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Art. XIX.—An old Hebrew Romance of Alexander

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

M. Gaster
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Extract

More marvellous and more remarkable than the real conquests of Alexander are the stories circulated about him, and the legends which have clustered round his name and his exploits. The history of Alexander has, from a very early period, been embellished with legends and tales. They spread from nation to nation during the whole of the ancient times, and all through the Middle Ages. Many scholars have followed up the course of this dissemination of the fabulous history of Alexander. It would, therefore, be idle repetition of work admirably done by men like Zacher, Wesselofsky, Budge, and others, should I attempt it here. All interested in the legend of Alexander are familiar with those works, where also the fullest bibliographical information is to be found. I am concerned here with what may have appeared to some of these students as the bye-paths of the legend, and which, to my mind, has not received that attention which is due to it, from more than one point of view. Hitherto the histories of Alexander were divided into two categories; the first were those writings which pretended to give a true historical description of his life and adventures, to the exclusion of fabulous matter; the other included all those fabulous histories in which the true elements were smothered under a great mass of legendary matter, the chief representative of this class being the work ascribed to a certain Callisthenes. The study of the legend centred in the study of the vicissitudes to which this work of (Pseudo-) Callisthenes had been exposed, in the course of its dissemination from the East, probably from its native country, Egypt, to the countries of the West.

Type
Original Communications
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 29 , Issue 3 , July 1897 , pp. 485 - 549
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1897

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References

page 487 note 1 “Izῠ istorii romana i povâsti,” vol. i, pp. 129–511. (St. Petersburg, 1886.)Google Scholar

page 488 note 1 The slight change of the Hebrew letter (D) into (R), which is very difficult to distinguish from it, gives to the word which means originally “Macedon” the meaning of “horned.” This may be the origin of the famous name which Alexander bears in the Qoran, and thence in the whole Arabic literature, “The double-horned”—“Dhulqarnain.” It is not unlikely that Muhammad or his secretary, who knew the Hebrew alphabet, and in which probably also Arabic legends were written, made that simple mistake in spelling, and hence the name. The application to Alexander was facilitated by his Ammon's or ram's horn which he has on some coins. But it certainly did not originate from that fact. Those coins were very scarce and not nsed after Alexander's death. The parallelism which some have drawn between that epithet of Alexander and the peculiar legend which ascribes horns to Moses requires further investigation.

page 490 note 1 “Festschrift zum achzigsten Geburtstage M. Steinschneider's” (Leipzig, 1896), pp. 235–7Google Scholar, and Hebrew, pp. 142–63.

page 490 note 2 “Neizdannaya Versiya romana obῠ Alexandrê,” St. Petersburg, 1892Google Scholar.

page 500 note 1 A. “Thy God Digonia has searched through the whole world to find a woman of royal birth, who should be modest and beautiful, so that he obtain from her a son, who would rule over the whole world, and he has not found any one like unto thee.”

page 500 note 2 A. “When he comes the room will be full of light, and he will have a burning light on his forehead, and two horns, one of gold and one of silver, both turned towards the heavens, as a sign that the son who will be born shall reign over the whole world under the heavens.”

page 502 note 1 A. “From the sole of his feet up to hia navel he was covered with hair; between his shoulders he had the image of a lion, and upon his chest that of an eagle. One eye resembled that of the lion, and he looked with it towards the sky, and the other resembled that of a cat, and he looked with it towards the earth.”

page 515 note 1 A, § 24, reads totally differently, and in some particulars more correctly:— “And the King went away from that place and came to the land of the Dwarfs, and their King Antaloma who ruled over them came to meet the King Alexander, who on seeing him exclaimed: ‘Art thou it, O King Antalonia! tell me what thou wishest and I will do for thee.’ But Antalonia replied: ‘Nay, I am willing to offer thee any amount of gold and silver if thou desirest it.’ Alexander said: ‘I do not wish anything from thee, except thou givest me herbs which are good for healing.’ So they told Alexander the virtues of all the herbs and their curing powers. Alexander stayed there three days and ordered the scribe Menaḥem to write down the virtues of the herbs. He then said to Antalonia: ‘Which way am I to turn from here, as I have gone out of my country for the purpose of encompassing the whole world?’ Antalonia replied: ‘There are a great number of kingdoms here round this country who are all subject to my rule; if thou wishest I will place them all under thy power, and they shall go to war for thee and pay thee tribute.’ But Alexander refused, and said: ‘Far be it from me to take anything that belongs to thee; only tell me which way I am to take?’ And he said: ‘Thou must pass through the Dark Mountains, and I will give thee precious stones which are brilliant as the sun.’ And he gave him those stones and food to last for seven days for him and his whole army. And Alexander passed through the Dark Mountains. When he came again forth to the light of the world he said to his followers, ‘Let us encamp here for two or three days.’ There were at that place two red and tall trees, and two old men were sitting close to those trees, one of them blind, the other dumb. The King asked them, ‘What are you sitting here for?’ One replied, ‘To hear the future from these trees.’ And Alexander said: ‘Is such a great thing possible that trees should be speaking and foretelling future?’ And the old man said: ‘In truth it is so; at the third hour of the day these trees speak and tell the man what he asks for, except the day of his death.’ The King was greatly astonished, and he fixed his tent close to the trees. On the morrow, at the third hour, a voice came forth from the tree, saying: ‘My lord King, ask whatever thou wishest, and I will tell thee,’ Thirty years and more.’ And he asked, ‘Shall I reign forty years?’ But no answer came. He then asked again, ‘Shall I reign thirty-five years?’ And the answer came, ‘Thirty-five years and more.’ He thereupon asked, ‘How many more?’ But again no answer was given. Thus he knew that he would not reign forty years. He then asked, ‘Will my son rule after me?’ And the tree replied: ‘Thy son will not rule after thee, for thy kingdom will he divided among thy four generals.’ He asked many more questions, but the tree did not reply any longer.”

page 525 note 1 A. “Coming out from the Temple, Alexander and his host stayed three nights in Jerusalem, and he gave lavishly away gold and silver and precious stones, so that the wise men said that such riches had never been seen any more in Jerusalem since the days of Solomon, the son of David. And all the people from the surroundings brought food and drink to Alexander's host, and he gave them whatever they wished, so that the land became enriched.”