THE LEGEND OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT IN THE

CHRISTIAN ORIENT*
STEPHEN GERO
EBERHARD-KARLS-UNIVERSITAT,
TUBINGEN
The perennial fascination with the figure of Alexander the Great is
reflected in the phenomenal spread of the Alexander romance of
Pseudo-Callisthenes, 1 a work in itself surely not distinguished either
by historical accuracy or (at least for our modern taste) any particular
literary merit. There are versions of the Alexander romance to be
found among peoples whom neither the Alexander of history nor
the Alexander of legend ever visited; the gamut ranges from a
Swedish version in the far north2 through a (fragmentary)
Mongolian version in central Asia,3 all the way to elaborations in
Malay4 and other southeast Asian languages. Only the great wall of
China seems to have checked, so to speak, the triumphant literary
progress of this literary product of third-century Alexandrian
Hellenism.
This is not the place to discuss in detail the complicated
questions either of the identifiable sources or of the several
recensions of the Greek Alexander romance. 5 The text remained
alive, so to speak, through the centuries and, never protected by the
hedge of canonization, was considerably modified in the course of
* A revised and expanded version of a public lecture delivered at Harvard University and
at the Catholic University of America in April 1 990.
1 Edition of the oldest version, on the basis of Par.gr. 1 71 1 (saec. xi), by W. Kroll, Historia
Alexandri Magni /PscnJo-Callisthenes), vol. I (Berlin, 1 92 6); for a complete English translation
of this version see E.H. Haight, The life of Alexander of Macedon (New York, 1 95 5 ); see now
also R. Stoneman, The Greek Alexander romance (London, 1 991 ). For useful surveys of the
later material see A. Abel, Lc roman d'Alexandre: legendaire medieval (Bruxelles, 1 95 5 ); G.
Gary, The medieval Alexander (Cambridge, 1 95 6); J.A. Boyle, 'The Alexander romance in the
East and West', Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 60 (1 97"), 1 3 ff. F. Pfister provides the
impressive statistic of about 2 00 different extant prose or verse versions (Kleine Schriften zum
Alt'\ancrniinan (Aieisenheim, 1 976), 1 9).
2 See Clary, Alexander, 5 0.
3 N. Poppe, 'Eine mongolische Fassung der Alexandersage', Zeitschrift der Deutschen
Morgenldndischen Ccscllsc/iaft, 1 07 (1 95 7), 1 05 -2 ". On the appearance of certain episodes of
the Syriac Alexander legends in Turkish and Mongol historical lore see J.A. Boyle, 'The
Alexander legend in Central Asia', Folklore, 85 (1 974 ), 2 1 " ff.
4 P.J. van Lccuwcn, De maleische . \lcxanderroman (Meppel, 1 93 ").
5 See H. Merkelbach-J. Trumpf, Die Quellen Jcs griec/risciicn Alexanderrpinan* (Munich,
1 97"), 92 ff, 2 01 ff.
4 BULLETIN JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY
time. Here just a brief survey of the various versions of the
Alexander legend among the non-Hellenic peoples of the Christian
Orient will be presented; Byzantine material proper can be noted
only marginally. 6
The oldest such oriental witness is the Armenian version/
Extant in over thirty manuscripts,8 it represents a translation made
directly from the Greek. It has been dated very early, to the fifth
century; this dating may need revision, because it assumes in turn
the wrong fifth-century dating of Moses Xorenac'i's history, which
is textually dependent on the Armenian Pseudo-Callisthenes. 9 This
Armenian version is nevertheless a good witness to an early recension
of the Alexander romance. 1 0 Of particular interest is the fact that
several Armenian manuscripts are richly illustrated, and the cycle
may well go back to a prototype, to lost late antique illustrations of
the early Greek Pseudo-Callisthenes. 1 1 The Alexander romance is
the only work of profane Greek entertainment literature, as opposed
to technical or philosophical works, which was translated from
Greek into Armenian in late antiquity. The influence of this version,
apart from traces in Armenian historiography, was slight, although
it was translated into Turkish late in the seventeenth century. 1 2
There seems to have existed no full translation of the Greek
Pseudo-Callisthenes in Georgian, the other major Christian literary
language of the Caucasus area; only Georgian translations, possibly
via a Slavonic intermediate stage, of the late medieval Byzantine
Alexander legend are known. 1 3 Of an early Coptic version in the
Sahidic dialect (? sixth century) only fragments survive, from a
single manuscript (eleventh century), the Coptic text seems to be
affiliated to the so-called (3 -recension of the Greek. 1 4 This is all
rather meager for Christian Egypt - was Alexander too much of a
Greek to stimulate the imagination of the nationalistic Copts?
