Barlaam and Josaphat, also known as Bilawhar and Budhasaf, are Christian saints. Their story tells of the conversion of Josaphat to Christianity. According to tradition, an Indian king persecuted the Christian Church in his realm. After astrologers predicted that his own son would some day become a Christian, the king imprisoned the young prince Josaphat, who nevertheless met the hermit Saint Barlaam and converted to Christianity. After much tribulation the young prince's father accepted the Christian faith, turned over his throne to Josaphat, and retired to the desert to become a hermit. Josaphat himself later abdicated and went into seclusion with his old teacher Barlaam.The Golden Legend: The Story of Barlaam and Josaphat The story is thought to be a Christianized and later version of the story of Siddhartha Gautama, who became the Buddha.
History
The tale derives from a second to fourth century Sanskrit Mahayana Buddhist text, via a Manichaean version, then the Arabic Kitāb Bilawhar wa-Būd̠āsaf (Book of Bilawhar and Budhasaf), current in Baghdad in the eighth century, from where it entered into Middle Eastern Christian circles before appearing in European versions.
The first Christianized adaptation was the Georgian epic Balavariani dating back to the 10th century. A Georgian monk, Euthymius of Athos, translated the story into Greek, some time before he died in an accident while visiting Constantinople in 1028."St. Euthymius of Athos the translator", Orthodox Church in America There the Greek adaptation was translated into Latin in 1048 and soon became well known in Western Europe as Barlaam and Josaphat.William Cantwell Smith, "Towards a World Theology" (1981) The Greek legend of "Barlaam and Ioasaph" was sometimes attributed to the 8th-century John of Damascus and was thought to be an original composition of his in 18th- and 19th-century scholarship. The idea of the legend originating from Byzantine Greek was refuted by scholars F. C. Conybeare and Paul Peeters, who showed the Georgian, Arabic, and Sanskrit origins of the work.
The story of Barlaam and Josaphat was popular in the Middle Ages, appearing in such works as the Golden Legend, and a scene there involving three caskets eventually appeared, via Caxton's English translation of a Latin version, in Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice".Sangharakshita, "From Genesis to the Diamond Sutra – A Western Buddhist's Encounters with Christianity" (Windhorse Publications, 2005), p.165 The poet Chardri produced an Anglo-Norman version, La vie de seint Josaphaz, in the 13th century. The story of Josaphat and Barlaam also occupies a great part of book xv of the Speculum Historiale (Mirror of History) by the 13th-century French encyclopedist Vincent of Beauvais.
One of the Marco Polo manuscripts notes the remarkable similarity between the tale of "Sergamoni Borcan" (i.e. Sakyamuni Burkhan; the name that Polo recorded the Mongols using for the Buddha) and St. Josaphat, apparently unaware of the origins of the Josaphat story.
Two Middle High German versions were produced: one, the "Laubacher Barlaam", by Bishop Otto II of Freising and another, Barlaam und Josaphat, a romance in verse, by Rudolf von Ems. The latter was described as "perhaps the flower of religious literary creativity in the German Middle Ages" by Heinrich Heine.Die Blüte der heiligen Dichtkunst im deutschen Mittelalter ist vielleicht »Barlaam und Josaphat«... See Heinrich Heine, Die romantische Schule (Erstes Buch) at heinrich-heine.net. .
In the 16th century, the story of Josaphat was retold as a defence of monastic life during the Protestant Reformation and of free will against Protestant doctrines regarding predestination.
Legend
According to the legend, King Abenner in India persecuted the Christian Church in his realm, founded by the Apostle Thomas. When astrologers predicted that his own son would some day become a Christian, Abenner had the young prince Josaphat isolated from external contact. Despite the imprisonment, Josaphat met the hermit Saint Barlaam and converted to Christianity. Josaphat kept his faith even in the face of his father's anger and persuasion. Eventually, Abenner converted, turned over his throne to Josaphat, and retired to the desert to become a hermit. Josaphat himself later abdicated and went into seclusion with his old teacher Barlaam.
Names In this context, the name Josaphat is derived from the Sanskrit bodhisattva. The Sanskrit word was changed to in Middle Persian texts in the 6th or 7th century, then to or in an 8th-century Arabic document (Arabic initial "b" changed to "y" by duplication of a dot in handwriting). This became in Georgian in the 10th century, and that name was adapted as Ioasaph () in Greece in the 11th century, and then was assimilated to Iosaphat/Josaphat in Latin.D.M. Lang, The Life of the Blessed Iodasaph: A New Oriental Christian Version of the Barlaam and Ioasaph Romance (Jerusalem, Greek Patriarchal Library: Georgian MS 140), BSOAS 20.1/3 (1957):
The name Barlaam derives from the Arabic name Bilawhar () borrowed through Georgian ( ) into Byzantine Greek ( ). The Arabic Bilawhar has historically been thought to derive from the Sanskrit bhagavan, an epithet of the Buddha, but this derivation is unproven and others have been proposed. Almuth Degener suggests derivation from Sanskrit purohita through a hypothetical Middle Persian intermediate.
The name of Josaphat's father, King Abenner, derives from the Greek name Abenner (), although another Greek version of the legend gives this name as Avenir (). These Greek names were adapted from the Georgian Abeneser (; later shortened to , ), which was itself derived from the Arabic version of the legend where he is named King Junaysar (). According to I.V. Abuladze, during borrowing from Arabic to Georgian, misplaced i'jām resulted in the misreading of Junaysar as Habeneser, after which the initial H- was omitted. The origin of the Arabic name is unclear.
