A Hellenic Emperor at the Kievan Court: Alexander the Great and Apocalyptic Kingship in East Slavic Historiography
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irk-123456789-1916152023-07-06T18:56:07Z A Hellenic Emperor at the Kievan Court: Alexander the Great and Apocalyptic Kingship in East Slavic Historiography Torres Prieto, S. 2019 Article A Hellenic Emperor at the Kievan Court: Alexander the Great and Apocalyptic Kingship in East Slavic Historiography / Prieto S. Torres // Ruthenica. — 2019. — Т. 15. — С. 45-65. — Бібліогр.: 38 назв. — англ. 1995-0276 http://dspace.nbuv.gov.ua/handle/123456789/191615 en Ruthenica Інститут історії України НАН України |
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Torres Prieto, S. A Hellenic Emperor at the Kievan Court: Alexander the Great and Apocalyptic Kingship in East Slavic Historiography Ruthenica |
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Torres Prieto, S. |
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A Hellenic Emperor at the Kievan Court: Alexander the Great and Apocalyptic Kingship in East Slavic Historiography |
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A Hellenic Emperor at the Kievan Court: Alexander the Great and Apocalyptic Kingship in East Slavic Historiography |
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A Hellenic Emperor at the Kievan Court: Alexander the Great and Apocalyptic Kingship in East Slavic Historiography |
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A Hellenic Emperor at the Kievan Court: Alexander the Great and Apocalyptic Kingship in East Slavic Historiography |
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hellenic emperor at the kievan court: alexander the great and apocalyptic kingship in east slavic historiography |
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Інститут історії України НАН України |
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A Hellenic Emperor at the Kievan Court: Alexander the Great and Apocalyptic Kingship in East Slavic Historiography / Prieto S. Torres // Ruthenica. — 2019. — Т. 15. — С. 45-65. — Бібліогр.: 38 назв. — англ. |
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© Ruthenica XV (2019), 45–65
Susana Torres Prieto
A Hellenic Emperor at the Kievan Court:
Alexander the Great and Apocalyptic Kingship
in East Slavic Historiography
The inclusion of Pseudo-Callisthenes’ Alexander Romance in historiographic texts
in East Slavic from the very beginning should not necessarily surprise us. The use
of the Classical past in emerging literatures of European nations where no Roman
legions ever set a foot, needless to say were remotely associated with the Hellenic
empire of the Macedonian emperor, brings East Slavic historiographic tradition in
line with the rest of European medieval literatures, far beyond the Byzantine
Commonwealth1.
However, it is important to understand that, while the models used might repeat
themselves (the Trojan War and Alexander of Macedon figured prominently in the
repertoire), the reasons and uses of the same examples might vary. The reason,
however, of why Alexander the Great’s life and exploits were inserted in East
Slavic historiographic works is quite different from the reasons of his fame among
Western counterparts. The features that we could identify as descriptive of
Alexander the Macedon in its own and other traditions (pagan, Hellenic) are
completely forgotten to underline radically opposite characteristics: the Alexander
the Great of East Slavic historiography is Christian and Biblical.
Similarly, while the reason why Alexander the Great was repeatedly adopted
in the West was his legendary power to submit Greeks and foreign peoples, his
sagacity in solving complex riddles, and the flashing speed at which he discovered
and conquered new lands and kingdoms (a model, no wonder, that any prince
would be more than happy to emulate), the main reason why Alexander the Great
was firstly known in East Slavic was for having had enclosed the impure peoples
until the day of the Second Coming, the famous episode of the Gog and his
1 The already famous volume by Matthew Innes and Yazik Hen provides several examples
about uses of the classical past among non-Latinised societies in Europe. Among the most
closely related ones with the topic under discussion is Matthew Innes, “Teutons or Trojans?
The Carolingians and the Germanic Past,” The Uses of the Past in the Early Middle Ages,
eds. Yazik Hen and Matthew Innes (Cambridge, UK and New York, 2000), 227–249.
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46 Susana Torres Prieto
kingdom, the Magog. More specifically, and according to the Revelations, or
Apocalypse, of the Pseudo-Methodius, the Ishmaelites, which were in due course
identified with the Mongols, would at some point come from the East to punish
good Christians for having abandoned their true religion by falling into a sea of
sinfulness and apostasy. For the princes of the Rus’, who had failed to secure their
lands against the Mongols in the mid-thirteenth century, if there was someone to
emulate, it was this emperor who had managed, according to legend, to keep them
outside the Caspian Gates. I would argue that this prowess of a deeply Christianised
Alexander was one of the main reasons why Alexander the Great became an East
Slavic speculum principis.
The question is now trying to understand how this process was made and from
where and when was the whole idea of Alexander as saviour of Christianity
imported.
Biblical Traditions
The reason why Alexander becomes a relevant figure in East Slavic medieval
letters commences with Ezekiel, one of the three major profets of the Old
Testament, together with Isaiah and Jeremiah. It is one of the main apocalyptic
books of Second Temple literature. Specifically, it is in the last part of Ezekiel
books (the so-called prophesies of hope and salvation), the one narrating the future
blessings of Israel, where the references to the Gog and the Magog are made2. This
enemy of Israel and his kingdom are mentioned in chapters 38 and 39 of the Book
of Ezekiel3:
38:1 “And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, [2] Son of man, set thy face
against Gog, the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal4, a prophesy
against him, [3] And say, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog,
the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal: [4] And I will turn thee back, and put hooks into
thy jaws, and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them
clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great company with bucklers and shields, all of
them handling swords: [5] Persia, Ethiopia and Lybia with them”;
2 The Book of Ezekiel is also referenced in the New Testament Apocalypse, known in the Protestant Bible
as the Revelation, in 20:7–8: “And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of
his prison, (8) and shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog
and Magog, to gather them together to battle; the number of whom is as the sand of the sea”. This
reference in the Apocalypse mixes the text of Ezekiel with the theory of the four kingdoms as expressed
in the Book of Daniel (see below).
3 All Bible translations are given according to the Authorized King James Bible edited by R. Carroll and
Stephen Prickett (Oxford 1997).
4 Magog simply means “country or land of Gog”. Meshech and Tubal are countries in Asia Minor (cf.
Ez. 27, 13 and particularly Is. 66, 19–21). In this latter problematical addition to the Book of Isaiah,
several kingdoms are listed where converted Jews will be called upon to reunite: Tarsis (Spain), Put
(Libya), Lud (Lydia), Meshech (Frigia), Tubal (Cilicia) and Yavan (Ionia).
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and the text continues later in the same chapter:
[8] “After many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years thou shalt come into the
land that is brought back from the sword, and is gathered out of many people, against
the mountains of Israel, which have been always waste: but it is brought forth out of the
nations, and they shall dwell safely all of them”,
whereupon Ezekiel is directly spoken to:
[14] “Therefore, son of man, prophesy and say unto Gog, Thus saith the Lord God; In
that day when my people of Israel dwelleth safely, shalt thou not know it? [15] And thou
shalt come from thy place out of the north parts, thou, and many people with thee, all of
them riding upon horses, a great company, and a mighty army: [16] And thou shalt come
up against my people of Israel, as a cloud to cover the land; it shall be in the latter days,
and I will bring thee against my land, that the heathen may know me, when I shall be
sanctified in thee, O Gog, before their eyes.”
In chapter 39 the prophesy continues more or less the same, including the
famous vision of the valley of Death:
[6] And I will send a fire on Magog, and among them that dwell carelessly in the isles:
and they shall know that I am the Lord. [7] So will I make my holy name known in the
midst of my people Israel; and I will not let them pollute my holy name anymore: and
the heathen shall know that I am the Lord, the Holy One in Israel.”
And then the prophet speaks for the first time of where this will happen:
“[11] And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will give unto Gog a place there of
graves in Israel, the valley of the passengers on the east of the sea; and it shall stop the
noses of the passengers; and there shall they bury Gog and all his multitude: and they
shall call it The Valley of Hamon-Gog”.
Ezekiel finalises the vision explaining how God punished the house of Israel
for their iniquity but now He is going to show mercy by defeating Israel’s enemies.
This eschatological vision of a better future to come was particularly relevant
in Second Temple Literature and its influence on Early Christianity, aside from the
biblical Apocalypse itself, was very relevant in Latin Christendom, particularly
after the fall of Rome5.
