Peculiarities of Bishop Moses’s (Bliznetsov-Platonov’s) method for creating homiletic theology as revealed by fragmentary analysis of a manuscript text

The aim of this study is to identify the specific features of the method used to create the newly discovered manuscript “The Outline of Homiletic Theology” by Bishop Moses (Bliznetsov-Platonov), a Russian theological academy author from the first half of the 19th century. The work is analyzed in the context of other manuscript writings from that period and illustrates one of the initial approaches to writing Russian-language philosophical and theological works in Russian theological academies. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the first attempt to analyze the peculiarities of Bishop Moses’s (Bliznetsov-Platonov’s) authorial method in the manuscript “The Outline of Homiletic Theology”. This analysis reveals a certain uniqueness in Bishop Moses’s approach, primarily in his attempt to create a comprehensive guide to homiletics by interpreting the meaning of the liturgical hymn “Te Deum” by Saint Ambrose. The resulting work is characterized by a certain blurring of the boundaries of the thematic material and a general ambiguity, expressed in the discrepancy between the content of the manuscript and its stated title, as well as in the heterogeneous nature of the semantic material drawn upon by the author. Bishop Moses explains the main themes of each line of the hymn he uses as a basis, expanding their boundaries to logically connected adjacent problems. In some cases, he offers reflections on issues abstract from the main meaning. Furthermore, Bishop Moses takes a selective approach to revealing the topics he declares: he explains dogmatic and anthropological topics in sufficient detail, while accompanying the rest with only a list of recommended sources. Certain themes receive non-standard interpretations from Bishop Moses: for example, he finds the reason for God’s creation of the world and humanity in the Creator’s love for Himself. This approach gives the image of God a certain shade of egotism in the context of other existing opinions on this matter. During the reconstruction of Bishop Moses’s authorial method, a discrepancy was revealed between “The Outline of Homiletic Theology” and modern conceptions of the necessary content of this discipline, due to the complete absence in the manuscript of any information about the art of preaching, its forms, and methods.