Духовний вірш «Плач Йосипа Прекрасного» та його сирійське літературне джерело

The paper provides a comparative analysis of the spiritual verse “Lament of Joseph theBeautiful” and Ephrem theSyrian’s sermon about the Old Testament righteous Joseph. Theauthor uses comparative me-thodto conduct research. The article’s noveltyis in discovering theliterary source for Old Rus spiritual verse, which is the translated text of Ephrem theSyrian’s sermon. Afavorite writer of Rusiches, Ephrem theSyrian was so popular in medieval Rus, that his works are considered to have entered oral performance by folk singers, possibly pilgrims, and influenced creation of the folk verse about Joseph. The most tragic and lyrical fragment of thesermon is Joseph’s mourning over his mother’s grave, when he, already a cap-tive, is being taken to Egypt tobe sold. Ephrem theSyrian liked to create various kinds of literary laments, there are several dozens of them in his oeuvre, and probably this particular feature of his style appealed to our ancestors, since lamentation is a component of many folklore works of Slavs, hymnographic texts and sermons. A lament as something that moves and personally impresses (compare with Yaroslavna’s one) is often acentral point in our ancient work. Conclusion:the intention of Ephrem theSyrian’s homilies and sermons is not in didactics, but in creating aprayerful mood, involving a reader in one’s prayer, utmost emotion and praise. This was the source of the Slavs’ “kinship” feeling when they accepted Ephrem theSy-rian. Creation of afolklore work based on an early medieval sermon is aunique moment of Old Rus folk oeuvre. It is known that Words of Ephrem the Syrian are addressed not to anyone, but to virgin, young, pu-re maidens who respond so well to alyrical component of homilies and sermons, and that our ancestors al-so most often choose exactly the Syrian preacher among the Church Fathers to translate, transcribe and le-arn by heart, delving into his mood so much that one of the sermons becomes a folklore work