Merits
of Cyril and Methodius’s Translations.
Processing the Literary Language

§25. The unusual talent of Constantine-Cyril Philosoph gives its evidence not only of creating of a Slavic graphic system – he had to translate the complex text of the Gospel to an illiterate and totally unpolished in literary sense language. He did this with spectacular perfection. We will never find slavish resemblance of the Greek original – everything is clear, logic and well-founded, everything is entirely in the spirit of the Slavic language standards (while for instance the Gothic language of Wulfilla’s translation of the Gospel is strongly influenced by the Greek language).

For instance, a typical Slavic feature – possessive adjectives, derived from nouns, mainly personal names – has found wide application as far as the first translations. Constantine-Cyril used them to represent the possessive genitive case, cf. домъ петровъ Mt. 8.14 ‘Peter’s house’ (agreed modifier) and ἡ οἰκία (τοῦ) Πέτρου (non-agreed modifier, literary. ’the house of Peter’), рабъ архиереовъ Jo 18.26 ‘bishop’s slave’ and ὁ δοῦλος τοῦ ἀρχιερέως, азъ есмь богъ авраамль и богъ исаковъ и богъ яковль Mt 21.19 (literary. I am Abraham’s Lord and Isaac’s Lord and Jacob’s Lord, A.C.) or for feminine сынъ мариинъ Мк 6.3 ‘Mary’s son’ and τῆς Μαρίας, etc. Another property of the 9th century Bulgarian language – the dual number – is also represented consecutively while in Greek the dual forms had been already disappeared. The same can be said of the generally Slavic use of the cases, cf. e.g. genitive: ничьсоже не обрѣте ‘received nothing’ (negation) Mt 21.19 – οῦδὲν εὗρεν, не сътѧжите злата ни сьребра ни мѣди Mt 10.9 ‘carry neither gold nor silver nor copper’ – μη κτήσησθε χρυσὸν μηδὲ ἄργυρον μηδὲ χαλκόν, отьць любитъ сына ‘father loves [the] son’ (instead of accusative for an animate direct object) Jo 3.35 – ὁ πατὴρ ἀγαπᾶ τὸν υἱόν, ничьтоже боле повелѣнаего вамъ творите ‘do no more than ordered’ (comparison) Lc 3.13 – παρὰ μίσθιοι, въкѹси вина Jo 2.9 ‘tasted [some] wine’ (genitive for partial direct object, cf. Russian пил вина ’drank [some] wine’ – выпил вино ’drank the wine [up]’, A.C.) – ἐγεύσατο... οἶνον, чловѣкъ добра рода Lc 19.12 ‘man of a good family, good-gendered man’ for εὐγενής, etc., etc.; the other cases are used the same way. Generally, Constantine-Cyril was a master of and used very skillfully all the Slavic specifics of the Old Bulgarian language up to its deepest subtleties; this can be seen in each line of his translation.

At the same time Constantine-Cyril’s text is remarkably accurate and correct – without being literal, he represents completely right the meaning of each separate passage (it is presumed that John Exarch’s well-known introduction to his translation of the Theologian, which points out the importance of sense in translation, was based on the introduction to the Gospel that Constantine had written (Vaillant 1948b)).

§26. Constantine has used Bulgarian synonymy with outstanding sense and deep acquaintance with the context. One and the same word from the original has been represented in different ways according to nuances of meaning; for this reason in many cases the Old Bulgarian text shows better differentiation then the Greek one. For instance, when Greek πηγή means a particular water source, Constantine translates it with кладѧѕь or стѹденьць ‘well, draw-well’, but if used in transposition – with источьникъ ‘source’, etc.; αἰγιαλός is sometimes поморие ‘waterside’, another time (when the height has to be pointed out) with брѣгъ ‘coast’, as is in modern Bulgarian idioms; it can be also represented with an expression: на краи (for ships); different meanings have домъ ‘home’ (as in Modern Bulgarian) and храмъ, храмина, ‘house’ (only the building) for gr. οἶκος, οἰκία; very expressive is the translation of ὄρνις ’bird; hen, rooster’ with лѧжая ‘brooder’ (the passage is: „How many times I wanted to gather your children as the brooder gathers its chickens under its wings“ Mt 23.37); the adjective ὑγιής is translated съдравъ ‘healthy’, but if it is spoken of one who has been just cured, is цѣлъ ‘healed’ (cf. цѣлити ‘to heal’); λευκός is бѣлъ ‘white’, but when it modifies a ripe and gleaming in yellow cornfield, it is плавъ ’yellow, yellowish, golden’, etc. Usage of other word parts shows the same skill, cf. e.g. the difference between тѹне ’gratis, free [of charge], gratuitous’ and спыти ’vain, unjustifiably’ (in the original everywhere δωρεάν), cf. Old Bulg. тѹне приѧсте, тѹне же дадите ‘You took it free, you give it free’ Mt. 10.9 and възненавидѣшѧ мѧ спыти ‘The hated me in vain’ Jo 15.25; правѣ, право ’legal’, but the healed deaf mute stars speaking not legal but чисто ‘right’ (Gr. Everywhere ὀρθῶς); прилияти ‘pour out’ for liquids, but расыпати ‘spill’ for solids (Gr. only ἐκχέω); дивити сѧ, when a miracle has happened, and the weaker чѹдити сѧ (Gr. θαυμάζω, in English both ‘marvel, wonder’), cf. изгънанѹ бѣсѹ проглагола нѣмыи и дивишѧ сѧ народи ‘Having the disease chased away, the deaf started speaking and the people marveled’ Mt. 9.33 and ѹченици его чѹждаахѫ сѧ яко съ женоѭ глаголааше ‘His apprentices wondered that he spoke with the woman’ Jo 6.27; ѹдарити ‘hit’, when the subject is a human, and поразити ‘strike’, when the subject is Lord (Gr. πατάσσω); надѣяти сѧ, ѹпъвати and чаяти for ἐλπίζω ‘hope’ and lots more (cf. more in Jagić 1913; Grünenthal 1910, 1911; Berneker 1912; especially Мирчев 1963).

