely dared to do, but only a distortion of some of the author’s original speeches. The distortion of which speeches is not easy to decide. If the Life really spoke about the Gospel and the Psalter, written in some language unknown to Constantine, then one might think that from these books he learned the alphabet of his language from the stranger; if nothing was said about the Gospel and the Psalter, then we can assume that he made an attempt to spell out the sounds of an unknown language (as far as possible with an unknown language), in order to show the stranger what the art of writing consists of; at the same time, he did this or that, but in any case one cannot think that the biographer said that, not limiting himself to the alphabet, he learned the language itself so much that he could freely communicate with his stranger; this would mean giving him an absolutely incredible ability to learn languages. Safarik suggests that instead of “you will find that Gospel and Psalter, written in Russian script,” the original read: “you will find that Gospel and Psalter, written in Gothic script” 42 . This guess is completely probable, if only the Life really spoke about the Gospel and the Psalter, and not about just the alphabet: the Goths, who belonged to the inhabitants of the Crimea, had a translation of the Bible, and Constantine really knew about this translation, as we positively know from his Life. <...> We said above that Constantine, during his stay in Korsun, acquired the relics of St. Clement of Rome. Clement, the third bishop of Rome, was exiled by the emperor Trajan to the Tauride, or Crimean, quarries and then, by order of the same emperor, was drowned there in the sea (about 100 A.D.). He was thrown in one of the bays surrounding Korsun, according to the current local legend, from a cape at the entrance to Quarantine Bay, along which the eastern wall of Korsun ran. The Christians, having found his body in the water, took it to one of the coastal islands and buried it in one of the many natural and artificial stone caves there. From then on, the relics of the saint remained constantly in the cave until the time of Constantine. For quite a long time, residents of Korsun and surrounding villages went to them for prayer on the day of memory of Clement; but then, over time, little by little the place where the body of the martyr lay was left neglected and completely forgotten. Arriving in Korsun, Constantine had the most earnest desire to rediscover the remains of the famous shepherd of the Church and transfer them to a place more decent for them and more convenient for worship. He addressed his insistence to the archbishop and the secular leaders of the city and, finally, managed to arouse in them zeal for the saint. January 30 was chosen as the day for the opening of the relics, marked by the miraculous appearance of Jesus Christ to Clement. On the evening before January 30, Constantine with the archbishop and the clergy of Korsun, accompanied to the shore by the citizens of the city and singing the canon to St. Clement, boarded a ship (or little boat) and set off for the island. After a not entirely successful search at first, a buried cave was found and excavated, and Clement’s bones were found in it along with the anchor with which he was thrown into the sea. Brought to the shore in a pre-prepared shrine, they were carried to Korsun with a solemn prayer service and here, previously surrounded by the walls of the fortress and throughout the city, they were placed in the large cathedral church. Constantine took part of the relics with him and subsequently gave one half of this part to the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople, where he lived upon his return from Khazaria, and took the other half with him on the Moravian journey to Rome. This is how Constantine used the time of his slowdown in Korsun. However (italics ed.) he managed to mark himself with another remarkable deed. Various nomadic peoples living along the northern coast of the Black and Azov Seas and in Crimea itself very often attacked the trading and wealthy Greek cities and suburbs of the peninsula. This happened during Konstantin’s stay in Crimea. He had just set off from Korsun on his further journey when he learned that one of his neighboring cities had been attacked and besieged by one of the appanage Khazar princes. (In the west, the settlements and possessions of the Khazars extended to the eastern part of Crimea.) Wanting to save the Christian people from disasters, plunder and captivity, Constantine decided to try his luck in the strength of his convictions and went to the camp of the besiegers. Whether he too eloquently pointed out to the Khazar prince the fact that the supreme sovereign of his people was in peace and friendship with the Greeks, as proof of which he could point to his own embassy, ​​or managed to influence him in some other way, only, indeed, he averted danger from the city: the enemy lifted the siege and left without causing any harm to the inhabitants, however, probably taking a ransom from them. Setting off then on further wanderings, Konstantin boarded a ship not in Korsun or somewhere nearby, but in one of the eastern marinas of Crimea, probably in Feodosia or Kerch, that is, instead of going around the southern tip of the peninsula by sea, he walked across it on foot. On this crossing, he himself was exposed to exactly the same danger from which he had recently saved an unknown city: his convoy was attacked by the Hungarians, whose nomads he had to pass through. But after a conversation with the leader of the detachment, of course, conducted through an interpreter, he received a completely free and even respectful pass; he could influence the hearts of ordinary people and disarm them with an indication of the sublime goal of his long and difficult journey. Having crossed the Kerch-Enikolsky Strait or, perhaps, having risen up the Sea of Azov itself and landing somewhere near the mouth of either the Kuban or the Don (maybe in Tanais, or Tana, a Greek colony located at the mouth of the Don), Constantine reached the longest and worst part of his journey: to the lower reaches of the Volga, where the capital of the Kagan was located, from the mouth of the Kuban no less 1000, and from the mouth of the Don at least 800 versts in a straight direction; wandering through deep mud and shifting sand, traveling sometimes on horseback, sometimes on foot, Constantine had to spend at least 40 days on this extremely difficult road 43. When it became known in the Khazar capital that the imperial embassy was approaching, the Kagan sent court officials to meet Constantine. The future opponents of our philosopher, of course, were awaiting the Greek scientist not without anxiety; Wanting to know as soon as possible what kind of person they would have to deal with, they took advantage of the meeting ceremony for their singing. The Khazar sovereign and most of his entourage, as we said before, were proselytes of Judaism; The spiritual and scientific leaders of this latter, in order to collect preliminary information about Constantine, hastened to join their coreligionists going to meet the embassy, ​​a capable and skillful person from their own midst. It was very natural to expect too much arrogance from a representative of the Greek people and science, and the deputy of the Khazar rabbis set the task of humbling this supposed arrogance of Constantine at the first steps. The first attack was made quite skillfully, only Constantine was not the kind of enemy who could be taken by surprise. The political life of Greece at that time presented a pitiful spectacle of gradual decay, and its dark sides could not escape the attention of the new peoples surrounding the empire; In particular, the latter should have been strongly struck by the fact that among the Greeks the imperial throne was the prey of court intrigues and the tyranny of the capital's mob, and that the first lucky person he met could be elevated to it. Among the new peoples it was completely different in this regard: for most of them, the power of the sovereign or courtiers was an inalienable hereditary property of one well-known family, and this was not so much due to simple custom, but on the basis of a well-known principle, that is, on the basis of religious convictions and beliefs. The learned Jew sent to meet Constantine chose as the subject of his first attack the all too glaring shortcoming of Greek life. “Why do you have,” he said to the first, “such a bad custom: you appoint your sovereigns not from one, but from any kind of family? We don’t do it your way.” Constantine, no doubt, realized, with inner shame, that the reproach was completely fair and that the Khazars in this respect were far superior to his compatriots, but this was not the place to sincerely confess, but it was necessary to defend the people’s honor one way or another, and he did this with complete success. His questioner seemed to have forgotten that by place of birth he was a Khazar, and by faith and, most likely, origin he was a Jew; the history of the kings of the Jews presents exactly the same pitiful spectacle, and, therefore, Constantine could only remind of this last circumstance. “Instead of Saul, who turned out to be unworthy,” he answered, “God chose David,” and thus, calling up the further history of the kingdom of Judah and Israel in the enemy’s memory, forced him to move from attacking to another field. Having left the government of the Greeks, the Jew turned to their learning. The superiority of the Greeks in this regard was so great and undeniable that it was very difficult for him to boast of anything here; however, he was found. <...> Looking at the books that Constantine carried with him, the Jew, in all likelihood, with a sense of superiority and in the hope of triumph, said: “If you are called scholars, then why don’t you say a word without a book in your hand; But with us it’s not like that: if he’s already a scientist, he’s absorbed all the wisdom into himself and will bring evidence to everything, without having to look into books.” It was not difficult for Constantine to prove that such simple learning cannot be compared with real learning, but he did not want to go that far, he simply showed its pathetic inconsistency in itself. “Having met a naked man,” he answered his opponent, “you, of course, will not believe if he insists that he has a lot of clothes and money: I believe the same amount in you, as if you had absorbed all the wisdom from books”; Following this, he gave the boastful lecturer a question about biblical genealogy and chronology, which forced him to admit that indeed not everything can be known from memory. Upon arrival at the place, Constantine's spy, no doubt, conveyed to those who sent him that the Greek theologian was not the kind of person whom it was easy to interpret in any condescending manner and with whom it would be safe to enter into a competition of wits. But the rabbis, not content with the report, wanted to personally make an experiment of the same kind. When, after the first presentation to the Kagan, Konstantin was invited to dinner with him, the latter with feigned respect said to their guest: “Tell us about your family and your social position, so as not to seat you at the table below your place.” There is no doubt that they expected to hear boastful speeches from Constantine and were preparing subtle ridicule, but they were mistaken in their calculations. Understanding very well the purpose of the question, Constantine answered with ridicule of them: “My grandfather was a nobleman and a famous man and was very close to the king, but then, having deprived himself of his position and subjected to disgrace and expulsion from the court, he lived as a beggar in a foreign land; Having been born when he was in this last state, I did not return him to his previous position. “I am Adam’s grandson,” he added, explaining his mysterious speech. The rabbis, to their regret, had to see from this that it was completely vain on their part to hope to establish mutual relations with the enemy in any way unfavorable for the latter, and after an unsuccessful attempt, willy-nilly, they began to treat him with respect, as equals to equals. The theological debate began at the kagan's first dinner. According to the ancient custom of Christian and non-Christian peoples, they drank sacred cups at dinner; Taking the first cup, the kagan said: “We drink in the name of the One God, Who created all creation.” To this, Constantine hastened to answer for his part: “In the name of the One God and His Word, by Whom the heavens are established, and the Life-giving Spirit. To which all their strength stands." When the Kagan noticed that both are essentially the same, since Christians also profess the same God, Constantine did not accept the agreement, which in reality would be a concession for him, and began to defend the Christian dogma, which did not allow the reduction of its formula. Being a natural philosopher, and not a scientific theologian, the Kagan thought that people professing the One and the Same God can call on Him all together, despite the difference in the invocation formula and the image of presentation, that this last difference cannot interfere with communication and prayer; but naturally, this is not how Constantine should have looked at it from his Christian point of view. Once a dispute had been raised, it could not suddenly stop, and Constantine’s speeches with the Kagan served as the occasion for his first real debate with the rabbis: this time he defended the dogma of the Incarnation against their attacks. After this first debate, which took place by chance, further competition took place on special, purposely appointed days. Constantine described all his disputes in Khazaria in a special work, and Methodius translated his brother’s work into the Slavic language, but, unfortunately, neither the original nor the translation has reached us, or at least has not yet been discovered to this day; the only source of information about the debate is a brief extract from the lengthy note of Constantine made by his biographer. Judging by the fact that in Methodius’s translation the work was divided into eight books, one can think that, firstly, the debates took place over eight days, and secondly, that the work itself was very large and, therefore, the debates were very long. As can be seen from the brief report given by the biographer, Constantine mainly had to compete with Jewish theologians, representatives of the then dominant faith in Khazaria. The sacred books of the Jews have exactly the same meaning for Christians. Thus, referring to these books, the rabbis argued that the law of Moses is the first and only one, that is, the law given by God that will remain forever. Referring to the same books, Constantine argued that the law of Moses is not the first, that, although like the laws or covenants that preceded it, that is, Noah and Abraham, it is called eternal, but just like those two, it did not have to remain forever; moving further to Christianity, Constantine argued that it was foretold by the Jewish prophets; to the objections of the rabbis that the prophecies do not refer to Christ, but to the Messiah, who has not yet come, Constantine responded by calculating time and signs that were laid down by the prophets and which prove that Christ is precisely the Messiah; Defending the Divinity of Christ, Constantine pointed out that, according to the prophets, the Messiah had to be a man and at the same time God. From discussions about the fundamental principles and general foundations of religions, Constantine’s opponents sometimes moved to particulars and attacked separately some Christian dogmas and customs; for example, they reproached for the veneration of icons, for eating animals not allowed by Moses, namely pigs and hares. Constantine's debate with the Muhammedans, it seems, was very short-lived. They began their conversations with Constantine as follows: “Tell us, guest, why do you reject Muhammed: he highly praised Christ in his books, calling Him a great prophet and a great wonderworker?” Constantine responded to this: “If we accept your Muhammed, then we must completely reject our Daniel; this latter asserts (Dan.9:24) that with the coming of Christ all knowledge and prophecy will cease, and Muhammed appeared after Christ.” In the words of Constantine, who spoke about the former Messiah, and not the future, of course, nothing could be pleasant for the Jews, but the comparison of Daniel with Muhammed immediately made them forget their enmity on the one hand in order to turn against the other; they began to shower Muhammed with heavy and insulting abuse. Seeing such results of the debate, which, however, were not at all the responsibility of Constantine, the Mohammedans, in all likelihood, stopped them at this very first attempt. In any case, nothing more is said about them in the Life of Constantine. After Constantine’s competition with the Jews and Muhammedans, the Kagan turned to him