The Book of Daniel, which comes after the Book of Ezekiel in the Bible,
narrates a further relevant point: the theory of the four kingdoms as deciphered by
5 On Jewish Apocalyptisim in Late Antiquity, see a good status quaestionis in Gerbern S.
Oegema, “The Heritage of Jewish Apocalypticism in Late Antique and Early Medieval
Judaism, Christianity and Islam,” Vehicles of Transmission, Translation, and Transformation
in Medieval Textual Culture, ed. Faith Wallis, Robert Wisnovsky, Jamie C. Fumo and Carlos
Fraenkel (Turnhouts, 2011), 103–128.
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Daniel from the dream had by king Nabuchadnezzar (Dan. 2:31–45). These four
kingdoms, as described by Daniel as the vision that the king had, were four parts
of a large statue: the head made of gold (Babylon), the breast and arms made of
silver (the Medes), the body and thighs made of brass (Persia) and the legs of iron
and feet partially of iron and partially of clay (Greeks). The fourth kingdom will
be the strongest “[40] And the fourth kingdom shall be as strong as iron: forasmuch
as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things: and as iron that breaketh all
these, shall it break in pieces and bruise”. The difference of material in each foot
(iron and clay) was supposed to represent the wars between the Seleucids and the
Ptolemaic dynasty, as further ‘described’ in chapters 10 to 12 of the same book6.
By the time of the fall of Rome, Jerome and Augustine of Hippo had already
identified these four kingdoms with Babylonia, Mede-Persia, Greeks and Romans,
the most widespread medieval interpretation of this theory of salvation of
humankind before the arrival of the fifth kingdom, the Kingdom of Heaven7.
Classical Historiography
Moving on from Biblical references, the next source that is relevant in this
discussion is Flavius Josephus’ The Antiquity of the Jews. His last and longest
work, written probably around the year 90 C.E., once he had installed himself in
Rome after having witnessed the destruction of Jerusalem by his patron, already
by emperor Titus, was primarily intended for non-Jewish readers. It is a history of
the Jewish nation, from the times of the Creation to his own time. The work draws
heavily on the Septuagint as well as writings of Greek and Roman historians. It is
in this context, and his insistence of showing to his Roman public the superior
antiquity of the Jews by comparison to the Greeks, that he includes the visit of
emperor Alexander the Great to Jerusalem. This visit is recorded in Josephus’
Antiquity in chapter 8 of Book 11 (§ 304–346). According to Josephus, Sanballat,
a king sent by Darius to Samaria, had estranged the elders of Jerusalem by
promising his daughter, Nicaso, to Manasseh, a brother of Jaddua the high priest,
in order to forge an alliance with the Jews, an alliance that was contrary to the rules
concerning marriages with foreign (non-Jewish) women. When Alexander crosses
the Hellespont and fights against Darius for the first time, Sanballat sides with the
Persian king, but when Alexander finally besieges Tyre and is ready to come to
Jerusalem, Sanballat changes sides and asks Alexander for help to appease the
6 Further references to the victory of the Greek king to come can be found in the same book
in 7:6 (the triumph of the leopard, representing the Greeks), 8:3–8, 20–22 (the victory of the
he goat coming from the west (Greece) with a horn between his eyes defeating the ram with
two horns, representing the kings of Media and Persia).
7 See Gerbern S. Oegema, “The Heritage of Jewish Apocalypticism in Late Antique and Early
Medieval Judaism, Christianity and Islam”.
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Jewish elders by building a new temple in Jerusalem (§ 321–322). Sanballat did
so and made his son-in-law priest of the said temple. The Jews were thus divided
between the faction of Sanballat and the faction of Jaddua, who had opposed the
marriage. By the time Alexander had finally taken both Tyre and Gaza, Sanballat
had died, and Jaddua and the other priests were afraid of Alexander coming to
Jerusalem, since they thought they would be punished by the Macedonian emperor
for having opposed him. And then “God warned him in a dream, which came upon
him after he had offered sacrifice, that he should take courage, and adorn the city,
and open the gates; that the rest appear in white garments, but that he and the
priests should meet the king in the habits proper of their order, without the dread
of any ill consequences, which the providence of God would prevent” (§327)8. The
Roman historian further narrates the encounter of Alexander with the people of
Jerusalem (§ 331–339):
For Alexander, when he saw the multitude at a distance, with fine linen, and the high
priest in purple and scarlet clothing, with his mitre on his head having the golden plate
on which the name of God was engraved, he approached by himself and adored that
name and first saluted the high priest.
Parmenio, surprised by Alexander reaction, asks him why he has saluted the
high priest of the Jews like that, to which Alexander responds:
I did not adored him, but that God who hath honoured him with that high priesthood;
(334) for I saw this very person in a dream, in this very habit, when I was at Dios, in
Macedonia, who, when I was considering with myself how I might obtain the dominion
of Asia, exhorted me to make no delay, but boldly to pass over the sea thither, for that
he would conduct my army and would give me the dominion over the Persians.
After Alexander’s response, reminiscent to the modern reader of Constantine’s
vision before the Battle of Milvian Bridge but avant la lettre, of course, he is taken to
the temple where he offers sacrifices to God according to Jewish custom and is shown
the Book of Daniel “wherein Daniel declared that one of the Greeks should destroy
the empire of the Persians, he supposed that himself was the person intended” (337).
After that, Alexander “granted them all they desired: and when they entreated him
that he would permit the Jews in Babylon and Media to enjoy their own laws also, he
willingly promised to do hereafter what they desired” (338).
This “conversion” of Alexander to the Jewish God would be later exploited as
one of the testimonies of a Christianised Alexander in the Middle Ages. It was also
incorporated into the later versions of the Pseudo-Callisthenes Alexander Romance
in eighth-century Byzantium9.
8 The translation into English of this work is taken from The Works of Josephus. Complete
and Unabridged translated by William Whiston (Hendrickson, Peabody, MA, 1987).
9 Further details on Alexander’s visit to Jerusalem and its inclusion in the ε version of the
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A much briefer, but maybe equally relevant reference, to Alexander the Great
was made by Flavius Josephus in his other great work, The Wars of the Jews,
narrating the wars of the Jewish people from the time of the Maccabees to the
Great War with Rome that the author himself witnessed. In Book 7, chapter 7,
when he is describing the events that took place during the reign of emperor
Vespasian (69–79 C.E.) and the tragedy of Antiochus, king of Commagene
(Armenian Kingdom of the Hellenistic period around the city of Samosata), he
narrates how the Alans (also known as Scythians), who inhabited the Lake Meotis
(Sea of Azov) wanted to fall upon “Media and the parts beyond it, in order to
plunder them; with which intention they treated with the king of Hyrcania10; for
he was the master of that passage which king Alexander shut up with iron gates.
(246) This king gave them lease to come through them; so they came in great
multitudes, and fell upon the Medes unexpectedly, and plundered their country”.
This is one of the first references to Alexander closing the impure peoples behind
“iron gates”. It links the enclosing of the impure people as described in Ezekiel
with the identification of the material the gates are made of which is iron, one of
materials referring to the Greeks, and their invincibility in the Book of Daniel.
The Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius
These two traditions, the apocalyptical Old Testament one and the historical Latin
one seemingly come together in the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius, also known
among some scholars, using borrowed Protestant terminology, as the Revelation.
The Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius, written most likely by an anonymous
Syriac monk towards the end of the seventh century was, according to DiTomasso,
“the most influential apocalyptic text written during the Middle Ages”11. This text
is key in understanding the relevance in East Slavic historiography of Alexander
of Macedon, who appears prominently in Chapter 8 of the Apocalypse. The person
who composed the Apocalypse was clearly aware of Ezekiel’s and Daniel’s
visions, which can be expected from any monk, but may have been less so
Alexander Romance are to be found in the excellent monograph by Corinne Jouanno,
Naissance et Métamorphoses du Roman d’Alexandre: Domaine Grec. (Paris, 2002), 378–381.
10 A historical area southeast of the Caspian Sea and also the name of a fortress in the Judean
Desert rebuilt subsequently in the Byzantine period as a monastery named Kastellion,
5 kilometres west of Qumram and 16 east of Jerusalem, in the West Bank. Josephus’
reference is undoubtedly to the Caspian kingdom.
