The author undertakes a new approach to the overworked problem of the origin of the Greek novel. She begins by reviewing the main periods in studying the genesis of novel, making stress on its oriental origin: Rohde – Freidenberg (Russian scholar unknown in the West) – Kerényi – Braun – Perry – Anderson – Wills. Special attention is paid to a recent hypothesis proposed by S.R. Johnson, who puts the birth of the Jewish novel not in the Hellenistic, but in the Persian cultural context. A certain parallel is found in the situation with Ctesias’ novel-like History of Persia and Xenophon’s Cyropaedia. Persian context is relevant on the level of general cultural background (isolation of a small nation is broken when it comes to contact with a great power) and does not help to answer the question of the origin of novel.

Therefore the author goes on to the East Mediterranean mythological concept of the dying and rising god of fertility variously embodied in myths, rites, novels, apocryphal stories and «acts». To some extent the concept accounts for the genesis of the plot, but not of the literary form it takes.

To solve this problem one should take into consideration the two above mentioned levels and turn to the third one, that of literary form. The author chooses the earliest novel by Chariton, closest to J&A in time, to compare it with J&A, a Jewish apocryphal story whose plot had been taken from the Book of Genesis and whose message was directed to the Egyptian diaspora of the Maccabean and post-Maccabean epoch. A detailed comparison reveals not only important structural resemblance (which could be explained by the common mythological concept), but a number of significant common points without mythological or archetypal charge: heroines' divine beauty, the emphasis laid on their chastity and maternity, the scene of their waking = palingenesia, the swarm of bees surrounding them etc. Such textual resemblance usually implies direct literary influence. It is in Greek culture that scholars usually see a vast potential of influence. But when the author finds out deep discrepancies in the superficial resemblance, it turns out that almost all of these discrepancies are of the same kind and can hardly confirm that the influence came from the Greek source. The ceremonial kiss in J&A corresponds to the sentimental one in Chaereas and Callirrhoe, symbolic «death» of repentance in J&A correlates with the imaginary death in Chaereas and Callirrhoe, symbolic renunciation of pagan parents in J&A is echoed by the romantic abduction of Callirrhoe by the brigands etc. Literary and everyday life plan of Chaereas and Callirrhoe corresponds to the symbolic level of J&A. This difference is not caused by the literary reasons: motifs of J&A may correspond to tropes of Chaereas and Callirrhoe and vice versa.

That J&A is a work of sacral character narrating about conversion, marriage and rebirth (transfiguration), and Chariton’s novel is literary fiction, is clear to the naked eye. Though the problem of priority of the sacral to the fictional is not to be solved in this paper, plain common sense would admit that reality (even sacral) is prior to fiction (even realistic). The dating of J&A (dealt with mainly in the first part of the article, published in VDI. 2005. ‹ 3) makes it possible to speak not only of «logical», but also of chronological priority of J&A to Chariton’s novel. The author analyses the implications of this chronology for our idea of the origin of Chariton’s novel and other romances. From J&A they take over the plot connected with obstacles to marriage, but they discard the sacral character of those obstacles as irrelevant for the polytheistic mentality.

Another novel to be compared with J&A, Metamorphoses, a novel of conversion, chooses novel form to embody the scheme of initiation. Here the theme of sacral marriage is transformed in two extremes: an idealized tale (Cupido and Psyche) told by a drunken old woman, and the defilement of sacral marriage in the sacrilegious plan to execute a woman by making her copulate with an ass. In contrast to J&A, Apuleius spurns the idea of marriage and lays stress on conversion. The hero becomes a chaste priest of Isis. Mutatis mutandis encratic hagiography is also based on rejection of marriage and on conversion opposed to it. Some fictitious novel-like Lives of saints (Barbara, Galaktion and Episteme), as well as lives of Irene and Christine and the like demonstrate a sort of familiarity with J&A.

The essentially two-level apocryphal story of J&A, in which characters are both human beings and sacral entities (the Messiah and Shekhina) is echoed by the «exegetical poetics» (the term belongs to I. Protopopova) of the Greek romances.

Being compared with J&A, the romances show one more peculiarity. A sacral texts does not need legitimization, its importance is doubtless. But authors of ancient novels try to legitimize fiction by a wide range of literary devices they create: a reference to the historical events, «historical novel», «eye-witness» account, mentioning a fictitious source etc. Symbolic plan of the Sacred history is replaced in the novels by the popular version of the Platonic myth of chaste and passionate Eros. Comparative study of J&A and the ancient novel makes the latter more understandable, while the efforts to explain J&A by means of the Greek romance can only notice superficial influence, without clarifying the genesis and the function of the apocryphal story.