with his request. During all the disputes, the Kagan listened carefully to all the evidence that was presented by each of the disputing parties, but despite this, he was not able to decide for himself which side was right. The debate was constantly conducted on exclusively theological grounds, that is, it consisted of a comparison of interpretations of biblical and other evidence previously recognized as authoritative, and not of syllogisms from reason or evidence in the proper sense of the word; consequently, the debate could be understood and assessed only by people who had more or less special knowledge of the matter. Meanwhile, the Kagan was preoccupied with the question of religions; surrounded by representatives of many religions, he wanted to know which of these was more true than the others. So, not being able to understand theological evidence, he turned to Constantine with a request that he solve the question of the best religion for him in a different way, namely: to indicate such signs of the best religion that can be comprehended without any knowledge, by simple common sense, so that he generally speaks from reason, and not from scholarship; At the same time, the Kagan asked our philosopher to try to conduct his speech as simply as possible, to present the matter in some examples and images (parables). Constantine hastened to fulfill the Kagan's wish. “Some men and wives,” he said, “were in great honor and love with their sovereign, but then, having committed a crime, they were driven out of the court and sent into exile; in this miserable state they gave birth to a large family; when the children grew up, father and mother began to consult with them on how to return to their previous position; but there was no agreement at the council: one suggested this, the other suggested another means.” In this parable, Constantine, firstly, announced to the kagan why there is not one, but many religions on earth, and secondly, he explained to him what any religion is. If religion, as Constantine explained, is the path to reunification with God for fallen man, then it was clear to the Kagan that among many religions, everyone should prefer the one that is the most reliable path to reunification with God. “But how,” he continued to ask Konstantin, “can we find out this last thing? “Jews,” he added, “find their light better, Christians find theirs, and so on, every people.” Constantine said to this: “The dignity of gold and silver is recognized through fire, and a person distinguishes truth from lies with his mind; tell me: why did the fall of man happen - was it not from the vision of sweet fruit and lust for the Divine? Having received an affirmative answer to his question, he continued: “Do you know how healers treat diseases? If any person feels sick from some food or drink, then tell me, which doctor will act better: the one who forces the patient to take more of the same food or the same drink, or the one who gives drugs that act in the opposite way? Having received the answer that, of course, it was the latter, Constantine showed that among all religions, Christianity is the religion that provides real medical remedies against the illness of fallen man, that is, that it is precisely it that cures the opposite with the opposite. We do not know how convincing these rational arguments of Constantine in favor of Christianity seemed to the Kagan. The Kagan, as is known, did not become a Christian, but from this one should not at all draw the conclusion that Constantine did not have time to influence his mind at all. Be that as it may, only the Kagan was very pleased with what was now stated and with all of Constantine’s conversations in general. Wanting to express his gratitude to him for his selfless work of visiting, the Kagan offered him rich gifts. But Constantine did not accept anything, and in return for gifts he asked the sovereign to give freedom to the captured Greeks who were among the Khazars. “This,” he said, “will be greater than any gift for me,” and thus had the pleasure of bringing 20 (according to some lists - 200) people of his compatriots to their homeland. Letting Constantine go back, the Kagan sent him a letter to the emperor. The Khazar Sovereign most diligently thanked the latter for sending him a husband, who with his conversations brought him the greatest benefit, and announced that he represented complete freedom to those of his subjects who of their own free will wanted to accept Christianity. Six years after Konstantinov’s journey, precisely in 868, all the Khazars accepted the Muhammedan faith 44. Instead of preaching, calculation and necessity did the trick here. The Khazars, threatened to become tributaries of one of their neighboring (not known to us by name) nomadic peoples, asked for help from the Khivans; the latter agreed to fulfill the request only on the condition that the Khazars would convert to their faith, and thus forced them to accept Mohammedanism. The sad news of this event, in all likelihood, did not reach Constantine, although he was still alive: he was then in Rome, where he soon died. As we said above, the long journey from Taurida and Crimea to the Khazar capital and back presented many troubles and difficulties. Constantine had to experience this especially during his return journey from Khazaria to his homeland. Having set out on the road in the summer, when all the streams and rivers flowing in the Astrakhan steppes dry up, Konstantin and his companions suffered from thirst on one of these steppe crossings; They went out in vain, diverging in different directions: not having found suitable water, they were finally forced to quench their unbearable thirst with rusty and disgusting water from the dry swamp they found. Having reached Korsun, Konstantin again stopped in this city for some time: the stop was necessary for rest after a long and difficult journey. Just as the first time, he marked his stay here with remarkable deeds. The inhabitants of one south-eastern Crimean area, namely the area located in the Fulla district, being Christians, did not cease at the same time to cling to their pre-Christian paganism. They had a huge oak tree, fused with cherry trees, which was revered as sacred; going to this tree, they made sacrifices under it to some of their former gods, who were considered the giver of rain 45 . Having learned about this, Constantine immediately set off from Korsun to the vicinity of Fulla. He gathered the local double-believers to himself and addressed them with an accusatory word. When the half-pagan listeners objected to him that with the cessation of sacrifices, rain would stop falling on their land and that it was impossible to cut down an oak tree, since anyone who dared to do so would immediately be subject to death, Constantine, having assured them of the blasphemous groundlessness of the first fear, rejected the latter by starting to cut down the tree himself. At the same time, of course, nothing special happened to him, and the oak was cut down by his former admirers themselves; it so happened that the rain, contrary to fears, began the very next night; This finally calmed the fear of anger from the pagan deity, and thus his veneration was completely abandoned. Returning home and giving the authorities an answer about his journey, Constantine settled down to live in one of the capital's churches, namely in the Church of the Holy Apostles. This church, built by Constantine the Great and rebuilt by Justinian, was in Constantinople the same as the Archangel Cathedral in Moscow, that is, it was second after the St. Sophia Cathedral and served as a tomb for emperors and their families. But why, however, Konstantin wanted to become one of the priests of this church, we do not know. The Life says: “Seeing the king (on his return from Khazaria), living without rumors, praying to God, the Apostle sat in the church of the saints” 46. These words should be understood in such a way that, having settled at the large church of the Holy Apostles, Constantine rested from the labors of his journey and, completely alien to public affairs and any relations with people, was engaged exclusively in solitary prayer. It may be that the author of the Life really conveys here what he knew exactly. But since, for the feats of solitary prayer and office book studies, Constantine usually retired to the desert or to monasteries, since he generally did not like to stay in the capital if nothing kept him in it, since, finally, the Church of the Holy Apostles, one of the most respected, and therefore, no doubt, one of the most visited churches in the capital, could hardly be chosen as a place for his stay by a person who exclusively sought solitude; then, based on all this, it seems more reasonable to think that Constantine settled at the Church of the Holy Apostles not just to “live without rumor,” that is, in solitude, but then to take over and perform some kind of public service. The only public service that Constantine could take upon himself at the Church of the Holy Apostles, just as with any other church, was preaching. In the first times of Christianity, preaching was, as it should be, the most essential part of church worship. <...> We said above that Constantine outlined his debates with the Jews and the Khazar Muhammedans in a special work. Since it cannot be assumed that he compiled it during his stay in Khazaria, and since he did not have time to deal with it subsequently, one should think that he wrote it directly upon his return to his homeland and that, thus, during his stay at the Church of the Holy Apostles, in addition to preaching, he was also engaged in this work. If we assume that Constantine set the goal of the essay not only to give an account of his debates, but along with the report to provide his Christian readers with a generally thorough guide to polemics with the Jews and Mohammedans. then, in addition to the assumption given above, we will also have another explanation: also why Constantine remained in the capital, and did not retire somewhere to a village or monastery solitude. To write a more or less scholarly work, filled with testimonies from the fathers and various writers, and in general extracts from books, it was necessary to have a good library at hand, and there were good libraries in the capital, and it was difficult to find them anywhere in the monasteries located outside it. As for Methodius, upon returning from Khazarin, he hastened to retire again to his beloved Olympic Mountain. The emperor with his advisers and the patriarch (“seeing,” says the Life, “the king and patriarch moved him kindly to God’s path” 47) wanted to consecrate him as a bishop and place him in one of the best metropolitan or archiepiscopal sees. When he resolutely refused, they forced him to at least accept the monastic abbess, precisely in the large monastery of Polychron, located on the Sigrian mountains adjacent to the Olympic Mountains 48 . We turn, finally, to the activities of Constantine and Methodius, by which they acquired the name of our Slavic apostles. When one of them, having stopped to live in the capital after the labors of travel, spent time in new, although comparatively easier, social labors, and the other, having again returned to his monastic exploits, was preparing to bear the burden of abbess placed on him, an embassy from the Moravian prince Rostislav arrived at the Greek court with a request to send teachers to the Moravian people. It was this embassy, ​​famous in the annals of the Slavic world, that was destined to call our holy brothers to their truly apostolic and forever unforgettable service to the Slavic tribe. But were our Slavic apostles Greeks or Slavs by their tribal origin? Perhaps this question will seem too unexpected to the reader at this point; but above we had absolutely no place to offer it, and yet the answer to it must finally be given to the reader. Below we will talk about the great benefit that Constantine and Methodius showed to our Slavic tribe, and it would be inconvenient for the reader to remain ignorant and without an idea: whether the Slavs received this benefit from the hands of strangers or their own. In answer to the question, one later Bulgarian adaptation of the Pannonian Life of Constantine states that he was originally a Bulgarian. So (italics ed.), 1) if Constantine and Methodius were really Slavs by origin, then in any case they were Slavs who, even in their ancestors, had completely lost their nationality and who in spirit were real and complete Greeks, that is, Slavs who were in fact even much less Slavic than, for example, Emperor Justinian; 2) if we really had the right to consider Constantine ours by birth, a Slav, then in any case it would remain completely undoubted that, on the one hand, it was not the fact that he considered himself a fellow tribesman that caused him to appear as a benefactor of the Slavs, but, on the other hand, that he would never have been able to do for the Slavs what he did if his natural great mind had not been awakened by Greek education. But 3) it should be accepted as positively and undoubtedly known that Constantine and Methodius were not Slavs, but natural Greeks. The authors of the Pannonian Lives do not say this directly and on purpose, because they were not given any incentives or reasons for this; but this follows with absolute clarity from their unspoken and indirect instructions. In the Pannonian Life of Constantine, it is said about his admission as a teacher at the court school: “I begged the teaching table to accept and teach philosophy to both the foreigner and the foreigner” 49 . “Togozemets” means “one of the same earth, like-minded person”; but since it is absolutely clear that in the given place the “countrymen” mean the Greeks, and not the Slavs at all, that is, that the words “teach the native and strange” should be understood as teaching both the natural Greeks themselves and foreigners, then it is absolutely clear that in the given place Constantine is called a fellow-lander and fellow tribesman of the Greeks, and not the Slavs. Emperor Michael, explaining to Constantine, whom he sent to Moravia, why he wanted to send him and his brother, and not someone else, says in the Pannonian Life of Methodius: “You are a Selunian, but the Selunians all speak purely Slovenian.” If Constantine and Methodius were not Greeks, but Slavs, then the author of the Life, of course, would have forced the emperor to express himself differently; he would have forced him to say: “The Moravians are your fellow tribesmen, the Moravians speak the same language with you,” etc. The author of the Life found that his readers would ask the question: how did Constantine and Methodius, being Greeks, know how to speak Slavic? And so he answers: Constantine and Methodius were the Greeks of Thessaloniki, and the Solunians (the author omits a circumstance well known to all his contemporaries, namely, that the surroundings of Thessaloniki were inhabited by Slavs) all speak Slavic, like real Slavs. The author of the same Life of Methodius, talking about the appointment of Methodius to the Slavic voivode, notes that the emperor says after: “I have seen the light, as if I wanted to send a teacher with words, and the first archbishop, so that I could learn all the Slavic customs and get used to it little by little” 50 (that is, I, appointing Methodius as voivode Slavic and thus giving him the opportunity to study all Slavic customs and get used to them little by little, as if he foresaw what kind of teacher God wanted to give him to the Slavs). The above words could not have been spoken by the emperor, from whom Methodius was made governor of the Slavs, because he did not live to see the time when Methodius became a teacher of the Slavs; but what is important for us is that they are put into the mouth of the emperor by the author of the Life, who was a student of Methodius and knew exactly whether the latter was a Slav or a Greek. If the author puts the above words into the mouth of the emperor, then it necessarily follows that Methodius was a Greek, and not a Slav, because if he was a Slav, then could the author say that he needed to learn Slavic customs and little by little get used to them? For us, the later Slavs, it is a matter of greatest interest: our native Savians or alien Greeks were our first teachers; but the authors of the Pannonian Lives were also Slavs, and, moreover, the most true Slavs. So, if our first teachers came from our own tribe and we were not indebted to anyone, they would not have failed to highlight this circumstance with patriotic pride and in the most caring way; but if they do not say this at all, if they make it absolutely clear to the contrary, then there can be no doubt that Constantine and Methodius were really Greeks, and not Slavs, and the question should be considered resolved. With our presentation of events and affairs, to which we return again, we have hitherto been on a straight and narrow road; From here we enter a dense forest, where we will not only have to make our way along tricky paths, but