Sainthood Feast days Barlaam and Josaphat were included in earlier editions of the Roman Martyrology with a joint feast day on 27 November,Martyrologium Romanum 27 Novembris Apud Indos, Persis finitimos, sanctorum Barlaam et Josaphat, quorum actus mirandos sanctus Joannes Damascenus conscripsit.Emmanuel Choisnel Les Parthes et la Route de la soie 2004 – Page 202 "Dans l'Église grecque orthodoxe, Saint Josaphat a été fêté le 26 août et, dans l'Église romaine, le 27 novembre a été la ... D. M. Lang, auteur du chapitre « Iran, Armenia and Georgia » dans la Cambridge History of Iran, estime pour sa part ..." however, they were not included in the Roman Missal. Since 1960, a different Saint Josaphat – the bishop and martyr Josephat Kuntsevych – has been commemorated on 16 November.
Barlaam and Josaphat were entered into the Greek Orthodox liturgical calendar on 26 August Julian (8 September Gregorian),Great Synaxaristes : Ὁ Ὅσιος Ἰωάσαφ γιὸς τοῦ βασιλιὰ τῆς Ἰνδίας Ἄβενιρ. 26 Αυγούστου. ΜΕΓΑΣ ΣΥΝΑΞΑΡΙΣΤΗΣ. and into liturgical calendar of the Slavic tradition of the Eastern Orthodox Church, on 19 November Julian (2 December Gregorian).November 19/December 2 . Orthodox Calendar (Pravoslavie.ru).
Texts
There are a large number of different books in various languages, all dealing with the lives of Saints Barlaam and Josaphat in India. In this hagiographic tradition, the life and teachings of Josaphat have many parallels with those of the Buddha. "But not till the mid-nineteenth century was it recognised that, in Josaphat, the Buddha had been venerated as a Christian saint for about a thousand years."Barlaam and Ioasaph, John Damascene, Loeb Classical Library 34, Introduction by David M. Lang This was ascertained through the researches of Edouard de Laboulaye and Felix Liebrecht in 1859-1860. The authorship of the work is disputed. The origins of the story may be a Central Asian manuscript written in the Manichaean tradition. This book was translated into Georgian and Arabic.
Greek manuscripts The best-known version in Europe comes from a separate, but not wholly independent, source, written in Greek, and, although anonymous, attributed to "John the monk". It was first attributed to John of Damascus in the 12th century. Although this attribution was attacked in the 19th century, George Ratcliffe Woodward and Harold Mattingly sum up the arguments in favor of John of Damascus' authorship as follows: The work's doctrine is remarkably similar to St. John's, to the point where "in many passages the resemblance amounts almost to verbal identity"; there are frequent quotations from St. John's favorite authors, such as St. Gregory of Nazianus and St. Basil; "The defence of images, coupled with the denunciation of Idolatry, the enthusiasm for the monastic ideal, and the scant regard shown for the bishops and the secular clergy, almost compel us to place the work in the time of the Iconoclastic Controversy. The position, taken up and defended, is exactly that of the Icon-venerators; and we regard this fact alone as conclusive evidence for an eighth century date."; that St. John was often known as "John the Monk", so the fact that he was not specifically named in the earliest manuscripts does not rule him out. Barlaam and Ioasaph, p. xi-xiv Loeb Classical Library, 1962, trans. G.R Woodward and H. Mattingly
Nonetheless, many modern scholars do not accept this attribution, citing much evidence pointing to Euthymius of Athos, a Georgian who died in 1028.Barlaam and Ioasaph, John Damascene, Loeb Classical Library 34, at LOEB CLASSICAL LIBRARY
The modern edition of the Greek text, from the 160 surviving variant manuscripts (2006), with introduction (German, 2009) is published as Volume 6 of the works of John the Damascene by the monks of the Abbey of Scheyern, edited by Robert Volk. It was included in the edition due to the traditional ascription, but marked "spuria" as the translator is the Georgian monk Euthymius the Hagiorite () at Mount Athos and not John the Damascene of the monastery of Saint Sabas in the Judaean Desert. The 2009 introduction includes an overview.Pieter W. van der Horst, Utrecht – Review of 2006/2009 Robert Volk edition
English manuscripts Among the manuscripts in English, two of the most important are the British Library MS Egerton 876 (the basis for Ikegami's book) and MS Peterhouse 257 (the basis for Hirsh's book) at the University of Cambridge. The book contains a tale similar to The Three Caskets found in the Gesta Romanorum and later in William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice.
Editions
Arabic E. Rehatsek – The Book of the King's Son and the Ascetic – English translation (1888) based on the Halle Arabic manuscript Gimaret – Le livre de Bilawhar et Budasaf – French translation of Bombay Arabic manuscript
Georgian David Marshall Lang: The Balavariani: A Tale from the Christian East California University Press: Los Angeles, 1966. Translation of the long version Georgian work that probably served as a basis for the Greek text. Jerusalem MS140 David Marshall Lang: Wisdom of Balahvar – the short Georgian version. Jerusalem MS36, 1960 The Balavariani (Georgian and Arabic ბალავარიანი, بلوریانی)
Greek
Robert Volk, Die Schriften des Johannes von Damaskos VI/1: Historia animae utilis de Barlaam et Ioasaph (spuria). Patristische Texte und Studien Bd. 61. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2009. Pp. xlii, 596. . Robert Volk, Die Schriften des Johannes von Damaskos VI/2: Historia animae utilis de Barlaam et Ioasaph (spuria). Text und zehn Appendices. Patristische Texte und Studien Bd. 60. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2006. Pp. xiv, 512. . Boissonade – older edition of the Greek G.R. Woodward and H. Mattingly – older English translation of the Greek Online Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA, 1914