11 Lorenzo DiTomasso has worked extensively on this text. A very good summary of the status
quaestionis, including updated bibliography, à propos of the appraisal of Benjamin Garstad’s
new edition and translation (Apocalypse/Pseudo-Methodius. An Alexandrian World
Chronicle; edited and translated by Benjamin Garstad (Cambridge, MA, 2012) can be found
in Lorenzo DiTommaso, “The Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius: Notes on a Recent
Edition,” Medioevo Greco 17 (2017), 311–321.
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of Pseudo-Callisthenes text. According to Garstad, the anonymous Syriac monk
would have known his Bible, but instead of using extensively the books of Ezekiel
and Daniel, he would have made a more extensive use of Saint Paul’s second
Letter to the Thessalonians.12 This is arguable, since the content of the Pauline
letter focuses on the parousia, the arrival of the ultimate kingdom, rather than on
the evils that will necessarily arrive beforehand, and because the Pseudo-
Methodius’ Apocalypse mentions Ezekiel and his prophecy with his name in the
last paragraph of chapter 8 (“In the end times, according to what the prophecy of
Ezekiel says, in the last day of the consummation of the world Gog and Magog,
who are the nations and kings which Alexander shored up in the extremities of the
north, will come into the land of Israel”, and then he gives the list of nations
commencing with the names the prophet used in his book (see supra): “Gog and
Magog and Anug and Ageg and Ashkenaz, and Dephar and the Photinaeans and
Libians and Eunians and Pharizaeans and Declemans and Zarmats and Theblaeans
and Zarmatians and Chachonians and Amarzarthans and Garmiardans and the
cannibals called Cynocephalans (Dog-heads) and Tharbians and Alans and
Phisolonicians and Arcnaeans and Asarlerians. These are the twenty-two kings set
under guard within the gates which Alexander fixed”. The author of the Apocalypse
also refers to the Book of Daniel at the beginning of chapter 8, where he refers to
the theory of the four kingdoms and the four winds, as mentioned explicitly by
Daniel. However, one of the most striking features of the Apocalypse also refers
to one of the most peculiar lineages attributed to Alexander: while in all texts we
know, including those of the Syrian cycle mentioned below, Alexander is the son
of Philip and Olympias, or of Nectanebo and Olympias, we can read in the
Apocalypse: “For Philip, the father of Alexander, was a Macedonian and he
married Chouseth, the daughter of king Phol of Ethiopia, and out of her was born
Alexander, who became tyrant of the Greeks” (Ch. 8 § 2).
Garstad is, nevertheless, absolutely right when he places the origin of the
encounter between Alexander the Great and the Gog and Magog in the Apocalypse
“on material in Syrian versions of the legends about Alexander, the Alexander
Legend and the Alexander Poem”13.
The Syriac Cycle on Alexander
These two texts, plus the short life of Alexander that Budge included in his book,
what I have called before the Syriac cycle on Alexander, present interesting
connections between them and with the Apocalypse and the much wider tradition
of the Alexander Romance. Both were translated alongside the Syriac version
12 Apocalypse/Pseudo-Methodius, xi–xii.
13 Apocalypse/Pseudo-Methodius, xii.
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of the Alexander Romance by Budge and inspired the writer of the Apocalypse14.
The first one to be composed, probably around the early 630s, was the Poem,
traditionally attributed to Jacob of Serugh, following Budge’s theory. The poem
presents Alexander as someone who
desire[s] greatly to go forth and see countries, and also what is the condition of lands far
away, I will also go forth and see seas and boundaries and all the quarters of the world;
and more than all [I desire] to go in and see the Land of Darkness (vv. 38–41, p. 165)15.
After which we are told:
And after he had subdued Macedonia which had rebelled against him, he went down
and dwelt in the chief town of all Egypt, and he bound on the crown and he became
greater and stronger than all kings (vv. 45–47, p. 166).
Further discussion with local chiefs about the dangers of wanting to go so far
in the seas follows, before the first mention relating Alexander with the Gog and
Magog is finally made:
And he sent and told Sorik, the king of all Egypt to send to him from his dominions all
the artificers, workers in brass and iron, men full of skill, for the Lord had beckoned to
him to make a gate against Magog. Twelve thousand cunning workmen did Sorik the
king of Egypt send to the son of Philip. King Alexander made ready iron and brass a great
quantity, and in his wisdom, he filled the ships therewith. He alone knew this mystery,
which Jeremiah, in his prophecy, had prophesied concerning him (vv. 79–88, p. 167)16.
From this point, Alexander continues his journey towards the Land of Darkness,
in pursue of the Water of Life, until he arrives to where the fountain is, only to
receive the instruction from the Lord not to bathe himself in it, since he has to die
like any other mortal. Asking an old man who had guided him there about the
nations inhabiting those lands, he is told
14 Richard Stoneman has summarised the question of the Syriac cycle of Alexander in Richard Stoneman,
“Alexander the Great and the End of Time: The Syriac Contribution to the Development of the
Alexander Romance,” Syriac in its Multi-Cultural Context, ed. by H. Teule, E. Keser-Kayaalp,
K. Akalin, N. Dorum and M.S. Toprak (Leuven and Paris, 2017), 39–46. What I call the ‘Syriac cycle’
was fully translated into English by Budge more than a century ago (E.A. Wallis Budge, The History
of Alexander the Great, being the Syriac version of the Pseudo-Callisthenes (Cambridge, 1889), where
the English translation of the Syriac Alexander Romance precedes the translation of the Christian
Legend (pp. 144–158) and the Poem by Jacob of Serugh, called by Budge ‘A Metrical Discourse upon
Alexander’ (pp.163–200). He also included a Brief Life of Alexander (pp. 159–161) whose origin is
uncertain. A more recent translation into German was made by G.J. Reinink in 1983 (Das syrische
Alexanderlied: die drei Rezensionen (Louvain, 1983). Bugde’s theories on the origin of the Syriac
Alexander were subsequently criticised by Nöldeke, who insisted on a Persian origin for the Syriac
translations. The refutation of Nöldeke’s theories and a full reexamination of the question can be found
in Claudia A. Ciancaglini, “The Syriac Version of the Alexander Romance,” Le Muséon Revue d’etudes
orientales 114 (1–2) (2001), 121–140. I thank Albert Frey for directing me to this article.
15 All citations are from Budge’s translation (1889).
16 Jeremiah does not mention Alexander by name in any part of his book.
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This is the dominion of Tubarlika the great king of the house of Persians and of the
Amoraye. Within it are the peoples of the house of Japhet and of the house of Magog, a
cunning nation, a flayed nation, an uprooted nation (vv. 213–216, p 176).
Arriving then to the mountainous region beyond which there were dragons,
Alexander once more asks which peoples lie beyond those mountains and is told
Listen, O Master, and king; and we will tell thee. Behold, the family of Agog and the
family of Magog are beyond us, terrible of aspect, hateful of form, of all heights, the
stature of each one of them is from six to seven cubits; Their noses are flat and their
foreheads hateful. They bathe in blood, and in blood wash they also their heads, They
drink blood and eat the flesh of men; they wear skins, sharpen weapons and forge wrath,
and are more ferocious and have more wars than all other nations. Where the wrath of
the Lord rises he sends them; and they overturn the land, and uproot mountains, and
devour men (vv. 241–251, p. 177–178).
It is then he realises there is a narrow pass in the mountains and a river of
blood flowing down. After that he writes a letter to Tubarliki, the king of Persia,
notifying him of his intention to stay in Persia without a fight. When Tubarliki
was about to attack Alexander, the latter dreamt of an angel saying to him that
he would be victorious in battle against the Persians and their allies because he
had the protection from God (similarly to what Flavious Josephus narrated in
The Antiquities of the Jews, see supra). As predicted by the angel, Alexander won
the battle:
And when Alexander had thus gained the victory, he buried the slain and took their arms.
Then he courageously took pains and made a door against Agog and the family of
Magog, and bound them inside. He took iron and brass, a great quantity, and made it
ready for the making of the door that he might shut [it] in the face of the people. [...] He
measured the ground of the narrow pass between the mountains, that he might shut in
the peoples of the house of Magog until the end (vv. 338–342, 348–349, p. 182).
