Alexander's gate, Gog and Magog, and the inclosed nations 9780910956079

Table of contents :
Frontmatter
Introductory Note (page vii)
Chapter I: Gog and Magog: Historic and Geographic Background, Ethnographic Interpretation (page 3)
Chapter II: Alexander's Gate Traditionally Located at the Pass of Dariel; the Exclusion of the Gog-and-Magog Peoples (page 15)
Chapter III: Alexander's Gate Built to Confine the Ten Tribes of Israel (page 58)
Chapter IV: Alexander's Gate and the Region of the Inclusi Shifted to Northern European or to the Urals (page 87)
Chapter V: Alexander's (Dulcarnain's) Gate and Rampart (Wall of Gog and Magog) Shifted to Central or to Eastern or Northeastern Asia (page 91)
Bibliography (page 105)

Citation preview

MONOGRAPHS OF THE MEDIAEVAL ACADEMY OF AMERICA

No. 5

ACADEMY PUBLICATIONS No. 1, A Concordance of Boethius, by Lane CoopEer No. 2, A Concordance to the Historia Ecclesiastica of Bede,

by P. F. Jonss

No. 3, A Survey of the Manuscripts of Tours, by E. K. Ranp,

two volumes, text and plates

No. 4, Lupus of Ferrieres as Scribe and Text Critic, by C. H. BEESON, with a fascimile of MS. Harley 2736 No. 5, Genoese Shipping in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries, by E. H. Byrne, (Monograph No. 1)

No. 6, Greek and Syrian Miniatures in Jerusalem, by W. H. P. Hatcu, with reproductions No. 7, Harinw’l-Rashid and Charles the Great, by F. W. Buckter, (Monograph No. 2) No. 8, Alien Merchants in England, 1350 to 1877, by ALICE Brarpwoop (Monograph No. 3) No. 9, A Concordance of Prudentius, by R. J. DEFERRARI and J. M. CAMPBELL

No. 10, The Script of Cologne from Hildebald to Hermann, by

L. W. Jonss, text and plates

No. 11, Feudal Monarchy in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, 1100-1291, by J. L. La Monte (Monograph No. 4) No. 12, Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, and the Inclosed Nations, by A. R. ANDERSON (Monograph No. 5)

ALEXANDER’S GATE, GOG AND MAGOG,

AND THE INCLOSED NATIONS

ANDREW RUNNI ANDERSON Professor of Latin, Duke University

eS THE MEDIAEVAL ACADEMY OF AMERICA CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS 1932

The publication of this book was made possible by a fund granted the Academy by the Carnegve Corporation of New York

CopyriGHtT, 1932 BY

THE MEDIAEVAL ACADEMY OF AMERICA

Printed in U.S. A.

PRINTED BY THE WAVERLY PRESS, INC. BALTIMORE, MARYLAND

TABLE OF CONTENTS Introductory Note . . . 2. 6 6 © © © «© «© «© © ee) 60 Chapter I: Gog and Magog: Historic and Geographic Back-

ground, Ethnographic Interpretation. . ..... - 3 Gog and Magog south of the Caucasus, 5. Gog and Magog in the Caucasus, 7. Gog and Magog north of the Caucasus, 7; Interpreted as Scythians, 8; Celts, 9; Goths, 9ff.

Chapter II: Alexander’s Gate Traditionally Located at the

Pass of Dariel; the Exclusion of the Gog-and-Magog Peoples . . 1. 1 6 6 ee ew ew we we we lw le we hl wl eC Cd Significance of the Caucasus and its passes in the history of the frontier, 15. The Syrian Sermo de Fine Extremo ascribed to Ephraem Syrus: invasion of the Huns, 16ff. Fusion of the legend of Alexander’s Gate with that of Gog and Magog at the coming of the Huns, 18. The Syrian Christian Legend

Concerning Alexander; changes in the legend, 20ff. The Syrian Homily of Jacob of Sarug, 26. Dionysius of Tell-Mahré, 27. The Koran, 28. The Arabic History of Dulcarnain, 30ff. The Ethiopian History of Alexander, 32. Alexander’s Gate in ‘Pseudo-Callisthenes, 33ff.; The Armenian History of Alexander,

34; The Greek ‘Pseudo-Callisthenes’ iii, 26 in C, 35ff.; The Greek ‘Pseudo-Callisthenes’ ili, 29 in BC, and in Byz, 38ff. The Matot Boppa, Ubera Aquilonis, 43. Alexander’s Gate in Pseudo-Methodius, 44ff. Alexander’s Gate in Prester John, 48; the influence of Pseudo-Methodius, 49. Alexander’s Gate in

the Cosmography of Aethicus Ister; its influence, 51ff. The number of tribes excluded, 54. The composition of the lists, 55.

Chapter III: Alexander’s Gate Built to Confine the Ten

Tribes of Israel. 2. 2. 1. 1. 1 ew ww ew we le lel el eC The background of the tribes deported under Sargon and under Artaxerxes Ochus, 58f.; Josephus, Oracula Sibyllina, Fourth Ezra, Commodianus, Eldad and Modad, Josephus ben Gorion, 60ff. The Historia Scholastica of Petrus Comestor, 64f. The Inber Peregrinationis of Ricold of Monte Croce, 67. The Latin letter of Prester John and its influence in vernacular versions, 68. The Pantheon of Godfrey of Viterbo, 69f. The Ten Tribes Vv

vi Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, and Inclosed Nations supplant Gog and Magog, 70. The Jews become Red, 72ff. Alexander incloses both the Ten Tribes and Gog and Magog, 74f.; Godfrey of Viterbo, Quilichinus of Spoleto, Rudolf of Ems, 74-78. The sons of Ishmael and Midian contaminated

with Gog and Magog; Rudolf of Ems, 78. The Russian Primary Chronicle, '79f. TheTen Tribes identified with Gog and Magog, 81. Gog and Magog and the Guildhall Giants, 81. The Auxiliary defenses of the Gate: Iron men and hammers, Joseph

Kimchi, 82; The stone eagle of al-Hasan, 82; The twelve trumpets of the Caucasus blown by the wind, Russian legend

told by Kohl, 83; The trumpets and the Tartars: Ricold of Monte Croce, Giovanni Villani, Giovanni Fiorentino, Fazio degli Uberti, Carta Catalana, Mercator’s Weltkarte, 1569, 84; Mandeville, Tabari, 85.

Chapter IV: Alexander’s Gate and the Region of the Inclusi

Shifted to Northern Europe or to the Urals. . . . . . 87 The geography of the Caspian as seen in mediaeval cartogra-

phy, eleventh to thirteenth century, and the influence on charting Gog and Magog, 87f. The Russian Primary Chronicle, 89.

Chapter V: Alexander’s (Dulcarnain’s) Gate and Rampart

| (Wall of Gog and Magog) Shifted to Central or to Eastern

or Northeastern Asia . ....... .....~ «9! Causes contributing to the change, 92. Dulcarnain’s Gate not at Derbend (al-Bab), 93. The expedition of Sallam the Interpreter as seen in Ibn Khordhadbeh and Idrisi, 94ff. Kodama, Dinawari, Tabari, Firdausi, Al-Makin, Abu-Shaker, 96f. Godfrey of Viterbo, Lambert li Tors, Giovanni Villani, Giovanni Fiorentino, Hayton, Gervase of Tilbury, Marco Polo, Abulfeda, Ibn Batuta, 98f. The geographic legend in the east and west from Idrisi through Mercator, 100f. Résumé, 103.

Bibliography . . «. «© «© «© © © © © © © © «© «© «© « 105

INTRODUCTORY NOTE I‘ AN introductory paper, ‘Alexander at the Caspian Gates,’ published in Trans. Amer. Phil. Ass’n, LIX (1928), 130-163. I presented the results of a study of the use of the term ‘Caspian Gates’ in classical literature and geography and proposed an explanation of the extension of the legend of Alexander’s expeditions

to the Caucasus and lands to the north. Our earliest records of classical antiquity and extending well down into the Middle Ages show that the classical geographers and Pliny applied the term Caspian Gates only to the passes between Media and Parthia southeast of Rhagae (near the modern Teheran), i.e., the Sirdara and

probably the Firouz Kouh passes. No tradition seems to exist, however, that Alexander built a gate there. From the time of the Armenian expedition of Corbulo (57-67 A. D.) under the emperor Nero down to the middle of the sixth century, certain authors— Tacitus, Suetonius, Josephus, Hegesippus, St Jerome, Procopius, and Jordanes—apply the term Caspian Gates to the pass of Dariel

in the central Caucasus, and either expressly state or imply that Alexander built a gate there. Before the above mentioned paper was published, the site of Alexander’s gate was generally held to have been at the pass of Derbend at the eastern end of the Caucasus

on the shores of the Caspian, and was identified with the Iron Gate or Damir-Kapi situated there. The use of the term Caspian Gates as applied to the pass of Derbend is late, and hardly to be met with until in writers referring to the time of Heraclius. On the other hand, Vincent of Beauvais (fl. 1250 A. D.), Speculum Htstortale, XXIX (XXX), Ixxxix, 393b (vid. infra, p. 71) seems to agree with the earlier tradition in recognizing the site of Alexander’s Gate at the pass of Dariel north of Tiflis. The legend of Alexander’s gate at the pass of Derbend, however, was apparently not established until the memory of Khosro I Anushirvan (531-579 A. D.), who finished the Iron Gate of Derbend and the Caucasian Wall begun by his father Kavadh, had faded out and become supplanted by that of Alexander. This can hardly have taken place until the Vu

vill Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, and Inclosed Nations

eleventh century, if we may date the Derbend Nameh as early as this, or probably better in the twelfth century, at the end of which Nizami recognizes the tradition in his Sikandar Nameh. From that time the tradition of Alexander’s Gate at the pass of Derbend has persisted apparently down to the present. The introductory paper, which is to be regarded as the basis for the present study, considered the legend of Alexander’s Gate before it took the form of excluding Gog and Magog and other nations beyond the pale, such as the so-called Lost Tribes of Israel. These topics and the eschatology involved are reserved for this concluding installment of the study.

ALEXANDER’S GATE, GOG AND MAGOG, AND THE INCLOSED NATIONS

BLANK PAGE

I GOG AND MAGOG: HISTORIC AND GEOGRAPHIC BACKGROUND, ETHNOGRAPHIC IDENTIFICATION AND INTERPRETATION

TeeAlexander’s union established between and athe Near East by conquests broughtGreece into being new conception, that of the Oixovuéyn, the civilized world of common interests. Of this New World Alexander was the creator, of it he became the guardian genius to protect its civilization and to keep its frontiers

- inviolate against the barbarian dwelling outside. To the idea of world empire his work gave a new, wider, deeper significance. Not only was he to the peoples of the Near East a successor of Semiramis,

of Nebuchadnezzar, of Cyrus, and to Egypt a new Sesonchosis (Sesostris), but to the Babylonians he became identified with Gilga-

mesh—the prototype of Heracles—and to the Greeks a new Dionysus and a new Heracles. The Roman Empire founded by Julius and Augustus Caesar was essentially the realization of his political ideal. In the course of time the Jews, in recognition of their indebtedness for the great benefits accruing to them through the influence of his work, came to conceive of him as one of their own heroes, a champion and propagandist of the Most High. Quite unconsciously, too, he prepared the ground in which Christianity was to grow, a fore runner of Jesus, earlier representations of whom portrayed him in Alexander’s likeness, and the conception of Alexander Cosmocrator in time grew into Christus Pantocrator. In time

also Alexander, as the champion of Jehovah to both Jews and Christians, became under the name and guise of Dulcarnain, the Lord of Two Horns, the great hero of Mohammedanism in the Koran, xviii, 82f.

In the new order of enlarged Hellenism, the Old Testament appeared in the Greek translation of the Septuagint, and the New 3

4 Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, and Inclosed Nations Testament came into being in Greek. With the spread of Judaism and the dispersion of the Jews and with the growth of Christianity, it was inevitable that Jew and Greek should attempt to explain themselves to each other. Biblical terms sought their Greek equivalents, biblical places and peoples were equated with Greek geographic and ethnographic terms. In some matters these questions have persisted down into our own time, and one of these is the question of Gog and Magog.! The pertinent biblical passages dealing with Gog and Magog are as follows:

Genesis, x, 2. The sons of Japheth: Gomer, and Magog, and Madai, and Javan, and Tubal, and Meshech, and Tiras. 3. And the sons of Gomer:

Ashkenaz, and Riphath, and Togarmah. 4. And the sons of Javan: Elishah, and Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim. (Cf. Paraleip. I, i, 1-7) Ezekiel, xxxviii, 1-3. And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, 1 The problem of Gog and Magog is treated in the following places: Max Uhlemann, ‘Ueber Gog und Magog,’ Zeitschrift fiir wissenschaftliche Theologie, V (1862), 265-286. C. A. Hedenskog, Berdittelse om Alexander den Store (Lund, 1863).

Francois Lenormant, ‘Magog, fragments d’une étude sur l’ethnographie du chapitre X de la Genése,’ Muséon, Revue Internationale I (1882), 9-48. This is still the completest treatment of Gog and Magog in its biblical and rabbinical significance, but it does not consider the connections of the legend with Alexander. Lenormant’s study may be found also in his ‘Les Origines de l Histoire’ (Qnd ed. Paris: 1882), II, i, pp. 412-476, ‘Magog.’ Arturo Graf, Roma nella Memoria e nelle Immaginazionit del Medio Evo (1st ed., 2 vols., Turin, 1883) II, pp. 507-563, Appendice: ‘La leggenda di Gog e Magog.’ The work of Graf

was reprinted in a one-volume edition, Turin, 1915, in which the appendix on Gog and Magog is found pp. 754-797, to which references in the present study are made. This includes a study of the connections of the legend with Alexander in the literary and cartographic sources available at the time when the study was completed (1883). Wilhelm Bousset, “Beitrige zur Geschichte der Eschatologie,’ Zeitschrift fiir Kirchengeschichte, XX (1899), 113-131. Fr. Kampers, Alexander der Grosse und die Idee des Weltimperiums in Prophetie und Sage

(Freiburg im Br., 1901), passim. On p. 86ff. Kampers gives a progressive review of the various interpretations of Gog and Magog as offered by Winckler, von Orelli, Meissner, Spiegel, Vogelstein, Rohde, Néldeke, Lidzbarski, and others. Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible, s. vv. ‘Gog’ and ‘Magog’; The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge (New York, 1909); Encyclopedia Biblica, s. vv. ‘Gog’ and ‘Magog.’

