Towards the Attribution of the Georgian Translation of the Oratio Catchetica Magna of St. Gregory of Nyssa

Abstract

One of Gregory of Nyssa’s works entered in the above-noted Georgian antholo­gies is a highly important dogmatic work: Oratio catechetica magna. This translation has come down to us in the collections of MSS: those of Tbilisi National Centre MSS A55(11th-12th cc.) and A108 (cent.) and the MS of the Iviron Monastery on Mt. Athos Ath.georg.14(ca 14th c.). In the three collections the Oratio is given as the first chapter. Conjecturally, it must have been in the extant fourth anthology as well (Ath.Georg. 49; XI cent.), but that MS lacks the opening part, and this must be the reason for the absence in it of the text of the Oratio.

The Oratio, which is inserted between the translations by Euthymius and George Hagiorites, may be a priori considered to belong to one of them. But, specifically to which of them? Determination of this is, as already noted, quite feasible through textual analysis of the translation.