Once this is done, Alexander has another vision in a dream:
Rise up and make peace with Tubarliki, the king of Persia, and take away from him the
land of Egypt and the land of Jabus. Take from him the land of Palestine and the
Hebrews’ country and the whole land of Syria and Mesopotamia. Take from him
Phoenicia and Cilicia, Cappadocia, Galatia and Phrygia, also Asia and the territory of
the Greeks and Seleucia, take his dominion until thou comest to Kalkidia, take his
dominion and set the river Kallath as a boundary for yourselves. And let not one of you
pass over the boundary which ye set for him”. The Lord spake by the hand of the angel,
[saying] “I will magnify thee more than all the kings and governors in all the world. This
great gate which thou hast made in this land shall be closed until the end of times
cometh. Jeremiah also prophesied concerning it and the earth hath heard, ‘The gate of
the north shall be opened on the day of the end of the world, And on that day shall evil
go forth on the wicked. There shall be woe to those who are with child and to those who
give suck” (vv. 417–434, pp 186–187).
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Alexander’s dream goes on:
And destructive winds shall go forth against creation; and the Lord shall visit evil upon
the world, upon the fertile lands. And the nation that is within this gate shall bee roused
up, and also the hosts of Agog and of the peoples of Magog shall be gathered together.
These peoples, the fiercest of all creatures, Of the mighty house of Japhet [are they] of
whom the Lord spake, [saying], ‘They shall go forth on the earth and cover all creation
like a locust” (vv. 463–469, p. 188).
The visions of Alexander continue as more references to Isaiah or Daniel are
noted. The author clearly knew the Old Testament, and it was in his imagination
that the different apocalyptic visions (Daniel, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel) were
mixed together and maybe also with passages Josephus’ works. Jeremiah, for
example, despite being often quoted by the author of the Poem, does not mention
the Gog or the Magog in his work, although he refers insistently to the “people of
the north” who could attack Israel and the city of Jerusalem, although a king (“The
days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will raise up for David[a] a righteous
Branch, a King who will reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land. In
his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety.” Jeremiah, 23, 5–6) will
spare the Jewish people. This is exactly the main argument at the end of the Poem:
They shall not, however, enter into Jerusalem, the city of the Lord. For the sign of the
Lord shall drive them away from it, and shall not enter it. All the saints shall fly away
from them to Mount Sanir, all faithful true ones and the good and all the wise. They shall
not be able to approach mount Sinai, for it is the dwelling place of the Lord, nor to the
high mountains of Sinai with their shame. By Jerusalem shall fall by the sword the hosts
of the children of Agog and of the house of Magog with great slaughter. After these
things shall the days full of trouble decrease (vv. 630–638, pp. 196–197).
This text is probably the first to link the key elements of the story as it will be
transmitted in chapter 8 of Pseudo-Methodius’ Apocalypse and later on in the later
Greek and Byzantine, and Slavic, versions of the Alexander Romance. The link bet -
ween Alexander and the king that would be sent by the Biblical God to save Jeru salem
was made by Flavius Josephus, but the elements of the Caspian Gates, or Iron Ga tes,
and the Gog and the country of Magog are clearly only present in the Syriac texts.
The other text from which Pseudo-Methodius could have taken inspiration,
aside from the Syriac version of the Pseudo-Callisthenes (translated from Greek
into Syriac in the fifth or sixth century), was the so-called Christian Legend
concerning Alexander. Written before the Alexander Poem, Budge thought that
they had been possibly equally inspired in some chapters of the Alexander
Romance (Book II, chapters 38 and 39). These chapters contain mainly the
episodes of the diving bell and the water of life. The former is missing in the Poem,
but, as we will see, the episode of the Unclean Nations, the Gog and the Magog,
once incorporated into later versions of the Alexander Romance (λ, γ or ε), will be
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placed immediately after the episode of the exchange of letters with the Amazons,17
and not after the search of the water of life, as it was in the Poem. The Legend
focuses on Alexander shutting out the Huns, the people from the north, whom he
finds at the end of the world, behind an iron gate. His salvation of Jerusalem also
figures prominently. In this text, inspired in the Poem, the process of Christinization
of Alexander is complete, who at one point in the Legend says:
O God, Lord of kings and judges, thou who settest up kings and destroyest their power,
I know in my mind that thou hast exalted me above all kings, and thou hast made me
horns upon my head, wherewith I might trust down the kingdoms of the world; give me
power from thy holy heavens that I may receive strength greater than [that of] the
kingdoms of the world and that I may humble them, and I will magnify thy name, O lord,
for ever, and thy memorial shall be from everlasting to everlasting and I will write the
name of God in the charter of my kingdom, that there may be for Thee a memorial
always. And if the Messiah, who is the Son of God, comes in my days, I and my troops
will worship Him. And if He does not come in my days, when I have gone and conquered
kings and seized their lands, I will carry this throne, which is a seat of silver upon which
I sit, and will place it in Jerusalem, that, when the Messiah comes from heaven, He may
sit upon my kingly throne, for His kingdom lasts for ever18.
And when he manages to get to the end of the land, before a mountain that
“comes to an end in outer Persia” he asks the locals whether they have ever gone
to the other side, to which they answer “neither we nor our fathers have been able
to march one step in it, and men do not ascend it either on that side or on this, for
it is the boundary which God has set between us and the nations within it” and
when further asked by Alexander, who are these nations, they responded “They
are the Huns” whose kings are “The Gog and Magog and Nawal the kings of the
sons of Japhet; and Gig and Teamron, and Tiyamron, and Beth-Gamli, and
Yaphobar, and Shumardak, and Glusika, and Ekshaphar and Salgaddo, and Nislik
and Amarphil and Kaoza, these are the kings of the Huns”.19 This list does not
coincide with the one that will give Pseudo-Methodius in his text, who will
amplify it to 22 (actually 23). The Book of the Bee will also list 22 nations, partially
coinciding with this and partially with Pseudo-Methodius. The Legend narrates
subsequently the construction of the iron gates,20 the prophesy of Alexander in
which he sees the destruction of the kingdoms from the North:
And when the Huns have gone forth, as God has commanded, the kingdoms of the Huns
and the Persians and the Arabs, the twenty-four kingdoms that are written in this book,
shall come from the ends of the heavens and shall fall upon one another, and the earth shall
melt through the blood and dung of men. Then the kingdom of the Greeks shall move itself,
17 Richard Stoneman, “Alexander the Great and the End of Time,” 185–187.
18 E.A. Wallis Budge, The History of Alexander the Great, 146.
19 E.A. Wallis Budge, The History of Alexander the Great, 150.
20 E.A. Wallis Budge, The History of Alexander the Great, 153.
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and shall come and take a hammer of iron in its right hand, and a hammer of brass in its
left, and the kingdom of Greece shall smite the hammers one upon the other, and as iron
which is melted by fire, and as brass which boils in the flame, so shall the power of the
kingdoms melt away before the might of the kingdom of the Greeks which is that of the
Romans. And the kingdoms of the Huns and of the Persians shall be desolated the one by
the other; only a few of them shall escape who shall flee to their country; and what remains
of them the kingdom of the Romans shall destroy. And my kingdom, which is called that
of the house of Alexander the son of Philip the Macedonian, shall go forth and destroy the
earth and the ends of the heavens; and there shall not be found any among the nations and
tongues who dwell in the world that shall stand before the kingdom of the Romans.
The Legend goes on elaborating how Alexander is there to fulfil the prophesy
of Jeremiah, then describes Alexander’s victory and his final arrival to Jerusalem.
This is the material with which the author of the Apocalypse worked.
As mentioned above, the main references to Alexander are made in chapter 8,
although indirect references to Alexander are to be found elsewhere (“these last
men who stretch out their hands to God are from the seed of Chuseth, the daughter
of Phol, king of Ethiopia. When the Cross has been lifted up on high to heaven,
the King of the Romans will directly give up his spirit”, ch. 14, 2–3)21. In chapter
8, we are told, contrarily to all traditions about Alexander, including the Syriac
cycle, that the mother of Alexander is not Olympias, but Chuseth, the daughter of
King Phol of Ethiopia. Supposedly, this is the fulfilment of Daniel’s prophecy:
“Now hear again precisely how the four kingdoms were united with one another,
the Ethiopians with the Macedonians, and the Greeks with the Romans. These are
the four winds under heaven, which Daniel saw disturbing the great sea” (Chapter
8, § 1). The rest of the content is mainly taken from the Poem and the Legend: the
brutality, including cannibalism, of the barbarians and how Alexander enclosed
them behind the iron gates.
The Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius in Slavic
The Apocalypse was written in Syriac at the end of the seventh century and soon
translated into Greek and from Greek into Slavic. The first translations of it into
Slavonic may date to the end of the ninth century, the early eleventh at the latest.
Both Tikhonravov (1863) and Istrin (1897) dedicated studies to it22. Tikhonravov
21 See my chapter “Between the Third Rome and the New Jerusalem: the Fall of Constanti-
nople viewed by Russians,” New Perspectives on Late Antiquity in the Eastern Roman
Empire, ed. by A. de Francisco Heredero, D. Hernández de la Fuente and S. Torres Prieto
(Newcastle upon Tyne, 2014).
22 Tikhonravov, N.S. Pamjatniki otrechennoj russkoj literatury (The Hague, Paris, 1970) (repr.
of 1863 edition), and Istrin, V.M. Otkrovenie Mefodija Patarskogo i apokrificheskie videnija
Da niila v vizantiinskoi i slavjano-russkoi literatura. Vol. 1 Otkrovenie Mefodija (Moscow,
1897).
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edited four manuscripts of the text, dating from the fourteenth to eighteenth
century.23 The text was of course known much earlier in Kievan Rus’. It is also,
I would argue, the reason why we preserve an early form of the Alexander
Romance in an early Byzantine redaction (manuscript L of the β version, written
before the eighth century) long before another translation was made in the fifteenth
century from later Byzantine versions (γ or ε).
Despite the late date of the Slavic manuscripts studied by Tikhonravov, the
Apocalypse was surely known much earlier in East Slavic.
The Apocalypse in the Povest’ vremennykh let
One of the earliest secondary references to it is in the Povest’ vremennykh let
(hereafter — PVL) sub anno 1096, which would seem just appropriate given the
fact that on that year the Polovtsy managed to inflict great defeats on the Kievan
princes and even arrive to the environs of Kiev and pillage and burn the Caves
Monastery itself 24. The Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius must have seem only too
real. The entry for that year is quite a long one, narrating not only the attacks of the
Polovtsy but also the internal disputes between the princes Sviatopolk, Vladimir
and Oleg. The text from the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius is inserted after the
description of the attacks to the monastery. The text quotes, more or less verbatim,
from the Apocalypse’s chapter 8, §§ 3–9 (according to Garstad’s edition)25.
Аще ли бо си суть отъ пустыня Етривьскыя, межи въстокъмь и сѣверъмь; ищьли
же есть ихъ колѣнъ 4: Търкмене и Печенѣзи, Търци, Половьци. Мефодии же
съвѣдѣтельствуеть о нихъ, яко 8 колѣнъ пробѣгли суть, егда исѣче Гедеонъ, и осмь
ихъ бѣжа въ пустыню, а 4 исѣче. Друзии же глаголють: сыны Амоновы; се же
нѣсть тако: сынове бо Моавли Хвалиси, а сынове Амонови Българе, а Срацини отъ
Измаила, и творять ся Сарини, и прозъваша имя собѣ Саракыне, рекъше: Сарини
есмы. Тѣмьже Хвалисе и Българе суть отъ дъщерю Лотову, иже зачаста отъ отьца
своего, тѣмьже нечисто есть племя ихъ. А Измаило роди 12 сына, отъ нихъже суть
Търкмени и Печенѣзи и Търци и Половьци, иже исходять отъ пустынѣ. И по сихъ
8 колѣнъ къ коньчинѣ вѣка изидуть заклепении въ горѣ Александръмь Макидонь-
скымь нечистыя человѣкы.
23 Tikhonravov, N.S. Pamjatniki otrechennoj russkoj literatury, vol. II, 213–281.
24 See Janet Martin, Medieval Russia 980–1584 (Cambridge, 1993), 51–55 for a summary of
this period. Donald Ostrowski has analysed in depth this part of the PVL in Donald
Ostrowski, “The ‘enclosed people’ of the Revelations of Pseudo-Methodius of Patara in the
Povest’ vremennyx let,” Philology Broad and Deep: In Memoriam Horace G. Lunt, ed. by
D.J.B. Michael S. Flier, and Cynthia M. Vakareliyska (Bloomington, IN, 2014).
25 This corresponds to PVL lines 234, 3 to 236, 15 in D. Ostrowski’s edition. The text presented
here corresponds to Ostrowski’s paradosis (The Pověst’ vremennykh lět. An Interlinear
Collation and Paradosis edited and collated by Donald Ostrowski, with David Birnbaum
and Horace G. Lunt (Cambridge, MA, 1999) [Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute
Publications, vol. 10).
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Се же хощю съказати, яже слышахъ преже сихъ 4 лѣтъ, яже съказа ми Гурята Ро-
говичь Новъгородьць, глаголя сице, яко “Посълахъ отрока своего въ Печеру, люди,
иже суть дань дающе Новугороду. И пришьдъшю отроку моему къ нимъ, а отъту-
ду иде въ Угру. Угра же суть людие языкъ нѣмъ, и съсѣдять съ Самоядию на полу-
нощьныхъ странахъ”. Угра же рекоша отроку моему: “Дивьно находихомъ мы
чюдо ново, егоже нѣсмы слыхали преже сихъ лѣтъ, се же третиее лѣто поча быти:
суть горы заидуче въ луку моря, имъже высота ако до небесе, и въ горахъ тѣхъ
кличь великъ и говоръ, и сѣкуть гору, хотяще просѣчи ся; и есть въ горѣ тои
просѣчено окъньце мало, и туда мълвять, не разумѣти языку ихъ, нъ кажють
желѣзо, и помавають рукою, просяще желѣза; и аще къто дасть имъ желѣзо или
ножь или секиру, и они дають скорою противу. Есть же путь до горъ тѣхъ не про-
ходимъ пропастьми, снѣгъмь и лѣсъмь, тѣмь не доходимъ ихъ вьсьгда; есть же и
подаль на полунощии”. Мънѣ же рекъшю къ Гурятѣ: “Се суть людие заклепении
Александръмь, Макидоньскымъ царьмь”, якоже съказа о нихъ Мефодии Патари-
искыи, глаголя: “Александръ, царь Макидоньскии, възыде на въсточьныя страны
до моря, нарицаемое Сълньче мѣсто, и видѣ ту человѣкы нечистыя отъ племене
Афетова, ихъже нечистоту видѣвъ: ядяху сквьрну вьсяку, комары и мухы, котъкы,
змия, мьртвьць не погрѣбаху, нъ ядяху, и женьскыя изврагы ядяху и скоты вься
нечистыя. То видѣвъ Александръ убоя ся, еда како умножать ся и осквьрнять зем-
лю, загъна ихъ на полунощьныя страны въ горы высокия; и Богу повелѣвъшю,
съступиша ся о нихъ, тъкъмо не ступиша ся о нихъ горы 12 локътъ, и ту сътвори-
ша ся врата мѣдяная, и помазаша ся сунклитъмь; и аще хотять възяти, не възмо-
гуть, ни огньмь могуть иждьжещи; вещь бо сунклитова сица есть: ни огнь можеть
иждьжещи его, ни желѣзо его прииметь. Въ послѣдьняя же дьни по сихъ осми
колѣнъ иже изидуть отъ пустыня Етривьскыя, изидуть и си сквьрнии языци, яже
суть въ горахъ полунощьныхъ, по повелѣнию Божию26.
26 “They came forth from the desert of Yathrib in the northeast. Four races of them issued forth: Torkmens,
Pechenegs, Torks, and Polovtsy. Methodius relates concerning them that eight nations fled when Gideon
massacred them; eight fled into the desert, and four he massacred. Others say that they are the sons of
Ammon, but this is not true, for the Caspians are the sons of Moab, while the Bulgars are the sons of
Ammon. But the Saracens descended from Ishmael became known as the sons of Sarah and called
themselves Sarakyne, that is to say, “We are descendants of Sarah”. Likewise the Caspians and the
Bulgars are descended from the daughters of Lot, who conceived by their father, so that their race is
unclean. Ishmael begot twelve sons, from whom are descended the Torkmens, the Pechenegs, the Torks,
and the Cumans or Polovcians, who came from the desert. After these eight races, at the end of the
world, shall come forth the unclean peoples shut in the mountain by Alexander of Macedon.