The Jewish Encyclopedia, s. v. ‘Gog and Magog.’

Friedrich Pfister, art. “Gog und Magog’ in Handwérterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens | (Berlin-Leipzig, 1927ff), III, coll. 910-918 (date of this art., 1930). —

Gog and Magog 5 , Son of man, set thy face toward Gog, of the land of Magog, the prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal. 6. Gomer and all his hordes; the house of Togarmah in the uttermost parts of the north, and all his hordes; even many peoples with thee. 15. And thou (Gog) shalt come from thy place out of the uttermost parts of the north, thou and many peoples with thee,

all of them riding upon horses, a great company and a mighty army. 20. Surely in that day there shall be a great shaking in the land of Israel; so that the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the heaven, and the beasts of the field, and all creeping things that creep upon the earth, shall shake at my presence, and the mountains shall be thrown down, and the steep places shall fall, and every wall shall fall to the ground.

Revelation, xx, 7-8. And when the thousand years are finished, Satan

shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall come forth to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to the war; the number of whom is as the sand

of the sea. .

For the early period that seems presupposed in Genesis and perhaps in Ezekiel, the chief region occupied by the sons of Japheth may reasonably be regarded as lying south of the Caucasus, reach-

ing from the Aegean to the Caspian Gates and including Ionia, Lydia, Phrygia, Cappadocia, Armenia, and Media. Madai is clearly

to be equated with Media, Gomer probably in Cappadocia and Phrygia.2 Magog would naturally be located between these two, Gomer and Madai, i.e., south of the Caucasus in eastern and northern Armenia, cf. Twyapyv7 mentioned by Strabo xi, 14, 5, 528 end: 'IBjpwv b& rv wapwperav rod Ilapvddpov kal thy Xoptynvyv kat Twyapnviy wépayv ovcayv tot Kipov. Stephen of Byzantium describes it as Twyapnvi xwpiov peratd Kodxwv kal I8npwv. It may well be some-

thing of this nature that we find reflected in the geography of Pseudo-Moses of Chorene V, 20 (p. 38) where the following statement, wrongly credited to Ptolemy, places a canton Gogh in this 1Cf. Hugo Gressmann, Ursprung d. israelit.-jiidischen Eschatologie, pp. 174ff.; also Herrmann, Ezekiel, pp. 238ff. 2It should be borne in mind however that the Gomer, Gimirrae, Kiupépror, (cf. ‘Crimea’)

had originally come from the region north of the Black Sea, vide Hdt., i, 104; iv, 12; E.H. Minns in Camb. Anc. Hist., III, 188ff., A. H. Godbey, The Lost Tribes a Myth, (Durham: Duke University Press, 1930), Chap. xi.

6 Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, and Inclosed Nations region south of the Caucasus: ‘la fleuve Cyr, qui, venant des Tayk du Canton de Gogh au pied du Tchavakhes.’! Herewith should be compared Armenian Kouk-ar or Kouk-arkh.? It is interesting to note also that the land of Gog and Magog seems to have an actual location according to the Georgian Annals:* ‘Alors tous ayant quitté

la ville, il laissa aller dans l’Inde ceux qui parlaient indien, les Sindiens dans le Sinde, 4 Rome les Romains, les Grecs en Gréce, les Gog et Magog dans le Magougeth, les Perses en Perse.’ The corresponding part of the Chron. Arm.‘ has: ‘Ils abandonnérent la ville... pour aller ...Thorgomos chez les Thorgomians, Sindon | dans le Sideth, les Bertziank dans la Bertzie, les Hoins dans Hoineth, les Ag et Mag dans l’Ag-Magougie, les Perses en Perse, et les autres ailleurs.’ The following interesting analogies for Gog and Magog may be

cited: ‘Zamua’ and ‘Mazamua,’ terms applied indiscriminately to the territory lying northeast of Assyria between Media and Armenia.°

Meshech and Tubal, terms used in close connection with Gog and Magog, seem to occur in Assyrian inscriptions in the forms ‘Muschw’ and “Tabal’ respectively. Probably the Greek equivalents for these forms are Mécxor and TiBapnvol.?

It is held by some scholars, notably by Eduard Meyer, that Gog is really nothing more than the Assyrian ‘Guggu,’ 1.e., Gyges, king of Lydia. As far as the identity of the words—Gog, ‘Guggu,’

Gyges—is concerned, this is probable, but at the same time it should be observed that in Ezekiel’s account given above much is 1 Géographie de Moise de Coréne d’aprés Ptolémée par le P. Arséne Soukry (Venice, 1881).

In reality, this geography was written several centuries after Moses of Chorene. Cf. J. Marquart, ‘EranSahr nach der Geographie des Ps. Moses Xorenac‘i,’ Gesells. d. Wissensch. zu Gottingen, Abh., philol.-hist. Klasse, N. F. III (1899-1901).

23M. Cf. Uhlemann, op. cit., p. 283. , F. Brosset, Histoire de la Géorgie, (5 vols., St Petersburg, 1849-1858), I, 1, 164. 4 Brosset, op. cit., I, 1, 164, ftn. 5.

5 A somewhat different text is found in the Chron. Arm. as given by Brosset, op. cit., I, 2; Additions, p. 38 (99). 6 Cf. F. Delitzsch, Wo lag das Paradies? (Leipzig, 1881), p. 246. Similarly, Tchin and Matchin used to designate respectively the peoples and territory of northern and southern China, cf. B. d’Herbelot, Bibl. Orient. s. vv. ‘Magiouge’ and ‘Sin.’ 7 Cf. Schaff-Herzog, Encyclopedia of Rel. Knowledge, s. v. ‘Gog and Magog;’ also Encyc. Bibl., s. vv. ‘Gog’ and ‘Magog.’

Gog and Magog 7 associated with Gog that is utterly extraneous to Gyges and Lydia. The description of the region and direction from which Gog is to come, dm’ éoxarov Boppa, ‘a (de) lateribus Aquilonis,’ (‘from the

uttermost parts of the north’ or ‘from the regions of the north’), while not conclusive against this interpretation, can hardly be re- garded as favoring it. Gyges can scarcely be spoken of as prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal, if the two latter forms are to be equated with Modcxo. and TiBapynvot respectively, peoples located directly

and immediately south of the Caucasus. Neither Gyges nor his Lydians ever made an invasion of the region of the Fertile Crescent,

that is, of the territory stretching from the eastern Mediterranean litoral to the lower course of the Tigris—Euphrates Rivers. And neither Gyges nor his Lydians can be addressed ‘thou and many peoples with thee, all of them riding upon horses’ (Hzek., xxxviii, 15),

the latter expression clearly applying to the mounted nomads from beyond the Caucasus. More than a century ago, Reineggs found in the central Caucasus a people called Thiulet who called their mountains Ghef or Gogh, and the very highest of these lying to the north they called Moghef or Mugogh. One naturally wonders whether such a tradition could be carried back to biblical times.! As the geographical horizon widened, Magog was placed north of the Caucasus. Such is the logical extension that must be given to the interpretation of the phrases, “Gog of the land of Magog’ ... out of the uttermost part of the north,’ as described by Ezekiel. Indeed, the logic of the expression required that his location should

ultimately be placed adjoining the northern ocean, as indeed is done in both the Hereford and the Ebstorf maps.? Ezekiel’s description of the invasion of Gog may be an echo of the invasion of the

Cimmerians, who came down from the north by way of the pass of Dariel towards the end of the eighth century B. C. in the reign of Sargon of Assyria (722-705 B. C.), or more probably of the incursion of the Scythians, who descended by way of the pass of 1 Jacob Reineggs, Allgemeine historisch-topographische Beschreibung des Kaukasus (St

Petersburg, 1795-96), I, 216, and esp. II, 79. Cf. M. Anholm, I Gogs och Magogs Land (Stockholm, 1895). 2 Vide infra, p. 88.

8 Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, and Inclosed Nations Derbend in the following century under Esar-Haddon, 681-668 B. C.1

So devastating were these inroads that they gave the impression that the end of the world was at hand. The term Gog and Magog has therefore become synonymous with barbarian, especially with the type of barbarian that bursts through the northern frontier of civilization. This frontier extends the whole length of the Eurasian continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from Spain to China, and includes such outstanding landmarks as the Alps, the Caucasus, and the Great Wall. I shall cite instances of various peoples burst-

ing through this frontier at points distributed along its whole line—the people are generally migrants or nomads—but I shall concern myself especially with those peoples that according to legend

were shut out by Alexander the Great. The legend of Alexander’s

Gate and of the enclosed nations is in reality the story of the

frontier in sublimated mythologized form. ,

The earliest recorded attempt to explain Magog in terms of Greek ethnography is that of Josephus who interprets the sons of Magog with the Scythians: rots yey yap ‘viv bd’ ‘EAAjvwv Tadaras KaNoupevous, L'ouapets dé Neyouevous, Toudpns éxrice, Maywyns 6é Tovs vm’ avTov Maywyas dvoyacbévras gkice, DKiOas O€ Wr’ abrav Tpocayopevouevous. In using the term Lidar as equivalent to Magog,

Josephus clearly placed Magog north of the Caucasus. Now the term Scythian in ancient geography included without the distinction

of race or origin practically all the barbarian population north of our frontier of civilization.? 1 Cambridge Ancient History, III, 188ff.

2 The Scythians are equated with Magog in the following passages: Josephus Ant. i, 6, 1

(quoted above); ‘Chronicon Paschale’ (in Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae) ed. Dindorf (Bonn, 1832), I, 46, 11 (quoted below, p. 8); St Jerome, Comment, in Ezek. 38, 2 (Migne, Patr. Lat. XXV, 356A); Andreas, Kommentar zur Apokalypse ed. Sylburg 94, 45 Migne, Patr. Gr. CVI, 416C); Theodoretus of Cyrrhus, In Ezek. (Migne, Patr. Gr.. LX XXI, p. 1217A, ef. cbid., 1381, p. 1633 and 1400, p. 1655B.) writing in the first half of the fifth century somewhat later than St Jerome, pronounced Gog a Scythian race rod Pay (ZkvOcxdv 5é

rodro vos), but declared that the attack of Gog was one that had already passed and gone some time after the return from the Babylonian captivity, and that it was not something that would come in the future. It is not definitely known what invasion he identified with that of Gog. Zonaras, i, 5; Isidore, Etym. ix, 2, 27; Historia Gothorum, 66 (M. G. H., Auct. Ant., XI, wide infra under Goths); Otto of Freising, i, 4; Lenormant, op. cit., II, i, 412, ftnn. 6, 7, 8.

Gog and Magog 9 Probably in the third century, before the German invasions of

the Roman Empire really began, another interpretation of the ethnographic elements of Genesis x came into being. This has come down to us in a great many versions, and for our purpose its most

important part is that which represents the Celts (Galatians) as the descendants of Magog, an identification met with in many places.!

When the barbarian invasions burst the frontiers of the Roman empire, Jews and Christians were tempted to recognize as Magog the Scythian hordes invading from the north. They were likely, however, to apply the term only to such divisions as actually burst

the frontier. The application of the term to the Goths seems to occur in Commodianus (Carm. Apol., 803ff.), variously dated from

the third to the fifth centuries, but belonging with greater probability to the later part of this period. In the fourth century St Ambrose, de Fide ad Gratian., 11, 16; 495, 188 (Migne, Patr. Lat. XVI, 611-612), after quoting Ezech. xxxviii, 14 says: 138. Gog iste Gothus est, quem iam videmus exisse, de quo promittitur nobis futura victoria, dicente Domino: ‘Et depraedabuntur eos qui depraedati eos fuerant, et despoliabunt eos qui sibi spolia detraxerant, dicit Dominus. Eritque in die illa, dabo Gog (hoc est, Gothis) locum nominatum, monumentum Israel multorum virorum congestum, qui supervenerunt ad mare; et per circuitum struet os vallis, et obruet illic Gog et 1 Chronicon Paschale, I, 46, 11; Chronica Minora ed. Frick, as follows: ‘Liber Generationis,’ 10, 10 Lat., 11, 10 Gr.; ‘Origo Humani Generis,’ 140, 1ff.; ‘Excerpta Latina (Graeca) Barbari,’ 194, 4ff. (195, 5ff.). Cf. Karl Miillenhoff, Ueber die Weltkarte und Chorographie des Kaiser Augustus (Kiel, 1856), p. 39, who has established the following form: Tiot "IadeO Tov rpirov viot NdeTépep, & ov Karmdéoxes,

Maywy, é& od Kedrou, of kat Tadarat, Maéai, é& ov Mijéor.

Lenormant, op. cit. II, i, p. 413, n. 2, states that Eusebius similarly equated the descendants of Magog with the Celts, inasmuch as these had wandered in the north before they became settled in the west in Gaul. In the Chronicon Paschale, loc. cit., the descendants of Magog are restricted to the Aquitanians, ’Axvpravoi, but there is an adscript which is much older and more significant, vid. infra, p. 10. See also A. von Gutschmid, Kleine Schriften, V (1894),

_ ‘Untersuchungen iiber den Acayepiouds ris yjs und andere Bearbeitungen der Mosaischen Volkertafel,’ 585-717.

10 Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, and Inclosed Nations totam multitudinem eius, et vocabitur Ge Polyandrium Gog; et obruet eos domus Israel ut purgetur terra (Ezech. xxxix, 16).’

dations.! |

Thus he specifically identified the Gothic hosts with those of

Gog and Magog; for he was himself an eye-witness to their depreIn spite of St Jerome’s dissent, however, this interpretation per-

sisted, and is frequently met with from the fifth century on.’ Thus the Chronicon Paschale, I, 46, 12 (Bonn ed.), has the following: Tio ladeé rpirov viov N&e dudal 6uov 16’ Tapep, €& o° KedAraior. Maywy, é€ ot ’Axupravol. Tuiweées & Tod Maywy rovs Tdfous Néyouat kai Tovs Lapuatas kal rovs ZKvOas yeyerjoGar.

