In the second half of the 9th century, the biblical writings were translated into a specially developed idiom, known as “Old Slavonic,” by Cyril, Methodius, and their students in Moravia. Among these writings was, of course, the Book of Psalms, which has been preserved in this form in early Slavic (Glagolitic and Cyrillic) manuscripts such as the Psalterium Sinaiticum (11th century)¹ and the Novgorod Codex (999), which contains Psalter fragments (primarily psalms 75 and 76) on three wooden tablets. This is the oldest Slavic Psalter manuscript and the oldest Russian manuscript known to date. ²

Theodoret’s Psalter is one of the first commented Psalters to survive in a Slavic manuscript. Both the lemmata and the commentary are a version that differs significantly from the oldest translation. While influenced by the latter, it represents a largely independent text. It was apparently produced in Bulgaria in the 10th century, but has survived exclusively in manuscripts of Russian origin.

The oldest witness to this translation is the Chudov Psalter (11th century), kept in the Moscow State Historical Museum (GIM) as Čud. 7,³ which contains only less than 30 percent of Theodoret’s text (Ps 1–3; 41–47; 58–86 with small lacunae also in these parts). Nevertheless, it is a text of considerable length, comprising 176 folios,⁴ which has already provided 19th-century scholars with much material of great importance for Slavonic studies.⁵ At the beginning of the 20th century, the Chudov Psalter was published by V. A. Pogorelov.⁶

During the 19th century, further manuscripts were discovered containing Theodoret’s Psalter commentary in the same translation.⁷ These were all much later than the Chudov Psalter (15th century at the earliest), and they were all missing a section from Psalm 144:14 onward (the text ends abruptly with the word τραύματα, Slavonic: строупы). From here to the end, the commentary in most of these manuscripts was replaced by the explanations of Pseudo-Athanasius (Hesychius).

These manuscripts, however, provided insight into the Slavonic Theodoret text beyond the portions preserved in the Chudov Psalter. Pogorelov consulted a manuscript in his edition that he considered the most important in this group of later manuscripts: from it, he took the portions of the psalms that were present in the oldest manuscript, but in an incomplete form (Pss 3; 41; 47, and others).⁸ This manuscript—now Čud. 177, GIM, Moscow—and Pogorelov’s assessment of it will be discussed further below.

V. Jagić was probably the first to express the opinion that the missing ending of the Slavonic texts of Theodoret in all known manuscripts can be explained by the fact that the translation work was never completed.⁹ A. A. Alekseev claimed the same thing at the end of the 20th century.¹⁰ Only recently, the Moscow scholar K. V. Vershinin established that this assumption is incorrect, because at least one manuscript has survived that contains the last six and a half psalms. ¹¹ This manuscript belongs to the collection of the Rogozhsky Cemetery (Rogož. 444, RGB, Moscow) and comes from the Pechersky monastery near Pskov. It was written much later than the Chudov Psalter (mid-15th century), but its special value lies not only in the fact that it retains the ending that was previously considered lost, but above all in the fact that the text belongs to the same group as the Chudov Psalter and together with it forms an older strand of tradition of the Slavonic Theodoret.

The Pskovskaya (Rogozhskaya) Psalter contains almost the entire text of the Slavonic Theodoret translation – except for the Protheoria¹² and a few shorter omissions.¹³ The problem with this older tradition, i.e., the two manuscripts belonging to it (“Chudov” and “Pskov”), lies primarily in the quality of their Vorlagen, which inevitably gave rise to numerous errors. These errors make it impossible to produce a new – urgently needed – edition of the Slavonic Theodoret commentary based solely on these two manuscripts.

This constellation makes the newer tradition of the Slavonic Theodoret a very significant factor that must be taken into account in the preparation of the edition. Just as we only read the final part in the older tradition (Pskov manuscript), the Protheoria has been preserved only in the newer one. More importantly, however, the manuscripts of the more recent tradition often give us clues as to how we can correct the text of the Pskov manuscript – and in many places, even the much older Chudov Psalter.

In addition to manuscript 177 of the Chudov collection (early 15th century), which Pogorelov and other scholars¹⁴ considered the most important in the newer tradition, there are several manuscripts from the 15th and 16th centuries that should be consulted in the critical edition, if only because they are mostly on the same stemmatic level as Čud. 177.

The earliest and most valuable manuscripts of the more recent tradition are:

T   GIM, Čud. 177, beginning of 15th c.

V   RGB, Joseph-Volotsky Monastery (F. 113), 552.1 (Ps 1–76); 553 (Ps 77–150), 1st of half of 16th c.

E   RGB, Egorov (F. 98), 12, mid-15th c.

F   RGB, Egorov (F. 98), 796, 16th c.

R   RGB, Rumyantsev (F. 256), 334 (“Vostokov manuscript”¹⁵), end of 15th c.

M   GIM, Syn. 997, 1542

However, caution is advised regarding Pogorelov’s claim that the oldest Čud. 177 served a Vorlage for all the others.¹⁶ This seems doubtful, given the different (more authentic for the Russian environment) orthography of this manuscript, which most others would have had to alter in various ways. Furthermore, Čud. 177 is not much older than some other manuscripts in this group. It also contains readings that do not occur in any other manuscript, which also does not allow us to simply regard Čud. 177 as the common source for all.

In any case, Čud. 177 — at least as a middle link in the chain of transmission — is important and interesting enough to be considered alongside the other mss. of the more recent tradition. In rare cases, this manuscript may even be the only one attesting to the correct reading: namely, where the corresponding text is missing in the oldest ms. Čud. 7, the Pskov ms. is faulty, and the other more recent mss. have incorporated a later textual change. Such cases, however, cannot be numerous.

Of the existing and previously edited Greek manuscripts, the Slavonic version is in many cases closest to ms. Ra 9074 (Venice, Marc. gr. Z. 20). However, even from this Greek manuscript, it shows significant deviations. Like many Greek mss., the Slavonic version has the short form in Ps 79:17–18 (elimination of lemma 79:17b–18 and the related comments), but only the two manuscripts of the older Slavonic tradition explicitly indicate this omission. In the Chudov Psalter, approximately two pages are empty (ff. 152^v–153^v), whereas in the Pskov Psalter, only seven lines are left blank (f. 225^r; here with a note on the inner margin: “three verses missing:” this refers to Ps 79:17b and 79:18ab according to the hagiopolitical counting). None of the Greek witnesses of the short version known so far (including Ra 9074) explicitly testifies to the omission.

As mentioned, only one translation into Church Slavonic was produced, probably in the 10th century. However, some Slavic catenae attest to several divergent Theodoretian texts, which evidently originated during the translation of the Greek catenae and should be taken into account in the edition. Of particular interest here is the recently discovered 14th-century catena on psalms 1–54, which uses Theodoret’s commentary in many places.¹⁷