Naniana, of the eleventh century), as also a Paris MS., attest in the title that the history, so brought to the holy city by John the Monk, had been translated into Greek from the language of the Iberians by Euthymius, an honourable and pious Iberian.
Now of this Euthymius we know a good deal from native Iberian or Georgian sources. He died 1027, having been abbot of a convent on Mount Athos, where is still preserved his recension of the Georgian Bible in a MS. perhaps copied by him with his own hand.
Of the Greek text of Barlaam and Josaphat there is an Arabic translation, of which MSS. are found written as early as the 13th century. The Ethiopic version, according to Zotenberg, was made from this Arabic version.
But besides this Christian Arabic version, there is a very old non-Christian recension of the tale in the same language, which was translated early in the 13th century into Hebrew, under the title "Priest and Dervish." This Hebrew form Dr. Nathan Weisslovits and Professor Fritz Hommel have translated and compared with the Greek.[1] The first half of the Arabic text, on which the Hebrew is based, was first published by Hommel in the proceedings of the VIIth Oriental Congress at Vienna (Semit. Sect. pp. 1 15-165). Rehatzek has translated it into English in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (N.S. xxii., 1 19-155).
Now this non-Christian Arabic form differs in essential respects from the Greek. Firstly, all the Christian reflections and teachings which form the bulk of the Greek text are of course absent. But secondly, what is more important is this, that the apologues or parables follow one another in it in a different order from that in which they are given in the Greek. Thirdly, the text also of these apologues presents in this Arabic form marked diversities from the Greek, as also the chronology of the lives of the ascetics.
- ↑ Prinz und Derwisch. München, 1890.