Similarly Isidore, ‘Historia Gothorum’ (Chron. Mian., II, 268 ed. Mommesen, M.G.H., Auct. Ant., vol. XI) derives from Magog the Goths, ‘quos Alexander vitandos pronuntiavit.’? So also Isidore, ix, 2, 89: ‘“Gothi a Magog filio Iaphet nominati putantur, de simili1 The identification was rejected by St Jerome, Quaest. Hebr. in Genes., x, 2: “Scio quendam Gog et Magog ad Gotorum nuper in terra nostra vagantium historiam rettulisse; quod utrum verum sit, proelii ipsius fine monstratur. et certe Gotos omnes retro eruditi magis Getas quam Gog et Magog appellare consueverunt.’

Similarly, St Augustine, even as he denied that Rome, the city sacked by the Goths, was the real City of God, so he also denied that Gog and Magog were to be identified with any particular region, race, or tribe such as the Getae or Massagetae; cf. de Civ. Dei, xx, 11: ‘Gentes quippe istae, quas appellat Gog et Magog, non sic sunt accipiendae, tamquam sint aliqui in aliqua parte terrarum barbari constituti, sive quos quidam (e.g., St Jerome quoted

above) suspicantur Getas et Massagetas propter litteras horum nominum primas, sive aliquos alios alienigenas et a Romano iure seiunctos. Toto namque orbe terrarum significati sunt isti esse, cum dictum est nationes quae sunt in quattuor angulis terrae, easque subiecit esse Gog et Magog.’

2Such indeed became the prevailing view among Jewish scholars. Cf. Ad. Neubauer, La Géographie du Talmud (Paris, 1868), p. 422: ‘Magog et rendu dans le Tal. de Jér. par Gothia, ce qui se rapporte 4 l’invasion des Goths, que la tradition Juive identifie avec celle du peuple Gog et Magog. Le Tal. de Bab. rend Magog par Kaudia, de qui est sans doute une faute de copiste. Quant au Targoum du Pseudo-Jonathan, qui lit ici Germania, il faut le faire rapporter au mot Gomer.’ Further details are supplied by Lenormant, op. cit. II, i, 413f.: ‘Aussi, dans le Talmud de Jerusalem (Megillah, I, fol. 11) et dans le Targotim des Chroniques (I Chron., I, 5), Magég est-il traduit par Géthiya ou Géthiya, dans le Midrasch Beréschith rabbd, et dans les Targoumim du Pseudo-Jonathan et de Jérusalem sur la Genése (x, 2) par Germanaya, qui est bien positivement ici la Germanie. 3 The latter statement can be traced back as far as Orosius i, 16, 2: “Modo autem Getae illi qui et nune Gothi quos Alexander evitandos pronuntiavit, Pyrrhus exhorruit, Caesar

Gog and Magog 11 tudine ultimae syllabae, quos veteres magis Getas quam Gothos vocaverunt, ete.’ The identifications of Gog and Magog with the Goths have led

to some curious and interesting developments. First Gog was changed to Goth, and in order that the assonance Gog-Magog might not be lost, Magog was similarly altered to Magoth, Goth-Magoth.

Thus, in the list of tribes excluded by Alexander, we find in the Historia Alezxandri Magni (Pseudo-Callisthenes), ed. Ch. Miiller (Paris, 1846), III, 26C, the list of tribes excluded by Alexander headed by I'w6, Mayw6. Similarly in Godfrey of Viterbo, Panth., XVI, 24 we find: ‘Et exsurgent ab aquilone spurcissime gentes quas Alexander rex inclusit, Goth videlicet et Magoth. Hec duodecim regna, quorum numerus est sicut arena maris.’ I quote also the pertinent portions of the significant passage zbid., XX VII, 1: De origine omnium Gothorum:

Got quidem gens Gothorum est. Et sicut per omne genus Ysmaelitarum solus Ysmael supra scribitur, cum dicitur per prophetam: Pone faciem tuam contra Ysmaelem, ita et pro omni Gothorum gente Got nominatur, de cuius origine veniunt ipsi Gothi, inde et vocabulum traxerunt. Got apud Teutonicos a primeva eorum origine dicitur deus. Et quia tunc homines sapientes et filosofi per excellentiam vocabantur dei, estimo, quod a primevo patre eorum Magog, filio Iafet, tamquam a deo eorum

primo, hoe nomen traxerunt. Et quia Gothorum gens ex Magog, filio Tafet, filii Noe, orta est, affirmant cronica ipsorum Gothorum antiquissimam esse illam gentem. Quorum origo a Magog, filio Iafet, descendit, unde et nominatur Gog, ad similitudinem ultime sillabe nominis illius, scilicet Gog. Et magis de Ezekiele prophete sumus id colligentes Liber etiam ystorie eorum similiter affrmat, quia de Magog, filio Iafet, veniunt, et Gothia et Sithia gens a Magog nominata sunt, etc.1 etiam declinavit.’ Cf. vii, 34, 5. This probably is based on the equation of Scythians with Getae or with Gothi, and may have reference to the utter defeat of Alexander’s general Zopyrion as narrated by Justin xii, 2, 16-3, 1: ‘Dum haec in Italia aguntur, Zopyrion quoque, praefectus Ponti ab Alexandro Magno relictus, otiosum se ratus, si nihil et ipse gessisset, adunato XXX milium exercitu Scythis bellum intulit caesusque cum omnibus copiis poenas

temere inlati belli genti innoxiae luit. ‘Haec cum nuntiata in Parthia Alexandro essent, simulato maerore propter Alexandri cognationem exercitui suo triduo luctum_indixit.’ Vid. H. Berve, Das Alexanderreich auf prosopographischer Grundlage, II, s. v. Zwrvpiwv. 1So also Ranulph Higden, Polychronicon, I, xvii (Rolls Series XLI, pt. 1, p. 144): ‘Dicitur

autem Gothia a Gog filio Iaphet, cuius gentes potius Gothos quam Gogos nominaverunt.’ Cf. Graf, op. cit., p. 782, (60).

12 Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, and Inclosed Nations

The invasion of the Goths did not involve the Caucasus, and did not therefore involve either Alexander or Alexander’s Gate in the Caucasus (the pass of Dariel). A Sermo de Fine Mundi that may perhaps belong to this general period of the Gothic invasion (the latter part of the fourth century) mentions neither Alexander nor his Gate nor Gog and Magog.! I therefore do not discuss it in detail but merely observe that the very absence of these elements from the sermon may point to its date of composition as anterior to the fusion of the legend of Alexander and his Gate with that of Gog and Magog. However, the description of the ravages to be perpetrated in the Last Days is similar to that later applied to the depredations ascribed to Gog and Magog and the Huns.’ Before proceeding to the more detailed discussion of the legend

of the Tribes excluded by Alexander’s Gate conceived as constructed at the pass of Dariel in the Caucasus, I give here a conspectus of various peoples identified as Gog and Magog, including even those peoples with whom legend never associated Alexander.

The equation of Gog and Magog with the Scythians, the Celts, and the Goths has been taken up above pp. 6ff. Hons: Ephraem Syrus[?], de Fine Extremo, 6 and 7 inc., quoted below pp. 16f.; Andreas, Comment. in Apocalyps. ed. Sylburg 94, 45; St Jer-

ome, Epist. 77, 8; the Syrian Christian Legend, ed. Budge, The History of Alexander the Great, pp. 150ff.; the Syrian Homily by Jacob

of Sarug, ed. Budge, op. cit., 163ff.: Isidore, Etym. ix, 2, 66, 67; Procopius, ix, 10; Gervase of Tilbury, Ot. Imp., II, 16. Auans: cf. Josephus, Bell. Jud. vii, '7, 4; Hegesippus, de Bello Jud., V, 50; Josephus ben Gorion (ed. Gagnier, Oxford, 1706), ch. XCVI; Ben-

jamin of Tudela, cf. Eisenmenger, Entdecktes Judenthum (Frankfort, 1700; K6nigsberg, 1711), II, 736. 1C. P. Caspari, Briefe, Abhandlungen und Predigten etc. (Christiania, 1890), Text, pp. 208-220; Notes, pp. 429-473. The sermon is preserved to us in Latin version in several manuscripts, in which it is variously ascribed to Ephraim Syrus and to Isidore of Seville. Caspari dated this sermon about 373, though he recognized certain objections. In this dating he was supported by Bousset, Antichrist, 20ff.; 35ff.; Beztrdge, 118; also by Kampers, op. cit., 75 and n. 4, and with this general conclusion I agree. E. Sackur (Sib. Texte und Forschungen, p. 93) holds that the sermon was made up out of elements found in Pseudo-Methodius, and therefore hardly to be dated before 700 A.D. 2 Caspari, op. cit., 212ff. (section 4 of the Sermo).

| Gog and Magog 13 Kuazars: cf. History of Dulcarnain, pp. 77 quoted below p. 32. ARABIANS: (descendants of Ishmael): cf. Theophanes, I, 390 ed. de Boor; Sackur, Sibyllinische Texte und Forschungen, p. 85, Pseudo-Methodius,

ch. 11 end, from which this form of the legend was developed, as seen in the Russian literature of the time of the Mongol invasions and even earlier, vide infra, p. 79; also in Rudolf von Ems, who explained Gog and Magog as the descendants of the Midianites defeated by Gideon, vide infra, p. 78f. and Zingerle, Die Quellen zum Alexander des Rudolf von Ems, pp. 112ff. referred to below p. 78f.

Turks: Aethicus Ister, ed. Wuttke, p. 18, cap. 32; Kodama 264 (206) quoted below, p. 96; Abu Shaker, ed. Budge, The Lnfe and Exploits

of Alexander the Great, II, 396, vide infra, p. 98; Al-Makin, ed. Budge, op. cit., II, 372, vide infra, p. 98; Isaac Abarbanel, ap. Eisenmenger, op. cit., II, 740; Bousset, Beitrdge zur Gesch. d. Eschatologie, 122ff., also fn. 1; Ibn Khaldun, In Lambert li Tors, vide infra, p. 98;

Gog and Magog before being inclosed come from the land of the Turks to fight on the side of Porus against Alexander. In the Cottoniana Map, mde infra, p. 89, the Turks are located in a region adjacent to Gog and Magog. Kazwini, Cosmographie, ed. Wiistenfeld, II, 416 quoted by Uhlemann, op. cit., 273: ‘Jagug und Magug waren Sdhne Japhets, des Sohnes Noah, und Jagug und Magug sind zwei grosse Vélker abstammend von Turk, den Japhet Noahs Sohn geboren.’

Maeyars: cf. Bieling, Zu den Sagen von Gog und Magog, p. 5, where he quotes from Macaulay, Essay on Lord Clive (a passage said to refer to the Magyar invasion of Lombardy in 908 A. D.): “The Hungarian, in whom the trembling monks fancied that they recognized the Gog and Magog of prophecy, carried back the plunder of the cities of Lombardy to the depth of the Pannonian forest.’ Giesebrecht, Gesch. | der deutschen Kaiserzeit, I (4th ed., Braunschweig, 1873), p. 173, in speaking of the incursions of the Magyars on the East Franks, Saxony and Thuringia in 908, and Suabia in 909 says: ‘Sie meinten, es selen die Vilker Gog und Magog, die vom Ende der Welt kimen, um alles zu vernichten; sie erzihlten sich, wie diese Unmenschen gleich reissenden Thieren rohes Fleisch verschlingen und Blut trinken, wie sie den Gefiingenen das Herz aus dem Leibe rissen, weil sie das Verzehren derselben fiir ein kriftiges Gesundheitsmittel hielten.’ The identification was, however, denied by Remigius Antissiodorus, Migne, Pat. Lat., CX XXI, 966. The descent of the Magyars (Hungarians) from Japhet and Magog is stated by Johannes de Thwrocz,

14 Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, and Inclosed Nations Chronica Ungarorum, Chap. I, ap. J. G. Schwandtner, Scriptores Rerum Hungaricarum (Vienna, 1746-1748), I, 42, 43. PaRTHIANS: cf. Bousset, Beitrdige, 119-120: “‘“Gehen wir in noch fernere Zeit zuriick, so deutet Henoch 40 Gog und Magog auf die Parther.’ Moncots, generally called Tartars in the west: J. S. Assemani, Bibliotheca

Orientalis, ITI, u, 322. This is a conception inherited by Moslem geographers. Cf. Lenormant, op. cit., II, i, 424, fn. 2, where he refers to Abulfeda, Hist. Ante-islam., 16 and 78; Alfergany, 9, clim. 5-7; Istakhry, pp. 1, 3, and 4, ed. Mordtmann; Kazwiny, Cosmogr., II, 416 ff., ed. Wiistenfeld; d’Herbelot, Biblioth. Orient., s. v. Jagiouge. Barhebraeus (11286), the Syrian chronicler, pp. 573, 578, 596, 601, 604 applied the term Magog to the Mongol empire, cf. Lenormant, op. cit., II, 1, 414, fn. 4. Quilichinus of Spoleto, cf. F. Pfister, Miinchener Museum, I (1912), 294. This is an identification which in the west is considerably complicated by the belief that the Tartars were descended from the Ten Tribes of Israel (cf. Ricold of Montecroce, Itinerarium, X, 36ff.), a view which, though not accepted by Ricold himself, is stated by him as that of the majority: ‘opinantur plures.’ Cf. also Giovanni Villani, Ist. Fior., V, 29, vide infra pp. 84, 85 and also Giovanni Fiorentino, Il Pecorone, Giornata xx, Novella 1.

Tue Tren Trises or Israew: cf. Albertus Magnus, Compend. Theol. Veritatis, vii, 10 quoted below, p. 62: “The Prose Life of Alexander,’

ed. Westlake in H.E.T.S., CXLITI, 104f.; Sir John Mandeville, Travels, chap. XXVI; Ranulph Higden, Polychronicon, II, xxxiv; T. Malvenda, De Antichristo, V, 15.

