Meanwhile, the stone floated on the waves, contrary to human understanding. And yet, lower than the sorrow, nor the greed, nor the thirst, nor the sorrow, nor the thirst, did not come to the monk, but only prayed to God in his mind and rejoiced in his soul. The evil "Roman" remained behind him further and further, but what awaited Anthony ahead and where this "ahead" was, he, of course, could neither know nor guess. And his real path lay from the Roman country along the warm sea, from it to the Neva River, from the Neva to the Neva River, and from the Neva Ezer up the Volkhov River against the ineffable rapids, and even to this place there was no stone to come.

This route itself, where the warm sea is the Mediterranean and the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea and the Baltic Sea are missed, deserves special attention. In medieval dynastic genealogical legends, the Lithuanians (and apparently the Prussians) actually assume the same path, but to the southern and eastern shores of the Baltic: this is how Augustus' relative Palaemon or Prus from Italy ends up with the Balts, becoming the founder of the dynasty and power there. Since the Russian "historical" and "dynastic" traditions go back to the same source as the early Baltic, a whole range of texts reflects both this very scheme of historical succession and certain fragments of the path that make it possible to reconstruct the route described in the "Legend of the Life of Anthony". Characteristically, these texts belong to the same period from the end of the 15th century to the 16th century inclusive and are based on approximately the same historiosophical scheme. Wed. "The Legend of the Princes of Vladimir" (Augustus sends his brother Prus to the banks of the Vistula, from where Prussia comes; later Rurik, a descendant of Prus and, consequently, Augustus Caesar, comes to Novgorod). The same scheme formed the basis of the "Epistle of Spyridon-Savva", the corresponding articles "Genealogy of the Grand Dukes of Russia", "Chronograph", "Book of Degrees", later chronicles, especially "Western Russian". "Novgorod" literature intensively exploited the idea of such contacts, emphasizing the role of Novgorod. It is worth recalling that the above scheme from the "Legend of the Princes of Vladimir" follows from the advice of the Novgorod voivode Gostomysl to the men of the city to send a wise man to the Prussian land and summon "from the existing families of the owners for themselves", which is later carried out. But not only the succession of secular, state power is carried out by Novgorod. The same applies to the succession of religious tradition. The thesis put forward at one time that the Novgorod (and not the Muscovite) Church is the successor of the Byzantine Church does not, however, abolish the role of Rome, as, for example, it is attested to in the "Tale of the Novgorod White Klobuk", cf. its part entitled "From the History of Roman Behavior and the Rite of Episcopal Writing in Brief, Chudno Zelo", as well as the introductory epistle of Demetrius, the translator and collaborator of the Novgorod Archbishop Gennadius, who traveled from Novgorod to Rome on ambassadorial business and in connection with the compilation of the Paschalion. Finally, in connection with the route of Anthony the Roman, cf. the way back to him, described at the beginning of the "Tale of Bygone Years": ... from the same lake [Ylmer — V. T.] the Volkhov will flow and flow into the great Nevo lake [and] that lake will enter the mouth into the Varangian Sea, and along that sea go to Rome (Lavr. years, 7) and then again: Rome — Tsargrad — Ponot sea — Dnieper and further Ylmer lake, Volkhov, etc.

