The popularity of the early Christian writer St. Methodius of Patara (III-early IV centuries A.D.) in the following centuries was based almost exclusively on the revelations falsely attributed to him ("Apocalypses"), telling about the last times and the end of the world. Of the original writings of Methodius in Greek, only the Feast of the Ten Virgins has been preserved in its entirety, and there are quite a few traces of acquaintance with it in later sources. Therefore, it seems appropriate to point out one possible reminiscence from the" Feast " contained in the newly-read inscription from the GE.
We are talking about a gold chased icon dating from the XIII 1 or XII c. 2 (the latter is more likely). On the obverse is an image of the Mother of God surrounded by archangels, holy warriors and prophets, and on the reverse is a flourishing cross surrounded by an inscription in the margins. Despite the fact that the icon has been known for a very long time (until 1898 it was kept in the collection of M. L. Pogodin, then entered the Russian Museum, and from there in 1931 in GE 3), the inscription was still read only in small fragments. After studying the photo and seeing the de visu site, I was able to reconstruct the Greek text 4 . Here is the exact transliteration broken down into words:
In traditional spelling, this poem, written in Iambic hexameter, looks like this::
The last word is misspelled (the second is pi instead of may), which has caused a number of misinterpretations in the past. However, inside the first pi, a vertical gasta is clearly visible,
1. Bank A.V. Cherty palaiologovskogo stilya v vizantiiskom khudozhestvennom metalle [Features of the Paleologian style in Byzantine art metal]. Zapadnaya Evropa [Western Europe], Moscow, 1973, pp. 156-163.
2 Belting Н. Likeness and Presence: a History of the Image before the Era of Art/Trans. Е. Jephcott. Chicago and L., 1994. P. 261-296.
3 See Smirnov A. P. Monuments of Byzantine painting. State Russian Museum, L. ...
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