Quite apart from any ethnographic considerations, Gog and Magog have been interpreted by Jalkut chadasch (Kisenmenger, op. cit., II, 736) as meaning Sennacherib; by Eduard Meyer, Gesch. des Altertums, §464, as standing for the Lydian king Gyges, Assyrian Guggu; by Winckler, Altortentalische Forschungen, 2. Reihe, Bd. I,

Heft 4 (Leipzig, 1898), 163ff., as referring to Alexander the Great (!); by the Jews frequently as the Roman Empire (cf. Rabbi Saadias in Eisenmenger, op. cit., II, 732); by the Russians, Napo-

leon and his army were regarded as Gog and Magog under the leadership of the Antichrist (cf. 5. H. Cross, “The Earliest Allusion

in Slavic Literature to the Revelations of Pseudo-Methodius,’ Speculum, IV (1929), 333, fn. 3).

Il ALEXANDER’S GATE TRADITIONALLY LOCATED AT THE PASS OF DARIEL; THE EXCLUSION OF THE GOG-ANDMAGOG PEOPLES

Reo time immemorial, the Caucasus—that mighty bulwark

thrown across the isthmus between the Black and the Caspian Seas—has lain in the way of northern invaders descending into the fair lands of Hither Asia. What devastating waves of migration have burst against its barriers, some of them to penetrate its passes and to deal destruction to the civilizations of the south! The pass of Dariel in the central Caucasus, Caspian Gates II, was the original site attributed by legend to Alexander’s Gate. How the Alexander

of legend was brought to the true Caucasus—a region that the Alexander of history never saw—has been explained in my introductory study! as due to certain mythical extensions (such as his

early association with the Amazons by the romantic historians | Clitarchus and Onesicritus), as well as to his early identification with Dionysus and Heracles and with the Babylonian prototype of Heracles, Gilgamesh. His presence in the Caucasus was due also

to certain geographical misconceptions, such as the confusion of the true Caucasus with the Indian Caucasus (Paropamisus, Hindukush), the confusion of the river Jaxartes (Silzs, Sir-Daria) falsely regarded as the Tanais and identified with the true European Tanais (Don), and to the resultant confusion of the Sea of Aral (miscalled

Maeotis) with the Sea of Azov (the true Maeoiis). The extension of the legend of Alexander to the Caucasus was consummated at least as early as the time of the emperor Nero—and perhaps even as early as the time of Julius Caesar—when the term Caspian Gates

(originally applied to the Sirdara and Firouz Kouh passes southeast of Rhagae, the modern Teheran, passes sometimes called the 1 Anderson, Alexander at the Caspian Gates, pp. 139-142. 15

16 Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, and Inclosed Nations

Gateway to Farther Asia and so essentially significant in the marches of Alexander the Great) was applied also to the central pass

of the Caucasus, the pass of Dariel, which cleaves the Caucasus a little west of the center between Tiflis and Vladikavkas, and which was the original site of Alexander’s Gate in legend.! The salient features of the Pass of Dariel have been described

by Strabo, by Pliny, by Procopius, and by Masudi.? We pass now to the fusion of the legend of Alexander’s Gate with the legend of Gog and Magog. Illustrative of the progress of this fusion is the Syrian Sermo de Fine Extremo, also ascribed to Ephraem Syrus,* the pertinent portions of which follow: 5. Tune divina iustitia advocat reges exercitusque fortissimos, qui sunt ultra illas portas quas fecit Alexander, et surgent ultra portas illas reges et populi multi, et aspicient coelum, invocantes nomen Dei. Annuente autem Deo de coelo suo glorioso, resonabit in portis illis vox divina et in iussu Dei illico portae cadent et subvertentur et exibunt exercitus innumeri ut stellae coeli, immo plus quam stellae coeli, innumeri sicut arena maris. Consumpta e superliminare inferiori mensura spithamae et e super-

liminare superiori etiam spithama a multitudine cuspidum hastarum lacerantium et exeuntium, exinde exeunt cum trepidatione reges et copiae

multae; omnes populi ac linguae exeunt per portas illas: Agog et Magog et Naval et Agag, reges et exercitus validissimi, Thogarma, Ascenez et Daiphar et Phutaei cum Lybiis, Amzartaei, et Garmidul, Taleb in capite Sanurtanorum, Azmurtaei, Chusaei, Hunni et Pharzaei, Declaei Thubalaei, et Moschaei cum Chusaeis, quos comitantur Medi et Persae et Armeni, et Turcae et Nemruchaei, et Muschaei filii Chaeon, et Sarugael

filii Jactin et Mahunaei; exercitus et populi multi, quorum non est numerus, erumpunt et invadunt terras; commoventur fundamenta orbis, arena velut fumus ascendit e terra, occultat in alto solem et operit terram velut atra nubes, sicut prophetavit Ezechiel, Buzi filius, in sua prophetia. 6. Etenim, ubi Hunni ad bellum et pugnam exeunt, assumunt mulieres gravidas et conglomerant ignem supra illas, et accedentes incantant supra 1The use of the term Caspian Gates as applied to passes located in the Caucasus has been set forth by Anderson, art. cié., pp. 135-138. The passages in ancient and early media-

eval authors dealing with the term Caspian Gates, i.e., Caspian Gates II, as referring to the pass of Dariel as the original site of Alexander’s Gate in legend have been assembled and discussed ihd., pp. 142-152. 2 Strabo, xi, 500; Pliny, N. H., vi, 30; Procopius, i, 10; Masudi, Prairies d’Or, II, 42-45. 3 Th. J. Lamy, Sancti Ephraem Syri Hymni et Sermones (Malines, 1889), III, 194-200.

Alexander’s Gate 1n Ephraem Syrus 17 illas et sic coquunt foetum in ventre earum, ventre autem scisso, extrahunt foetum; quum foetus extraxerunt, ponunt eos in discis et proliciunt aquas super eos et separant eorum membra in aquis incantatis et assumunt gladios suos et arcus hastasque ac sagittas atque intrumenta intingunt in hisce aquis. Tota supellex quam tetigerunt aquae incantatae ipsis apparet

veluti ac si secum multitudinem sex millium secum haberent quando unus ex eis cadit in praelio dum decertatur. Omnis qui extendit manum educit simul cultrum. Manducant carnem infantium et sanguinem mullierum bibunt. Pelle militum induti et veluti vento et procellis vecti, in ictu oculi subvertunt urbes, ad terram disliclunt muros eorum, diruunt arces munitas, celeri cursu alligant et trucidant viros fortissimos. Vento et procella velociores sunt dum currunt. Ubi in regione rumor spargitur egressos advenire Hunnos, undique e toto orbe surgere videntur quia incantatores sunt; inter coelum et terram currus eorum veluti venti volant; gladii eorum hastaeque ut fulgura terribilia coruscant, frena [?] manibustenentes duos vel tres equos dirigunt; unusquisque ducit secum quinquaginta vel sexaginta homines qui praeeunt et sequuntur celeres ut venti et procellae; clamores eorum rugitus sunt leonum; formidandi enim Hunni terrent universam terram, quam totam operiunt ut aquae in diebus Noe; se extendent usque ad extremitates orbis, nec est qui stet coram eis. 7. Hic est populus ille multus, de quo dixit Ezekiel (xxxvii, 16) quod veluti nubes operit terram.1

During the following century, the fifth, the view that identified 1 Lamy regarded the Sermo as being throughout by Ephraem Syrus in the form in which

he published it, basing his argument in favor of its genuineness on the Armenian life of Ephraem translated by J. P. Martin, Les Origines de l Eglise d Edesse, p. 128, and also on the life of Ephraem which Lamy himself, op. cié., II, col. 74, edited, in which is described the attack made by the Huns on Edessa as a result of which Ephraem wrote an account of their atrocities. Both of these are quoted herewith:

‘Auctor Armenus Vitae S. Ephraemi cuius verba gallice refert J. P. Martin, (les origines de lEglise d Edesse, p. 128) testatur Ephraemum de Hunnis scripsisse, “Il écrivit encore sur les Huns qui fondirent sur Edesse, ruinant tout ce qu’ils trouvérent hors de la ville, villages, fermes, monastéres, ainsi que sur les nombreux chrétiens qu’ils tuérent ou emmenérent en captivité.” Idem legitur in vita quam t. 11, col. 74 edidimus:

“Eius autem tempore Hunnorum populus Edessam intravit. Urbs clausa est et nemo exivit contra eos; depopulati sunt ac vastarunt totam arcem civitatis et ascenderunt in montem urbi imminentem, in quo plurima erant coenobia virorum ac mulierum Deo

sacrarum... Extra urbem nihil intactum reliquerunt. Tunc S. Ephraemus scripsit contra facinora ab istis execrandis perpetrata.” ’ Now Ephraem’s years at Edessa were the closing decade of his life, 363-373, after the Romans

had lost Nisibis to the Persians. Inasmuch as no such invasion by the Huns is confirmed by our classical Greek and Latin sources, it may be doubted that any such attack was made

18 Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, and Inclosed Nations

Gog and Magog with the Scythian tribes in general and with the Huns in particular occurs in Andreas, Commentar. in Apocalypsin, ed. Sylburg, 94, 45: eivar 6 Tay xal Maywy sives pev DkvOxa evn vouifovaw varepBopeta, &rep Kadovuev ovyiKa, TWaons émvyetov BactdeElas

TodvavOpwrorepa Kal toNeutkwreopa. Thus it was the bursting of the

Caucasus barrier in 395 by tribes which the Greeks called Huns and continued by these tribes and their successors in this region through the following centuries that provided the setting for the during the period concerned. There seems however to be confirmation from Armenian sources and Lamy, op. cit., III, 197-8 quotes the following: ‘Scriptor Armenus saec. Vv ita narrat incursionem eorum in Adorbiganam, vivente Ephraemo, “Aprés cela le roi des Perses Sapor (309-370 de J. C.), demanda du secours

au roi des Huns Ounair, et il ouvrit les portes des Alains. Les troupes des Huns, des Massagetes, des Akouk, des Lephins, des Thaumeryd, des Koupour, des Djemah, des Koutar, des Ouz, des Djoudg, des Seghp, des Maghazdy, des Ker, des Geuan, se rassemblérent auprés de lui avec d’autres troupes appartenant a des peuplades perses en nombre immense, et a des tribus de montagnards, Kurdes nomades.” Collection des Historiens anciens et modernes de l Arménie par V. Langlois, Paris, 1869, II, 34. Haec satis quadrant cum lis quae hic habet Ephraemus. Quam crudeles fuerint Hunni omnes historici testantur.’ For accepting this sermon as by Ephraem, Lamy was severely taken to task by Noeldeke in his review, Zettschrift f. Kunde des Morgenlandes, IV (1890) 245ff. Because of certain stylistic peculiarities but especially because of its apparent references to the coming of the Arabians (the sons of Ishmael) in sections 3 and 4, Noeldeke dated the whole sermon as from Islamic times about 640 A. D., and held its chief source to be the Syrian Christian Legend concerning Alexander published in Budge, The History of Alexander the Great (Cambridge, 1889), 144-158, the pertinent parts of which are quoted and discussed below, pp. 20ff.; KE. Sackur, Sibyllinische Texte und Forschungen (Halle, 1898). Without either dating it more precisely or taking up the question of Ephraem’s authorship, Bousset, Beitrdge, p. 118, assigns

the sermon to the late fourth century, and makes the point: “Scheiden wir die Kapitel 3 u 4 aus, so bleibt eine Apokalypse, gegen deren Abfassung in vierten Jahrhundert sich nichts einwenden lassen wird.’ With this view, accepted by Kampers, op. cit., p. 75, n. 4; I am in general agreement. In the Sermo the building of the Gate and the exclusion of the tribes is only an episode, and casually referred to, but even this does not establish for the original form of the sermon the late date proposed by Noeldeke.

If it still be doubted that the attack of the Huns on Edessa can be proved as having occurred within the life of Ephraem and the reign of Sapor, recourse may still be had to the

possibility that there was confusion with another Ephraem, who lived about a generation later (vide Encyclopaedia Britannica, s. v. Ephraim Syrus). In the latter case, the attack of the Huns on Edessa would be part of the same invasion of the Huns occurring in 395 A. D.

and described by Jerome, Epist. 77, 8, quoted below, and an echo of it. If this view is accepted, this part of the Sermo would be dated some time after 395. But in either case,

Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog 19 fusion of the legend of the building of Alexander’s Gate with the Biblical legend of Gog and Magog. If we start from the acknowledged fact that Alexander was already well established as a national hero in Jewish tradition,! the steps by which the fusion came to pass may be illustrated by the following syllogism: 1. Alexander built the gate in the Caucasus to exclude the barbarians of the north, called by the general name Scythians. 2. As early as Josephus, (Gog and) Magog were identified with the Scythians and placed north of the Caucasus. 3. Therefore Alexander built the gate of the Caucasus to exclude Gog and Magog.

This does not necessarily mean that as early as the time of Josephus the legend of Alexander’s Gate had taken the form that Alexander excluded Gog and Magog. The lack of specific evidence for such a view during the time from Josephus to Jerome Is significant; for if such an interpretation had become established as canonical in the time of Josephus, the later divergences of view whether we can prove the attack on Edessa to have been made by the Huns at some time during the period 363 to 373, or whether it is placed a generation later, the Sermo contains the first clear instance of the identification of the Huns with Gog and Magog. The consideration of relations between the Sermo and the Christian Legend must be postponed until later. The invasion of the Near East by the Huns in 395 A. D. is thus described by St Jerome,

Epist. 77, 8: ‘Ecce subito discurrentibus nuntiis oriens totus intremit, ab ultima Maeotide inter glacialem Tanaim et Massagetarum immanes populos, ubi Caucasi rupibus feras

, gentes Alexandri claustra cohibent, erupisse Hunnorum examina.’ The whole passage is translated and placed in its historical setting by Bury, History of the later Roman Empire, I, 69 and N., and an echo of it is heard in Isidore IX, ii, 66: ‘Hugnos antea Hunnos vocatos, postremo a rege suo Avares appellatos, qui prius in ultima Maeotide inter glacialem Tanaim et Massagetarum immanes populos habitaverunt. Deinde pernicibus equis Caucasi rupibus, feras gentes Alexandri claustra cohibente, eruperunt, et orientem viginti annis tenuerunt captivum, et ab Aegyptiis atque Aethiopibus annuum vectigal exegerunt.’ Thus St Jerome’s dissent from the view of St Ambrose which identified Gog and Magog with the Goths was well founded, vide St Jerome, Quaest. Hebr. in Genes., x, 2, quoted above

p. 8. Referring doubtless to the interpretation of Josephus, Ant., i, 6, quoted above p. 6 he says, Comment. in Ezek., xxxviii, 2 (Migne, Patr. Lat., XXV, 356): ‘Iudaei et nostri iudaiz-

antes putant Gog (Magog) gentes esse Scythicas, immanes et innumerabiles, quae trans Caucasum montem et Maeotidem paludem et prope Caspium mare ad Indiam usque tend-

untur.’ (Quoted almost verbatim by Remigius Antissiodorus in Migne, Pair. Lat., CXXXI, 967.) 1 Josephus, Ant., xi, 8, esp. 5. Vide Kampers, op. cit., pp. 51-53, especially the literature cited on p. 53, note 2.