Anthony's strange movement across the seas and the Volkhov River on a rock is partly in the spirit of Novgorod literature and folklore texts thematically tied to Novgorod. The Novgorodians knew the waterways to the west (Anthony's way back), to the south and to the south-east. Using them (at least partially), they could have ended up in Rome, and in Constantinople, and in Jerusalem, the holy places of Christianity, but, as a rule, those parts of the route that lie within the range of geographical knowledge of the Novgorodians are well known: the distant parts of the route look unclear or simply strange. For example, Vaska Buslaev decided to go to Jerusalem to pray with his "retinue": Thin linen sails were raised, / They ran across the Caspian Sea. — / They will be in the Yerdan River, / They threw strong anchors, / They threw gangways on the steep bank; / Vasily Buslaevich walked here, / With his retinue, / To Jerusalem-city. Another Novgorodian rich guest Sadka needed to go to trade in the Golden Horde, and he went directly in the opposite direction — to the west: Sadka built thirty ships, / Thirty ships, thirty black / ... / Sadka went along the Volkhov, / From Volkhov to Ladoga, / And from Ladoga to the Neva River, / And from the Neva River to the blue sea. / As he rode across the blue sea, / He turned into the Golden Horde. On the way back in bad weather, in order to propitiate the sea king, he had to get off the ship on an "oak plank" (Not only am I afraid to die on the blue sea, Sadke reasoned). The ships continued their journey, and Sadke fell asleep on a plank and found himself at the bottom of the sea, only to eventually find himself in Novgorod before the ship with its companions arrived there (by the way, it may be recalled that Sadke's success began when Sadke went to Lake Ilmen, / He sat on a white-flammable stone, / And began to play with vernal gasp, after which a miraculous catch awaited him [cf. the same motif in the "Life" of Anthony the Roman in the scene with the fishermen]; to the white-combustible cf. the stone on which Anthony sailed to Novgorod). Also miraculous was the aerial journey to Jerusalem and back in one night by John of Novgorod with the help of a demon, described in the well-known story of the fifteenth century. When the demon slandered him before the Novgorodians, accusing him of fornication, they put him on a raft on the Volkhov as a punishment, and the raft went up to the river, and no one flogged him, on which the saint sat against the great rapids, and prayed to God. And when the devil saw it, he was ashamed and wept. The Novgorodians were ashamed and begged John to return, but he was swimming... against the great rapids [i.e., almost verbatim in the same way as Anthony the Roman. — V.T.], but as by some divine power we bear reverently and honestly, until we heed their prayer and sailed to the shore as if we were carrying them through the air, and descended to the land. — [When, according to the old Novgorod book legend about the Sorcerer, demons strangled him in the Volkhov, his body also floated upstream].

This "anti-Roman" beginning of the Tale, noted above, can hardly be reduced exclusively to the biographical layer of the text: the picture drawn from the words of Anthony is too gloomy, the situation depicted is too negative and exaggerated, the narrator is too ideological, and the tone of the narrative itself is too polemical and forced. This assumption about the non-accidental nature of the "anti-Roman" theme, about some special reasons that forced the compiler of the Life from the very first lines to emphasize this theme in its ecclesiastical-religious aspect, finds confirmation at the very end of the Tale. Already after the text of the prayer pronounced by Anthony just before his death (And having given the brethren forgiveness in Christ the last kiss, and standing at prayer, and praying for many hours [...] praying to God, this is the word [...]), and the last request to the hieromonk Andrew, there follows a brief enumeration of what had been done, and a summing up of some of the results (the burial of Anthony by Niphon "with the multitude of the people of that city", the position of the ashes in the church of the Most-Pure Mother of God, the consecration of Andrew as hegumen, who told Niphon and "the prince of that city and all the people" what he had heard from the monk and about "these people"; cf. also the citation of a certain "service" record of Anthony — 14 years before the hegumenship, 16 years as hegumen, and "all the years of living in the monastery for 30"), — after all this follows the command of Archbishop Niphon (it seems that the author of this entire part after the Anthony prayer) "to set forth and write this life of the monk," imperceptibly and as if not quite justifiably growing into a philippic against the Roman apostates,  — … and to deliver up to the churches of God [the future life. — V. T.] for the rejection of the faith of the Christians and the salvation of our souls, — and much more energetically, harshly, threateningly — but to the Romans, who departed from the Orthodox Greek faith and were converted to the Latin faith, to shame, and to reproach, and to curse [...]. In this "Nifont" part, it is precisely the curse of the "Romans" that occupies the central place: it sounds like the last word, unchangeable and irrevocable, as a kind of "rivet" of the black conspiracy, finally clarifying the entire ideological structure of the text, its "super-Antony" goal, so to speak, and, finally, the real historical context in which the life of the monk was included in the "ideological" framework that most clearly reveals itself within the framework of the composition of the text (beginning — end).