6 See H.J. Gleixner, Das Alexanderbild der Byzantiner (Munich, 1 961 ). The most recent
contribution in this area is U. Moennig, Die spatbyzantinische Rezension des Alexanderromans
(Cologne, 1 992 ).
7 R. T'reanc' (ed.), Patmut'iwn Alek'sandri Makedonac'woy (Venice, 1 84 2 ); English
translation, A.M. Wolohojian, The romance of Alexander the Great by Pseudo-Callisthenes (New
York and London, 1 969); Greek retroversion by R. Raabe, ISTOPIA AAEEANAPOY
(Leipzig, 1 896).
8 N. Akinian 'Die handschriftliche Uberlieferung der armenischen Ubersetzung des
Alexanderromans von Pseudo-Callisthenes', Byzantion, xiii (1 93 8), 2 01 ff.
9 J. Gildemeister, 'Pseudokallisthenes bei Moses von Khoren', Zeitschrift der Deutschen
Morgenldndischen Gesellschaft, 4 0 (1 886), 88-91 ; R.W. Thomson, Moses Khorenats'i, History
of the Armenians (Cambridge, Mass, and London, 1 978), 2 2 -3 ; Wolohojian, Romance, llff.
1 0 So A. Ausfeld, Der griechische Alexanderroman (Leipzig, 1 907), 1 2 ff and more recently
H. van Thiel, Leben und Taten Alexanders von Makedonien. Der griechische Alexanderroman
nach der Handschrift L (Darmstadt, 1 974 ), xxxviii.
1 1 D.J.A. Ross, Alexander historiatus: a guide to medieval illustrated Alexander literature
(London, 1 963 ), 6-7.
1 2 See Pfister, Kleine Schriften, 2 4 .
1 3 Ross, Alexander historiatus, 45.
1 4 O. von Lemm, Der Alexanderroman bei den Kopten (St Petersburg, 1 903 ), 6.
ALEXANDER THE GREAT 5
The Syriac version of Pseudo-Callisthenes 1 5 extant in several,
albeit late (and unilluminated!) manuscripts, has an interesting history
and was immensely more influential than any of the oriental
versions thus far discussed. Attempts to connect directly the Syriac
with Greek or Arabic prototypes have failed; in fact it has been
convincingly demonstrated by Theodor Noldeke, in a monograph
which still is absolutely essential for the serious study of the
Alexander romance, that the Syriac was translated from a lost
Middle Persian, Pahlavi original. 1 6 Both the dating and the purpose
of this lost Pahlavi version from the Greek are matters of speculation;
in any case the translator was probably a Nestorian Christian, since
in Zoroastrian Pahlavi literature Alexander is a uniformly negative
figure. 1 7 Was this Pahlavi translation intended for edification and
entertainment at the court of some Hellenophile Sasanian emperor,
or was it meant for the Persian Christians themselves? The Syriac
translation in turn should probably be dated to the late sixth or the
early seventh century. 1 8 Textually it is affiliated with the oldest
Greek recension, but also shows some interesting additions, in par-
ticular a long episode (derived from a lost Greek text?) of
Alexander's journey through central Asia all the way to China. 1 9 A
Christian Arabic translation (again, like the Pahlavi, in its original
form lost) of this Syriac text, probably made in the early ninth
century, 2 0 is the source of much of the non-Koranic Alexander
tradition and legend in the Islamic world, including the flowering of
Persian poetry (Firdausl, Nizaml), which is now beyond our
purview. 2 1 This lost Arabic translation, 2 2 much amplified and
1 5 E.A. Wallis Budge (ed. and trans.), The history of Alexander the Great being the Syriac
version of Pseudo-Callisthenes (Cambridge, 1 889); partial translation by Th.D. Woolsey,
'Notice of a life of Alexander the Great translated from the Syriac', Journal of the American
Oriental Society, 4 (1 85 4 ), 3 ff., 3 5 7 ff.
1 6 Th. Noldeke, 'Beitrage zur Geschichte des Alexanderromans', in Denkschriften der
Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wisseuschaften, Philosophisch-historische Classe, vol. 3 8,
Abhandlung V (Vienna, 1 890), 1 1 ff.
1 7 So S. Fraenkel in his review of Noldeke's 'Beitrage', Zeitschrift der Deutschen
Morgenldndischen Gesellschaft, 4 5 (1 891 ), 3 1 9-2 0.