I wish at this point to recount a story which I heard four years ago, and which was told to me by Gyuryata
Rogovich of Novgorod: “I sent my servant,” said he, “to the Pechera, a people who pay tribute to
Novgorod. When he arrived among them, he went on among the Yugra. The latter are an alien people
dwelling in the north with the Samoyedes. The Yugra said to my servant, 'We have encountered a strange
marvel, with which we had not until recently been acquainted. This occurrence took place three years
ago. There are certain mountains which slope down to an arm of the sea, and their height reaches to the
heavens. Within these mountains are heard great cries and the sound of voices; those within are cutting
their way out. In that mountain, a small opening has been pierced through which they converse, but their
language is unintelligible. They point, however, at iron objects, and make gestures as if to ask for them.
If given a knife or an axe, they supply furs in return. The road to these mountains is impassable with
precipices, snow, and forests. Hence we do not always reach them, and they are also far to the north”.
Then I said to Gyuryata, “These are the peoples shut up by Alexander of Macedon. As Methodius of
Patara says of them, ‘He penetrated the eastern countries as far as the sea called the Land of the Sun,
and he saw there unclean peoples of the race of Japheth. When he beheld their uncleanness, he
marvelled. They ate every nauseous thing, such as gnats, flies, cats, and serpents. They did not bury
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Aside from the free adaptation made by the monk of the four-nation topos from
the Book of Daniel, by which Babylon, the Medes, the Persians and the Greeks
become something of Torkmens, Pechenegs, Torks, and Polovtsy27 and a wonderful
cross-reference map of parts taken from the Bible, from the Apocalypse and probably
from other sources, the only part he retells as being part of the Apocalypse is a
retelling more of or less accurate of the second part of chapter 8 of the Apocalypse.
Pseudo-Methodius will be later referred to, in passing, under the year 1223, not
surprisingly, the year of the first Mongol invasions. It is likely that the scribe
simply took inspiration from the entry of the year 1096 describing the invasions
of the Polovtsians. This time Alexander the Great is not mentioned:
Того же лѣт. [1223] Явишас язъıци . ихже никтоже добрѣ ясно не вѣсть кто суть и
ѿколѣ изидоша . и что язъıкъ ихъ . и которого племени сут. и что вѣра ихъ . и зовуть
я Татаръı. а инии глю҃ть Таүменъı. а друзии Печенѣзи . ини глю҃ть яко се сут ѡ нихж̑е
Мефодии Патомьскъıи єпспъ свѣдѣтельствуєт. яко си сут ишли ис пустъıнѧ
Єтриєвьскъı суще межю встоком и сѣвером. тако бо Мефодии реч. яко къ скончанью
временъ явитисѧ тѣм. яже загна Гедеѡнъ. и поплѣнѧть всю землю. ѿ встока до
Єфранта. и ѿ Тигръ до Понетьскаг морѧ. кромѣ Єфиѡпья. Бъ҃ же ѥдинъ вѣсть ихъ
кто сути ѿколѣ изидоша . прм҃дрии мужи вѣдѧть я. добрѣ кто книгъı разумно
үмѣєть. мъı же их не вѣмъı кто сут . но сдѣ вписахом ѡ них памати ради. Русскъıх
кнѧзии бѣдъı. яже бъıс ѿ них. и мъı слъıшахом яко многъı странъı поплѣниша. Ясъı.
Ѡбезъı. Касогъı. и Половець безбожнъıх множство избиша. а инѣхъ загнаша. и
тако измроша оубиваѥми гнѣвом Бжьимь. и прчстъıя ѥго Мт҃ре . много бо зла ство-
риша ти ѡканнии Половци Рускои земли. того ради всемлствъıи Бъ҃ хотѧ погубити.
и наказати безбожнъıя снъ҃ı Измаиловъı Куманъı. яко да ѿмьстѧть кровь хрсьяньску.
ѥже и бъıс над ними безаконьнъıми. проидоша бо ти Таүрмению всю страну Ку-
маньску . и придоша близь Руси 28.
their dead, but ate them, along with the fruit of abortions and all sorts of impure beasts. On beholding
this, Alexander was afraid lest, as they multiplied, they might corrupt the earth. So he drove them to
high mountains in the regions of the north, and by God’s commandment, the mountains enclosed them
round above save for a space of twelve ells. Gates of brass were erected there, and were covered with
indestructible metal. They cannot be destroyed by fire, for it is the nature of this metal that fire cannot
consume it, nor can iron take hold upon it. Hereafter, at the end of the world, eight peoples shall come
forth from the desert of Yathrib, and these corrupt nations, which dwell in the northern mountains, shall
also issue forth at God’s command.” This is the translation provided by Samuel Hazzard Cross and
Olgerd Sherwobitz-Wetzor in their 1953 edition of the Laurentian text, pp. 184–5, Cross, Samuel H.,
and Olgerd P. Sherbowitz-Wetzor. 1953. The Russian Primary chronicle. Laurentian text. Cambridge,
MA.: Medieval Academy of America.
27 It could also makes reference to Ezekiel 38 3–5 as mentioned above: “Gog, the land of Magog, the chief
prince of Meshech and Tubal, a prophesy against him, [3] And say, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I
am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal: [4] And I will turn thee back, and put
hooks into thy jaws, and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them
clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling
swords: [5] Persia, Ethiopia and Lybia with them”, in which Gog, Persia, Ethiopia and Lybia seem to
constitute the alliance instigated by God to go against Israel for the sins they have committed against
Yahve before they are finally delivered by Yahvé, who will send a victorious king (Alexander?) to
deliver His people.
28 PSRL 1: 446.
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60 Susana Torres Prieto
Also, the reference to Pseudo-Methodius is made under the year 1224 in the
Novgorod First Chronicle:
Въ лѣто 6732 [1224]. Въ то же лѣто, по грѣхомъ нашимъ, не ту ся зло створи: выеха
Федоръ посадник съ рушаны, и бися съ Литвою, и съгониша рушанъ съ конь и
много коневъ отъяша, и убиша Домажира Търлиниця и сънъ 5 его, а рушанъ Богъ-
шю, а иныхъ много, а другыхъ по лѣсу розгониша. Том же лѣтѣ, по грѣхомъ на-
шимъ, придоша языци незнаеми, их же добрѣ никто же не вѣсть, кто суть и отколе
изидоша, и что языкъ ихъ, и котораго племене суть, и что вѣра ихъ; а зовуть я Тата-
ры, а инии глаголють Таурмены, а друзии Печенѣзи; инии же глаголють, яко се суть,
о них же Мефодии, Патомьскыи епископъ, съвѣдѣтельствуеть, яко си суть ишли ис
пустыня Етриевьскыя, суще межи въстокомь и сѣверомъ. Тако бо Мефодии глаго-
леть, яко скончанию врѣменъ явитися тѣмъ, яже загна Гедеонъ, и поплѣнять всю
земьлю от въстокъ до Ефранта и от Тигръ до Поньскаго моря, кромѣ Ефиопия. Богъ
единъ вѣсть, кто суть и отколѣ изидоша; прѣмудрии мужи вѣдять я добрѣ, кто
книгы разумѣеть; мы же ихъ не вѣмы, кто суть; нъ сде въписахомъ о нихъ памяти
ради рускыхъ князь и бѣды, яже бысть от нихъ имъ. Слышахомъ бо, яко многы
страны поплѣниша, Ясы, Обезы, Касогы, и Половьчь безбожьныхъ множьство из-
биша, а инѣхъ загнаша, и тако измроша убиваеми гнѣвомь божиемь и пречистыя
его матере; много бо зла створиша ти оканьнии Половчи Русьскои земли, того ради
всемилостивыи богъ хотя погубити безбожныя сыны Измаиловы Куманы, яко да
отмьстять кръвь крестьяньску, еже и бысть над ними безаконьными29.