These examples give a cursory idea for some of the merits of the first translations. Constantine went deep into the sense of each word, of each situation of the Gospel story and represented it sometimes more precisely then in the Greek original. But he also looked after for the value of the separate sentences, for their stylistic perfection and emotional expressiveness (cf. e.g. the use of the etymological figure съкрываите съкровишта ‘hide the treasures’ Mt 6.19 and 20, желѣниемъ въжделѣхъ ‘wishingly desired’ Lc 22.15, etc., cf. also psalm 4.6 in Sin пожьрѣте жрьтвѫ ‘collect the harvest’, cf. Modern Bulgarian срв песен пея, ден денувам ‘sing a song, spend a day’, etc.). More, the first translation has been processed for recitative pronunciation, eventually singing and therefore separate phrases may have their musical structure – it is said of selection of vowels, melodic curve, musical finale (cadenza) in each phrase.

So Constantine-Cyril created the first Slavic literary language using the phonetical and morphological basis of one the old South Bulgarian dialects. The processing of this language was in creating of means that represent all properties and nuances of the highly evolved Greek literary language, and concerned mainly lexis, phraseology and syntax. Constantine-Cyril had to introduce a large number of words to express new, unknown up to then for the Slavs concepts, to give new meanings or nuances of existing lexemes, to create new syntactic models. With these extraordinary hard tasks he coped brilliantly.

§27. Constantine left untranslated either words that had been already spread out among the South Bulgarian speakers of those times (e.g. сѫбота ‘Saturday, Sabbath’, стратигъ ‘strategist’, трапеза ‘table’, measurement and money units, names of garments, etc.), or specific elements of the Church terminology (ангелъ ‘angel’, апостолъ ‘apostle’, дияволъ ‘devil’, геена ‘hell’, сатана ‘Satan’, etc., church ranks, etc.); new Slavic words may be not only loan translations (e.g. благословити ‘bless’, зълословити ‘curse’ for εὐ- and κακολογέω, etc., possibly such as безаконие ‘lawlessness’, безочьство ‘insolence’, безѹмие ‘insanity’, величие ‘greatness’, etc.), but also created by Constantine (cf. e.g. лицемѣръ ‘hypocrite’ for ὑπόκριτης ’who shows different expression on his face according to the interloculor’). New meanings or nuances have the words, e.g. бѣсьнъ ’whom an evil ghost has settled in’ and than ‘diseased’ (gr. δαιμονιζόμενος), вина ’reason’ (αἰτία), възлежати ’have dinner’ (κατακείμαι), сила ’miracle’ (δύναμις), слово ’reason; balance’ (λόγος), etc. Constantine generalized and normalized such morphological and syntactical tendencies and speeches that had been less evolved in Slavic speech up to then, starting with suffixation – e.g. forming of abstract nouns (with suffices -(н) ие, -ьство и т.н.), actor nouns (with -тель), expanding of prefixation (e.g. пророкъ ‘prophet’ for προφήτης, пророчьство ‘prophecy’, etc. възвѣстити ‘proclaim’ for ἀπαγγέλλω, въздати ’give’ for ἀποδίδωμι, etc.) – and getting to large and complex constructions like infinitive constructions, Dativus Absolutus (generally like Latin Ablativus Absolutus and Greek Genitivus Absolutus, A.C), etc.; there is no doubt that the strong influence of active participles (present and past І) in speech is directly connected to the first translations. The majority of these words are today an essential part of the modern literary language.