1 8 Noldeke,'Beitrage', 1 6.
1 9 See Boyle, 'Alexander legend', 1 6 ff.
2 0 K.F Weymann, Die aethiopische und arabische ubersetzung des Pseudocallisthenes. Eine
literarkritische L'ntersuchung (Kirchhain, 1 901 ), 79. For an attempt, not entirely convincing, to
recover this early text from a late Muslim Hispano-Arabic Alexander narrative see A.R.
Anderson, 'The Arabic History of Dulcarnain and the Ethiopian History of Alexander',
Speculum 6 (1 93 1 ), 4 3 4 -4 5 .
2 1 See M.S. Southgate, Iskandamamah: a Persian medieval Alexander-romance (New York,
1 978), 1 6"ff.
2 2 This should be rigorously distinguished from the (still unedited) seventeenth-century
translation made by the cleric Yuwasaf ibn Suwaidan, based probably on the twelfth to
thirteenth-century Byzantine Alexander prose narrative. See J. Trumpf, 'Zur Uberlieferung
des mittelgriechischen Prosa-Alexander .', Byzantinische Zeitschrift (1 967) 2 2 -7 and A. Ch.
Lolos in (iracco-Arabica iii (1 984 ), 1 99 ff. The 'Arabic Pseudocallisthenes' in an Istanbul
6 BULLETIN JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY
modified, formed the basis for the last major oriental Christian ver-
sion of the Alexander romance, namely the Ethiopia. 2 3 This version
is again extant in several, albeit late manuscripts, unfortunately not
illustrated. The Arabic text was transmitted to Ethiopia via Egypt,
as might be expected, and it includes some interpolations from the
tenth-century Arabic chronicle of Eutychius of Alexandria. 2 4
It is well known that Alexander appears in the Koran (Sura 1 8)
under the name of E)u'l-Qarnain, the hero with the two horns. In
particular he is described there as shutting in the tribes of Yajuj wa-
Majuj, the biblical Gog and Magog, by means of an iron gate or
dam until the end of time, when they shall burst out of their
captivity. 2 5 Now, this episode is not found in the oldest form of the
Greek Alexander romance; it was only interpolated, as we shall
presently see, into later Byzantine medieval recensions of the text
from elsewhere; that is, the Alexander romance stride dictu cannot
be considered as a source of the Koranic narrative. 2 6 The story of
the gate2 7 by contrast is well attested in other related early Alexander
legends, to which we shall now turn. This is material which is of
interest not only for elucidating the background of the seminal
Koranic presentation but also more generally for the emergence of a
Christian apocalyptic interpretation of Alexander.
The most important text of this nature is a relatively short
Syriac narrative, entitled 'an exploit (neshana) of Alexander, the son
of Philip the Macedonian, how he went forth to the ends of the
world and made a gate of iron and shut it in the face of the north
wind, that the Hunaye might not come forth to plunder the lands.' 2 8
manuscript dating to the fifteenth century, noted at second hand in Gary, Alexander, 1 2 , n.
1 9, is with some likelihood a free Muslim reworking, not this missing link, as asserted (loc.
cit.) by D.J. Ross, the editor of Gary's book. Cf. B. Meissner, 'Mubassirs Ahbar el-Iskender',
Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenldndischen Gesellschaft, xlix (1 895 ), 5 83 . To complicate
matters, one must take into account the (?lost) Arabic translation of the Latin Historia de preliis,
subsequently rendered into Hebrew (see I. Levi in Revue des etudes juives, 3 (1 881 ) 2 5 9).
2 3 E.A. Wallis Budge (ed. and trans.), The life and exploits of Alexander the Great, 2 vols
(London, 1 896); translation only in the same author's The Alexander book in Ethiopia
(London, 1 93 3 ).
2 4 Weymann, Ubersetzung, 2 0ff.
2 5 Sura 1 8:83 -98; trans. R. Paret, Der Koran, second edition (Stuttgart, 1 980), 2 1 1 .
2 6 Paret's statement to this effect (Der Koran. Kommentar und Konkordanz (Stuttgart,
1 980), 3 1 8) is to be corrected.
2 7 For a well-nigh complete collection of material see A.R. Anderson, Alexander's gate, Gog
and Magog, and the inclosed nations (Cambridge, Mass., 1 93 2 ) and the same author's earlier
paper, 'Alexander at the Caspian Gates', Transactions and Proceedings of the American
Philological Association, 5 9 (1 92 8), 1 3 0ff. However, Anderson had access to the oriental
material only at second hand and this led him to some false conclusions; see e.g. Czegledy,
Ada Orient. Hung, vii (1 95 7), 2 3 6, n. 1 8. On material culled from medieval Arabic and
Persian sources see further C.E. Wilson, 'The wall of Alexander against Gog and Magog and
the expedition sent out to find it by the Khalif Wathiq in 84 2 A.D.', in Hirth anniversary
volume (London, 1 92 2 ), 5 75 ff.