The Hellenic and Roman Chronicle
The relevance of the quotation of Pseudo-Methodius in the PVL for the study of
the Alexander Romance is to be found in the Hellenic and Roman Chronicle30. This
compendium is important for many reasons, and in the study of the transmission
of the Alexander Romance also, because it contains the earliest full translation of
the Pseudo-Callisthenes into Slavic preserved today. The Hellenic and Roman
Chronicle (LER) has come down to us in two versions. Both of them are deeply
related to the so-called Archive and Vilnus compendia, as well as the Troitsky
Khronograph31. All these collections of historical writings contain parts of
Malalas, parts of Hamartolos, parts of Josephus’ Jewish Wars and also parts of the
historical books of the Old Testament. The second version of LER adds, after the
main corpus including Hamartolos, Malalas and the Pseudo-Callisthenes
Alexander Romance, the Book of Daniel with an interpretation, a life of the Virgin,
the Tale of the capture of Jerusalem by Titus (maybe taken from the Josippon, the
Slavonic particular version of Josephus’ Jewish Wars), the Lives of Constantine
and Helena, the Tale of the building of St. Sophia in Constantinople and the Tale
29 NPL: 61–62.
30 The Hellenic and Roman Chronicle was edited, studied and analysed by Tvorogov (Tvorogov O.V.
Letopisets Ellinskii i Rimskii (Saint Petersburg, 1999). This edition and analysis is, to my understanding,
unsurpassed.
31 PSRL 1: 446.
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61A H el l enic E m p eror at th e K iev an C ourt:
A l ex and er th e G reat and A p oc al y p tic K ing sh ip in E ast Sl av ic H istoriog rap h y
on the Latins. The version of Malalas in Slavonic, since it can only be called a real
translation in parts, is often interrupted or supplemented by other tales by the
scribe. For example, shortly after commencing, in the change from Malalas book
I.1 to I.2, the Slavic scribe turns to the Bible for supplementary information,
including parts of Genesis 5. In other parts, like in Book I. 10–12, where the
classical pantheon is described, the text is extremely abridged, and in fact the rest
of Book I is completely missing. Similarly, with all the beginning of Book II until
II.13. The particular methodology of editing is also present at the end of Book VII
(VII.17–18) where the Alexander Romance is added. In the Chronicle of Malalas,
the story of Alexander of Macedon is recounted in Book VIII. His genealogy (son
of Nectanebo and Olympias, though believed by Macedonians to be the son of god
Amon) is recorded in Book VII §§ 189–190 (acc. to E. Jeffreys editions, p. 10032)
and his life is the focus of Book VIII (§§ 192–196, pp. 102–103). Malalas focuses
on the building of Alexandria, the trip to Troy and his homage to Achilles, his defeat
of the Persians and the “restoration” to the Romans of all they had lost, Alexander’s
marriage to Roxane, his trip to India and his encounter with Candance and his
marriage to her and the final trip to Ethiopia. But this Book VIII of Malalas is
substituted by the Alexander Romance. In fact, within Malalas’ Book VIII,
Alexander the Great occupies only paragraphs 1 to 5, precisely those that, according
to Simon Franklin are either completely missing (2–4) or “substantially reduced or
paraphrased” (1 and 5),33 one of the “defective” portions of the Slavonic Malalas.
The scribe must have done something similar to what he had done before when
he introduced parts of the Book of Genesis to complement what Malalas did not have,
or did not contain the way he wanted: he took the Pseudo-Callisthenes text and added
it here, almost ‘inserted’ it, because then the Malalas Book VIII continues with the
story of Seleukos (from sections 6–12 and then, after paraphrasing sections 13 and
14, from section 15 until the end, except for sections 17 (lacking) and 18 (paraphrased).
The Greek version from which this translation was made is to be dated between
the fifth century and the seventh centuries. The text follows closely the L manuscript
of the β version (fifth century) and the λ version (before eighth century). We can
attest this by the inclusion of certain episodes in the first Slavonic of three key
32 The Chronicle of John Malalas, translation by Elizabeth Jeffreys, Michael Jeffreys, and Roger
Scott with Brian Croke [et al.] (Melbourne, 1986). A partial translation of Malalas’ Chronicle
into Slavic is available in a translation by Matthew Spinka, and Glanville Downey: Chronicle
of John Malalas: Books VIII–XVIII, translated from the Church Slavonic by Matthew Spinka
in collaboration with Glanville Downey (Chicago, Ill., 1940 (2007 printing).
33 All these historical compendia, which also contain parts or the Chronicle of John Malalas
in Slavonic, were reviewed by Simon Franklin (Simon Franklin, “Malalas in Slavonic,”
Byzantium-Rus-Russia: Studies in the Translation of Christian Culture (Aldershot,
Hampshire; Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate/Variorum, 1990 [2002]). The Alexander Romance
from the Troitsk Khronograph has been edited by Tatiana Vilkul in successive volumens
of the journal Paleoslavica (2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011).
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62 Susana Torres Prieto
episodes lacking in earlier Greek versions: the Gog and Magog (the unclean
nations), the episode of the water of life (and the diving bell), and the episode of
Alexander’s apotheosis carried to the skies by two big birds. Specifically, the
versions we now call λ, ε (eight century) and γ (ninth century), the latter being a
later combination of ε with the above-mentioned earlier β. Both λ and ε contain
references to the Pseudo-Methodius tradition, but since ε is a further Christianised
and epitomised version, datable to the end of the eighth century or beginning of the
ninth, λ, usually dated to the early eighth century, is the first of the Pseudo-
Callisthenian versions in which this apocalyptic role of Alexander is explicit. The
other two episodes used to trace back a Greek original of the Slavonic translation
(the water of life / diving bell, and the apotheosis/flight into the air) are also present
in the famous manuscript L of the earlier β version, but this ms. does not include
the Pseudo-Methodian references. So the relation of the Alexander Romance with
the Apocalysis of Pseudo-Methodius is also extremely relevant to understand the
history of the Pseudo-Callisthenes text in Slavonic.
Furthermore, the Slavonic version copied in LER contains certain particulari-
ties worth mentioning:
Firstly, the visit to Jerusalem, or rather, the description of the building of
Jerusalem and the story about Saul, is placed between chapters 33 and 34 of Book
I, that is, between the oracle at the Serapion and Alexander’s arrival to Egypt. The
origin of this composite part is obscure, but part of Saul’s story is certainly biblical.
A similar interpolation with a holy city as protagonist will take place between
Book II.17 and Book II.18 where a short text relates Alexander’s visit to Babylon.
Secondly, the episode of Alexander flying into the skies occurs immediately
after the episode with the water of life and is slightly modified. In Slavic, the birds
with human form and face, speaking in Greek (!) order him to attack Porus.
Finally, the episode of the enclosed peoples, as mentioned above, is referred to
twice: once immediately after Book II, ch. 23, which is closest to the PVL
interpolation, and also more in full in the chapter 8 of the Pseudo-Methodius text
copied immediately after the Romance in the Hellenic and Roman Chronicle. The
text is within a description of the four empires that have been so far in the world:
Ethiopia, Macedonia, Rome and Greece (sic.).
Immediately after the Alexander Romance, the compiler of the LER inserts
chapter 8 of the Apocalypse, which forces him, for a start, to make sense of the
contradictory theories about Alexander’s own mother34. Tvorogov has already
noted the similarity between this passage, Pseudo-Methodius Apocalypse, and the
parts inserted in the Alexander Romance35. It is without a doubt this disparity on
who was Alexander’s mother that forces the introduction by the scribe of a
necessary clarification not to be found in Pseudo-Methodius wither in Greek or in
34 Tvorogov O.V. Letopisets Ellinskii i Rimskii, 178–179 .
35 Tvorogov O.V. Letopisets Ellinskii i Rimskii, vol. 2, 166–167.
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63A H el l enic E m p eror at th e K iev an C ourt:
A l ex and er th e G reat and A p oc al y p tic K ing sh ip in E ast Sl av ic H istoriog rap h y
Slavic: “Филипъ убо, Александровъ отець, макидонянинъ бѣ и поя жену Ху-
зиту, глаголемую Алумпиаду, дщерь Фола, царя ефиопска”36. None of the
editions of the Apocalypse contains this clarification at the beginning of chapter 837,
although at the beginning of chapter 9 this double-name of Alexander’s mother is
mentioned in an attempt to explain that the kings of Byzantium are half-brothers
of Alexander because Chouseth/Olympias remarried Byzas, since Alexander never
had issue. Despite changing the nationality of Olympias and shortening the number
of years Alexander was ruler (from 19 to 1238), chapter 8 was copied in full,
including the 24 impure peoples Alexander managed to enclose. And then it was
followed by chapter 9 of Pseudo-Methodius, under the heading in Slavic of “На-
чало Царства Царяграда” or “Сказание началу Царства Царяграда”.
