Image of Heavenly Jerusalem in the «Ladder» of John Climacus

The article contains a linguistic analysis of the lexemes Ἱερουσαλήμ, παράδεισος and ἄνω, representing the image of the Heavenly Jerusalem. The material for the analysis is the text of the first Slavic translation of the “Ladder” of John Climacus, preserved in the oldest Russian manuscript of the monument. The author's ideas about the ideal city — the ultimate goal of every Christian — are revealed. It is noted that this image determined the development of the iconographic scheme "Vision of the Ladder by St. John Climacus". Cases of atypical translations, scribe's errors and readings characterizing the supposed Byzantine original of the Preslav translation of the “Ladder” are indicated. Attention is focused on the skill of the author of the first Slavic translation of the Ladder and the inexperience of the scribe of the first surviving manuscript of this translation, which confirms the validity of the linguotextological method of L.P. Zhukovskaya, the essence of which lies in the need to involve in the analysis the maximum possible number of sources. Lexemes were discovered that were not recorded in the dictionaries of the ancient Greek language (2) and in the dictionaries of the Old Church Slavonic and Old Russian languages (4).

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