'Your Own of Your Own': Jewish Adam Speculations and Christian Liturgy in the Slavonic and Romanian Life of Adam and Eve

The Romanian version of the Life of Adam and Eve preserves the only text form in which, during the burial of Adam’s body, the offering formula "your own of your own", which has been used in eastern liturgies from as early as the sixth century, is addressed by the earth to God. All other extant versions have God utter the phrase to the earth. Thus these versions understand Adam’s body to be a possession of the earth, while the Romanian recension associates the body of the protoplast with God. Similar votive phrases, based primarily on 1 Chron 29:14, are used in ancient Jewish and Christian speculations to describe the iconic relation between humanity, particularly the human body, and God. This paper argues that, in its idiosyncratic reading, the Romanian recension of the Life of Adam and Eve, although preserved in late medieval manuscripts, seems to reflect the mergence of the eastern liturgical formula with these ancient Jewish and Christian speculations about the iconic nature of Adam.