The next Roman Emperor
In his seminal work, The Byzantine Apocalyptic Tradition, Paul J. Alexander
devotes a whole section, one of the chosen themes, to the idea of the Last Roman
Emperor, this is, the Emperor that would eventually surrender all his earthly power
to God after defeating all His enemies at the end of times. As we have seen, the
theme is popular in Biblical literature, in some Roman historiography, in Second
Temple literature, and certainly in medieval times, East and West, as borders were
being threaten by barbaric, non-Christians hoards. The inclusion of the story of
Alexander the Great, albeit in a novelistic form such as the Pseudo-Callisthenes
work undoubtedly responds to this concern. It would not have made sense,
otherwise, to introduce it for the first time between the Chronicle of John Malalas
and the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius. If we review the elements that are
present both in the LER and the PVL, for example, we see that they both lead us
back to Pseudo-Methodius, but not to the Alexander Romance. This first version
of the Alexander Romance, however, differs from its original Greek not in the parts
that are also present in Pseudo-Methodius, i.e., the episode of the Unclean Nations,
but also in two elements that are relevant: Alexander’s visit to and partial building
of Jerusalem, and the episode of his flying into the skies (whose artistic depiction
might be in St. Dimitrius Cathedral in Vladimir) when he is told by the angels from
heaven to attack King Porus in India. The model of Christianised king who saves
the day, the planet, the world becomes abundantly clear.
We have seen the precedents of these two topics: Alexander’s visit to Jerusalem
is in Josephus, from where Hamartolos probably took it, as well as in some of the
36 Tvorogov O.V. Letopisets Ellinskii i Rimskii, 178.
37 Tikhonravov’s edition of 1863, 217, 232, 258, 272.
38 The Syriac version translated by Paul Alexander also states that Alexander rules for 12 years
(Paul J. Alexander and Dorothy de F. Abrahamse, The Byzantine apocalyptic tradition
(Berkeley, CA and London,,1985), 40). The Greek text translated by Garstad records 19 years.
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64 Susana Torres Prieto
texts of the Syriac cycle, whose direct borrowing into Slavic is more problematical;
the episode of the unclean nations (the Gog and the Magog) seems to have been
known outside the Alexander Romance via Pseudo-Methodius, and the episode of
Alexander’s flying into the skies is relevant only to date the original Greek version
of the Pseudo-Callisthenes text from which the Slavonic translation was made and,
if, it is the figure depicted in Vladimir cathedral between king David and Jesus
Christ. No other version of the Alexander Romance in Greek or in later translations
made into Slavic in the fifteenth century contain these interpolations in precisely
these places. This was an innovation made by the Slavic scribe. The interpolation
of the Pseudo-Methodius is particularly surprising if we take into account that he
recopied the whole chapter 8 (from where this interpolation is taken) at the end of
the Alexander Romance text. It is probably not by chance that this abridged part
of chapter 8 of the Apocalypse is inserted after the death of Darius, king of
Persians, as Alexander retells the whole incident to his mother Olympias in a letter.
It is the Greek defeating the Persian that the Biblical sources had spoken of
(Daniel, Jeremiah, Ezekiel). If the Slavic scribe had continued with the text of the
Alexander Romance in the version he had available, he would have had to talk
about the desert they crossed, the Phytoi, enormous people of 36 feet tall who lived
in the woods, or giants who were spherical in shape with fiery expressions
(Book II, chapters 32 and 33 in R. Stoneman’s edition), and so until he finds the
Apple-eaters, the point in which the text of the Alexander Romance included in
LER retakes the story. The only reason for the scribe to include this interpolation
here is that he knew Pseudo-Methodius’ text, or had it also available, as shown in
the chapters he copied afterwards, and that he thought these terrible creatures were
the unclean nations and therefore the interpolation was suitable here. In later
Byzantine versions of the Alexander Romance that were subsequently translated
into Slavic the interpolation of the Gog and Magog goes where the Byzantines put
it, after Book III. 26, following Alexander’s encounter with the Amazons.
It remains a mystery as to why the scribe decided to include the text of the
Alexander Romance in the middle of a historical compendium, and then modify it.
If the inclusion had been made in a Byzantine compendium translated in block into
Slavic, the difference in language, let alone in genre literary conventions, probably
could not have gone unnoticed: to a Greek speaking scribe/writer, the difference in
language between the high style of the chronicles and the popular Greek of the
Romance would have been crystal-clear, a nuance that was probably lost in
translation. Most likely, the innovation was made in Slavic: the scribe decided to
use the Pseudo-Callisthenes text just as he had decided to use the Bible before, to
fill in the gaps of what he wanted to say with a better text. This could maybe favour
the idea that there must have been a translation of the Alexander Romance made
into Slavic, separated from the historical compendia we have now, and used as an
independent source, as a building block, to incorporate it into the historical
narrative. If that was the case, we cannot know, because there is no manuscript to
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65A H el l enic E m p eror at th e K iev an C ourt:
A l ex and er th e G reat and A p oc al y p tic K ing sh ip in E ast Sl av ic H istoriog rap h y
attest it. In any case, there is something unique about this first Slavic version. The
close relation in Slavic of the text of the Alexander Romance with the apocalyptic
vision of Pseudo-Methodius and its introduction in Slavic literary culture as a
Biblical figure linked to the salvation of Christianity would justify more clearly his
inclusion in the iconography of salvation in St. Dimitrius cathedral in Vladimir, for
example, as well as the use of the Pseudo-Callisthenian text as a long interpolation
to praise the life and deeds of the monarch responsible of enclosing the Unclean
Peoples. In this sense, the Slavic scribe probably used the Alexander Romance as
functionally equivalent as he has previously used books the Old Testament, possibly
due the limited space dedicated by either Malalas or Hamartolos to a character that
clearly epitomised for him the personification of a pagan monarch who, nevertheless,
can ‘become’ Christian and be decisive in the teleological history of the Christian
oikoumene. In this sense, Alexander provided the best possible precedent to a
recently converted ruling dynasty in the idea that it was possible for formerly pagan
monarchs to occupy a relevant place in Christian history. In East Slavic literature,
Alexander the Great was used as a biblical character in the global history of
salvation in which Kievan Rus’ wanted to immerse itself.
The other side of this, of course, is that, as pointed out in the other specific
interpolation (Alexander’s visit to Jerusalem), the nation that Alexander protects is
Israel, the chosen people of God. Maybe it is also not by chance that in later
redactions of the PVL in the Laurentian text, the text known as ‘Instruction’ of
Vladimir Monomach is inserted precisely in between references to Alexander. It
might not be by chance, either, that, the scribe decided to copy chapter 9 of Pseudo-
Methodius alongside chapter 8 of the Apocalypse after the Alexander Romance,
since this is the one that states that the kings of Byzantium, heirs of Byzantia, are
the natural heirs of Alexander since they were children of a same mother, the princes
Chouseth /Olympias, and therefore Alexander and Byzantia were half-brother and
sister. Interesting also that Alexander’s lineage is transmitted by maternal line, like
in Judaism, rather than by paternal one. How much more attractive would it seem,
then, to take a Byzantine bride. One should not forget that, despite having taken
place decades before, if the matrimony between Anna Porphyrogeneta and Vladimir
Sviatoslavich would have produced any male issue, that boy could have claimed
the imperial throne in Constantoniple for himself and his descendants.
So, even by emulation, if not by blood ties, Alexander the Great, protector of God’s
chosen people, defender of Christianity, victorious over the barbarians of non-Christian
faith became the perfect role-model to imitate for Kievan Rus’ princes. Whether the
text was written in the high, courtly style of Malalas, or in the metaphoric obscure one
of Old Testament apocalypses, or in low colloquial romance of Pseudo-Callisthenes
was by the by. And a difficulty the Kievan scribe solved exactly as Alexander would
have done: by cutting the Gordian knot of literary genres with his plume.
Humanities Center — IE University (Madrid/Segovia)
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