often completely lose every tracked path. To put it differently and more simply, until now we could for the most part limit ourselves to the positive transmission of existing news and did not need to interrupt the thread of the story too often with our own research and considerations, but on the contrary, from here we will have to almost constantly turn to these latter. With blessings, let's begin. First of all, the question arises: why did the Moravians need Greek teachers? The question arises because the Moravians were already baptized and had as many teachers at home as they wanted. Here is a brief history of their conversion to Christianity. Having established themselves together with the Czechs in their current place of residence in the second half of the 5th century, they remained pagans for a very long time, precisely until the beginning of the 9th century. At first there was simply no one to convert them to Christianity, because all their neighbors were also pagans, and then they stubbornly refused to accept the new faith. They had preachers of Christianity from the beginning of the 7th century or from the time when the latter settled on the western and southwestern border of Czech-Moravia, among the German people of the Bavarians. The Germans very much wanted to see both the Moravians and all the Slavs neighboring them baptized, but our fellow tribesmen hated the tithe, which the baptists, not with Slavic, but with German greed, extorted from the baptized; but what repelled them even more from Christianity was the fact that the Germans looked at baptism as a symbol of the political tributary status of the converting peoples. Therefore, despite all the desire of the German bishops to baptize the Slavs, their efforts were successful only among those tribes that had previously been conquered by force of arms; Thus, in the middle of the 8th century, the Germans imposed their yoke on the Carantans or Yarutans, who lived on the southern side of Czecho-Moravia, and after this, Christianity began to gradually establish itself among the latter 51. Until the beginning of the 9th century, the Moravians were able to maintain their independence, and therefore until that same time they remained pagans, but in 803 the leaders of the Moravian tribes, or the local princes, avoiding the danger of being subjugated by force of arms, voluntarily recognized themselves as tributaries of the Frankish emperor Charlemagne 52, which finally opened the door to Christianity in their land. There is no doubt that the German priests, seeing an opportunity, hastened to the Moravians with their preaching, and of their own accord. But in any case, they had to do this at the insistence of the sovereign. Charlemagne, partly motivated by pious zeal, partly by political reasons, most diligently took care that all the German and Slavic tribes he conquered were baptized; He most persistently demanded care and work in this regard from his clergy 53. As for Moravia in particular, without clear evidence that Christianity in this country owed its origin to the sovereign, we have the most positive evidence that, on his decisive order, preaching was actively carried out and Christianity was partly established, partly finally established among all the tribes neighboring the Moravians, who were in vassal relations to the empire 54, and from this it naturally follows that the Christian preachers of Charles The Great One acted from Moravia. How Christianity was adopted by the Moravians at first, by whom exactly and how it was spread, we do not know any of this. But soon after the death of Charles, a prince appeared to the Moravians, a collector of land, about whom some news was preserved in the chronicles; this prince, named Moimir, was already a Christian. Mojmir's successor was the same Rostislav from whom the embassy was sent to the Greeks. As for the time of this latter, it is undoubtedly known that not only he himself was a Christian, but also, if not all, then at least most of his subjects were baptized 55. The converts, it is true, were Christians even more in name than in reality, but in any case, outwardly, the new faith was completely and finally established among them. The Moravians did not have an independent hierarchy and their own bishop; in church terms they were dependent on the Bavarian archdiocese; they were assigned to the diocese of Passava 56, from where they received their clergy. Let's return to our question. The Moravians, we say, were baptized and had teachers in their German priests. Why else did they ask the Greeks for teachers? According to the biography of Methodius, the Moravian embassy on behalf of its prince made the following speeches in Constantinople: “Many Christian preachers came to our land, Italians, Greeks, Germans came; preachers teach us each in their own way, but we, Slavs, are simple people and do not have anyone who would show us the truth and tell us where the truth is: so send to us from yourselves such men who would lead us out of our difficulty and confirm us in what we should adhere to.” The one who put these speeches into the mouths of the Moravian ambassadors was a personal disciple of Constantine and Methodius; but, despite this, we cannot accept his testimony as reliable. According to him, the ambassadors allegedly said that many different Christian teachers entered Moravia. But this is not true: the Moravians had only German teachers or priests, who came to them from the Bavarian-Passavian bishop, to whose see their country was assigned. The Italian teachers, after the Moravians were baptized according to the Roman rite and were given permanent charge to one of the bishops subordinate to the Roman throne, had no need to go to them, and even if they came, they would preach not differently, but completely in accordance with the German teachers; As for the Greek teachers, firstly, it is positively known that they were not in Moravia, and secondly, they did not have the opportunity to penetrate into the country, which was baptized by German bishops and was in vassal relations to the German sovereigns, before they were deliberately invited, in defiance of the Germans, by the Moravians themselves. Further, if we assume that the Moravians actually had different teachers preaching to them, and they were faced with difficulties as to whom to prefer: then, firstly, the question is, why did they turn to the Greeks, and not to the Germans, their neighbors and, in any case, their main teachers, or not to their highest church authorities? Secondly, if they already trusted the Greeks more, why was there a need for an embassy to Constantinople when, as the biography says, they had Greek preachers? Thus, the testimony of Methodius’s biography goes against all considerations and is not only in no way reconciled with other undoubted evidence, but even contains an internal contradiction in itself; for all this, it must, of course, be rejected. According to another biography, that is, Konstantinova, the Moravian ambassadors told the Greek emperor the following: “Our people left paganism and turned to Christianity, but we do not have a teacher who would instruct us in the new faith in our own language; since good statutes emanate from you Greeks to all countries, then give us such a teacher and bishop; looking at us, other Slavic tribes will hasten to turn to Christianity.” It is not entirely clear what exact requirement the author is imposing on the Moravians, forcing the latter to ask the Greeks for a teacher who would instruct them in the Christian faith not in a foreign language, but in their own, Moravian language; but, in all likelihood, he had the idea that the Moravians asked the Greeks for people who would translate Christian doctrinal books into their own language and establish Christian worship in their language. This second testimony, as authoritative in itself as the first, discussed above, receives especially important significance due to the fact that, either based on it or independently of it, most modern researchers claim the same about the Moravian embassy. But, even if the testimony was ten times more important, we still had to refuse our consent to him in the most decisive manner. At first glance, it is indeed very natural to imagine that the Moravians asked the Greeks for precisely such people who would translate the Holy Scriptures and liturgical books into Moravian: before the arrival of Constantine and Methodius in Moravia, there were German priests there; if the Moravians, despite this, turned to the Greeks with a request for teachers, then it is very natural to think that they were dissatisfied with the Latin worship of the German priests and that, therefore, they asked the Greeks for translators. On closer examination of the matter, on the contrary, this turns out to be positively impossible. Firstly, it could not have occurred to the Moravians to ask that they be given divine services in their own, native language. Such a request seems to us to be the most natural, but in reality, on the contrary, it is completely unthinkable: the Moravians did not have before them absolutely a single example of Christian worship being translated into the languages ​​of new, converted peoples (of course, they knew nothing about the translation of Ulfilas); among all the other Slavs they saw either Latin or Greek; their baptists themselves, the Germans, performed their services in Latin, just as at home, performed it in the same Latin language. In general, looking around them, the Moravians, like all other new peoples, should have firmly taken root in the idea that the only languages ​​invariably predetermined for Christian worship are Greek and Latin; so that even if the question of liturgical language was raised among them, they had to come to the desire for translation, and end their similar conversations with simply regret that their language is not one of those two sacred languages. So, we say, the Moravians could in no way have a desire to have Christian liturgical books translated into their native language. Secondly, let’s agree to the impossible, that is, let’s agree that the Moravians really wanted to see the liturgical books translated into their language: in this case, they would have addressed their request not to the Greeks, but to the pope. They were baptized by Latin priests, their country formed part of one of the Roman dioceses; It was therefore completely natural for them to address their needs specifically to the Head of the Roman Church. They had absolutely no reason or motivation to prefer the Greek pope. They usually explain it to themselves this way. The Roman Church did not tolerate the Holy Scriptures and liturgical books existing in any language other than Latin; they established the principle that Latin was the only liturgical language; on the contrary, the Greeks willingly allowed each nation to perform divine services and read the Bible in its own language and with full zeal were ready to give each nation their assistance in the matter of translation; the Moravians knew all this, and therefore they turned with a request not to the Pale, but to the Greeks; They were sure that the pope would refuse their request; on the contrary, they hoped that the latter would find the most favorable reception among the Greeks. Almost everyone thinks this way; but even if everyone reasoned this way, even if everyone reasoned positively, then the reasoning would still be completely unfounded. Firstly, the Moravians, of course, did not find out what principles the Latins had and what the Greeks had, but judged one and the other based on what they saw in reality. But reality did not give them the slightest reason to think differently in this regard about the former, differently about the latter: they did not see that a translation of Latin liturgical books had been made for any of the new peoples; but in the same way they did not see at all that Greek books were translated for anyone. Looking at reality, the Moravians had no reason to even assume that they would find more sympathy for their request among the Greeks than among the Latins. The only data for conjecture could be the greater or lesser zeal of these and other Christians for the conversion of the pagans; but whatever the source of their jealousy among the Latins, in this case they certainly did not lag behind the Greeks. Secondly, if in the above respect we do not think at all wrongly about the Latins, then it cannot be said at all that we also have correct thoughts about the Greeks. Indeed, the Latins had almost already established the principle that the church language should be exclusively Latin; but the Greeks were not nearly as zealous in wanting to see each people have their own national worship as we are accustomed to thinking about it: for some, hostility to new languages ​​came from a formulated church principle, for others it was based on motives not traced back to any principle - almost this was the whole difference, that is, the difference was very unimportant, or, strictly speaking, there was none at all. That the Greeks of that time, like the Latins, also strongly desired that the peoples who received baptism from them should exclusively have Greek as their liturgical language, we have enough evidence for this. The Bulgarians and Serbs had long lived within the empire, and it would have been very natural for the Greeks to take care of translating their doctrinal and liturgical books into the language of one or another of these Slavic tribes: the translation was necessary because the number of those who accepted the Christian faith was quite significant; the translation was extremely important because it would hasten the complete conversion of the said tribes to Christianity; Meanwhile, to our surprise, we see that the representatives of the Greek Church did not even think about such a thing. At the same time that Constantine and Methodius were working in Moravia, the Bulgarian people were baptized by the Greeks. Here, before our eyes, was an example of translating liturgical books into the Slavic language, and the work undertaken and accomplished by one person - we mean Constantine - of course, would have been very easy for the spiritual government of Constantinople; but, despite this, the Bulgarians were left without a translation and received it only later, from the disciples Constantine and Methodius who came to them from Moravia. Patriarch Photius, in one of his district letters directed against the pope, points out his merits in the conversion of the Bulgarians, but in vain we would seek from him the boast that he could boast most of all, that is, boast that he gave the Bulgarians the greatest gift for any newly converted people - Christian worship in their own language, in vain we would expect that he would take the opportunity to present a sharp contrast in this regard between the Roman and Constantinople Churches. The famous learned man of his time, by his silence, clearly shows us that translation did not occur to him and that in relation to it he also stood no higher than his other contemporaries. We know very well that Constantine was not forbidden to translate for the Moravians; but this apparently brilliant and clear as day evidence in favor of the Greeks actually proves absolutely nothing. And the pope, when Constantine arrived in Rome with his translation, received the innovator not only without any censure, but with the greatest praise and consecrated the Slavic liturgical books for their use in a solemn manner - on the throne of St. Peter. No one will say that the pope acted as he should have expected, that is, everyone will agree that he was allowed nothing more than an exception to the rule. But if exceptions were possible for the pope, then, of course, they were also possible for the Greeks. That the matter really has this meaning, that is, that allowing Constantine to translate should not at all be understood in the sense of sincere sympathy for the latter on the part of the Greeks, we have absolutely clear evidence of this in the Life of Constantine; namely, as the author of the Life clearly states, Constantine feared that his compatriots, for his unprecedented and not very pleasant innovation for them, would proclaim him nothing less than a heretic 57. So, finally, briefly about the relations of the Greeks to other peoples. They did not proclaim, like the Pope, that all Christian peoples in the world should pray to God exclusively in one Greek language; in this regard, they were bound by the traditions of their best antiquity, when the Ivers and Georgians, the Armenians and the Sires, etc., were allowed to pray in their own languages. But that spirit of another, even deeper antiquity was alive in them, for which everything non-Greek, or everything barbarian, had no right to exist and was conceivable only under the condition of complete self-denial and degeneration of the Greek. So, we repeat: there cannot be the slightest doubt that the Moravians did not send their embassy to the Greeks to ask them for a translation of the Holy Scriptures and liturgical