20 Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, and Inclosed Nations

would hardly have come into being. It is more likely that the fusion did not take place until after the invasion of the Huns in 395 A. D. or later.! We come now to what is probably the earliest of the apocalyptic versions of the legendary history of Alexander the Great, namely, the Syrian Christian Legend concerning Alexander translated into English by Budge.” At the beginning appears the brief introductory heading: 1 Holding that the first reference to the construction of iron gates by Alexander is in Josephus (Bell. Iud., vii, 7, 4) and pointing out that Josephus (Ant., i, 6, 1) equates Magog with Scythians, Pfister in a series of studies, ‘Eine jiidische Griindungsgeschichte Alexandrias’ in Setzungs-Ber. der Heidelb. Akad., 1914, 11 Abh.; ‘Ein kleiner lat. Text zur Episode von

Gog u. Magog,’ Berl. phil. Wochenschr., XXXV (1915), coll. 1549-1552; also his article ‘Gog und Magog,’ Handwérterbuch d. deutschen Aberglaubens, III (1930), coll. 910-918, puts forth the view that the legend of Alexander’s Gate built to exclude Gog and Magog was of Jewish origin and made in Alexandria in the first century of our era, and that from this Jewish legend ultimately are derived all our versions of Alexander’s Gate, even the Syrian Christian (prose) Legend, which he dates in the first third of the seventh century. He seems also to regard Derbend as the original site of Alexander’s Gate in legend. He seems to regard the version to be found in Pseudo-Callisthenes C in III, 26 as representing this first century form of the legend.

It is indeed true that the elements of the legend—the iron gates built by Alexander, Magog equated with Scythians—are to be found in Josephus, but there is no indication that these elements have been put together in the time of Josephus, or, if put together, that they had gained general acceptance; for if they had, the later variations in interpretation of the terms Gog and Magog would hardly have come into being. Elsewhere I have presented the

evidence to prove that the original site of Alexander’s Gate was not to pass of Derbend, but the pass of Dariel, ‘Alexander at the Caspian Gates,’ Trans. Amer. Phil. Ass’n., LIX (1928), 130-163, and adduced reasons for believing that Alexander’s name was connected with the pass of Dariel (Caspian Gates II) and presumably with the building of a gate there as early as the time of Nero (ibid., p. 146) and perhaps as early as the time of Julius Caesar (ibid., pp. 140, 141 with ftnn. 15, 16), who were hardly restricted to Jewish sources for their information. I would rather explain the legend as a product of Hellenistic ideas of the Oixoupévn, though recognizing that this conception may have been an enlargement or in part an inheritance from the past. As to the antiquity of the version of the building of the Gate found in Pseudo-Callisthenes

C wi, 26, an analysis of this shows that it is a contamination of two separate themes: Seleucus and his pursuit of Eurymithres and his Belsyrians behind the Mafoi Boppé and Alexander’s pursuit of twenty-two kings with their hosts behind the same mountains and shutting them in. In this list of peoples the use of the terms ['#0, Mayw@ presupposes a time subsequent to that of the invasion of the Goths. Vide infra, pp. 35ff. 2K. A. Wallis Budge, The History of Alexander the Great (Cambridge: 1889), pp. 144-161. In the Journal of the American Oriental Society IV (1854), 357-428, Theodore D. Woolsey

had previously published four important pieces from a Syrian Alexander Romance with translation by Perkins. In this the introductory heading appears as follows: ‘Again: the

Alexander’s Gate in the Christian Legend 21 [144] An exploit by Alexander, the son of Philip the Macedonian, showing 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 [Huns] might not come forth to spoil the countries: from the manuscripts in the house of the archives of the kings of Alexandria.

Alexander’s approach to the site where the Gate was built is thus described: [148] And Alexander looked towards the West, and he found a mountain that descends, and its name was ‘the great Musas’;! and the troops de-

cended it and came out upon Mount Klaudia, and ate bread there. [149] Then they went down to the source of the Euphrates, and they found that it came forth from a cave; and they came to Haluras, where the Tigris goes forth like the stream that turns a mill, and they ate bread in Haluras. And they departed from thence and went to the river Kallath; and they descended the mountain which is called Ramath, where there is a watch-tower. And Alexander and his troops stood upon the

top of the mountain and saw the four quarters of the heavens. And Alexander said, “Let us go forth by the way to the north’; and they came

to the confines of the north, and entered Armenia and Adarbaijan and Inner Armenia. And they crossed over the country of the Turnagios, and Beth-Pardia, and Beth-Tekil, and Beth-Drubil, and Beth-Katatmen, and Beth-Gebul, and Beth-Zamrat.? And Alexander passed through all these places; and he went and passed mount Musas and entered a plain which is Bahi-Lebta, and he went and encamped by the gate of the great mountain.2 Now there was a road across it by which great merchants entered the inner countries, and by it did Alexander encamp. heroism of Alexander, son of Philipp, the Macedonian; how he advanced to the border of

the world and made a gate of iron and shut up the northern side, that the Heveenai (?) might not come forth and sack the countries. Behold, it is found written in the archives of Alexandria.’ 1 Alexander’s visit to Mt Masis, ‘Musas,’ Mashu, which was visited by Gilgamesh as told

on the ninth and tenth tablets, is one of the things pointing to Alexander’s identification with Gilgamesh. Cf. B. Meissner, Alexander u. Gilgamos, see also A. Ungnad and H. Gressmann, Das Gilgamesch Epos, pp. 39-52, translation of chapters [X and X; also pp. 135 ff., Erklirung. 2 Vide C. Hunnius, Das syrische Alexanderlied (Gottingen, 1904), p. 24, n. 1). ’ Hunnius, op. cit., p. 24, n. 2) observes: ‘Gemeint ist der Darielpass. Die Talebene muss

also die von Bazalethi sein, in die der Darielpass nach Siiden auslauft (cf. Wakhought, s. 221.)’

22 Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, and Inclosed Nations

[He sends heralds of peace abroad, and requests that three hundred men advanced in years be chosen to meet with him. They inform

him that the land belongs to Tubarlak, king of the Persians, and

that they pay tribute to him.| |

[150] Alexander said to them, ‘How far does this mountain descend in this direction?’ They answered him, “This mountain extends without a break, passing by the sea of Beth-Katraye, and goes on and comes to an

end in outer Persia near India; and from this road and upwards the mountain goes to a great river on this side of the sea.! And there are narrow paths there which a man is unable to pass through unless he be on horseback. And the people who pass through the mountains are unable

to do so without bells that ring, for animals come up from the sea and from the rivers and descend from the mountains and crouch in the path, and if men try to pass through it without bells that ring, they perish immediately.’ Alexander said, ‘This mountain is higher and more terrible than all the mountains which I have seen.’ The old men, the natives of the country, said to the king: ‘Yea, by your majesty, my lord the king, 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.’ Alexander said, ‘Who are the nations within this mountain upon which we are look-

ing?...’’ The natives of the land said, “They are Huns.’ He said to them, “‘Who are their kings?’ The old men said: ‘Gog and Magog and Nawal the kings of the sons of Japhet; and Gig and Teamron, and Tiyamron, and Beth-Gamli and Yapho’bar, and Shumardak, and Glusika, and *Ekshaphar, and Salgaddo, and Nislik, and Amarphil, and Ka’oza, these are the kings of the Huns.”’ [153] When Alexander had heard what the old men said, he marvelled greatly at the great sea which surrounded all creation; and Alexander said to his troops, ‘Do you desire that we should do something wonderful in this land?’ They said to him, ‘As thy majesty commands we will do.’ The king said, ‘Let us make a gate of brass and close up this breach.’ 1 Hunnius, op. cit., p. 24, n. 3): ‘S. 261 (should be 262), Z. 8 f. heisst es, dass der Kaukasus

sich einerseits bis nach Indien andrerseits bis an den grossen Fluss diesseits des Meeres erstreckte. Gemeint ist augenscheinlich der nérdlich von Phasis in Kolchis ins Schwarze Meer miindende Meyandomorapds; (cf. Soukry, Die Geographie des Moses von Chorene, s. 38), der bei Ptolemaeus allerdings xvdveos rorayés heisst (Ptol. v, 9, 2).’

It may be observed that the description of the great mountain system as given in the Christian Legend is in reality a sublimated form of such descriptions of the Taurus as we

have in Pliny, N. H., v, 98-99. :

Alexander’s Gate and the Huns 23 His troops said, ‘As thy majesty commands we will do.” And Alexander

commanded and fetched three thousand smiths, workers in iron, and three thousand men, workers in brass. And they put down brass and iron, and kneaded it as a man kneads when he works clay. Then they brought it and made a gate, the length of which was twelve cubits and its breadth eight cubits.! And he made a lower threshold from mountain to mountain, the length of which was twelve cubits; and he hammered it into the rocks of the mountains, and it was fixed in with brass and iron.

[Further details in the description of the building of the gate.] [154] And king Alexander fetched (an engraver) and inscribed upon the gate: “he Huns shall go forth and conquer the countries of the Romans and of the Persians, and shall cast arrows with. .., and shall return and enter their own land. Also I have written that, at the conclusion of eight

hundred and twenty-six years, the Huns shall go forth by the narrow way which goes forth opposite Haloras, whence the Tigris goes forth like the stream which turns a mill, and they shall make the earth tremble by their going forth. And again I have written and made known and prophe-

sied that it shall come to pass, at the conclusion of nine hundred and forty years, .. .? another king, when the world shall come to an end by the command of God the ruler of creation. 1 This is probably the earliest statement of the dimensions of the Gate. The same dimensions are preserved for the gap in Pseudo-Methodius. Among later authors preserving the tradition and following earlier sources are e.g., Michael Syrus, ed. Langlois, p. 77: ‘II fit faire une porte dans le pays des Huns pour empécher leurs dévastations. Cette porte était en fer, longue de 12 coudées et large de 8.’ Likewise Barhebraeus, Chron. Syriac., ed. Kirsch (Leipzig, 1789), II, 37: ‘fecit portas ferreas longas cubitorum 12, latas 8, ne Hunni exirent.’ * The interval of a thousand years is given in Revelation, xx, 7; in the Syrian Christian _ Legend 826 as well as 940 years, Bousset, Beitrége, 114-115 holding that the latter figure is due to a reworking of the legend in 628-9. The Koran, xviii, 98 is less specific, saying: ‘but when the prediction of my Lord shall come to be fulfilled.’ In the Historia de Dulcarnain

(ed. Gémez: Madrid, 1929) and its derivative, the Ethiopian History of Alexander, the interval is given as ‘in the eight hundred and sixty-fourth year,’ a figure which Budge regards

as an error of transmission, but which Bousset holds to represent an independent tradition. The Ethiopian version speaks also of a round period ‘at the end of ten thousand years.’ The Syrian Homily by Jacob of Sarug (vid. inf., p. 27) has ‘until the end of times cometh,’ or in the seven thousandth year. Stocks, ‘Ein Alexanderbrief in den Acta Cyriaci et Julittae’ (Zettschrift fiir Kurchengeschichte, XX XT (1910), 35f.), cites the chronology of Panodorus and Anianus and also the Descensus ad Inferos (19) in support of the view that Jesus was born in the year of the world 5500 and proposes: ‘Verkniipfen wir damit die Theorie von den sechs Welttagen, jeden zu 1000 Jahren, nach deren Verlauf der Weltsabbat, das sogenannte Millennium eintritt, so Ergibt sich folgerichtig das Jahr 5500 d.W. [should be 6000] = 500 nach Christi Geburt als

24 Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, and Inclosed Nations [Details attending the fall of the gate.] [155] 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.?

From this time momentous changes in the legend are ready to mature. Alexander, instead of building the gate as a pagan king, builds it as a worshipper, a champion, and an instrument of God; instead of building it to exclude the Scythians, Alans, or various Jahr des Endes des aidwy otros und Eintritts des tausendjihrigen Reiches.’ Stocks would therefore identify the year in which the Gate is first to be burst (826) with 500 A. D. as counted from 326 B. C., the dramatic date of the building of the Gate, a date which falls within Alexander’s lifetime. If the reckoning 5500 + 500 were really supported, I would prefer the view of Stocks to that of Noeldeke, (Betérdge, p. 31), who counts the 826 years from 312 B. C., the date of the beginning of the era of Seleucus which began eleven years after Alexander’s death. An entirely different set of dates is given in the Greek Alexander Romanee, iii, 35 (C), cf. Mueller, p. 151, col. 2. A different set of figures also appears in the Book of the Bee, ed. Budge, pp. 123, 124. 1H. Stocks, art. cit., 1-47, proposes the following explanation of the number twenty-four,

p. 37: ‘Zunichst ist die Zah] 24 eine durchaus konventionelle Zahl. Sie ist das auf Japhet entfallende Drittel der Gesamtzahl der biblischen Volker (72).’ While the number 72 is well established, the allotment of one-third or 24 of these to Japhet is not supported by parallel, cf. A. von Gutschmid, KI. Schriften V (1894), ‘Untersuchungen iiber den drapepiopos Ths yjs und andere Bearbeitungen der mosaischen Volkertafel.’ 2 Inasmuch as both Noeldeke, rev. cit., pp. 245f., and Sackur, op. cié., pp. 34-35, derive the Sermo from the Christian Legend, the relation of these two works should be considered. The description of the Huns is indeed the same in both (Sermo 6; Christian Legend, p. 151, trans. Budge). Bousset, (Bettréige, pp. 127ff.) has shown that, although the list of nations or kings excluded at first seems different in the Sermo and the Legend, they are nevertheless in

the last analysis the same. Admitting frankly that the list in the Sermo is interpolated, Bousset further points out that the Legend was not, as claimed by Noeldeke, created as something entirely new in 514/515 A. D., but that the elements entering into it had for some time been growing, and that the Sermo in its earlier form was one of the elements out of which the Legend was composed. In confirmation of this general view of Bousset I would

observe that in the Sermo Alexander is mentioned but casually and with no implication that he was anything but a pagan king, whereas in the Legend, the character of Alexander has been developed into a champion of Jehovah and a most Christian King. Had the Sermo been copied from the Legend, Alexander could hardly have escaped playing a similar rdle. Furthermore, had the Sermo come into being to reflect the invasion of Islam about 640 A. D.,

Alexander and his Gate and the country to the north would have been misapplied and irrevelant.