That from the very beginning the falling away of Rome from the Christian faith and the transposition into Latin are emphasized, that this falling away is final (the final fall away, the Tale says, not without a certain schadenfreude), that the name of Pope Formos, so frequent in the polemical literature of the time, and the "tradition of the holy fathers of the seven councils" are mentioned, (that the motif of the young Anthony studying "all the writings of the Greek language" is introduced), etc.,  All this undoubtedly refers to the time after the Council of Florence (Ferrara-Florence), which claimed to be the eighth Ecumenical Council, and which adopted a decision on the union of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, signed by Metropolitan Isidore, but indignantly rejected by the Russian Church and the Eastern Patriarchs (except for Constantinople), and, more specifically, to the period of the formation of the ideology of "Moscow as the Third Rome", formulated most clearly by the monk Eleazarov of the Pskov Monastery by Philotheus in his third epistle to the clerk Mikhail Grigorievich Munekhin (1523–1524?). But in the "Tale" in the center stands not Moscow as the successor of the former "Roman" glory and "Roman" power rights (it is not mentioned here at all), but Rome in its "final" fall, its present falsehood and abominability, but also the partially guessable, albeit rather hidden (sapienti sat!) claims of Novgorod to the heritage of old and good Rome, to succession, at least to long-standing ties with Rome (one can recall the "Latin" temptations in the history of Novgorod, about greater openness to the West in general and to the "Roman" in particular, about the enthusiastic reception by the population of Novgorod and Pskov of Metropolitan Isidore, who was on his way to the Council of Florence, the real ties between Novgorod and Italy, which at a certain period surpassed the Moscow-Italian ties).

Probably, Niphon, supervising the compilation of the Life of Anthony the Roman and, possibly, placing the final "anti-Roman" accents himself, considered this anti-Roman, anti-Catholic, anti-papal orientation to be the main ideological task and believed that the figure of Anthony the Roman, who suffered from the impious and abominable "Latins", but who found shelter and peace in Novgorod and, moreover, flourished here in his holiness, was very suitable for using it for these ecclesiastical and political purposes. Indeed, the designer of the final version of the Tale, who most likely had certain preliminary blocks of the written text, which had its source in tradition and rumor, and who is responsible for the chronologically late, last layer of the text, did a substantial, very subtle and, it seems, still unappreciated work of a synthetic nature. He tried to combine (and he did it very skillfully, although still not without visible seams, noticeable, however, not to the "natural" reader, but to the researcher, who has at his disposal historical data drawn from sources other than the "Legend") rather limited information about Anthony, the founder of the Monastery of the Most Pure Mother of God in Novgorod in the first half of the twelfth century, with the "topical issues of the day" of the sixteenth century On the one hand, there are authentic historical figures from a single spatio-temporal focus: Anthony, Nikita, Niphon, Andrei, Prince Mstislav Vladimirovich Monomakh, probably the "Ivan's children" John and Prokofiy, the anonymous "Greek-Gothfin", fishermen, and other Novgorod "people" — monastic brethren, orphans, widows, the poor, and the poor, on the other. From the XVI century, the compiler took the ideological situation of his time, "the topic of this day". The gap of four (and probably a little more) centuries is too great for the union of two epochs so remote to pass organically, naturally, easily by itself. The skill of the compiler, almost imperceptible at the first reading of the Tale, is manifested primarily in the sphere of motivations for the connections of what is happening. A description of the compiler's methods at this point would distract from the main line of presentation, but nevertheless we can name several of the most important motivational nodes: the situation itself — "a Roman in Novgorod" (a combination of the "distant" and the "disunited" in a common and single locus); the two-sided motivation for fleeing Italy (the persecution of heretics, which put Anthony in a hopeless situation, and the miracle of the "floating stone"); the motivation for choosing the site of the Monastery of the Most Pure Mother of God and the basis for naming the monastery (the monastery arises where the stone on which Anthony sailed to Novgorod stopped; during the voyage, a vision of the Mother of God appears before the intelligent eyes of Anthony); explanation of Anthony's refusal to stand on a stone (standing on a stone, as on a pillar), going out into the world, to people, mastering the Russian language, a new kind of activity (building a church); These motives, which are partly intended to explain the four-century shift in time, are made quite subtly, and the reader most likely does not notice (or does not notice immediately) that in the "Legend" all the main characters – Antony, Nikita, Niphon – play somewhat different roles, or rather, roles controlled by the situation of the sixteenth century. its ideological schemes. A careful attitude to the text was manifested precisely in the fact that in the "Tale" the connection between what comes from the twelfth century and what belongs to the sixteenth century turns out to be free (not forced), as if balanced, not insisting on anything with the rigidity that inevitably deforms each of the connected parts. That is why the impression of the "Tale" is justified: it embodies the principle of suum cuique, and everyone, in fact, finds his own, and "not his own" does not interfere with him.