books. What did the Moravians ask from the Greeks? Without asking for translators or teachers, and not at all thinking about the Slavic language, they simply asked for bishops and priests, that is, they simply had the intention and desire to resign from the power of the pope and surrender to the power of the Patriarch of Constantinople, and asked the Greeks to give them priests so that these latter, having come to the country, would replace the German priests in it (implying that at the same time replacing the Latin rite and language with the Latin rite and language Greek). But why did the Moravians want to break away from the pope and surrender to the Patriarch of Constantinople? There are two answers to this question, and it is not known which of them takes precedence. In one of the pope’s later letters to the Moravian princes 58 we read about our embassy to Constantinople: “Not only did the teacher sit at this saint’s (that is, dad’s) table, but also at the blessed Tsar Michael; Yes, the ambassador (and he sent) you the blessed philosopher Kostyantin and with his brother, until we are not in armor.” From these words we see that the Moravians sent an embassy not only to the Greeks, but also to the pope. What do these two embassies mean? We will understand what the matter is if we turn to the then circumstances of the Moravians. They were then waging a fierce war with the Germans, and yet they had a German clergy who came to them from their enemies. Of course, nothing could be more unnatural than this state of affairs; when, seven years later, the same thing happened again, the German priests so diligently forged wars against the Moravians in favor of the other side that the former finally saw themselves forced to expel them all from their land. There is no doubt that the German priests behaved in exactly the same way now, and there is no doubt that Rostislav most decisively wanted to get rid of them. Seven years after the Rostislavs' successor, driving out the Germans, had no one at hand to replace them, but what did this latter need to do? Obviously, he had to turn to the pope and, instead of German priests, ask him for Italian ones (ask the pope either to add Moravia from the bishopric of Passava to some Italian bishopric, or to send some separate bishop to Moravia) or, setting aside the pope himself, to turn with his request to the Greeks. Thus, the above words of the pope: “Not only did the teacher sit at this holy table,” and so on. may mean nothing more than that Rostislav, before sending an embassy to Constantinople, turned to his Roman Patriarch. But what could make him address the Greeks after the pope? “I sent you the philosopher Constantine,” says the pope, “until now we are not armored.” This “not armor” can be understood in two ways, namely: either in such a way that, indeed, before the pope had time to satisfy the request, the Moravian prince unexpectedly left him and turned to the Greeks, or in such a way that the pope, taking the side of the Germans, did not want to satisfy the request and only later explained the refusal with the mentioned plausible pretext. If we accept the latter interpretation, we will have an answer to our above question; This is exactly the answer: the Moravians asked the Greeks for their clergy because the pope did not want to rid them (the Moravians) of the German clergy. But it is not at all clear which interpretation is fairer. It may very well be that the pope, just as he did for some time, did not at all want to side with the Germans, and that the Moravians themselves actually deprived him of the opportunity to satisfy the request, having unexpectedly decided to turn to the Greeks. What can explain the matter in this last case? Here we need to turn again to the same circumstances of the Moravian people at that time, only to the other side of these latter. As we said above, the Moravians then had a fierce war with the Germans, namely: they then fought with these sworn enemies of the entire Slavic tribe for their national independence. Like other Slavs, the Moravians initially did not have one common sovereign for the entire country and were ruled - each tribe separately - by many small rulers or princes; but at the beginning of the 9th century, one remarkable man appeared among the small Moravian princes who had the idea of ​​​​becoming a collector of his land; this wise prince and the first all-Moravian sovereign was called Mojmir. Having succeeded in his efforts to subjugate all the small Moravian rulers, Mojmir began to think about overthrowing the German yoke, which the previously weak Moravians voluntarily imposed on themselves under Charlemagne. Moymir failed to fulfill his plan, because the Germans as soon as they noticed the danger, they hastened to take away the grand-ducal throne from him and hand it over to someone else. This other, our Rostislav, began to pursue the thought of his predecessor with even greater energy. Possessing greater funds and being placed in happier conditions, he actually managed to make his fatherland independent. From that time on, he and the Germans began the continuous and brutal war for independence that we mentioned. The war forced both one and the other of the warring parties to diligently seek allies among their neighbors. Both the Germans and the Moravians in particular tried to win over the most powerful Bulgarians among the surrounding peoples. At first, the Moravians were happier than their enemies: while preparing for the first war with the Germans for their independence, they, despite all the efforts of the latter, managed to buy Bulgarian weapons from them 59 ; but then the Bulgarians left the Moravians and handed over to the Germans 60. This last event was a great misfortune for the Moravians; surrounded on two sides by strong enemies, they must have found themselves in a very difficult position and had serious reasons to fear for their newly acquired freedom. Thus, the transition of the Bulgarians to the side of the Germans should have forced the Moravians to actively look for new allies. But who could they turn to if not the Greeks? Of course, the Greeks could not give the Moravians help against the Germans. But, being the eternal enemies of their neighbors - the Bulgarians, they were the best, so to speak, natural allies against these latter, so the Moravians had to turn to them with requests for alliance and help, and not to anyone else. So, if of the two above assumptions there should be the first, that is, that Rostislav sent an embassy to the Greeks not as a result of the pope’s refusal to satisfy his request, but he himself, for his own reasons, then in this case the reason for the embassy should be the desire of the Moravian prince to conclude a military alliance with the Greeks. It is in this case that the matter should be presented like this: Rostislav, wanting to get rid of the German clergy, sent a request for this to the pope; but then, before the latter had time to make any decision, he saw it necessary to seek an alliance with the Greeks and therefore, without waiting for the return of his embassy from the pope, he sent a new embassy to Constantinople. Why Rostislav, seeking a military alliance with the Greeks, offered them his country into church dependence is, of course, self-explanatory: with this proposal he could best hope to persuade the Greeks to conclude a military alliance; Moreover, there could be no doubt for him that the Greeks themselves would have made this an indispensable condition for the alliance. That the Moravians were so easily ready to change one church ritual for another is not surprising. Firstly, as we said above, they were then Christians even more in name than in fact, and for them it was all the same no matter what ritual they followed; secondly, church interests are sacrificed by the people to political needs and with a stronger faith. An example from that time, similar to the Moravians, is presented to us by the Bulgarians: baptized by the Greeks, they soon after baptism deserted the Greeks to the pope; then they again returned to the Greeks and again fell away to the pale, until, finally, they were completely left with the first. So, we repeat, to the question why the Moravians asked for their clergy, two answers can be given: either the pope refused the Moravians’ request for the clergy, or they sought to conclude a military alliance with the Greeks. What is the conclusion from all that has been said? The conclusion is extremely important. Neither the Moravians at all thought of asking the Greeks for the Slavic alphabet and the Slavic translation of books, nor did it at all occur to the Greeks to give them both, and yet the Moravian embassy to Constantinople resulted in the birth of a Slavic letter. To whom does the Slavic world owe this great benefit? Not the Moravians, not the Greeks, but solely and exclusively that great man who was appointed to go to Moravia at the head of the Greek clergy, that is, our Constantine. As the reader can see, the journey of the Moravian ambassadors to Constantinople in itself was not at all an event that would have great significance for the entire Slavic world. What did the rest of the Slavs care about the fact that the Moravians found it necessary for themselves to change the power of one patriarch to the power of another? What benefit could other Slavs expect for themselves if Greek priests came to Moravia instead of German priests? And in general, why should the rest of the Slavs take the matter seriously when the Moravians themselves, being still very bad Christians, did not attach almost any importance to the church side of it and, for one reason or another, asked the Greeks for priests, in any case, they did not mean these priests, but their state needs? But meanwhile, the journey of the Moravian ambassadors to Constantinople really became an event for the whole Slavic world. We repeat: the only reason for everything was the accidental circumstance that our Constantine the Philosopher was chosen as the chief or archpriest of the priests who were going to Moravia to replace the German priests there. If someone else had been chosen, the Moravians would have received only what they asked for, that is, Greek priests instead of German ones and Greek worship instead of Latin, and the rest of the Slavs would not have cared the slightest about it. Since the power of the Patriarch of Constantinople was not established in Moravia, the short stay of the Greek clergy in the country would have taken the unimportant place of a random and traceless episode in Moravian history itself. But our Constantine was chosen, and the Moravian embassy received the significance of a great era in the history of the entire Slavic world. We hope that we have proven our idea that the Moravians asked the Greeks, and the Greeks meant to give the Moravians not translators of the Holy Scriptures and liturgical books, but simply priests with Greek books. The desire of the Moravians to recognize the power of the Patriarch of Constantinople over themselves, of course, could not be accepted by the Greeks otherwise than with complete favor; for his sake, of course, they hastened to promise the Moravians the most zealous assistance against the Bulgarians, if only this latter was really asked for. When it came to the question of who to put at the head of the clergy who had to go to Moravia, it was immediately decided to entrust the important responsibility of being the representative of the patriarch and establishing his power in the country to our Constantine. With his two previous journeys, that is, the journey to the Saracens and the one made shortly before that journey to the Khazars, Constantine acquired such fame for himself in the church and ambassadorial field of activity that, so to speak, he forced him to recognize him as his inalienable property and that any new assignment of the same kind had to immediately remind of his name. But in this case there was another new circumstance that forced us to choose Constantine and not someone else: he knew the Slavic language. And for each of the priests sent to Moravia, knowledge of this language was very important; but if many of these could not be found, then at least the head of the entire embassy should have known Slavic, who had to deal with the Moravian sovereign and the leaders of their family and make every effort to instill in the Moravians affection for the throne of their new spiritual ruler. Therefore, it was decided to ask Konstantin to take on the labor of travel, even though he was not entirely healthy at the time. Summoned to the imperial palace, the following speeches were given to him there: “We know, philosopher, that your health is upset and poor, but, firstly, no one is able to carry out the work that lies ahead in Moravia as successfully as you; secondly, you and your brother know the Slavic language, therefore, of necessity, you need to go, and not someone else.” Why Constantine knew the Slavic language is explained to us from the words that the biographer puts into the emperor’s mouth. “You,” the emperor says to our brothers, “are Thessalonians, and the Solunians all speak Slavic well.” The surrounding area of ​​Thessaloniki has long been inhabited by Slavs, and in the city itself there were many citizens who were also Slavs by origin; so it is not surprising that with constant relations with suburban residents and with the great prevalence of the Slavic language in the city itself, most of Thessaloniki's Greeks knew how to speak Slavic in the same way as, on the contrary, very many of the Slavs knew how to speak Greek. Thus, Constantine knew the Slavic language, because he was a Thessalonian by birth. Of course, he moved from his home city to the capital very early, however, he was no younger than 17 or 18, therefore, he still had enough time to learn to speak Slavic. How he did not forget to speak Slavic during the 20 years that elapsed from leaving Thessaloniki to the arrival of the Moravian embassy in Constantinople, this is explained by the fact that there were a lot of Slavs in the Greek capital itself, so that, living in this latter, he constantly had the opportunity to maintain his knowledge of the Slavic language. As for Methodius, having learned to speak Slavic initially in his father’s house, he then had to learn the language in the best possible way when he was in the Slavic province and when he became acquainted with the whole way of life, with all the morals and customs of the Slavs. So, we repeat, Constantine was invited to go to Moravia, firstly, because he had repeatedly shown his ability to carry out the most difficult assignments in the best possible way, and secondly, because, in particular, he knew the language that was needed on the upcoming journey. These reasons for choosing him and not someone else were, of course, very valid. But still, the matter, as the reader can easily see, was far from having the character of an inevitable necessity; capable people who also knew the Slavic language, without a doubt, could have been found besides Constantine, and thus it could very easily have happened that not he, but someone else would have been chosen. But if the latter had happened, then the Moravian embassy would have remained at its original meaning of an unimportant event concerning exclusively the Moravians. By this we want to say that the great work of inventing Slavic literacy and translating the Bible and church services into Slavic, without being a deliberate act on anyone’s part, was the fruit of a simple happy accident for us. How we should bless this accident, which gave us in Constantine our true first enlightener! Constantine accepted the order to go to Moravia to establish Greek worship there and the authority of his Constantinople Patriarch with the same great readiness that we saw in him every time before; despite his illness, he answered the request with his usual: “I’m glad, I’m going there,” and this was not a simple and false phrase, but an expression of a real, sincere desire to serve society when Providence called for it. Having agreed to the request, Constantine had to hurry to his destination. But he still remained in Constantinople... It is known that for great people, chance was often the reason for great discoveries and great deeds; this was also the case with the inventor of our Slavic literacy. From childhood, Konstantin knew the Slavic language, from childhood he saw baptized Slavs who had to listen to Christian worship not in their native language, but in a foreign language, Greek; but many years passed, and the thought of Slavic literacy did not come to his mind at all; Finally, one incident appeared, and this thought descended on him as a sudden insight. To demand that it be explained in detail why it was a well-known incident that led Constantine to his great thought, and not many other previous cases, is, we say, a demand for this, of course, that is completely inappropriate. Nothing, of course, happens without a cause, but even in other, more tangible and perceptible areas of phenomena than thinking, there are