2 8 Budge, History, 2 5 5 , lines 1 -3 .
ALEXANDER THE GREAT 7
This work, in all its manuscript forms, follows the Syriac version of
the Alexander romance proper, but does not appear to depend on it
directly. It claims to have been taken 'from the writings in the house
of the archives of the kings of Alexandria' 2 9 but seems to be in fact
an original Syriac composition, not a translation from Greek. It is
by no means a full biography of Alexander; in particular any
allusion to the histoire scandaleuse of Olympias and Nectanebus is
lacking. It deals only with Alexander's travels, the building of the
gate against the barbarians and the subsequent defeat of the king of
Persia. The apocalyptic element is very pronounced in this work;
Alexander is depicted as a pious, proto-Christian instrument of
God, endowed with the gift of prophetic utterance. Several features
of the text also occur in the Koranic narrative - the famous horns of
Alexander, the journey to the west and then to the east, and of
course the central theme of the gate, which will be opened at an
apocalyptic Endzeit by divine command. But, although this has been
proposed by Noldeke3 0 and often repeated since, 3 1 the work also
does not qualify as a direct source for the 'two-horned' Alexander of
the Koran, at least not in its present form; recent investigations
indicate an ex eventu knowledge of the Khazar invasion of Armenia
in A.D. 62 9. 3 2
This prose legend (neshana) was then in turn the literary source
of the Syriac metrical homily attributed to Jacob of Sarug (sixth
century) in the manuscripts. 3 3 The poem however was actually written
in the seventh century, shortly before the Muslim conquest of
Mesopotamia and Palestine. 3 4 The political dimension of apocalyptic
in this work is very interesting. Thus, Alexander's conquests are
identified in detail with Heraclius's territorial gains (or potential
claims),3 5 and the politically conciliant feature of the neshana, that,
despite the Persian defeat, the guarding of the gate is a contractually
2 9 Budge, History, 2 5 5 , line 4 .
3 0 Budge, History, 3 2 .
3 1 E.g. Southgate, Iskandernamah, 2 01 ; I. Friedlaender, Die Chadhirlegende und der
Alexanderroman (Leipzig-Berlin, 1 91 3 ), 2 78; Anderson, Alexander's gate, 2 8, and in the same
author's article 'Alexander's horns', Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological
Association, 5 8 (1 92 7), 1 1 0-1 1 .
3 2 K. Czegledy, 'The Syriac legend concerning Alexander the Great', Ada Orientalia
Hung., 7 (1 95 7), 2 3 1 ff. Whether the divergent version of a 'narrative about Alexander'
preserved in summary form in the eighth-century chronicle of Pseudo-Dionysius of Tell-
Mahre (ed. Chabot, Corpus Scripiorum Christianorum Orientalium, vol. 91 (1 95 3 , reprint of
edition of 1 92 7), 4 1 , lines 1 5 ff.), without the tell-tale apocalyptic features would so qualify,
deserves further investigation. For a summary see Anderson, Alexander's gate, 2 7-8.
3 3 G.-J. Reinink (ed. and trans.) Das syrische Alexanderlied, 2 vols, Corpus Scriptorum
Christianorum Orientalium, 4 5 4 -5 (Louvain, 1 983 ).
3 4 C. Hunnius, Das synschc Alexanderlied (Gottingen, 1 904 ), 2 1 ff., arguing, to my mind
convincingly, against Noldeke's older sixth-century dating. See further Czegledy, 'The Syriac
legend', 2 4 8, and Reinink, Alexanderlied, vol. 2 , 1 0 ff.
3 5 See Hunnius, Alexanderlied, 3 0-3 1 ; Reinink, Alexanderlied, ii, 1 05 , n. 3 8.
8 BULLETIN JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY
fixed joint Roman-Persian responsibility, 3 6 is passed over in the
poem in silence.