Alexander’s Gate and the Last Days 25 tribes called Huns, he builds it to exclude their Biblical equivalents Gog and Magog; instead of building it in a narrow passage already existing between mountains, he builds it in a passage that God in answer to his prayers creates by bringing together to a distance of twelve cubits two mountains called patol Boppa, ubera aquilonis,

Breasts of the North. The gate, instead of being built of iron, is various described as being built of iron and brass,! or of brass,? and to make assurance double sure he covered it over with a substance called dotyxurov (sic),? which steel is powerless to penetrate and fire to melt. The apocalyptic versions, instead of recognizing that the gate has frequently been passed since the time of Alexander,

and that it frequently has been in possession of the children of Magog during the intervening time, forecast that the Huns, or Gog and Magog, would go forth through it only after a long time—a thousand years for instance, or multiples thereof—during which presumably it had remained continuously closed, unpassable and unpassed; they associated its opening with the prophecy of Ezekvel, especially xxxvui, 20: ‘and the mountains shall be thrown down,

and the steep places shall fall, and every wall shall fall to the

tology and the Last Days. | ground’, with Revelation xx, '7, and even with Jewish ideas of escha-

Nay more, the Gate itself became itinerant, and to preserve its mysterious character receded to remote places; e.g., the Ubera Aquilonis were charted in remote northeastern Europe—of this both the Hereford and the Ebstorf maps give ample evidence— while under Mohammedan influence its site was shifted to central or even

to remote eastern or northeastern Asia—as is evidenced by the Charia Rogeriana of Idrisi—and this view made its influence felt even in Christian western Europe. The pass of Dariel, however, in

the Caucasus was prone to be forgotten as the original site of 1 Christian Legend, 153; Homily, 338ff.; Koran, xviii, 93ff., cf. Hassan al Thabit; Ethiopian History of Alexander, 236, cf. 279-280; Historia de Dulcarnain, 17. The heading of the Christian Legend says simply ‘iron’. 2 Historia Alexandri Magni (Pseudo-Callisthenes ed. Mueller), iii, 26C; iii, 29BC; 5762 Byz; Pseudo-Meth., 8; Aethicus Ister, p. 29, ch. 41; Fredegarius, Chron. 66, Ambrosius Antpert,

XIII, 623; Firdausi. 8 Hist. Alex. Mag., CBByz as quoted below, pp. 36, 39, 40; Aethicus Ister, Ps.-Meth., Ethiop. Christ. Romance, p. 453 Budge, where substance is not named.

26 Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, and Inclosed Nations Alexander’s gate, and instead Alexander’s name was connected with

the Iron Gate of Derbend—a site between the mountains and the sea, utterly out of harmony with the tradition that Alexander’s Gate was located between two mountains—thus depriving Khosro Anushirvan of the well-earned credit for having built both the Iron Gate of Derbend and the Caucasian Wall. Next to be considered is the Syrian Discourse or Homily by Mar Jacob,? Jacob of Sarug (died 521). In this the Huns are no longer mentioned, but in their stead appear their equivalent Agog and Magog. The Homily has much in common with the Legend, and is admitted to represent a later stage in the development of its theme. Alexander makes his approach to the pass by the same course toward the north, 101ff.: And he made straight his way towards the lofty mountain Masis, He ascended the mountain and stood upon its summit and looked at the lands. And with him were all the thousands and ranks and hosts. The king, the son of Philip the Macedonian, said To the hosts, ‘Let us straightway go forth by the way of the north.’

_ _His journey takes him (218) as far as the river Kallath, and Haloras. It is the children of Magog or those of the family of Agog and Ma-

gog that are shut out. Instead of the ‘amne diri odoris fluente’ of Pliny (N. #., vi, 30), we have a river of blood flowing through the pass, 266ff.: The king looked upon the narrow pass with wonderment, And (saw) that the mountain extended and was terrible in its strength on all sides. Above it he saw a river of blood flowing down, And like a torrent of water flowing on against the people. 1See Anderson, Alex. at the Casp. Gates, pp. 152ff., esp. pp. 154, 157, 159. 2 Syrian text published in G. Knés, Chrestomathia Syriaca (Gottingen, 1807), pp. 66-107; English translation by Budge, The History of Alexander the Great (Cambridge, 1889), pp. 163200; German translation by A. Weber, Des Mor Yaqub Gedicht iiber den gliubigen Konig

Alexandrus (Berlin, 1852); German translation also by P. P. Zingerle in Zeitschrift des Benedictinerordens, 1882. Syrian text ed. by Budge published in Zs. f. Assyriol., VI (1891); Syrian text with German translation by C. Hunnius in Zs. d. Deutsch. Morgenldénd. Gesells.,

LX (1906), 169ff., 558ff., 802ff. ,

Alexander’s Gate in Jacob of Sarug Q7 The same impressive description of the mountain, that is, of the Caucasus-Taurus, and of the gate, 429ff.: This great gate which thou has made in this land Shall be closed until the end of times cometh. 466ff. :

In the seventh-thousandth year, in which the heavens and the earth shall be dissolved, The hosts and troops shall go forth from their lands. 654ff. :

Then shall Antichrist rise upon the whole earth, Through that gate shall go forth and come that rebel.

The identification of Gog and Magog with the hosts of the Antichrist is already in progress.!

A brief life of Alexander attributed to Dionysius of Tell-Mahré (fl. prior half of ninth century)? has somewhat in common with 1 The relation between the Syrian Christian Legend and the Syrian Homily is a matter of considerable importance. Noeldeke, Beitrdge, p. 31, held that the Legend reflected the invasion of the Sabirian Huns in 514-515 A. D., and that it was composed soon thereafter; he further implied that the theme of the Christian Legend was one which was then created anew out of the Alexander Romance, Pseudo-Callisthenes. He held further that the Syrian Homily of Jacob of Sarug (died 521) was directly based upon the Legend. Noeldeke’s dating of the composition of the Legend has generally been accepted, but it must be objected that the margin of time left for Mar Jacob to utilize it directly for the Homily is uncomfortably narrow. Bousset (Beitrdge, p. 115) pointed out the probability that the theme of the Christian Legend was not one then created anew, but that there was a considerable period of growth that preceded it, and that the Sermo de Fine Extremo attributed to Ephraem Syrus may have been one of its sources, also that the Legend and the Homily are derived from the same general source, rather than that the Homily is derived directly and exclusively from the Legend. Bousset held that the Legend was later reworked to take cognizance of

the opening of the Pass of Derbend by Heraclius to the Khazars in 627 A. D., and that this is reflected in the statement that the Huns shall go forth after nine hundred and forty years.

It is to be noted however that probably a different pass was involved in 627 (the pass of Derbend) from that implied in 514-515 (the pass of Dariel). Hunnius, Das syrische Alez-

anderlied (Gottingen, 1904), pp. 21ff., would date the composition with reference to the opening of the pass of Derbend in 627 to the Khazars. Hunnius showed (p. 24, nn. 1 and 2)

that the approach described in the Legend was that from the south to the pass of Dariel. 2Ed. by C. A. Hedenskog, Berdttelse om Alexander den Store (Lund, 1868), Syrian text, Swedish translation and introduction.

28 Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, and Inclosed Nations

both the Christian Legend and Mar Jacob’s Homily. Alexander

passed through many peoples and lands until he came to the mountain that separates the realms of Rome and Persia on one side and the land of Gog on the other. The land through which Alexander passes belongs not to Tubarlak or Tubarliki as in the

Legend and in the Homily, but to Darius king of the Persians _ (pp. 28-29). Gog and Magog and Gig and Tamrath and Tamrathan are the names of the kings of Gog, see Legend in Budge, p. 150.

The Huns are not mentioned, but the incantations attributed to them in Ephraem Syrus de Fine Extremo 6, and in the Christian Legend (Budge, p. 151), are here attributed to the people beyond

the mountain (pp. 30-31). Alexander, Darius, and Sapor (Yesdegerd?), who are synchronized, are each to furnish six thousand guards of the gate that Alexander built against Gog, but after fifteen years the Assyrians are to become independent in their control and

guarding of it (pp. 34-35). The gate is given no eschatological significance. The Syrian Christian Legend Concerning Alexander became in turn

a principal source! of the Koran, xvii, 86ff., transl. Sale: Then he continued his way until he came to the place where the sun riseth; and he found it to rise on certain people unto whom we had not given anything wherewith to shelter themselves therefrom. Thus it was; and we comprehended with our knowledge the forces that were with him. And he prosecuted his journey from south to north, until he came between the two mountains, beneath which he found certain people, who could scarce understand what was said. And they said: O Dhu’lkarnein, verily Gog and Magog waste the land; shall we therefore pay thee tribute,

on condition that thous build a rampart between us and them? The power wherewith my Lord has strengthened me is better than your tribute; but assist me strenuously, and I will set a strong wall between you and them. Bring me iron in large pieces, until it fill up the space between the two sides of these mountains. And he said to the workmen, blow with your bellows, until it make the iron red hot as fire. And he

| said further, Bring me molten brass, that I may pour upon it. Where1Cf. Noeldeke, Beitirdge, passim; Encyclopedia of Islam, s. v. ‘Derbend.’ The Koran is treated here purely because of the descent of this passage from the Syrian Christian Legend. Geographically, the discussion of this passage belongs in chapter V below, where it will be recalled, vide infra, pp. 91ff.

Alexander’s Gate in the Koranic Tradition 29 fore, when this wall was finished, Gog and Magog could not scale it, neither could they dig through it. And Dhu’lkarnein said, This is a mercy

from my Lord: but when the prediction of my Lord shall come to be fulfilled, he shall reduce the wall to dust; and the prediction of my Lord is true.

It is to be noted that the Koran has made the following modifications from the Legend: Alexander has become Dulcarnain; 1.e., the two horns that characterize Alexander in the Christian Legend have

become an epithet, Dulcarnain, ‘Lord of Two Horns’, which has actually displaced Alexander. The Gate, instead of being built north of the region included in the stretch between Syria and the valley of the Euphrates and corresponding to the pass of Dariel in the Caucasus, is built apparently somewhere in the remote northeast, i.e., after Dulcarnain has proceeded farthest east to the region of the sunrise and then north therefrom. The term of years through which the gate shall stand before destruction is not specified, but shall rest ‘on the prediction of my Lord.’! (This passage from Koran should be recalled when we come to consider the site of Alexander’s

Gate as shifted to Eastern or Northeastern Asia, vide infra, pp. 91ff.)

The Alexander of Romance is the only Alexander that mediaeval Europe knew, the only Alexander that the Orient ever has known, and to the Orient as well as to mediaeval Europe this Alexander of Romance was the Alexander of reality. This fabulous Life or His1Cf. Hassan b. Thabit, a later contemporary of Mohammed, Arabic text published in A. von Kremer, Altarabische Gedichte iiber die Volkssage von Jemen, p. 15 (no. viii, 1, 6ff.),

English translation in R. A. Nicholson, A Literary History of the Arabs (New York, 1907), p. 18:

Ours the realm of Dhu’l-Qarnayn the glorious, Realm like his was never won by mortal king. Followed he the Sun to view its setting When it sank into the sombre ocean-spring; Up he clomb to see it rise at morning From within the mansions when the east it fired; All day long the horizons led him onward, All night through he watched the stars and never tired. Then of iron and of liquid metal He prepared a rampart not to be o’er-passed. Gog and Magog here he threw in prison Till on Judgment Day they shall awake at last.

80 Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, and Inclosed Nations

tory of Alexander (for so it was called), for which Pseudo-Callisthenes is a misnomer, was not by common consent attributed to any author in antiquity or in the Middle Ages, nor yet in modern times, until Carl Miiller brought out the princeps of the Greek Alexander Romance in 1846. In this he so overrated Manuscript B—in which the work is attributed to Callisthenes and on which principally he

based his text—that he put the name Pseudo-Callisthenes on the title-page, and Pseudo-Callisthenes has remained a ghost word ever

since. The title of the work was in reality something like Bios "AXeEdvSpov Tod Maxedévos, for which Historra Alexandr Magni may

be taken as the general equivalent.! The influence of this fact is both important and far-reaching. In the Syrian version of the work gen-

erally assigned to the seventh century, an equivalent title is preserved? and the term Pseudo-Callisthenes as applied to this is misleading.

The significance of the Koran, xviii, 82ff. as derived from the Syrian Christian Legend and as bearing on Alexander’s Gate, has been briefly treated above, and we have seen that in it Alexander was transformed into Dulcarnain. So profound was the influence of

this passage from the Koran that in the Mohammedan versions these fabulous histories of Alexander were likely to undergo revision and, instead of remaining the History of Alexander, to become the

History of Dulcarnain. The Arabic version of the Alexander Romance, the History of Dulcarnain par excellence, seems to have been

, based principally upon the Syrian History of Alexander (PseudoCallisthenes), seventh century, on the Syrian Christian Legend, sixth century, and on the Koran, xvii, 82ff. but seems to have undergone revision of terms according to the Koran, xviii, 82ff., so

that we may speak of it as establishing the Koranic Recension of the Alexander Romance. This Arabic History of Dulcarnain is lost, but it was intermediate between the Syrian History of Alexander, seventh century, and the Ethiopian History of Alexander, fourteenth to sixteenth century, both edited and translated by Budge. Although this Arabic version is lost and likely to remain lost, our understanding of it has been much increased by the recent publica1W. Kroll, Historia Alexandri Magni (Pseudo-Callisthenes) (Berlin, 1926), p. xv. 2K. A. Wallis Budge, The History of Alexander the Great (Cambridge, Eng., 1889).