many cases where, when asked about the cause, it can again be repeated that nothing happens without a cause. If any considerations are to be made, the following may be said. It was not before the eyes of Constantine that it began that the Slavs, when converting to Christianity, had to pray to God in Greek; he found such an order existing; having looked closely and accustomed to it since childhood, he could not find in it, along with all his compatriots and contemporaries, anything unnatural and, thus, not dwell on it at all with his attention - in general, a custom could be for him, like any phenomenon of everyday life, an existing fact - and nothing more, just as to us in the phenomena of everyday life around us, a lot of extremely unnatural things seem completely natural because we had time to there's a lot to take into account. But it so happened that Constantine himself had to go with Greek books to the Slavic people; the matter, having been taken from them into their own hands, had to focus his special attention on itself; reflecting on the fact that Greek books had to be brought to the Slavic people, he could suddenly be struck by its incongruity, and thus the great thought of Slavic literacy could dawn on his mind. So one can guess, but whether this really happened will, of course, remain unknown to us. Above, examining the news of one of our Lives about the Russian Gospels and Psalms found by Constantine in Korsun, we cited Safarik’s opinion that the news should not be considered a later insertion, but only a later distortion, and that instead of the Russian ones, the Gothic Gospels and Psalms should be understood. If we consider this opinion, as we, for our part, consider it to be completely credible, then we would have to attribute to the Gothic letter an extremely important, that is, extremely beneficial role in the history of the birth of our Slavic letter. The Christian world of the 9th century, contrary to the teachings of the Latins and Greeks of that time, glorified God not only in three languages; In addition to the baptized Jews and the Latins themselves, the Syrians, Arabs, Copts, Armenians and Georgians shared Christian worship in their own languages ​​with the Greeks. But the example of all these peoples now named could hardly bring any benefit to the Slavs, that is, this example could hardly be remembered by Constantine and was able to illuminate his head with the thought that the Slavs should also be given worship in their own language. The Latins and Greeks of that time knew very well that Christian worship exists not only in three languages, but nevertheless they preached that “three only are languages, the image in books is worthy of glorifying God.” Among the preparations for the trip to Moravia, the thought of Slavic literacy and translation of Christian worship into the Slavic language dawned on Constantine’s mind. But in this matter, more than one thing constitutes his great merit, that he hastened to bring his idea into execution. As we have said at length and more than once above, the Greeks, just like the Latins, had a very definite teaching for this case: all new peoples who accept the faith from the Greeks or begin to depend on them for church should glorify God in the Greek language - such was this teaching. Neither Christ nor the apostles commanded anything like this; these were simply later inventions of human egoism and self-interest, but it is known that human people often stand for the traditions much more strongly than for God’s commandments, that an encroachment on the former quite often meets with such terribly fierce hostility that the latter will not meet resistance. So, Constantine had to fear that with his unexpected and unheard-of innovation he would provoke against himself a storm of general anger and indignation, that just as his cause would be branded with the shameful name of heresy, so he would get the same, not too red title, for himself. But the storm of general pious anger does not constitute all that Constantine should have expected for himself with the Slavic alphabet. Thus, having come to the idea of ​​​​Slavic literacy and worship in the Slavic language, Constantine first of all had to stop and think for a long time about the question: what should he do with his thought - should he go with it against everything or again return it to the depths of his soul as an inappropriate and daring dream? It is true that the heart of a man who is given the gift of doing something new for the benefit of his fellow men must be filled with feelings of the greatest happiness; but it is too difficult for a person to make enemies of all his neighbors, to become a reproachful parable in his native tribe, and thus a cruel struggle of opposing thoughts and feelings had to take place in the soul of Constantine. If anything in particular has earned him the name of a great man and the right to eternal boundless gratitude from us. Slavs, precisely because he emerged victorious from his internal struggle, that is, that he was able to prevail over all prejudices, found the courage both to sacrifice all sympathies and to meet all fears halfway, and that, thus, the thought did not remain a thought in him. How Constantine, in the struggle of opposing thoughts and feelings that took place in him, defended and, for the benefit of the Slavs, managed to defend before himself his great decision to become their true enlightener, we will see this later, when we talk about his debates with the Latin detractors of his cause. Since Constantine intended to introduce Slavic worship in Moravia as soon as the translation of the books was ready, without waiting for him to teach Slavic literacy and prepare capable people for the priesthood, recruited from among the Moravians themselves; since, further, the work of distributing letters as quickly as possible among an entire people was physically impossible for two people, that is, for Constantine and Methodius, then for all this, Constantine first of all took care to find people who knew the Slavic language as companions. We don’t know how many of these companions Constantine managed to recruit for himself, who were supposed to be his assistants; It may very well be that much more than we know, but in any case, Clement, Naum, Angilarius, Savva and Laurentius, that is, five of the chosen and known by name disciples of Constantine, belong to the number of his precisely indicated companions. It is positively known about Clement that he was not a Moravian, but a Bulgarian. But there can be no doubt that the other four were also not Moravians. First, this is most clearly demonstrated by their Greek names; if they were Moravians, their Christian names would not be Greek, but necessarily Latin, because in Moravia before Constantine the clergy was Latin. Secondly, that they were not Moravians. this is only too clearly seen from the fact that when a persecution against Greek Orthodoxy and the Slavic language was raised in Moravia, they hastened to leave the country. If Moravia had been their homeland, they, despite persecution, would have remained in it, just as Gorazd remained in it. One of these five, Clement, as we said, was a Bulgarian Slav by birth; but were the other four Slavs or Greeks? It is more than likely that, like Clement, not only all of them, but in general all the other, currently unknown by name, employees of Constantine were Slavs, not Greeks. The baptized Greek Slavs had to greet his idea of ​​Slavic worship with indescribable delight, and therefore, with the greatest readiness and vying with each other, they had to offer him their services; on the contrary, as for the Greeks, it should hardly be assumed that he would find sympathy for himself even among a few individuals. Having chosen his companions and future assistants, Constantine hastened to earnestly pray to God with them and then began to compose his Slavic alphabet. Having compiled the alphabet, he immediately, on the spot, laid the foundation for the translation itself, namely, before setting off on the journey, he translated part of the liturgical selection of readings from the Gospel and the Apostle (the first Gospel in this selection is the Easter Gospel, and the first words of Constantine’s translation were: “The Word was from the beginning, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word”). The Slavic alphabet was ready, the translation experiment itself was happily completed; Apparently, Constantine could only hasten to Moravia in order to announce to the people, sitting in the darkness and the shadow of the Latin language of the German priests, the great joy awaiting them... But we also forgot about the Greeks. There can be no doubt that Constantine did not announce his intention to the emperor and the patriarch, or to the authorities in general, before he carried it out. The point was that in general and in any case, Konstantin could not promise himself success too surely; There was no way he could guarantee that, one way or another, he would manage to obtain consent from the authorities for his enterprise, and in this way he only had to rely on God’s help. But to announce an intention before carrying it out would mean the same thing as directly renouncing all success; the authorities, of course, would not approve of the intention and would oppose its implementation, and Constantine would only have to submit to their verdict. Constantine could in no way announce his intention before he had carried it out. But finally, he could bring the already written Slavic books before his government. Before he decided to do this, what anxious moments he must have gone through! The blessed thought that illuminated his mind was carried out by him: books were created by him for a people who did not know them before. But what fate awaits these books dear to him: will it be allowed to transfer them to the people for whom they were created, or, on the contrary, - alas! - the great thought came to him in vain, will the books be ordered to be put on fire and everything be as it was before? Let the reader imagine Constantine’s feelings in this state of uncertainty between fear and hope, between life and death. Happiness was on the side of Constantine and the Slavs: books invented by one for others were allowed... How did Constantine manage to persuade his authorities to such an unheard-of and unprecedented act (of course, in later times) as allowing liturgical books in a language other than Greek? There can be no doubt that the Greeks very much wanted to establish their church power in Moravia in the most lasting way, that is, forever, - this desire is self-evident. Slavic books were allowed, and now, finally, there really was nothing left for Constantine to do but to rush with them to Moravia. Calculations forced the Greeks to give their consent to Slavic worship; the same calculations required them to declare to the Moravians, in response to this innovation, which was too unpleasant for them, feelings of their liveliest joy, so that they would present this great gift to them from the great man as their own zealous gift - and the following message was sent to the Moravian sovereign Rostislav on behalf of the emperor: “God, Who commands everyone, so that they come to true reason and achieve greater rank, seeing your faith and advice create now in our year, the manifestation of letters in your language, it was not known, only in the first summer, and you too will be counted among the great people of the nations, who glorify God with their tongue, and with that message, God will reveal a man of piety and good faith, a bookish philosopher, and here we accept a gift that is painful and more honest than any gold and silver and Stones of drag and transitory wealth, move with him to always affirm your speech and with all your heart seek God and do not deny common salvation, but do not be lazy with all your efforts, but follow the path of truth, and you too, having brought my struggle into God’s mind, accept your reward in that place both in this age and in the future, for all you soul who wants to believe in Christ God ours, from now until his death, leaving his memory to the rest of the family, like the great king of Konstantin” 61. If the author of the Life did not take some liberties with the original of this imperial epistole, then the Greeks too zealously sacrificed their true feelings to the desire to please the Moravians. Thus (italics ed.), the Moravians, turning to the Greeks with a request for clergy, wanted to be given their own bishop. Why did the Greeks not satisfy this last desire? Perhaps they first wanted to take a good look around the place and then decide on such an important action as the installation of a special bishop. Further, it may very well be that, like the Germans, they found it imprudent to satisfy the aforementioned request of the Moravians: having their own bishop, the Moravians, firstly, would feel much more independent of Constantinople than without a bishop; and at the same time, satisfied in one desire, they could soon present another - instead of a bishop, ask for a metropolitan; secondly, having their own bishop, the Moravians would mainly enrich the treasury of this latter, and not the Patriarch of Constantinople. The news that the Greek priests would bring Slavic letters and Slavic liturgical books, no doubt, managed to forestall Constantine’s own arrival in Moravia. With what impatience the Moravians must have waited for the people who would bring them so many unexpected and so dear treasures! What an enthusiastic meeting they must have had for these people who were coming to open the ears of the deaf and make clear the tongues of the humming! In one Latin adaptation of the Pannonian Life of Constantine we read 62 that when our embassy reached the Moravian borders, the inhabitants in their great joy came out to meet him outside the city walls. The author of the alteration adds this news from himself; but he adds in this case what must be implied in the most necessary way. Indeed, one must think that Constantine’s entry into the capital city of Moravia took place only through the most noisy and joyful greetings of the entire population, and that this day was the brightest holiday for everyone. Constantine brought Slavic books to Moravia. But this small beginning of the translation, made in Greece itself, so to speak, should only have previously satisfied the Moravians that they would undoubtedly have books and worship in their native language. To actually begin worship in the Slavic language, much work remained, and Constantine, upon arriving in Moravia, immediately had to begin this further translation of the necessary church books. It goes without saying that the Moravians looked forward with the greatest impatience to the day when they would hear in church, instead of the previously heard foreign speech, their own, native speech; and therefore Konstantin began his work with the greatest zeal. In all likelihood, to speed things up as much as possible, he forced Methodius and his other companions to help himself more or less; but be that as it may, only in a very short time did he translate the entire church rite or all rites in general, both general Christian worship and the necessary private Christian requirements. Famous for us should be the church in which Constantine first served, and the day on which this great event for the Slavic world happened; unfortunately, neither one nor the other is unknown. According to the best researchers 63, the capital of the ancient Moravian princes was Velehrad on the Morava River, which is now Gradish, or Gradisht, located 65 versts southeast of Olomouc; if this is true, then Constantine made his translation in Velegrad. But was it also in this city that the celebration of the first Slavic worship took place? Having no data for any positive answer, we cannot pass here in silence one official act that has survived to us, relating to the activities of Constantine in Moravia. This act is Rostislav’s deed of gift to the Olomut Church of St. Peter on the day of its consecration by Constantine 64. Here it is translated from Latin: “Prince Rostitsa, on the day of the consecration of the Church of St. Peter, performed by the venerable brother Cyril, betrayed all the people of the castle and the city along the very banks of the river. Moravians" (Ratis dux (Moraviae) tradidit in die consecrationis ecclesiae sancti Petri in Olomutici per venerabilem Fratrem Kyrillum omnes homines castelli et civitatis (Olomuc) ad ripam usque Moraue fluvii). There is news that the Olomut Church of St. Peter existed even under Rostislav’s predecessor, Mojmir 65, and, therefore, in the given church record it should not be understood as the consecration of the church in the strict sense, but something else. The question now is: what exactly is this? The publishers of the act refer it to the year 863. Since, according to our calculations, in 863 the alphabet was just invented by Constantine, but the translation of the books had not yet been completed, we think that the publishers are mistaken in assigning