If Archbishop Nifont believed that the main thing in the Tale was the ideological program (and this point of view is very likely) and the need to substantiate the primacy of Novgorod in relation to some important rights with the help of historical evidence, and Anthony only helped to implement this program (at least partially "playing along" with it) and to add arguments in favor of the primacy of the city, then he was mistaken. No matter how hard one tries to introduce this pre-worked out program into the "Tale" consciously, purposefully, emphatically, the main thing in it remains the story of Anthony itself outside any ideological and polemical framework, and even more so he himself. It must be assumed that in life, too, if only the text known to us reflects it with a sufficient degree of fidelity, the main thing was the type of holiness that was manifested by Anthony in his religious service, and his reconstructed human construction. And, of course, he was not a fighter against the "Latins" and a passionate polemicist, but rather a victim of persecution (for the sake of fairness, it should be noted that the "Legend" nowhere ascribes to Anthony those features that would fully correspond to the "program"), a man of prayer and a worker, an opponent of violence, a gentle, tolerant and tolerant person (the word tolerate appears twice in the text in diagnostically important places; cf. do not nudge me, for it is imperative to endure in that place, where God has commanded me," Anthony replies to Nikita's persuasions to choose a place for himself; and in the last instructions of the brethren before death, if you choose an abbot, but choose from among the brethren those who endure in this place, and those who endure in this place in the "Spiritual" of Anthony; by the way, Tikhomirov 1945, 241 noted that this use is typical for early texts of the XI-XII centuries).

And we must remember one more hero, thanks to whom the feat of Anthony became known to us – the compiler of the "Legend" and/or those people in whose rumor – out of ignorance or in the order of following "moral practices" – the reverend father of the twelfth century, a Novgorodian, a Russian, turned into a native Roman, acquired a Roman biography, and then miraculously ended up in Novgorod, in Russia, as if restoring the real picture. attested by historical sources contemporary to Anthony. These two moves ("Russian-Novgorodian" – > "Italian-Roman" & "Italian-Roman" – > in Russia, in Novgorod), whatever they were caused by, should be attributed to the number of brilliant discoveries in the space of creative fantasy, invention, fiction (inventio) or to that providential forgetfulness-forgetfulness that is committed for the sake of restoring the higher, super-empirical truth, for the sake of the memory of the future, more precisely, of what which has to become, because it corresponds to the divine will.

So this other main thing is natural, from inner needs that have not passed the censorship of dogmatizing consciousness, "plan-making", spontaneous and yet not excluding a miracle, because it is also spontaneous, unintentional, outside of man's plans and beyond his control (the miracle is constantly present in the "Tale": first of all, Anthony himself is a miracle-worker, and not so much because he himself creates a miracle, but because he is a miracle that a miracle was performed about him [Bishop Nikita was once called a miracle-worker]; sometimes the "miraculous" is condensed at the level of linguistic expression — these Andrew told [...], having heard from the monk and about these miracles. The archbishop and the people who revered and gave praise [...] to the great miracle-maker Anthony; cf. also: but the works of God and the most glorious miracles are done by his saints; "And Saint Nicetas said to the monk: Thou hast been vouchsafed a great gift by God and by the ancient people, thou hast become like Elijah the Tezbite; — and you want to glorify the Chudo; — Begin the saint to marvel within himself about the miracles; — although the history of seeing about chyudesi; — The miracle of our venerable and God-bearing father Anthony the Roman; — the usual reaction to a miracle is conveyed by the words "marvel", "wondrous", "surprise"), is depicted in the "Legend" as follows.