Alexander’s Gate in the History of Dulcarnain 31 tion by the Spanish orientalist Emilio Garcia Gomez! of an Arabic version, also called the History of Dulcarnain, with a Spanish translation, which, while not strictly identical with the lost Arabic version of the History of Dulcarnain of the ninth century, is nevertheless not far removed from it, the difference being, as far as can be judged, that the Historia de Dulcarnain edited by Gomez is somewhat condensed and has the order of its episodes somewhat changed. The building of the gate, however, is a topic that receives treatment in the Historia de Dulcarnain in at least four places, a multiplication

due not only to the intrinsic interest that the topic commanded, but also the fact that it was treated in several of its sources, notably in the Christian Legend and in the Koran. The following passages from the Spanish translation of Gomez are to the point: 1

p. 17. Dulcarnain builds wall of iron and copper against Gog and Magog (‘“Yachuch y Machuch’), Koran, xviii, 84 quoted at end. 2

p. 34. (Based on Christian Legend, p. 150, transl. Budge): ‘...éAcaso hay detras de vosotros algunas criaturas?’ ‘... Detras de nosotros, le respondieron, no hay mas que este monte, y detras de el estan Yachuch

y Machuch.’ Dijoles Dulecarnain: “éQuién es su rey?’ Y ellos le respondieron: ‘Varios son sus reyes, algunos de cuyos nombres hemos guardado en la memoria, como Yachuch, Machuch, Ahtsah, Taguala, Cadbac, Nauhix, Xunu, Sadabu, Hachaxu, Tajayana, Salachu, Chalsun, Muna, Cux Y Chaba, que son quince tribus. Nosotros les pagamos el tributo todos los afios. Sobre cada tribu hay un rey.’ To relieve them of the payment of tribute, Dulcarnain builds a wall of iron, lead and copper. 3

pp. 45-6. Dulcarnain builds wall against Gog and Magog. Selections quoted from Koran, xviii, 93, 94, 95, 96, 99. 4

pp. 53-6. Dulcarnain constructs wall against Gog and Magog. Reference to Koran, xvii, 86, 87, 89. 1 Emilio Garcia Gémez, Un Textro Arabe Occidental de la Leyenda de Alejandro . . . edicién,

traduccién espafiiola y estudio preliminar, (Madrid, 1929): ef. A. R. Anderson, “The Arabic

History of Dulcarnain etc.,’ Speculum, VI (1931), 434445.

32 Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, and Inclosed Nations 5

, pp. 76-80. (Based on Christian Legend, pp. 148-156, esp. 150-154.) The impure people against whom the gate is built are in this passage neither Gog nor Magog, nor yet Huns, but Haraz (Khazars) who have the characteristics of Huns. Most important is the passage on p. 79: Y después dijo: “Cuando llegue el cumplimiento de la promesa de mi Senor, El lo reducira a prezas (Koran, xviii, 98) lo cual sucedera en el afio ochocientos sesenta y cuatro,'! cuando se reinan en torno de

esta puerta cincuenta reyes con sus ejércitos....’ The Syrian Christian Legend became—probably through the lost Arabic History of Dulcarnain of about the ninth century, in which it seems to have become incorporated—a principal source of the extant Ethiopian History of Alexander (fourteenth to sixteenth century)? as in the Christian Legend Alexander makes his approach from the south. On pp. 230-231 there are two sets of kingdoms excluded, both of them headed by Magug and Yagug, which forms clearly indicating their Arabic origin. In the first list, the number of kingdoms Is specified as twelve, but fifteen names are given; the 1 The statement of the term of years through which the wall is destined to stand (864) is very significant; for the same number occurs in the Ethiopian History of Alexander, mde

infra, p. 31. Of this number Gémez (op. cit., p. CX XXVIII) gives an erroneous interpretation. Cf. Noeldeke, Bettrdge, p. 31, fn. 1: ‘S. Tillemont zu dem Jahre; Lebeau (hg. von Saint Martin) 7, 433ff. Das Jahr ist durch Uebereinstimmung von Theophanes und Marcellinus Comes (Ind. VIII) gesichert.—Damit ergiebt sich die Zahl 864 (A. D., 552/3) beim Aethi-

open (Budge, p. CV, i.e., in the Introduction to the Syrian version) also entstellt, obwohl sie durch “860 des letzten Tausends” in Mugmil attawarich (Journ. as., I, 360) iinterstiitzt wird.’ Elsewhere Noeldeke, Beitrdge, p. 52, emphasized the fact that Mugmil attaw4rich, a Persian writer who wrote in 1126 A. D., quoted the inscription in Arabic, i.e., from an Arabic source.

Cf. F. Spiegel, Die Alexandersage ber den Orientalen (Leipzig, 1851), pp. 53, 54. Mohl’s

translation of the passage from Mugmil printed in the Journal asiatique, I (1841), 360 as follows: ‘Alexandre fit placer sur cette muraille lorsqu’ elle fit achevée l’inscription suivante:

“Au nom de Dieu, le glorieux, le sublime! Cette muraille a été batie 4 aide de Dieu et elle durera ce que voudra Dieu. Mais lorsque huit cent et soixante ans du dernier millier seront passés, cette muraille se fendra dans le temps des grands péchés et crimes (du monde)

et de la rupture des liens du sang et de l’endurcissement des coeurs, et il sortira de cette muraille une multitude d’hommes de ce peuple telle que Dieu seul en saura la nombre. ...”” 2K. A. Wallis Budge, The Life and Exploits of Alexander the Great (Cambridge, 1896),

vol. I, Text; vol. II, Translation. The portions treating of Alexander’s Gate are found in vol. II, 226-241 and 279-80.

The Ethiopian History of Alexander 33 second gives the traditional number twenty-two, but specifically mentions only twenty-one. The name ‘Huns’ is not actually given unless it be at the end of the first line (“Hano’), but the incantations identical with those attributed to the Huns in the Christian Legend are to be found on p. 232ff. The dimensions of the Gate are twelve cubits long and twelve broad (p. 237). Instead of covering it over with décvyxurov [sic] Alexander ‘covered it over and protected it with phylacteries, against which neither fire nor sword nor any other thing could prevail’ (p. 238). Above the door he placed the same inscription

that he had caused to be written upon the pillar in Alexandria, which contained among other things the following (II, 239):

| And it shall not be opened, until the time hath arrived when God Almighty, the Glorious and Most High, shall be pleased to open it; now this shall be in the eight hundred and sixty-fourth year.! And at the end of ten thousand years which shall pass by, the nations shall perish, and the marvellous things which are in all the world shall come to an end, for there shall be none of them left, and there shall not be left a man to blow the fire nor dog to defile the wall.

IT, 230-31: The Two-horned [“Two-horned’ is an echo of ‘Dulcarnain’] said unto them,

“What are these nations which live beyond the mountain?’ And they spake unto him, saying, ‘Magfig (Magog) and Yagig (Gog), and Nali, and Agma, and Amrab4n, and Nami, and Bargisa, and Samérik, and H6saé, and ’Asefa, and Salgd, and Katlibi, and Amrak, and Kawadbir, and Hand; these are their twelve kingdoms’—Now we have found in the book of Deydsyds, who speaks therein concerning [their] kingdoms that

they are twenty-two in number, that is to say, Magig (Magog), and Yagtig (Gog), and Naydl, and Yfal, and Aknfik, and Asak4bir, and Karydwiydn, and Kuerbé, and Lakan, and Dab‘an, and Kartdn, and Raban, and Zanobén, and Dali, and Marki, and May4wty4n, and Kalbat4s, and Manza’, and Yém4n, and Kasléwi, and Malki; these are all their kingdoms.

The episode of the building of the Gate by Alexander was wanting

from the original form—the so-called Recensio Vetusta—of the 1Cf. A. R. Anderson, ‘The Arabic History of Dulcarnain and the Ethiopian History of Alexander,’ Speculum, VI (1931), 434-445, esp. 442.

34 Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, and Inclosed Nations

Greek Historia Alexandri (Pseudo-Callisthenes), represented by manuscript A, and from the Latin version by Julius Valerius. It is wanting also from the Greek manuscript Leidensis L, from the Syrian History of Alexander, and also from the original form of the Latin version by the Archipresbyter Leo of Naples, entitled Nati-

vitas et Victoria Alexandrt Magni Regis. The episode, however, occurs briefly in the Armenian Historia Alexandri and in Josephus ben Gorion, chap. xcvi (in both of these without reference to Gog and Magog), and in considerable detail in the Greek manuscripts B and C, in the Byzantine metrical version Bios ’AXeEdvipov (Byz) closely related to the version as presented by B and C in PseudoCallisthenes, 111, 29, and in the Arabic History of Dulcarnain and in the Ethiopian History of Alexander, the two latter having already been considered above. Closely related to the latter portion of the version presented in the Greek Pseudo-Callisthenes, ii, 26 in C is

the pertinent portion of the Revelations of Pseudo-Methodius, a work originally in Greek or Syrian, that has had a pervasive influence not only in the Near East where it came into being, but also in the Slavic North, and in the European West. When the episode of the building of the Gate found its way into the later and interpolated (I) Latin versions of Leo, called the Historia de Prelis, I? and I’, and into vernacular versions of the Alexander Legend, its source is not Pseudo-Callisthenes but Pseudo-Methodius.

Occasionally, in western vernacular versions of the Alexander Legend, the episode of the building of the Gate is derived from the Cosmography of Aethicus Ister, whose influence, however, like that

of Pseudo-Methodius, is by no means confined to them. To the consideration of these in succession we next may turn.

Perhaps the earliest reference to the building of the Gate to be found in Pseudo-Callisthenes is to be found in the Armenian Historia Alexandri ascribed to Aristotle,! namely in the letter of Alexander to Olympias and Aristotle end of section a8’, p. 73: Kail troorpéeyavres tore NaBOvTes Odnyov TOV doTEpA TOV KaTa THY &wakar ovTws éEnOouev dv’ Huepav etxooe dbo, Kal wbAGS ToLnoas éripEedds Evedpaka Tos ToTOUS 1R. Raabe, ‘Ioropia ’AXeEdvipov, Die armenische Uebersetzung der sagenhaften Alexanderbiographie auf thre mutmassliche Grundlage zurtickgefiihrt (Leipzig, 1896).

Alexander’s Gate in Pseudo-Callisthenes 35 Kal éypaya éwi wérpas, boa eldouev, Kal ABov dvaBds réorE pdvos Blew Tots éyxwplots Oeois.

Although the Armenian version generally follows the A-tradition, it here shows affinity with B. The immediate context in which the

building of the gate occurs in the Armenian corresponds to that found in ui, 40 in the manuscripts B, L, C. (In these three manuscripts, the passage is the free narration of the author, and contains no mention of the gate. In C the building of the gate occurs in iii, 26 and in BC in 11, 29, both fully given and discussed below.) Earlier

in this chapter, one of the prophetic human-faced, Greek-speaking birds had bidden him depart from the land of the blessed, and the other foretold that the Orient called him. The Gate was built on his return from the land of darkness, that is, from the north, and the

context has nothing about kings or tribes excluded or shut in. The Greek Pseudo-Callisthenes, iii, 26 in manuscript C, ed. Miiller! p. 138:

I And indeed when Alexander has passed through these nations on his way thither, he proceeded to wage war with Eurymithres, ruler of the Belsyrians (not mentioned before, but the Bebrykes had been mentioned i, 19ff.) for not having bowed in servility to the might of Macedon. On becoming cognizant of this Eurymithres placed himself at the head of the men under his charge numbering about eight hundred thousand, and set out to meet the array of Alexander.... But Alexander strength-

ened his advance guard...and appointed Seleucus to lead the host. ... And the men of Seleucus charged and caught Eurymithres by surprise. Some they slew, others they pursued and drove back a distance of fifty

days’ journey as far as the two great mountains in the unseen world called the Breasts of the North. After Eurymithres and his forces had passed within these, the pursuit stopped. For Alexander observed that these two mountains were well adapted for shutting them off so as to preclude them from making any exit therefrom. Accordingly he halted there and besought the power of Heaven that the mountains might come together and preclude their coming forth. Then he took his stand and prayed, speaking thus: ‘O God of gods, and Lord of all creation, Thou 1 Pseudo-Callisthenes primum edidit Carolus Muller... (Paris, 1846), also reprints of later date. The first part of this volume contains Arrian edited by Fr. Diibner.

36 Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, and Inclosed Nations that with Thy word has created all things, even heaven and earth and sea, unto Thee nothing is impossible; for unto Thee all things as slaves are subject to the word of Thy command. Thou hast but to speak, and things are established; but to command, and they spring into being. Thou alone art everlasting, without beginning, unseen, and there is none other but Thee. For in Thy name and in Thy will even I have done what Thou didst will, and into my hand Thou hast given the whole world. And I call upon Thy much-sung name, that it may be Thy will to fulfill this my prayer, that these two mountains may come together, even as I have besought thee, and overlook not me, wretch that I am, who have found my courage in Thee.’ And immediately the mountains approached each other leaving a gap of ten! cubits, mountains that had stood fixed before. And when Alexander beheld what had happened, he glorified the power of God, and he built gates of brass, and made secure the narrow

space between the two mountains, and he spread the gates over with asiceton (sic), and the nature of asiceton is neither burnt with fire nor touched with steel. But within the gates and as far as where the passage widens he planted a bramble which being well watered flourished so as to overgrow the tops of the mountains.

(it) Thither accordingly Alexander before the mountains were closed drove two-and-twenty kings with their peoples and there at the extremities of the North he shut them in and the gates he called Caspian and the mountains Breasts. And the names of the nations were these: Goth, Magoth, Anougol, Egeis, Exenach, Diphar, Photinaioi, Pharizaioi, Zarmantianol, Chalonioi, Agrimardoi, Anouphagoi, Tharbaioi, Alanes, Phisolonikaioi, Saltarioi and the rest. These were the peoples that were confined within the gates that king Alexander built to exclude them because of their uncleanness. For they ate things polluted and base, dogs, mice, serpents, the flesh of corpses, yea unborn embryos as well as their own dead. Such were all of them practices which king Alexander beheld, and since he feared that these nations might come forth upon the civilized world, he confined them.