the year. But if they put forward a year when Constantine was not yet in Moravia, or at least when books had not yet been translated by him here, then they make it clear that they attribute the act to the earliest time of Constantine’s stay in Moravia. If we can be sure that the publishers made such a conclusion with sufficient thoroughness, then the question involuntarily arises whether the record does not point us to the first divine service performed by Constantine in Moravia in the Slavic language. In relation to the church, what could be called in the improper sense of its consecration, if not the first divine service in it according to the Greek rite instead of the Roman and in the Slavic language instead of Latin? But this consecration of the church is not only a local celebration for the church itself, on the contrary, it is a celebration for the whole people, which is proven by the fact that the prince himself comes from Velehrad to Olomouc to attend it; therefore, if this consecration of the church is really nothing more than the first Slavic divine service in it, then it is also the first Slavic divine service of Constantine in Moravia. To the question: what could have prompted Constantine to perform his first divine service not in Velegrad, but in Olomouc? - the most likely answer is that Constantine completed his work of translation shortly before the feast of St. Peter and that, intending to perform the first divine service on the day of his memory, he also wanted to choose a church dedicated to his name as the place of worship. So, if it is true that our record refers to the very first stay of Constantine in Moravia, then we can with some probability assume that the place of the first Slavic divine service was the Olomutsky Church of St. Peter, and its day is the day of memory of this apostle, or June 29 not 863, but, as we will see below, 864. However, speaking frankly, we can assume this no more than just with some probability, because another explanation, much simpler, can very well be given to the matter: it goes without saying that the Olomut Church of St. Peter, which existed under Mojmir, could burn down and be repaired again and that, thus, the consecration of the church could not be the first Slavic divine service in it, but consecration in the full proper sense of the word. As for the record itself, the name of Cyril in it, which Konstantin adopted shortly before his death, should not raise doubts about its authenticity. The fact is that it is not the autograph that has reached us, but a photograph from the autograph, due to the dilapidation of the latter, taken in 1061; during correspondence, the name of Constantine could have been replaced by the name of Cyril due to the high use of this second name at that time. As soon as Constantine completed his translation, he had to “brother” for it with the Latin bishops and priests. How can we imagine this matter in its details? After the Moravians broke away from the Greeks and returned to the pope again, which, as we said, happened almost immediately after the first sent their clergy to them, Constantine became a Greek alien in Moravia, acting in the diocese of one of the Latin bishops. The cause for which he remained in Moravia even after the departure from the Greeks, that is, his intention to give the Moravians worship in their own language, was extremely hated by the entire Latin clergy, and if it were so that the Latin bishop, to whom the pope entrusted Moravia to the administration after it was returned from the Greeks, had full power to act according to his own will, then he would not have allowed Constantine with his Slavic books to remain in his diocese and one extra day. But necessity forced the pope to allow the Moravians to keep Constantine with his Slavic books, and thus the Latin clergy, who were directly in charge of Moravia, could be angry as much as they liked, but should not have prevented Constantine from introducing Slavic worship in the country. What remained for the Latin clergy to do against this hated stranger, against whom they were deprived of the opportunity to use force? The only thing that remained for the clergy was to try, through the power of persuasion and exhortation, to divert him from the hated enterprise; and in this way the Metropolitan of Venice, to whom Moravia was given over, gathered a council of bishops, priests and learned men against Constantine. The author of the Life does not report the details of the debates of this council with Constantine; but, firstly, it goes without saying that all the arguments that could be invented were used to present to Constantine the ungodliness and destructiveness of his enterprise, and secondly, the direct information from the Life that at the council, in addition to bishops and priests, there were also “students,” that is, scientists, makes it clear that the clergy took care to be at the council fully armed with their arguments; it is more than likely that, among other things, they tried to influence Constantine with the argument that it was shameful for him, a Greek, to be the initiator of such a thing, which should put the barbarian Slavs on the same footing with his compatriots, and so on. Where did this council take place, that is, was Constantine called to Venice or to some other place in the diocese of the Metropolitan of Venice, or did the Metropolitan send bishops, priests and scientists to admonish Constantine to Moravia itself? We think it’s the latter, because if Constantine had undertaken a journey from Moravia, the author of the Life would have said so. What Constantine's further work in Moravia should consist of after the translation of the books was quite clearly determined by the purpose for which he remained in the country. When the Moravians demanded from the pope that they be allowed to keep Constantine with his Slavic books, the pope most likely did not attach too much importance to this. While keeping Constantine with the Slavic books, the Moravians at the same time accepted the Italian priests sent by the pope with their Latin worship; How could the history of Slavic books end? Dad, in all likelihood, reasoned that it would not end in anything serious; not being introduced into constant and widespread use, but being performed only in very few localities of the country and in most of these localities once two or three times a year, Slavic worship - so the pope could think - will not last long in the unequal struggle with Latin and will soon fall into complete oblivion among the Moravians, like a momentary whim. Counting on the constant and diligent opposition to Slavic worship on the part of the Latin clergy and on his own measures, which it was easy for him to take against him subsequently, the pope could hope for the indicated outcome of the matter with great confidence. But this is not at all how the Moravians and Constantine should have reasoned and hoped for it. To completely eliminate Latin worship and forever establish Slavic worship, to completely free ourselves from this or that foreign clergy and forever acquire our own, national clergy - this is what the Moravians should have wanted and achieved, and this is what Constantine should have set as the goal of his activity. What exactly was needed for all this? Obviously, it was necessary for Constantine to lay the first foundation for something that could continue by itself, having once been called forth, but which could not appear by itself for the first time, that is, it was necessary for Constantine to introduce and establish among the Moravians their own national clergy. And this was the main focus of Constantine’s activities in Moravia during his three-year stay there. Immediately after completing the translation of the liturgical books, Rostislav gathered disciples for Constantine, whom the latter began to teach and prepare to be his own future shepherds of Moravia. As for the preparation itself, the Life of Constantine says the following: “And teach your fellow disciples Matins and Years (i.e., the hours), mass ("Lunch"), and Vespers, and Vespers and secret services (liturgy)," that is, it says that Constantine taught his disciples to perform the full circle of daytime church services. Apparently too little has been said here; but you really have to think that it was like this. First of all, one should not imagine that seven- or eight-year-old children were recruited as Constantine’s students; firstly, judging a priori, children could not be recruited in any way - this is for the simple reason that it would have to wait an unusually long time for their initiation; secondly, that in fact it was not children who were recruited, but adults, this is undoubtedly proven by the fact that after their short preparation they could be promoted to church degrees. But if it was not children who were recruited, but adults, then, as is self-evident, it was most natural to recruit those who did not need to be trained as much as it was necessary to prepare children, that is, it was most natural to recruit adults who had already previously had the education necessary for priests. The question, of course, is whether such people could have been found in Moravia. The Life of Methodius answers this question in the affirmative. About Gorazd, whom Methodius, before his death, appointed as his successor to the Moravian archbishopric throne, the Life says that he “was well taught in the Latin books.” This means that Gorazd had a very good scientific education at that time. But this education from Latin books was received by Gorazd not from Constantine, but primarily from Latin teachers, and Gorazd was taken to Constantine, already being an educated man. Thus, if we undoubtedly know that one of the Moravians whom Constantine was supposed to prepare for the priesthood was a well-educated man, then there is no reason to deny that all the others were more or less educated people. Book and scientific education in Moravia of the 9th century! At first glance, of course, this will seem very strange. But we are not talking about many thriving schools, but about the fact that there could have been a dozen and a half people in Moravia who had the scientific education of that time. This last was indeed very possible. Among the German Moravian priests, there is no doubt that there was always a small number of those who were capable and willing to engage in the education of youth, but it goes without saying that even from just two or three teachers it was very possible to get six or eight people educated for each generation. From all that has been said, it follows that the answer given by the Life deserves full faith, that is, that the matter really was as the Life presents it. The Prince of Moravia had the opportunity to take care to recruit for Constantine people who were not only familiar with the first beginnings of Christianity, but also who had received a more or less satisfactory book education; but if so, then Constantine really did not need to go through a full course of study with them, starting from the very beginning, but should have only been engaged in special preparation for the priesthood. What does it mean that he taught his disciples Matins, Vespers, Vespers, etc.? The way of expressing the Life is reminiscent of the way of teaching that was common in our old, illiterate Rus', that is, as if Constantine taught his students to read or, in fact, not so much taught them to read, but forced them to memorize some of the books they needed. But, of course, there can be no doubt that this was not the case at all. If the author of the Life does not tell us that Constantine first of all taught his students his new alphabet - and taught, of course, so that they could read not just any one, but in general all kinds of books written by her, etc. - then, of course, this should be implied by itself. <...> The Slavic books of Constantine were translations of Greek books, and the church services they contained were not of the Latin, but of the Greek rite; therefore, Constantine had to teach his students the Greek church charter, he had to teach the correct performance of all ritual actions included in the Greek church services - Greek church singing, the Greek way of proclaiming litanies, etc., in general he had to achieve with his students that they could subsequently perform divine services according to his Slavic books completely and in all respects correctly without any outside guidance. So, the future Moravian priests needed this preparation just mentioned, and it was precisely this that Constantine had to give them. But if this was actually necessary, then one should not think that Constantine limited himself to this alone. This was necessary, but Constantine was able to do much more than was necessary, and there is no doubt that he really expanded his task from the limits of what was actually necessary to the limits of what was possible for himself. The disciples of Constantine, the future Moravian priests, as we said above, were people who had a scientific education; but, firstly, at that time enlightenment was at a much higher level in Greece than in Italy and Germany; secondly, among the Greeks themselves there were few people famous for their learning, like Constantine. It follows from this that no matter how good the former mentors of Constantine’s students were, in any case they could not give precisely such an education that they would no longer have anything left to hear and borrow from the latter. No matter how good the previous mentors were, in any case, in relation to Constantine, they could not be more than, for example, mentors of gymnasiums in relation to mentors of universities, that is, mentors of secondary educational institutions in relation to mentors of higher education. Thus, despite the fact that Constantine’s students were already educated people, he could again give them a full course of science; the latter were studied by them - let us express it in the same clear similarity - in the scope of a gymnasium or seminary program, Konstantin could teach them in the scope of a university or academic program. But if this was possible for Constantine, then there is no doubt that this was what he did. It goes without saying that with this new course of science, Constantine’s main concern should have been to complete, as far as possible, the theological education of future shepherds. Neither the Lives nor other ancient legends tell us any news about these Moravian students of Constantine, with the exception of one of them, Gorazd, and we cannot say whether all of them, like this last one, emerged as people worthy of their teacher, but, knowing Constantine himself, we can say with complete confidence that for this everything was done by him himself, which was required on his own part. The translation of Greek liturgical books and the preparation of priests who would serve from these books were the main tasks to which Constantine’s works were devoted during his three-year stay in Moravia. These were necessary things, because giving the Moravians Slavic worship, which was the goal of Constantine’s journey, meant precisely giving them Slavic books and priests who knew how to serve from these books. But Constantine was not one of those who limit themselves to what is necessary; as always before, so here he wanted to do not only what was necessary from him, but also what was possible for him. In the selected minority of the Moravian people, as we noted above, there could be found people like Gorazd, that is, people “well versed in Latin books” or, what is the same thing, scientifically and well educated; but the recently baptized majority was completely different: it was the same as the majority of our ancestors in the age of Metropolitan Hilarion, famous for his learning, that is, in most of this, the Moravians were still double-religionists, half-Christians and half-pagans, and more of the latter than the former. The main reason for this was a circumstance that was not the responsibility of anyone, namely the fact that Christianity had been introduced to the Moravians too recently: no matter how zealous the enlighteners of a certain people may be, in any case the state of dual faith is a necessary transitional step from one faith to another. But part of the blame lay with the educators of the Moravian people themselves. If in the minority of German priests who lived and worked in Moravia there were people who were capable and tried to bring the light of even scientific education into the country, then the same cannot be said about the majority. This majority, being completely alien to the people, behaved as strangers always and everywhere do, that is, they mainly cared about themselves, and not about the people in their care; he needed the tithe to be delivered to him regularly, and then be whatever you know and want. The semi-Christian Moravians still continued to diligently make sacrifices according to their first, that is, pagan, rite, they continued to live just as unlawfully with many wives and to divorce them just as unlawfully, as was the case under