Finally, after a miraculous journey across the sea, a stone was placed, on which the monk stood and shallowed, at the shore of a great river, called Volkhov, at this place, in the third watch of the night, in the villages, which is called Volkhovskoye. While the stone with Anthony was rushing across the sea, moving away from the Italian shores, the main thing was the retreat of danger, and the glimmering salvation from the "Roman" was stronger than the fear associated with this unexpectedly strange journey, especially since Anthony felt himself under the protection of God and the Most Pure Mother of God. When this salutary movement was over and the stone stopped at an unknown shore, Antony's situation became even more uncertain, since the apparent goal (salvation) had been achieved, and the rest was as in a fog in which surprises, particularly unpleasant ones, could be hidden. When the bells began to ring for the morning singing in the city, it seemed to Anthony that the worst was the most probable of what awaited him: And the monk heard the great ringing in the city, and stood in many times and in bewilderment, and from fear he began to be in meditation and in great majesty. And this fear was quite concrete, as if it had been brought to the city to Rome on a stone. Now the meeting with Rome would be a real nightmare for Antony.

But in fact, the early morning bell in the high providential plane meant something else: it did not announce the salvation-flight that had already taken place, but the coming salvation-meeting, unity: the time from was at its death, the time to and the time from, approach and together, was ready to begin counting down on its clock. In fact, it began precisely when the light of day had already dawned, and the sun had risen, and the people who were living flocked to the monk, and beheld the monk, marveling. People were the first to come to Antony, and the initiative to meet belonged to them; In this episode of the first meeting, he himself was a passive participant: they came to him, and this arrival was supposed to respond with his arrival to the people, in the context of the dialogue that suggested itself. For this he began to prepare himself immediately after the first step of people to him – their question about the name and patronymic, and from which country he came. The homeland, the father, and the designation of that mysterious essence, which in certain worldview traditions is ontologically more primary than what it designates—this is what you need to know in order to open the way to a genuine encounter. This question, as a ritual opening of the meeting, immediately hangs in the air — the monk is not at all able to understand the Russian language, and it is not possible to give them any answer. The threat of breaking off the first contact, when the "physical" meeting had already taken place, was very great, but still the first contact was not in vain: it was not canceled, but postponed. Seeing many people around him unknown to him, hearing them and, probably, realizing that he was being asked something important to them, he offered them the only thing he could do now – he gave them a certain sign of his goodwill towards them, partly replacing the answers to the questions asked by people: Anthony... only to them did you worship. The people, apparently understanding this gesture, took note of it and dispersed, the monk stood on a stone for three days and three nights (he did not dare to step from a stone) and prayed to God. He was aware of the insufficiency of his answer, and, not relying on himself and on the people who seemed to be irreparably divided by their tongues, on the fourth day he prayed to God for many hours for a vision of the city and for the people, and that God might be such a thing for him... He would have told of this city and of the people, and had gone to the city, to the people. Now the initiative belonged to Anthony, but it could only be carried out by God's will; only God's help could bring positive results in this situation. And this help came unexpectedly easily, as if by chance. It was no help at all, and, dressed in the garb of chance, it did not reveal its source, although Anthony could scarcely guess from whom it came. And here some clarification is desirable.

Until now, Anthony is for people who saw him for the first time and did not receive an answer to their questions from him, but understood that he was not "ours" (whether he was dumb because he was completely speechless, or dumb because he was a German, a man who did not know our language and could not speak it and did not understand it), but was disposed to the good, was simply a man, without any other definitions that these people considered most important and, moreover, necessary. In the same way, the people who gathered around Anthony were for him simply people and also without the definitions of them that he needed, especially in this situation. For him and for them, one thing was more or less clear: their common failure lay in the fact that they were separated by language: for each other in the space of language they were different, different. But the difficulties of this otherness for Anthony and for the people around him were different. These "other" people, who were equally lingual among themselves and constituted a single whole, really could not, having come to their other Anthony, become whole and united with him (too much could not enter into too small, dissolve in him and become him), but he could do this, but for this he needed help in establishing linguistic contact with the people of the city. Anthony understood this possibility of his and decided to meet them halfway himself in order to change the situation and ensure communication in the language: henceforth, language as a divisive force was to become a uniting force, capable of including him, Anthony, in their linguistic unity. What did this mean specifically and at the very first step? Only one thing is the discovery of one's linguistic identification. Further, the variants branched if Antony knew languages other than his "Roman", and had at least some opportunity to identify their language, the language of this place, or to perceive the identification of their language by themselves.

