Epiphanius the Wise

(Epifanii Premudryi)

(ca. 1360–ca. 1419)

   Epiphanius, called the Wise, was a Russian monk best known for writing SAINTS’ LIVES based on the life stories of two other monks with whom he may have been acquainted. His works are among the best examples of a new elaborate prose style popular in 15th-century Russia and the Balkans, called pletenie sloves, usually translated as “word weaving.”

   Little is known of Epiphanius’ early life, but he apparently joined the monastery of Gregory the Theologian in Rostov as a young man. The monastery had a good reputation as an academic center during the earlier 14th century. At Gregory the Theologian Epiphanius may well have met St. Stefan of Perm (d. 1396), who was to become a well-known missionary and the subject of Epiphanius’s first biography. Later Epiphanius became a resident at Trinity Monastery, a house founded by Sergius of Radonezh. Epiphanius’s residence at the monastery probably began before the 1391 death of Sergius, who was to become the subject of Epiphanius’s second biography. In the monasteries Epiphanius would have learned manuscript copying, icon painting, and, most important, writing. He also had learned Greek and was familiar with the Greek tradition of hagiography or saints’ lives. According to some sources, Epiphanius spent some time in Moscow between 1390 and 1415.He is also believed to have traveled at some point to Mount Athos, Constantinople, and Jerusalem. He seems to have become spiritual adviser to his fellow monks before his death around 1419.

   Epiphanius’s Zhitie Stefana Permskogo (The life of Stefan of Permia), composed in the late 1390s, is, perhaps, his most characteristic work. It describes Stefan’s missionary work among the Permians (a people now known as Zyrians living to the east of Muscovy). Epiphanius uses Stefan’s mission to elevate the status of Russia as a center for the promulgation of Christianity. Also unusual in Epiphanius’s text is his presentation of the events of Stefan’s life as paralleling important events in church history, thereby presenting Stefan as a new and important part of that history. But the most important aspect of this text is Epiphanius’s ornate prose style, word weaving: Epiphanius makes abundant use of parallelism— verbal pairs, parallel phrases and clauses, and frequent repetition create a rhythmic, almost poetic tone to the prose. Traditionally, this particular style, the pletenie sloves, was associated with a current monastic movement called hesychasm. Hesychasm, propounded by Epiphanius’s master Sergius Radonezh, concerned the inner, ascetic prayer life of the monastic recluse. A part of this prayer of the heart was the search to find the perfect words of inspiration, words that ultimately became part of the word-weaving technique. Epiphanius’s other major work, Zhitie Sergiia Radonezhskogo (The life of Sergius Radonezh), concerns the saintly founder of Epiphanius’s Trinity Monastery. Unfortunately, no extant manuscripts of Epiphanius’s work survive—only abbreviated redactions of the text in Serbian or other languages. Still, the conclusion of the text as we have it makes a masterful use of the same sort of word weaving Epiphanius had used in his life of Stefan.

   Since the 19th century, critics have attempted to attribute other texts to Epiphanius: Most notable of these have been “The Tale of Monk Epiphanius on His Journey to Jerusalem” and “The Life and Death of the Grand Prince Dmitry Ivanovich.” Neither of these attributions is universally accepted by scholars, and the only grounds for such attributions is a similarity in style to Epiphanius’s extant works.

   Bibliography

   ■ Børtnes, Jostein. Visions of Glory: Studies in Early Russian Hagiography. Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1988.

   ■ Kitch, Faith C. M. The Literary Style of Epifanij Premudryj: “plentenie sloves.” Munich: Sagner, 1976.

   ■ Wigzell, Faith. “Epifanii Premudryi.” In Reference Guide to Russian Literature, edited by Neil Cornwell and Nicole Christian, 272–274. London: Fitzroy Dearborn, 1998.