paganism, but the shepherds, receiving their dues, did not forbid them either one or the other. This very unsatisfactory state of affairs in Christian Moravia, found by Constantine, as was natural to expect, awakened all his jealousy and placed on him a new concern, in addition to those that he himself took upon himself, that is, the concern of not only enlightening the Moravians with Slavic literacy, but also of advancing their enlightenment with the Christian faith. Since the remnants of paganism continued to linger among the people, on the one hand, from a long-standing habit of it, and on the other, from the negligence and indulgence of the priests, Constantine, on the one hand, himself directly entered into the struggle with the inveterate attachment of the people to paganism, and on the other hand, through denunciations and exhortations, he tried to awaken greater zeal for his pastoral duty in the Moravian priests. How great were Constantine’s successes in this special field of activity? The author of the Life does not answer our question and, no doubt, because the successes were great or small, in any case the matter was not one of those easily observed, and it was difficult to say anything positive about it. We do not know how much free time Constantine had left from his necessary work, that is, translating books and preparing future priests; if this time was enough, then there is no doubt that the successes of his personal apostolic preaching to the people were more or less significant, that as a result of his admonitions the veneration of many sacred groves and wells was abandoned; on the contrary, if there was too little free time at his disposal, then it goes without saying that, despite all his desire, he could not do too much. As for the Latin priests of Moravia, whom Constantine denounced for their shameful negligence about their flock and in whom he tried to awaken the consciousness of their duties, then, of course, the accusatory speeches of the alien stranger and the innovator they hated irritated them more than stimulated them to action. The negligence of the Latin priests of Moravia was bad; but, on the other hand, the zeal of most of them was also no better, and Constantine had to fight not only with the first, but also with the last. If an ignorant person is taught by an ignoramus, then the consequence will be the saddest, namely, what will happen is that instead of some nonsense and absurdities, other, not the best nonsense and absurdities will be crammed into the student’s head. But since the majority of the Latin Moravian clergy was very ignorant, his zeal for teaching the people was accompanied by the indicated sad consequence. The heads of the Moravians were full of Slavic pagan superstitions, and the heads of their teachers were no less full of German or Italian folk superstitions, depending on what nationality they belonged to, and, thinking of instructing the Moravians in the Christian faith, they taught them the nonsense of their superstition under the name of the truths of faith. Latin priests, says the Life of Constantine, among other things, taught that “men of great heads live under the earth” (big heads), that “every reptile of the devil is a creature” and “whoever kills a serpent” will “forgot” “nine sins” for this, that if someone kills a person, he must drink from a wooden cup for three months, and not touch a glass one 66 . As the reader can see, here is presented a small excerpt from one of those primitive integral worldviews that every people develops for itself, and there is no doubt that the Moravian teachers did not limit themselves to a few of their individual beliefs, but were diligent in conveying to their students the entire system of these beliefs, as far as they managed to preserve it among the new Christian concepts. So, Constantine had to fight against these absurdities of German or Italian superstition, with which the Moravian priests thought to replace the Slavic superstition in the minds of the people. “Yet behold, like thorns, we fell with verbal fire,” 67 says the author of the Life about the success of the struggle. But in this case we cannot give faith to his words. Constantine could have shamed and denounced the Latin priests many times, but for him to force them to renounce their superstitions or turn the people away from their preaching is completely impossible: superstitions and love for them are not eradicated so quickly. So Constantine did everything that needed to be done for the Moravians. If the reader wants to properly appreciate this service of his to the Moravians, he must not forget in what circumstances he had to carry out his labors. Unable to expel him from Moravia or directly prohibit his Slavic translation, the Latin clergy made attempts to deviate him from the hated innovation by force of conviction, but the attempts were completely in vain. What should have followed after this? After this, the Latin clergy, who were to renounce Moravia in the short future, must have felt an irreconcilable hatred towards him. Thus, incessant declarations of hatred, constant minor and major insults, continuous intrigues and intrigues - this was the environment in which Constantine had to spend his three and a half years in Moravia. How many people are willing and determined enough to voluntarily subject themselves to such unbearable torture? But Constantine had enough of them; he was not at all in a hurry to leave Moravia, as someone else would have done in his place, but for the good of others he sacrificed himself. After Constantine had prepared his disciples, all that remained was to consecrate them, and he went with them to the bishop who had jurisdiction over Moravia. It seems that he himself left Moravia completely, having no intention of returning to it again with dedicated disciples. At least that’s what the author of the Life makes me think; in his further story about Constantine’s stay with the Pannonian prince Kocel, he speaks of Constantine’s farewell to this latter, and together with Rostislav of Moravia as the last, final farewell, namely, he ends his story: “But (Constantine) was not taken from Rostislav, nor from Kocel, nor gold, nor silver, nor other things, put the gospel word without food (without bribes), just ask the captives from both nine hundred, and I will let you go” 68. If this was really the case, then it follows that Constantine had in mind, after consecrating priests to the Moravians, to go preaching the Gospel and with his Slavic books to other Slavic countries. For the Moravians, the matter would remain somewhat unfinished: having their own priests, they would remain with a foreign bishop. But since they could take care of the bishop on their own, without the assistance of Konstantinov, the latter staying with them for this meant wasting his valuable time in vain. One cannot help but regret that the author of the Life does not tell us anything about how the Moravians parted with Constantine: there is no doubt that the farewell of the people to their greatest benefactor was touching to the last degree. From Moravia to Italy, where the see of the then Moravian bishop, Constantine, was located: either through German Bavaria, or through Slavic Pannonia. It may very well be that he feared the hatred of the German bishops, who could treat him in the same arbitrary manner as they later treated Methodius, that is, seize him and send him somewhere to prison; It is true that there were the same German bishops in Pannonia, but here, in case of danger, he could hope to avoid captivity with the help of the local Slavic prince. This Slavic Pannonian prince, through whose possessions Constantine went to Italy, was Cocelus, son of Privinna. Its capital was Moseburg, or Moosburg, at the confluence of the Sala River into Blatenskoe, now spoiled, Plattenskoe, lake (on the southwestern side of this latter), and its possessions embraced the western part of the lower, or Transdanubian, Pannonia, that is, the southwestern corner of present-day Hungary. Kocel's father, Privinna, was an appanage Moravian prince; but, having been expelled from Moravia by Mojmir, he retired to the Germans, from whom he received first temporary and then hereditary possession of the region we now call Pannonia. Having come to the Germans as a pagan, Privinna and his son were immediately baptized, after which they both became zealous Christians 69 . Most researchers speak of Rostislav, Svyatopolk and Kocel as three, constituting one common inextricable union of princes of the Western Slavs. But this is completely unfair: the latter was not at all in alliance with the first two. It is not known what the personal relations of the Prince of Pannon to the Moravian princes were; since Kocel's father, Privinna, was expelled from Moravia by Rostislav's predecessor, Mojmir, since, further, it is known about Privinna's death that he was killed by the Moravians, it may very well be that more or less strong enmity prevailed between one and the other princes. But in any case, Kotsel could not be in alliance with Rostislav and Svyatopolk due to the conditions of his position. He was not the natural sovereign of his lands, but received them into power from the German king; having been placed in a reign by the Germans, he could easily have been driven out by the same Germans; and therefore, without at all thinking about an alliance with the Moravian princes hostile to the king, he behaved as his faithful and zealous vassal. The Moravian princes waged a fierce war against the Germans; maybe they needed the military help of the Greeks, but in any case they needed the Greek clergy to replace the expelled German clergy, and they sent an embassy to Constantinople. But in no way could the Prince of Pannonia join them, because if he had done this, the Germans would have immediately driven him out of his possessions, and he had no incentive to do this, that is, he had a German clergy and did not need the Greek clergy at all. He first became acquainted with Constantine and his Slavic books when the latter was walking through Pannonia to Italy. We turn to this acquaintance of Kotsela with Konstantin. The Slavic alphabet and Slavic books were objects as close to the heart of the Prince of Pannon as those of the Moravian princes, because he was exactly the same Slav; but meanwhile, for three whole years, he only had to know that Slavic books had appeared among his neighbors, and not see these books himself. One can imagine the torment that these books, close but inaccessible to him, must have caused him, and one can understand his greatest joy when he learned that the translator of the books would go through his domain. The author of the Life does not say anything, but we think that Constantine went not through Bavaria, but through Pannonia, not only because he considered this latter route safer for himself, but also because he received a direct, earnest invitation from Kocel to visit him. Kocel could not have previously deliberately invited Constantine from Moravia to his place, because the Bavarian king and metropolitan would not have allowed him to do this; but here the request could have been sent to Constantine secretly from them, and the visit could have been passed off as accidental. Be that as it may, Kotsel received Constantine with indescribable joy and begged him to slow down his journey for a while. What Kotsel wanted from Constantine, what the latter did during his stay with him, the author of the Life says about this: “And love (Kotsel) the great Slovenian letters, and learn them, and having grown up to fifty, the student learns them” 70. Kocel could not introduce into use the liturgical books translated by Konstantin, but he could have needed Konstantinov’s newly invented alphabet for other purposes. The Slavs, already familiar at that time with the art of writing, not having their own alphabet, were forced to use some Greek alphabet, others Latin, but it is known that not all sounds of Slavic speech have signs in the said alphabet, and thus Slavic speech was depicted in foreign letters, as Brave says, “without structure.” So Kotsel, no doubt, intended to replace the inconvenient Latin alphabet with the real Slavic alphabet of Constantine, or at least introduce the former into joint use with the latter. We said that Kocel could not introduce Slavic worship, like the Moravians; he, of course, tried to copy Constantine’s Slavic books, if not for serving on them, then at least for simple reading. How long did Konstantin stay with Kocel? By the way, we will need to know this below when we decide the question of the time of Constantine’s arrival in Moravia and the time of his transfer. There was no way Konstantin could have been with Kocel for too long. And he himself had a certain task ahead, with which he had to hurry, that is, the initiation of the Moravian disciples; but the main thing is not this, but the fact that he would in no way be allowed to stay at Kocel for too long by the Bavarian king and metropolitan. Constantine could remain with Kocel as long as his stay could retain the appearance of a mere slowdown at a crossroads; but as soon as it acquired the meaning of a deliberate stop for the purpose of Greco-Slavic propaganda, the king and the metropolitan would immediately force Kotsel to remove the hated preacher from them. What extension of time the Bavarian king and metropolitan should have considered as a normal stop and what extension of time could have been considered as an intentional stop, we, of course, cannot assign with accuracy; but in any case, one must think that Konstantin stayed with Kocel for two or three weeks and no more than a month. As for the teaching of the letters of Constantine given to him by the Pannonian Kotsel, which, apparently, contradicts the very short time itself, then by teaching here we should not mean teaching literacy to people who were previously illiterate, but only acquainting literate people with the alphabet previously unknown to them, and this latter requires very little time. The author of the Life concludes the story about Constantine’s stay in Pannonia with the following: “And great honor do him (Kotsel), lead him past, and (Constantine) was not taken from Rostislav, nor from Kotsel, nor gold, nor silver, nor any other thing, put the word of the Gospel without food, but only the captives will ask from both nine hundred, and I will let you go” 71 . What kind of captives are meant here, for whom Constantine asked for freedom from Rostislav and Kocel? Several years before, the Moravians had waged war with the Germans, but the German prisoners, no doubt, were released by them at the very conclusion of peace, because the war did not end in their favor at all. The Germans' allies against the Moravians were the Bulgarians; So, weren’t the captives captured from these latter left unhanded over? But, it seems, the help of the Bulgarians to the Germans was limited to promises alone, and they did not actually take part in the war. What other captives can be understood? We think that the author, who did not want to tell us the matter more clearly, by the captives of the Prince of Moravia should mean the Kotselov Pannonians, and by the captives of these latter - the Rostislav Moravians, and that the release of the captives by both princes was nothing more than their mutual replacement. Kotselov's captives lead us to this assumption. In any case, only the Moravians could be prisoners of the Prince of Pannonia, because he could only fight with them, willy-nilly helping the Germans against them, and thus, under the captives who were released to him at the request of Constantine, in any case, there is no one else to understand except the Moravians. But if the Moravian captives were not first released by Kocel, then it goes without saying that the Pannonian captives were not released by Rostislav of Moravia either. That the exchange of captives slowed down for so long is not surprising: some misunderstandings between the princes could have prevented this, or the princes could not even think about the exchange at all, leaving their captive subjects to their fate. It is even less surprising that Constantine intervened in the matter: both those and other captives were Slavs dear to his heart, and the meeting he proposed with Kocel when leaving Moravia presented him with an excellent opportunity to take care of their fate, that is, having asked permission from one prince, to negotiate their exchange with another. If the reason for the slowdown in the exchange of prisoners was the continuing discontent between the princes, then the success of Constantine would show that he was able to establish peace between the princes. After Pannonia we find Constantine in Venice, before a council of Italian bishops and priests who torture him for his Slavic books. As we said above, it is not known in a positive way which of the Italian bishops Moravia was subordinated to by paw after the embassy to the Greeks; but this trial of Constantine in Venice shows that Moravia belonged either to the Metropolitan of Venice himself