Anthony was lucky, although this luck itself was not something out of the ordinary and was not recognized as an undoubted miracle. And the monk descended from the stone, and went to the city to the great Novgrad, — reports the "Legend" (the fact that Anthony descended and went down is a fact of great importance, a sign of some decisive change in him; hitherto Anthony's walk was only a departure from evil and danger [he himself went [= departing] from the city to the distant wilderness... hiding from heretics...; and went away to his wilderness]; when the people who came to him [came to him] or later Nikita asked him from which country he came, they did not know that he did not come, but was brought (cf. this man of God was brought on a stone by water. — V. T.) against his will by divine will; he clings to his stone, whether at sea or in Novgorod, as the only reliable, salvific place [He himself does not dare to step from the stone] and in every way opposes proposals made with the best intentions to change this place of residence for a better one, and only after meeting with people, when he descended and went, did Anthony begin to walk [and was overwhelmed with joy, he went to the saint; descending from the stone, And he went to meet the emow; Go to the fisherman, and speak unto them; let us go into the city and tell you how the brethren went... with the Monk Anthony], and this journey is purposeful, sometimes joint, with the brethren, culminating in word and/or deed) — and you will find a man of the Greek land. This man, fortunately, knew the Roman and Greek and Russian languages, and, fortunately, was curious and active. He, seeing the monk, asked him about his name and about faith (the formulation of the question about faith, and a direct one, is very characteristic; however, from which country in the question of people to Anthony, apparently, in part is nothing but a delicate question about faith). This happy meeting, not so much "physical" as "linguistic" in language, gave Anthony the opportunity to solve, at least in the first, "approximate" version, two tasks – self-identification (the monk told him his name, called himself a Christian, and a monk is a sinner and unworthy of the angelic image), which he was unable to fulfill when meeting with the inhabitants of the city on the very first day after his arrival. and to obtain information about the place where he now found himself. But in the interval between the first and the second, a human meeting took place, a connection was established in spirit (the merchant fell down at the feet of the saint, asking for a blessing from him. A common faith opened the way to an even deeper and already partly personal meeting. Therefore, coming out of isolation, isolation and muteness into an open space, Anthony himself is already involved in a dialogue that makes the meeting equal and mutual. He asks about this city, and about the people, and about the faith, and about the holy churches of God. The merchant (hereinafter he is called a Gothin or a Greek-Gothfin, and, consequently, he could have been, for example, a German guest, combining in himself the "German-Varangian" and the "Greek", as if referring to the spatial image of the connection of these elements — to the path "from the Varangians to the Greeks") in response told everything in a row, saying: this city is the Great Novgrad; and the people in it possess the Orthodox Christian faith; the cathedral church of St. Sophia the Wisdom of God; and the saint in the city was seven bishops Nikita; and the owner of this city belongs to the pious Grand Prince Mstislav Volodimerovich Manamah, grandson of Vsevolodov. All this information was positively received by Anthony, but nevertheless one important circumstance was unknown to him, and he ventured to ask about it as well: tell me, my friend, how long is the distance from the city of Rome to this city, and at what time do people pass this path? Two "interests" are guessed behind this question — the degree of security, the reliability of hiding from Rome in this city and, probably, the desire to find out where this city is located, of which the monk had obviously not heard in his own Italy, although this city, according to the recent experience of Anthony himself, was evidently not far from Rome, only two days away (and a roundabout one). cf. Kako v dvuh dni i v dva noshchi toliku doltu puti preide. But the "Greek Gotfin" knew well that Rome was a distant country, and that it needed a way by sea and by land; as soon as a guest passes away, and in half a year's time, if God hastens. Anthony, hearing this, was surprised: in what he had said, he apparently found confirmation of what he had guessed before, but which, out of modesty, he did not allow himself to believe. The merchant's answer excluded doubts, and therefore now, pondering and marveling in himself about the greatness of God, realizing that a miracle had happened to him and about him, he could hardly restrain himself from tears and bowed down to the ground before the merchant, granting him peace and forgiveness.