DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49369#0105
STORY OF ZOSIMUS
87
of the end of c. viii.: the scribe’s colophon tells us that his
archetype was imperfect. The text occupies if. 289—292b, and
is the 44th item in the volume, coming between the Didascalia
of Macarius to the monks and the Acts of S. George the Martyr
by Pancratios (Z. Pasicrates).
No other MS. of the book has been accessible to me : there is
one at Moscow (MS. Synod. 290, no. 14) noticed by Matthaei,
and from him in Fabricius, Bibl. Gr. xi. 724 ed. Harles. Doubt-
less other copies exist in European libraries, concealed by faulty
description.
There are, further, versions of the book, both printed and in
MS. The Slavonic apocryphal literature, from which we may
expect very valuable accessions to our knowledge, contains this
book also. I subjoin the brief notice of it given by Kozak in his
excellent list of the Slavonic Apocrypha (Jahrb. f. Prot. Theol.
xviii. 158).
No. xliv. “Peregrinatio Zosimae ad Brachmanos.” It stands
as no. 50 in the Slavonic Index of forbidden books. It has been
printed by Tichonravov in Pamjatniki otrechennoj russkoj litte-
ratury ii. 78—81 and 81 — 92 : also by Vesselovskij in the Jozbrnal
des Ministeriums fur Volksaufkidrung, June 1884, pp. 158—164.
At the prayer of Zosimas an Angel takes him to the land of
the happy Brachmani, where for some time he lives : their mode
of life is described. He then returns to his cave with the help
of the Angel, and before his death delivers to his disciples the
description of the Brachmani. In the same list will be found a
notice of a similar document of Avhich the hero is Agapetus.
A second version of the story exists in Syriac : of this there
are at Paris two copies, and an abridgement (Zotenberg, Cat.
MSS. Syrr., nos. 234, 235, 256), and at least one in the British
Museum (Wright, Cat. MSS. Syrr. 960, no. 34). This professes
to have been translated from Hebrew into Greek, and from Greek
into Syriac, this latter version being attributed to Jacob of Edessa.
The title given is merely ‘ Vision of Zosimus concerning the
Rechabites,’ and it seems likely that the text will be found to
correspond closely enough with the Greek.
Of a third version, the Ethiopic, we know rather more. In
Wright’s Catalogue of the Ethiopic MSS. in the Brit. Mus. (Cod.
87
of the end of c. viii.: the scribe’s colophon tells us that his
archetype was imperfect. The text occupies if. 289—292b, and
is the 44th item in the volume, coming between the Didascalia
of Macarius to the monks and the Acts of S. George the Martyr
by Pancratios (Z. Pasicrates).
No other MS. of the book has been accessible to me : there is
one at Moscow (MS. Synod. 290, no. 14) noticed by Matthaei,
and from him in Fabricius, Bibl. Gr. xi. 724 ed. Harles. Doubt-
less other copies exist in European libraries, concealed by faulty
description.
There are, further, versions of the book, both printed and in
MS. The Slavonic apocryphal literature, from which we may
expect very valuable accessions to our knowledge, contains this
book also. I subjoin the brief notice of it given by Kozak in his
excellent list of the Slavonic Apocrypha (Jahrb. f. Prot. Theol.
xviii. 158).
No. xliv. “Peregrinatio Zosimae ad Brachmanos.” It stands
as no. 50 in the Slavonic Index of forbidden books. It has been
printed by Tichonravov in Pamjatniki otrechennoj russkoj litte-
ratury ii. 78—81 and 81 — 92 : also by Vesselovskij in the Jozbrnal
des Ministeriums fur Volksaufkidrung, June 1884, pp. 158—164.
At the prayer of Zosimas an Angel takes him to the land of
the happy Brachmani, where for some time he lives : their mode
of life is described. He then returns to his cave with the help
of the Angel, and before his death delivers to his disciples the
description of the Brachmani. In the same list will be found a
notice of a similar document of Avhich the hero is Agapetus.
A second version of the story exists in Syriac : of this there
are at Paris two copies, and an abridgement (Zotenberg, Cat.
MSS. Syrr., nos. 234, 235, 256), and at least one in the British
Museum (Wright, Cat. MSS. Syrr. 960, no. 34). This professes
to have been translated from Hebrew into Greek, and from Greek
into Syriac, this latter version being attributed to Jacob of Edessa.
The title given is merely ‘ Vision of Zosimus concerning the
Rechabites,’ and it seems likely that the text will be found to
correspond closely enough with the Greek.
Of a third version, the Ethiopic, we know rather more. In
Wright’s Catalogue of the Ethiopic MSS. in the Brit. Mus. (Cod.