or to one of the bishops of his metropolitanate; that is, it either happened that Constantine appeared to initiate his students to the Metropolitan of Venice himself, and the latter convened a council for him, or that he appeared with his students to one of the bishops subordinate to the Metropolitan and from him was called by the Metropolitan to a cathedral competition. For three years the Metropolitan of Venice allowed Constantine to work on the establishment of Slavic worship in Moravia, and suddenly, when the latter came to him in person, he assembled a council against him. What does this mean? This does not mean anything special, but is a continuation of only what happened in Moravia itself. The Slavic translation of Constantine, permitted by the pope, was extremely hated by the entire Latin clergy, and among others and more than all others, it was hated by the Metropolitan of Venice with his bishops and priests, as persons who had not only spiritual convictions involved, but also material interests. But since the Metropolitan did not have the opportunity to directly prohibit Constantine from translating it, because the translation was permitted by the pope, it was necessary, of necessity, to drive him out of the world in a different way, that is, by blasphemy and reproach for such an unheard-of and heretical innovation. And these blasphemies and reproaches began as soon as Constantine began his activities in Moravia: the Italian priests who were in Moravia tirelessly reviled his cause, exhorting him to renounce him; a whole council of bishops and scientists was deliberately sent to him by the metropolitan for the same denunciations and admonitions. All these efforts were in vain: Constantine was completely deaf and adamant and continued to work on his translation and preparation of future Slavic priests. But, finally, he himself appeared before the Metropolitan, asking for dedication to his disciples, who were about to open Slavic worship in Moravia, and the Metropolitan had to, with his own hands, finally strengthen the idea that he hated. What should the Metropolitan have done in response to Constantine's request? All that remained for him was to make one last decisive attempt to force Constantine to renounce his Slavic books. And so a great council was convened against the “heresy leader”. “Having gathered for this,” says the author of the Life, “the bishops, and the priests, and the monkrists, as if they were lying about the falcon” 72. In the area of ​​the Metropolitan of Venice there were up to twenty bishops 73; if each of the bishops brought with him two priests and two monks, then the cathedral was very large, that is, there were up to a hundred people on it. “Tell us,” these “ravens” said to Constantine, “how did you at this time dare to invent books for the Slavs and teach them from them? Look at ancient times: no one did anything like that then: neither the apostles, nor the popes, nor the great teachers - Gregory the Theologian, Augustine, Jerome! Do you really not know, along with us, that there are only three languages ​​in which it is worthy to glorify God in the Church: Hebrew, Hellenic and Latin? In all this, of course, there was nothing new for Constantine, that is, all this, of course, was heard by him many times back in Moravia itself; thus, without laboring again, he could refer to his previous answers. But the absurd speeches were repeated to him by the whole great council; How could the desire to denounce and reproach this council of ignorant shepherds and bishops not boil in his chest? And he answered: “You talk about the apostles, the Pope, the holy fathers, but look first at God: doesn’t the rain from Him fall equally on all people, and the sun shines from Him, and the wind breathes in the same way on everyone? All are equal before Him; Why are you not ashamed to recognize the rights of only three peoples and order all other peoples to be deaf and blind? Tell me, do you think God is powerless that He cannot give letters to other nations, or envious that He does not want to give them? But we know many nations, besides your three, who also have letters and glorify God, each in their own language; such are the Armenians, Persians, Avazgs, Ivers, Sugds, Goths and many others. But if all this does not enlighten you,” continued Constantine, “then submit at least to the judgment of the Divine, Prophetic and Apostolic Scriptures. David cries out: sing to the Lord, all the earth... let all the earth worship and sing to you... Praise the Lord, all you nations... let every breath praise the Lord; The Gospel says: the little ones received Him, and gave them the power to become children of God; and one more thing: I pray not only for these, but also for the believing children of God, and, therefore, everyone has exactly the same rights to pray to God in their own languages. The Savior said in the Gospel: when you go, you will all learn languages... when you go into the whole world, preach the Gospel to every creature... and these signs will follow to those who believe: in My name demons will be given birth, new tongues will speak. The Lord spoke in the Gospel,” Constantine turned his speech to his listeners, “and about you; He says: woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you close the Kingdom of Heaven before men; for you do not enter, nor do you leave those who enter to be taken in; and again: Woe to you lawyers, because you have taken the key of understanding; you yourselves are not worthy, and you rebuke those who enter. Listen to the Apostle Paul,” Constantine continued his testimony again, “he says in the Epistle to the Corinthians: I want you all to speak in tongues, rather let you prophesy.”... and then he cites the well-known passage of the 1st Epistle to the Corinthians (chapter 14), where the apostle demands that in church meetings the incomprehensible speeches of those with the gift of tongues must certainly be explained to those present, since otherwise there will be no creation for the Church and those speaking will simply be “speaking in the air.” So, the last attempt to force Constantine to renounce his Slavic books turned out to be as futile as all the previous ones. What happened after that? In the Life of Constantine, after the words that, having disgraced the bishops with “many words”, he left them to speak, it is written briefly: “Having taken away the Roman papage, he sent an ambassador for him”; then it talks about Constantine’s stay in Rome. Thus, the entire answer that the Life gives to our question lies in these few words: “Having taken away the Roman Pope, he sent an ambassador for him.” What did the Pope learn about? Firstly, he, of course, learned that the Metropolitan of Venice, together with all his clergy, looked very unkindly at Slavic books and that he had called a council against Constantine. But because of this alone, Constantine had not yet been invited by the pope to appear to him himself. The Pope summoned Constantine to himself to initiate his disciples. Consequently, he, secondly, learned that the Metropolitan of Venice was refusing Constantine’s request to appoint priests of his own to the Moravians, who would serve according to the Slavic books. From whom did the pope learn that the Metropolitan was denying Constantine his request? It goes without saying that those involved in the matter had a need to inform him about this; therefore, he learned about it from Constantine and the Moravians. So, after the Council on Constantine, the following happened: firstly, the Metropolitan of Venice, not having time to convince Constantine to voluntarily renounce the Slavic books, decided to force him to renounce them and did not want to ordain the Moravians he had prepared for the priesthood; secondly, Constantine turned to the pope with a complaint against the metropolitan and as a result of this complaint, he was invited by the pope to Rome to get his demands met. See: P.A. Ilyinsky. Experience of systematic Cyril and Methodius bibliography. Sofia, 1934; I. Ogienko. Kostyantin Methodius, their life and life, part II. Warsaw, 1928. "Bibliographical sheets, ed. P.I. Keppen", 1825, No. 8. See more about this in the “Readings of the Society of Russian History and Antiquities” (CHOIDR) (1864, book 2, pp. 142–161) and in the biography of P.I. Köppen, comp. F.P. Keppen (Collection of the Department of Russian Language and Literature of the Academy of Sciences (ORYAS), 1911, vol. 59, no. 5). N.P. Rumyantsev, in a letter to a lover and connoisseur of the Church Slavonic language, Minister of Public Education, Admiral A. S. Shishkov, wrote: “...Please protect the very useful Bibliographic Sheets published by Mr. Keppen from the persecution that Mr. Magnitsky brought against them. If he succeeds in his presentation, what kind of condemnation will we certainly be subjected to abroad, when scientists learn that in our country, Mr. Dobrovsky’s work on Cyril and Methodius is prohibited solely because this learned and respectable man narrates the circumstances of their lives differently from how they are described in our Menaion-Chetia. Protect us from such shame...” (Correspondence of A.Kh. Vostokov in a time-by-time order, with explanations and notes by I. Sreznevsky. St. Petersburg, 1873, p. 231). See: “Moskvityanin”, 1834, No. 6, p. 406–434 and Cyril and Methodius Anniversary Collection, ed. M.P. Pogodin. M., 1865, p. 5–42. Letter from E.E. Golubinsky I.I. Sreznevsky dated December 5, 1867 (TsGIA, f. 1628, op. 1, d. 466, l. 7–8). Report on the XXII awarding of the Count Uvarov Prizes. St. Petersburg, 1880, p. 159. Professor N.I. Subbotin came to the following conclusion: “...You approach the erected solid edifice of history with a heavy hammer of criticism and with its blows you try every stone to see if it is suitable for a real building...” (Doctoral disputation at the Moscow Theological Academy on December 16, 1880 - “Orthodox Review”, 1881, No. 1, p. 158). I. I. Sreznevsky. Review of Golubinsky’s handwritten work “Saints Constantine and Methodius - the Slavic Apostles” (Report on the XII award of Count Uvarov’s prizes. St. Petersburg, 1870, p. 230). See, for example, the speech of Academician I.V. Yagich at the anniversary meeting of the Department of Russian Language and Literature of the Academy of Sciences on April 5, 1885 in honor of the millennium of the repose of St. Methodius (Collection ORYAS, vol. 38. 1886, p. 59). Busy with preparations for the publication of “History of the Russian Church,” E.E. Golubinsky turned again to his work on the holy First Teachers only in 1885. At a ceremonial meeting at the MDA on April 6, 1885, he read a speech “Saints Constantine and Methodius - Slavic First Teachers” - brief provisions of his extensive research (“Additions to the works of the Holy Fathers in Russian translation”, 1885, part 236, pp. 160–228). See the essay by I.I. Platonov in “Spiritual Messenger”. Kharkov, 1862, No. 6–8, review by E.E. Golubinsky - in the Central State Historical Archive, f. 1628, op. 1, no. 377. Report on the XXII awarding of the Count Uvarov Prizes. St. Petersburg, 1880, p. 159. See: E.E. Golubinsky. History of the Russian Church. T. I. Ed. 2nd. M., 1904, p. 911–913 and “Concerning the restructuring of V.I. Lamansky on the history of the activities of Constantine the Philosopher, the First Teacher of the Slavs" (Izvestia ORYAS, 1907, vol. 12, book 2, pp. 368–380). “Journal of the Ministry of Public Education” (ZhMNP), 1903–1904, and separately PGr., 1915. See the Russian translation in the Cyril and Methodius Anniversary Collection, p. 327–342. V.I. Lamansky. Slavic Life of St. Cyril as a religious epic work and as a historical source. PGr., 1915, p. 100–106. "Revue des Questiones historique 71 e livraison, 1. Juillet", Paris, 1884, p. 1 ΙΟΙ 66. ZhMNP, 1886, part g46, p. 17–59, 234–275. For Russian translation, see: E. Golubinsky. History of the Russian Church, vol. I. – CHOIDR, 1901, book. 3, p. 247–252. "Orthodox Review", 1881, No. 1, p. 158. Life of Constantine the Philosopher, named Cyril. – Cyril and Methodius. Collection of monuments to the activities of the holy First Teachers and Enlighteners of the Slavic tribes related, compiled by O. Bodyansky. - “Readings in the Society of Russian History and Antiquities at Moscow University” (CHOIDR), 1863, book. 2., dept. 3 (Further references to the Life are from this edition). The Life of Our Blessed Father and Teacher Methodius, Archbishop of Moravia. – CHOIDR, 1865, book. 1, dept. 3. (Further references to the Life in the text are from this edition). Laudatory Word to Blessed Cyril and Archbishop Methodius of Pannonia. – Ibid., 1865, book. 2, dept. 3, p. 2–3. Acta Sanctorum Bollandisti. Octobris, tomus Quartus, Romae, 1866, p. 123–125. See Life of St. Hilarion of Gruzinsky. – (A.N. Muravyov). Lives of the saints of the Russian Church, also Iversian and Slavic. St. Petersburg, 1856, month of November, p. 130–158. Life of Constantine, p. 3–4. In the Pannonian Life of Constantine: “The Tsar’s Builder, who is called Logothete,” p. 5.– “The guardians of Emperor Michael were three: Theoctistus the Eunuch, Bardas the Patrician and Manuel the Master. By “called logothete,” obviously, we must mean the logothete of the house of Theoktistus. Schlosser calls Theoktistus “an energetic man and a sworn iconoclast.” – F. Schlosser. World History. Translated under the editorship of N. G. Chernyshevsky, vol. 6. St. Petersburg, 1862, p. 12–13 (Note by E. E. Golubinsky, l. 767). See Dimitri Rostovsky makes another guess; he says: “To that logothete (Theoktistus) the parents of Methodius and Constantine were known, and having heard the logothete about the wit of the youth, he was sent to study with the young king.” – Lives of saints, simply called Menaion-Cheti, collected from ancient Slavic, Greek and Latin writers of St. Demetrius, Metropolitan of Rostov. M., 1815, May 11. – “We propose to think that Theoktist took Constantine to the emperor not directly from his parents’ home, but from the court school, because it is difficult to admit that the guardian would decide to make such an important choice, based only on someone else’s testimony regarding the wit, diligent study and other qualities of the young man, and not on his own satisfaction in them; that Theoktist was not a relative of Konstantin’s father, at least a close one, is evident from the fact that later he wooed his goddaughter to Konstantin” (Note by E. E. Golubinsky, fol. 768 vol. – 769). There, p. 134 (according to the list of the Great Makariev Four Menyas). Schlosser F. Quoted. op. T. 5, St. Petersburg, 1862, p. 152, 173, 194, 200. Under Emperor Theophilus, in 838, when Amorea was taken and the Amorean martyrs suffered: their memory is March 6. Schlosser F. Quoted. cit., p. 155; Weil G. Geschichte der Chalifen. Bd. 2, Mannheim, 1848, S. 347. Life of Constantine, p. 10. Nevostruev K.I. Note on the translation of the Gospel into the Slavic language made by Sts. Cyril and Methodius. – Cyril and Methodius anniversary collection in memory of the accomplished millennium of Slavic writing and Christianity, ed. M. Pogodin. M., 1865, p. 223. The journey of Ambrose Contarini. Translation by V. Semenov. – In the book: Library of foreign writers about Russia. T. 1. St. Petersburg, 1836, p. 91. Karamzin N. M. History of the Russian State. Ed. 5th, St. Petersburg, 1842–1843, vol. I. Notes, p. 34–39. In the Life of Constantine: “there came to be a great oak in the language of the language, which grew together with the cherry tree, and under it the demands of the deed, called by the name Alexander, were not given to the female sex to approach him, nor to his demands,” p. 21. St. Demetrius, Metropolitan of Rostov. Quote cit., March. Life of Constantine, p. 134. Anonymi Salisburgensis A. 873 scriptoris. Historia conversionis earantanorum...– In the book: Kopitar B. Geagolita clozianus. Vindobonae, 1836, p. LXXII–LXXVI. Safarik P. Slavic Antiquities. Translation from Czech by O. Bodyansky, ed. M. P. Pogodin. T. 2, book. 2. St. Petersburg, 1848, p. 289; Palazky Fr. Geschichte von Böhmen, grossen Theils nach Urkunden und Handschriften. Bd. 1, Prag, 1836, S. 107. Kopitar V. Quote. cit., p. LXXIII, col. 2. Safarik P. Quote. cit., p. 308; Life of Constantine, p. 23; Palazky Fr. Quote cit., S. 114. Safarik P. Quote. cit., p. 312. Life of Constantine, p. 23. Palazky Fr. Quote cit., S. 114. Safarik P. Quote. cit., p. 296, note. 34. Life of Constantine, p. 117. For the Russian translation of the “Italian Legend,” see: Cyril and Methodius Anniversary Collection,” p. 327–342. Safarik P. Quote. cit., p. 317; Palazky Fr. Quote op. S. 122–123. Erben. S. J. Regesta Bohemiae et Moraviae. Prague. 1855, p. 14, No. 42. Palazky Fr. Quote cit., S. 109. Life of Constantine, p. 24. Safarik P. Quote. cit., p. 291; Dobrovsky I. Cyril and Methodius - Slovenian First Teachers. M., 1825, §18, p. 64–69; Palazky Fr. Quote cit., S. 108; Anonymus Salisbury., p. LXXIV, col. 1. Life of Constantine, p. 25. Joannis Diaconi Veneti. Chronicon Gradence. – G. P. Aligne. Patrologiae. Serial latina. t. 139, col. 950. You might be interested in: