The Syriac Alexander Legend (known in Syriac as Neṣḥānā d-Aleksandrōs; Syriac: ܢܨܚܢܐ, "The Victory of Alexander" or as named in the Budge edition, "A Christian Legend concerning Alexander"),[1] is a Syriac prose recension in the tradition of the Greek Alexander Romance, although Theodor Nöldeke has influentially argued that the Legend was translated from a now-lost Middle Persian (Pahlavi) original as opposed to the Greek.[2] It was composed in the Syriac language, perhaps in the region of northern Mesopotamia. It had a strong influence on later apocalyptic literature, such as can be seen in the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius. It is also the first work to fuse the motifs of Alexander's gate, an apocalyptic incursion, and the barbarian tribes known as Gog and Magog. Historically, the Syriac Alexander Legend has been dated to 629/630 shortly after the conclusion of the Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628, though some more recent works have proposed 6th-century dates for the composition and tradition.

The text is preserved in five late manuscripts, the oldest of which was compiled in 1708–1709.[3] It is largely based on the Greek version, with slight modifications, such as the addition of Alexander's journey to China.[3] It would come to have a significant impact on subsequent Syriac works on Alexander and apocalyptic texts, such as the Song of Alexander and the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius.

Dating

Since Theodor Nöldeke, the provenance of the Syriac Alexander Legend has been provenanced in north Mesopotamia from around 629–630 CE, shortly after Heraclius defeated the Sasanians.[4] The content of the legend may have been circulating for decades prior to its entry into a written form, however.[5]

In recent years, controversy has emerged regarding the date of this text with opinions pushing the date further back in time. The text refers to several external events and asserts that they took a specific number of years to elapse, and so much of the dating of the text concerns correlating the internal chronology of the text to the political scenery happening around it. Zishan Ghaffar's reanalysis of the internal chronology has led him to believe that the Syriac Alexander Legend was composed during (as opposed to after the completion of) the Byzantine-Sassanid wars, roughly surrounding the events taking place in the year 614 AD.[6]

Another recent perspective has been to accept that the final form of the text was produced in 630, according to a vaticinium ex eventu prophecy that localizes to this timepoint, but to view this as a brief interpolation of an earlier text. One of the primary reasons for this view is that another vaticinium ex eventu prophecy occurs in the text, but has long been overlooked, which describes an event that occurred in 514/5. For this reason, Stephen Shoemaker has argued that the text was originally composed soon after this event and was updated during the Byzantine-Sassanid wars to recruit its apocalyptic themes for that then-contemporary political situation.[7] Tommaso Tesei has followed this logic; however, while he accepts and argues at length that the 630 prophecy is an interpolation, he locates the genesis of the Legend to the reign of the Byzantine emperor Justinian I in the mid-6th century for a range of additional reasons in a significant new monograph on the text as a whole.[8]

There is also a poem (often wrongly attributed to Jacob of Serugh) based on the Syriac Legend but written slightly later. Finally, there is a shorter version of the Legend and an original brief biography of Alexander written in Syriac.[4]

Content and influence

Gates of Alexander

The late antique Christian Syriac Alexander Legend transformed the Gates of Alexander into an apocalyptic barrier built by Alexander in the Caucasus to keep out the nations of Gog and Magog.[9] This development was inspired by some elements of the historical context of the time, including dread of the northern hordes, a variety of Persian fortifications meant to seal off the movement of steppe nomads, and eschatological thinking and attitudes of the time.[10] At its outset, the Syriac Alexander Legend (otherwise known as the Neshana) records Alexander constructing a wall of iron to prevent an invasion of the Huns that would result in the plunder of peoples and countries. Alexander commanded that the gate should be constructed out of iron and bronze, for which he recruited three thousand blacksmiths to work the latter and three thousand other men for the former. However, it was believed that the barbarian tribes would break through during the apocalypse.[11] The dimensions and features of the gate are described in detail, and Alexander was said to have placed an inscription on it which reads "The Huns will come forth and subdue the countries of the Romans and Persians; they will shoot arrows with armagest and will return and enter their country. Moreover, I wrote that (at) the end of eight hundred and twenty six years, the Huns would come forth by the narrow road..." (the inscription goes on for several more pages). This prophecy whereby the Huns break through the gates is linked to the invasion of the Sabir people in 515 AD as Syriac texts would use the Seleucid calendrical system which began in 1 October, 312 BCE; by subtracting 311 or 312, a date of 514/5 is arrived at, representing a vaticinium ex eventu. A second prophecy of an incursion appears for 940 SE, pinpointing to 628/9 AD and corresponds with the invasion of Armenia by the Turkic Khazars (not to be confused with a reference to the Turks which may not occur in this type of literature until the ninth century),[10] although this may have been an interpolation that was made into the text during the reign of Heraclius to update the narrative for a contemporary political situation.[12]

The description of the gates of Alexander in the Syriac Alexander Legend influenced most subsequent Syriac literature describing these events.[13]

Gog and Magog

Gog and Magog consuming humans.
—Thomas de Kent's Roman de toute chevalerie, Paris manuscript, 14th century

The Legend is considered the first work to connect the Alexander Gates with the idea that Gog and Magog are destined to play a role in the apocalypse.[14] In the Legend, Gog (Syriac: ܓܘܓ, gwg) and Magog (Syriac: ܡܓܘܓܵ, mgwg) appear as kings of Hunnish nations.[a][15] The legend claims that Alexander carved prophecies on the face of the Gate, marking a date for when these Huns, consisting of 24 nations, will breach the Gate and subjugate the greater part of the world.[b][16][17]

The Gog and Magog material, which passed into a lost Arabic version,[18] and the Ethiopic and later Oriental versions of the Alexander Romance.[19][c] It has also been found to closely resemble the story of Dhu al-Qarnayn in the Qur'an (see: Alexander the Great in the Quran).

The Pseudo-Methodius, written originally in Syriac, is considered the source of the Gog and Magog tale incorporated into Western versions of the Alexander Romance.[20][21] The Pseudo-Methodius (7th century[22]) is the first source in the Christian tradition for a new element: two mountains moving together to narrow the corridor, which was then sealed with a gate against Gog and Magog. This idea is also in the Quran (609–632 CE[23][24]), and found its way in the Western Alexander Romance.[25]

Western Alexander romances

This Gog and Magog legend is not found in earlier versions of the Alexander Romance of Pseudo-Callisthenes, whose oldest manuscript dates to the 3rd century,[d] but an interpolation into recensions around the 8th century.[e][27] In the latest and longest Greek version[f] are described the Unclean Nations, which include the Goth and Magoth as their kings, and whose people engage in the habit of eating worms, dogs, human cadavers and fetuses.[28] They were allied to Belsyrians (Bebrykes,[29] of Bithynia in modern-day North Turkey), and sealed beyond the "Breasts of the North", a pair of mountains fifty days' march away towards the north.[g][28]

Gog and Magog appear in somewhat later Old French versions of the romance.[h][30] In the verse Roman d'Alexandre, Branch III, of Lambert le Tort (c. 1170), Gog and Magog ("Gos et Margos", "Got et Margot") were vassals to Porus, king of India, providing an auxiliary force of 400,000 men.[i] Routed by Alexander, they escaped through a defile in the mountains of Tus (or Turs),[j] and were sealed by the wall erected there, to last until the advent of the Antichrist.[k][31][32] Branch IV of the poetic cycle tells that the task of guarding Gog and Magog, as well as the rule of Syria and Persia was assigned to Antigonus, one of Alexander's successors.[33]

Dhu al-Qarnayn

Main article: Theories about Alexander the Great in the Quran

In the late 19th century, Theodor Noldeke proposed that traditions of the Syriac Alexander Legend played a role in the formation of traditions about an enigmatic figure named Dhu al-Qarnayn ("The Two-Horned One") in the Quran. Forgotten, this thesis would be revived by Kevin van Bladel in a 2008 article.[34] Since then, the thesis has been further developed by publications from Tommaso Tesei.[35][8] Some of the main combination of motifs that have been related between the two texts involve an apocalyptic incursion, Gog and Magog, and Alexanders gates. More specifically, representations of a gate built by the protagonist (Alexander and Dhu al-Qarnayn) from iron and bronze components between two mountains in order to seal away a barbarian tribe equated or related to Gog and Magog, only for the barrier to be broken through during the apocalypse to unleash the end of the world prior to the ultimate judgement.[36]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Also called Christian Legend concerning Alexander, ed. tr. by E. A. Wallis Budge. It has a long full-title, which in shorthand reads "An exploit of Alexander.. how.. he made a gate of iron, and shut it [against] the Huns".
  2. ^ The first invasion, prophesied to occur 826 years after Alexander predicted, has been worked out to fall on 1 October 514; the second invasion on A.D. 629 (Boyle 1979, p. 124).
  3. ^ The Ethiopic version derives from the lost Arabic version (Boyle 1979, p. 133).
  4. ^ The oldest manuscript is recension α. The material is not found in the oldest Greek, Latin, Armenian, and Syriac versions.[26]
  5. ^ Recension ε
  6. ^ Recension γ
  7. ^ Alexander's prayer caused the mountains to move nearer, making the pass narrower, facilitating his building his gate. This is the aforementioned element first seen in pseudo-Methodius.
  8. ^ Gog and Magog being absent in the Alexandreis (1080) of Walter of Châtillon.
  9. ^ Note the change in loyalties. According to the Greek version, Gog and Magog served the Belsyrians, whom Alexander fought them after completing his campaign against Porus.
  10. ^ "Tus" in Iran, near the Caspian south shore, known as Susia to the Greeks, is a city in the itinerary of the historical Alexander. Meyer does not make this identification, and suspects a corruption of mons Caspius etc.
  11. ^ Branch III, laisses 124–128.