The legend of Alexander's shutting in of Gog and Magog is
also found in the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius, a quite
obscure, but extremely influential text, primarily devoted to the
eschatological interpretation of the Arab conquest. This work also
was composed in Syriac, sometime in the last quarter of the seventh
century,3 7 although it was soon translated not only into Greek,3 8 but
also from Greek into Latin. 3 9 The account of Alexander's gate in
Pseudo-Methodius is not identical with that of the Syriac neshana,
but has some significant differing features, which preclude a literary
dependence. The gate is located at 'the breasts of the north', a
geographical designation otherwise found only in Syriac sources. 4 0
As recent research has abundantly shown, it is the account of
Alexander's gate from this Greek Pseudo-Methodius text which was
added to later recensions of the Alexander romance (and not
conversely!). 4 1 It is in the form enriched with this apocalyptic
interpolation that the Alexander romance became widespread in the
Byzantino-Slavic world. The borrowing in some of the recensions of
Pseudo-Callisthenes is made directly from Pseudo-Methodius. 4 2 In
some manuscripts, however, the Pseudo-Methodius material is
further elaborated, true to the genre of the Alexander romance, as a
letter from Alexander to his mother Olympias, and cast in a
non-apocalyptic form. 4 3 Is this last in itself an archaic feature, prior
to the apocalyptic colouring which was gradually given, under the
influence of several barbarian invasions of the fourth to seventh
centuries, to the story of Alexander's building of the Caspian Gates?
The point richly deserves further investigation!
3 6 Budge, History, 2 74 , lines 1 9 ff. On the political aspect of the eschatology of the poem,
see G.J. Reinink, 'Die Entstehung der syrischen Alexanderlegende als politisch-religiose
Propagandaschrift fur Herakleios' Kirchenpolitik', Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta, xviii
(1 985 ), 2 63 -81 .
3 7 On the status quaestionis see now G.J. Reinink, 'Der edessenische "Pseudo-Methodius"',
Byzantinische Zeitschrift, Ixxxiii (1 990), 3 1 ff. For a readily accessible (although not entirely
satisfactory!) edition of the Syriac text see H. Suermann, Die geschichtstheologische Reaktion auf
die einfallenden Muslime in der edessenischen Apokalyptik des 7. Jahrhunderts (Frankfurt, 1 985 ),
3 4 ff.
3 8 A Lolos (ed.), Die Apocalypse des Ps.-Methodios (Meisenheim, 1976) and Die dritte und
vierte Redaktion des Ps.-Methodios (Meisenheim, 1 978).
3 9 E. Sackur (ed.), Sibyllinische Texte und Forschungen (Halle, 1 898), 5 9ff.
4 0 See J. Trumpf, 'Alexander, die Bersiler und die Briiste des Nordens', Byzantinische
Zeitschrift, Ixiv (1 971 ), 3 2 6-8.
4 1 See Merkelbach-Trumpf, Quellen, 1 4 8-9.
4 2 Recension e, ch. 3 9 Q. Trumpf (ed.), Anonymi Byzantini vita Alexandn regis Macedonum
(Stuttgart, 1 971 ), 1 4 5 ff.); F. Parthe, Der griechische Alexanderroman, Rezension Y, Buch III
(Meisenheim, 1 969), 4 02 ff.
4 3 L. Bergson, Der griechische Alexanderroman. Rezension (3 (Uppsala, 1 965 ), 2 05 ff.; H. van
Thiel, Die Rezension \ des Pseudo-Kallisthenes (Bonn, 1 95 9), 5 5 ff.; F. Parthe,
Alexanderroman, 4 3 0ff.; S. Reichmann, Das byzantinische Alexandergedicht nach dem Codex
Marcianus 4 08 . . . (Meisenheim, 1 968), lines 5 71 0 ff.
ALEXANDER THE GREAT 9
It is hoped that the importance of the several Christian oriental
versions and offshoots of Alexander romance has been made clear.
Much more research is of course needed, primarily on the Syriac
material. The apocalyptic dimension of Alexander's building of the
gate to confine the barbarians, although no invention of the Syriac-
speaking Christians (Jewish influences certainly played a role), 4 4
came to be at any rate significantly developed in Mesopotamian
Christian circles. The image of Alexander as apocalyptic guardian
of civilization and inspired prophet of the one God was mediated to
the medieval Muslim and Byzantine world through the literary
activity of these oriental Christians, whose pivotal intellectual and
religious contributions to the civilization of the Mediterranean are
still all too often insufficiently appreciated.
4 4 See F Pfistcr, 'Gog und Magog', in Handworterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens, iii
(Berlin-Leipzig 1 93 0-3 1 ), cols 91 0 ff. and F Kampers, Alexander der Gro/3e und die Idee des
\\"cltnnpcriums in Prophetie und Sage (Freiburg, 1 901 ), 1 84 ff.