03 — The Life by Epiphanius
The source-critical core of the compendium. Everything narrated of St. Sergius descends from one hagiographic tradition — Epiphanius the Wise’s Life of c. 1417–18, reworked by Pachomius the Serb in the 1430s–40s — and this section establishes both the source situation and the theology of the resulting text before the later sections build on it.
Tradition: Russian Orthodox (canonized by 1452)
Purpose
St. Sergius left no writings of his own; the study of his life is inseparable from the study of the texts that report it. Following the compendium’s Methodology (§3.5) — hagiographical claims are pinned to their earliest written attestation, never asserted as fact — this section first sets out the source situation (who wrote the Life, when, in what style, what survives, how the layers are used), then reads the layered text for its theology. The theology can only be read honestly once the layers are in hand.
Files
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| Epiphanius and Pachomius | The source situation: Epiphanius’s c. 1417–18 Life in the pletenie sloves style; eyewitness versus gathered testimony; Pachomius the Serb’s redactions of the 1430s–40s; Kloss’s stratigraphy; what survives of the original; how historians read the layers. |
| Reading the Life | The theology: humility as the through-line (the refusals — clothes, precedence, the metropolitanate); the Trinity theme; the modest pastoral miracles (the raising of the dead child, pinned to Epiphanius); and the distance from the later national-saint imagery (preview of section 08). |
Reading Order
Read Epiphanius and Pachomius first, then Reading the Life. The source-criticism here underwrites the rest of the collection: sections 04 and 08 both depend on knowing which claims belong to the earliest layer and which are later elaboration.
See Also
- 04 — Monastic Revival — the disciple-foundations and the Byzantine hesychast connection
- The 1867 Valaam Life — the parallel source-file model: a single late Life, its compilation, and its critical scholarship
- Methodology — the citation and verification standard, especially §3.5 on hagiographical attestation
References
- Epiphanius the Wise. Life of St. Sergius (c. 1417–18), in Pachomius’s redactions; English tradition in Zenkovsky, ed., Medieval Russia’s Epics, Chronicles, and Tales, rev. ed. (Dutton, 1974).
- Kloss, Boris M. Izbrannye trudy, vol. I (Moscow, 1998); Fedotov, The Russian Religious Mind, vol. II (Harvard, 1966); Borisov, Sergii Radonezhskii (Molodaya Gvardiya, 2001).