References

  1. ^ "Search Entry. www.assyrianlanguages.org
  2. ^ Gero, Stephen (1993). "The legend of Alexander the Great in the Christian Orient" (PDF). Bulletin of the John Rylands Library. 75 (1): 3–9.
  3. ^ a b Ciancaglini, Claudia A. (2001). "The Syriac Version of the Alexander Romance". Le Muséon. 114 (1–2): 121–140. doi:10.2143/MUS.114.1.302.
  4. ^ a b Ciancaglini, Claudia A. (2001). "The Syriac Version of the Alexander Romance". Le Muséon. 114 (1–2): 121–140. doi:10.2143/MUS.114.1.302.
  5. ^ Griffith, Sidney (2021). "The Narratives of "the Companions of the Cave," Moses and His Servant, and Dhū 'l-Qarnayn in Sūrat al-Kahf: Late Antique Lore within the Purview of the Qurʾān". Journal of the International Qur’anic Studies Association. 6 (1): 137–166. doi:10.5913/jiqsa.6.2021.a005. ISSN 2474-8420.
  6. ^ Ghaffar, Zishan (2020). Der Koran in seinem religions- und weltgeschichtlichen Kontext: Eschatologie und Apokalyptik in den mittelmekkanischen Suren. Beiträge zur Koranforschung. Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh. pp. 156–166. ISBN 978-3-506-70432-0.
  7. ^ Shoemaker 2018, p. 79–86.
  8. ^ a b Tesei 2023.
  9. ^ Van Donzel & Schmidt 2010, pp. 25–49.
  10. ^ a b Dickens, Mark (2023). "Gog and Magog in Syriac Literature II: Literature Connected to the Alexander Legend Prior to Michael the Syrian". In Tamer, Georges; Mein, Andrew; Greisiger, Lutz (eds.). Gog and Magog: contributions toward a world history of an apocalyptic motif. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam - tension, transmission, transformation. Berlin Boston: De Gruyter. pp. 153–161. ISBN 9783110720150.
  11. ^ Tesei 2023, p. 173–179.
  12. ^ Tesei 2023, p. 30–44.
  13. ^ Dickens, Mark (2023). "Gog and Magog in Syriac Literature II: Literature Connected to the Alexander Legend Prior to Michael the Syrian". In Tamer, Georges; Mein, Andrew; Greisiger, Lutz (eds.). Gog and Magog: contributions toward a world history of an apocalyptic motif. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam - tension, transmission, transformation. Berlin Boston: De Gruyter. pp. 161–195. ISBN 9783110720150.
  14. ^ Van Donzel & Schmidt 2010, p. 17, "The episode of Alexander's building a wall against Gog and Magog, however, is not found in the oldest Greek, Latin, Armenian and Syriac versions of the Romance. Though the Alexander Romance was decisive for the spreading of the new and supernatural image of Alexander the king in East and West, the barrier episode has not its origin in this text. The fusion of the motif of Alexander's barrier with the Biblical tradition of the apocalyptic peoples Gog and Magog appears in fact for the first time in the so called Syriac Alexander Legend. This text is a short appendix attached to the Syriac manuscripts of the Alexander Romance.".
  15. ^ Budge 1889, II, p. 150.
  16. ^ Budge 1889, II, pp. 153–54.
  17. ^ Van Donzel & Schmidt 2010, pp. 17–21.
  18. ^ Boyle 1979, p. 123.
  19. ^ Van Donzel & Schmidt 2010, p. 32.
  20. ^ Van Donzel & Schmidt 2010, p. 30.
  21. ^ Stoneman 1991, p. 29.
  22. ^ Griffith, Sidney Harrison (2008). The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque: Christians and Muslims in the World of Islam. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. p. 34. ISBN 9780691130156.
  23. ^ Fazlur Rehman Shaikh (2001). Chronology of Prophetic Events. Ta-Ha Publishers Ltd. p. 50.
  24. ^ Living Religions: An Encyclopaedia of the World's Faiths, Mary Pat Fisher, 1997, page 338, I.B. Tauris Publishers.
  25. ^ Van Donzel & Schmidt 2010, p. 21.
  26. ^ Van Donzel & Schmidt 2010, pp. 17, 21.
  27. ^ Stoneman 1991, pp. 28–32.
  28. ^ a b Stoneman 1991, pp. 185–187.
  29. ^ Anderson 1932, p. 35.
  30. ^ Westrem 1998, p. 57.
  31. ^ Armstrong 1937, VI, p. 41.
  32. ^ Meyer 1886, summary of §11 (Michel ed., pp. 295–313), pp. 169–170; appendix II on Gog and Magog episode, pp. 386–389; on third branch, pp. 213, 214.
  33. ^ Meyer 1886, p. 207.
  34. ^ Van Bladel 2008.
  35. ^ Tesei 2014.
  36. ^ Tesei 2023, p. 114–115, 171–172.

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