The above quoted passage from the Greek Pseudo-Callisthenes, iii , 26 found in the manuscript C follows immediately upon Alexander’s 1 Miiller is probably right in regarding ‘ten’ (c’) as an error for ‘twelve’ (:8’), but is cer-

tainly wrong in presupposing a previous gap of forty-six cubits from the manuscripts B and C in iii, 29, vide infra, pp. 39ff. and fn. 2.

Alexander’s Gate in Pseudo-Callisthenes C 37 , adventures with the Amazons (related in 11, 25 and the preceding portion of iii, 26), and resolves itself into two distinct versions designated respectively as I and II above: 1. In the first (1), Alexander and his forces led by Seleucus drive king Eurymithres and his Belsyrians a distance of fifty days’ march as far as the two great mountains in the unseen world called Mafoi Boppa. In answer to Alexander’s prayer to God, these mountains

approach each other leaving a reduced gap of ten cubits, where

Alexander builds a gate (gates) of brass which he covers with | aoixnrov. Inside the gates as far as where the passage widens, he planted brambles which were well watered and flourished so as to overgrow the tops of the mountains—a primitive form of barbed wire entanglements. Seleucus, Eurymithres, and his Belsyrians, and the brambles are elements that do not occur elsewhere in this

- connection.! 2. In the second version (II), Alexander shuts in twenty-two kings and their nations before building at the Mafoi Boppa the Gates

which he called the Caspian Gates. The nations shut in are the standard list of twenty-two, corresponding in general to the list found in Ephraem Syrus, Sermo de Fine Extremo, in the Syrian Christian Legend and in its derivatives the Arabic History of Dulcarnain and the Ethiopian History of Alexander, all discussed above; in Pseudo-Methodius and his tradition, including Solomon of Basra: Book of the Bee, Stephannos Orbélian: Historre de la Srounie, to be discussed below. In C only sixteen names of peoples are actually given, but we receive the impression that the list is one well enough known to justify its conclusion with the expression xal oi érepot. In Pseudo-Callisthenes C Alexander makes his approach to the site of the gate from the south or perhaps from the southwest, as in the Syrian Christian Legend.

The date when this whole passage came into existence can be fixed only approximately. The first century of our era assigned 1¥F, Pfister, Berl. Phil. Wochenschr., XXXV (1915), coll. 1549-1552, has pointed out the etymological and religious significance of the terms Evpuul6pns and Bedovpoi, these represent-

ing, respectively, Mithras and Bel, divinities to whom Alexander as a worshipper of the true God was hostile, and influences that he drove beyond the pale of the Oixoupévy as being religiously undesirable.

38 Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, and Inclosed Nations by Pfister can apply only to (1), if at all, and I am inclined to doubt

it even for that. The date of (II) would probably be contained within the period 500-700 A. D. The Greek Pseudo-Callisthenes, The Byzantine Bios ’AXeEavdpov

ii, 29 in BC., ed. Miiller pp. (Byz), 5712-5799:

142, 143 (the Greek for the |

italicized words does not occur in C’):

(From the Letter of Alexander to (From the Letter of Alexander to

Olympias) Olympias)

And I found there also many To another place I came, sweetest peoples that ate the flesh of human mother, with all my armed hosts; beings and drank the blood of ani- and there I found nations that ate mals (and beasts) like water; for the flesh of human beings and drank their dead they buried not, but ate. their blood like water and that of

And when I beheld such utterly all animals that creep. For they wicked nations and feared that _ buried not their dead, but rather ate through such a diet they might pol- them. And when I had beheld their

lute the earth by their vile pollu- polluted ways, in fear I besought tions, I besought the Power above Providence that I might use force and proceeded with force against against them, lest with their lawless, them, and most of them I put tothe godless deeds they pollute the earth. sword, and their land I reduced to We routed them in full force, slaysubjection. And on every side fear ing most of them and taking the rest possessed them from the highest to captive. For fear took possession of the lowest. For when they heard all the neighboring peoples from the that Alexander, king of the Mace-_ greatest down to the least. For all donians, had come hither, they said: having heard that Alexander, king ‘He will put all to the sword, he will of the Macedonians, was present sack and overwhelm our cities.” among them sacking their cities and slaying all their people, and that he was intent on routing their kings and wretchedly harrying all their country, with exceeding fear they 1 Vide supra, p. 20, n. 1. 2°W. Wagner, Trois Poémes Grecs du Moyen Age, ed. D. Bikelas (Berlin: Calvary, 1881), pp. 58ff. from a manuscript of the late fourteenth century in St Mark’s, Venice, folios 134, 135. The poem had previously been published in part by Stephan Kapp, Mittheilungen aus zwei griechischen Handschriften, als Beitrag zur Geschichte der Alexandersage 1m Mittelalter (Wien, 1872), pp. 22-25.

Alexander’s Gate in Pseudo-Callisthenes BC Byz 39 And so they all took to flight and trembled throughout the whole repursued each other, and nation after gion from one end of it to the other, nation of them I subdued in war as_ and at God’s command they fled

they reeled in flight. Two-and- with all their might, pursuing each twenty were the kings over them, other, the first the second, and the and I pressed pursuit of them with second fleeing pursuing the third. force until they fortified themselves Thus indeed these dread, polluted in two great mountains called the nations were most wretchedly ravBreasts of the North, which have no aged to the end, fleeing with great

other exit or entrance than be- terror, and I fearlessly pursuing tween those two great mountains, them in their flight. At any rate towering in height as they do above their kings in all were two-andthe clouds of heaven, and extending twenty, and by the mountains—the like two walls on the right and onthe two great mountains called by the

left as far as the Great Sea beneath ancients Breasts of the North— the Ansos! and the land of darkness. there were they shut in with all their

And I thought of all manner of kind. For the aforesaid heights had contrivances to prevent them from no other entrance or exit than that issuing forth from the great moun-_ one alone into which they entered

tains into which they had been and became confined. And these driven. Now the entrance between heights tower above the clouds of the great mountains measures six- heaven, so great is their height. and-forty royal cubits. Again there- Likewise there are attached to them two great walls, beginning on the right side and also on the left, and reaching thence all the way even to

the Great Sea that lies under the very Ansos, places that are in dark-

ness and most exceeding rough. Now the entrance indicated has a width of six-and-forty cubits. When accordingly I beheld these marvellous and most rugged places, with all my heart I earnestly importuned the

power of Providence above, that with divine might he bar the entrance to the mountains. What then

doth God himself the great and mighty? He commanded those 1 @ygov perhaps an error for dpxtov ‘Bear’ which would mean ‘beneath the Bear,’ i.e. ‘as far as the Arctic Ocean.’

40 Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, and Inclosed Nations fore I importuned Providence above great mountains ‘Leap ye!’ and it and my prayer was heard. For He happened. Shaken and _ wrenched commanded the two mountains and __— these approached each other speed-

they rocked and walked about in ily, each moving twelve cubits. Let rivalry with each other each a dis- no one disbelieve; God avails these tance of twelve cubits. And there I powers. And I commanded that constructed gates of brass two-and- brazen gates be built with dispatch, twenty cubits! wide, and sixty cu- in width twenty cubits, their height bits high securely, and the same _ two-and-sixty; and the whole engates I overspread within and with- trance to the mountain I closed, and out with asokiton [sic] that neither from within I covered the gates all fire nor steel nor any device whatso- over with potent asoketon, thus ever might be able to unbronze the _ suffering the peoples there to abide gates; for fire when brought near it for all time. Asoketon has such goes out, and steel crumbles. And power that not fire, not steel, not outside of these most terrible gates anything in the world avails to disI set up another structure of stones integrate or to burn it. For if steel

each having the width of eleven but approach too near it, itself it cubits, the height of twenty cubits, crumbles, and likewise fire is and the length of sixty cubits. Such quenched. Outside of these huge was the structure that I thus made gates I commanded that a structure forthwith be built of stones exceed-

ing marvellous, this having the width of eleven cubits, the height of ,

7 twenty cubits, and the length of sixty cubits. And having done these things thus I fenced the entrance

and plated all the stones with a drink of tin on bronze, and moulded

upon these an additional height of | sixty other cubits and again I smeared it from without sturdily

with asoketon, that neither from 1 Miiller misinterpreted this dimension in thinking that «B’ = 22 should be changed to .8’ = 12, and in this error was followed by Williams, art. cit. 577. The original gap however

was forty-six cubits, and as each mountain moved twelve cubits, the width of the gap was reduced twice twelve or twenty-four cubits, leaving the width of the gap and of the gates

constructed in it at twenty-two cubits. H. Weismann in his German translation in his Alexander, Gedicht des zwilften Jahrunderts vom Pfaffen Lamprecht, II, 215 interpreted the passage correctly. Further consideration of the dimensions as given in BC and Byz will be given below.

Alexander’s Gate 1n Pseudo-Callisthenes BC Byz 41 and inclosed, dipping the stones in those outside will anyone ever avail

tin and smearing them withleadand to unloosen the entrance to the covering the whole structure with mountains. And I set up in addition asikytinon, that nothing might avail a column bearing my name. And to master such gates, which I called the kings then inclosed within the

the Caspian Gates. Two-and- mountains have the following twenty kings I shut in there.! And names: Og and Magog with Xaneth the names of the nations are Magog, himself three-headed; another was Kynekephaloi, Nounoi, Phonokera- Kynokephalos Onous with Trikeratol, Syriasoroi, Tones, Katamorgo- tos, Katamergoures, Ionos, Kapnes roi, Himantopodes, Kampanes, Sa- and Syriares, Himantodapes, Hipmandreis, Hippyeis, Epamboroi. poes, Samandros, Epabomes—these And I purified the regions of the were the peoples most foul and full north from these unholy peoples by of ungodliness that I fearfully shut constructing also two other exceed-__ in in the regions mentioned, thereby

ingly great walls, one to the east of ridding the whole land of the North one hundred twenty cubits and the of their wantonness and erecting other to the west of eighty cubits, splendid trophies. And in another both twenty-four cubits in thick- place I built inclosing walls of the ness. And I made my way through Fast in one hundred twenty cubits the space between the Armenians and and others to the West of eighty

the Turks. cubits, both twenty cubits in thickness, thereby separating the nation of the Armenians and Turks.

With reference to the building of the Gate as described in Pseudo-

Callisthenes 11, 29 in the manuscripts BC as compared with that presented by Byz juxtaposed above, the following observations are to be made: 1. That in the Letter of Alexander to Olympias as given in the Recensio Vetusta, 1, 27-28 the episode of the building of the Gate was wanting.” 1 The text here contains the expression eis dxraxéora Tpia kad’ é ‘for eight hundred three one by one.’ This is perhaps the garbled remnant of a statement telling the number of years through which the gate was prophesied to stand, a term of years of apocalyptic or eschatological significance reminding us of the terms of eight hundred twenty-six and of nine hundred

forty years mentioned in the Syrian Christian Legend or of the eight hundred sixty-fourth year mentioned in the Arabic History of Dulcarnain and in the Ethiopian History of Alezander. Vide supra, p. 32f. 2Cf. W. Kroll, Historia Alexandri Magni (Pseudo-Callisthenes), vol. I, ad loc.; Julius Valerius and the Armenian ‘Ioropia ’ANeEdvdpou as well as A. Ausfeld, Der griechische Alezanderroman, ad loc.

42 Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, and Inclosed Nations In this context therefore the episode was a late addition, that the interpolator evidently regarded as a digression made by Alexander on his return march to Babylon after visiting the palace of Cyrus and Xerxes. Alexander therefore marched to the north before arriving at the site of

, the Gate.

2. The list of nations or kings excluded in Pseudo-Callisthenes, iii, 29 in the manuscripts B and C, while not identical with that presented by Byz, is yet sufficiently similar to warrant the conclusion of a common source for both. Furthermore the list as given in Pseudo-Callisthenes, iii, 29 and in Byz is so different from that given in Pseudo-Callisthenes, iii, 26 in C and its closely related versions given in Pseudo-Methodius

that a common origin for them all is out of the question.! , 3. The dimensions of the Gate as given in ili, 29 in BC and in Byz are

in general agreement with each other, but in utter disagreement with those given in ili, 26 in C and in Pseudo-Methodius.? 4.In Pseudo-Callisthenes, iii, 29 BC, the mountains adjoining either side of the Gate are as walls running to the Great Sea; In Byz, Alexander attaches walls which run to the Great Sea, as though the mountains were not there, cf. Byz 5746-5749. Also in Pseudo-Callisthenes, 111, 29 BC and Byz 5795ff., in addition to the mountains running from either side of the Gate to the Great Sea, Alexander builds walls running east and west, toward the rising and toward the setting sun. 5. In Pseudo-Callisthenes, ii, 29 BC and in Byz 5774f., Alexander builds outside of the Gate an oixodouyjv which seems to serve as a fortress defending the Gate. In Byz, the dimensions of this structure are 11 x 20 x 60 cubits, while in Pseudo-Callisthenes, i111, 29 BC these are the dimen-

sions of each stone of the fortress! Byz 5779 seems to add sixty cubits to the height, apparently of the olxodou7, and in Byz 5787 Alexander builds 1The points of agreement are almost negligible: iii, 26 Twé, Mayw6 C, iii, 29 Maywy BC, "Oy Kal Maywy Byz 5787; iii, 26 ’Avobpayor C, ili, 29 Kuvexégparor BC, cf. 6 Kuvoxégados ’’Ovovs Byz

5788. On the identity of ’Avot@ayot, iii, 26 C sometimes referred to as “‘dogmen,’ vide Sackur,

op. cit. p. 87, no. 18; Bousset, Bewtrdge, p. 181; Kampers, op. cit., p. 108. Pseudo-Callisthenes, iii, 26 C, iii, 29 BC together with Byz, Pseudo-Methodius, and Aethicus Ister, as will be seen later, all agree in calling the mountains moved Mafovs Boppé. Pseudo-Callisthenes, ili, 26 C, iii, 29 BC agree in crediting Alexander with having imposed the name rds zriAas Kaozias upon the pass, a tradition that can be traced back as far as the time of Jordanes, Get., vii, 50, middle of sixth century.

2 These dimensions are: original width of gap 46 cubits, iii, 29 BC, Byz 5752; reduced width of gap 22 cubits, iii, 29 BC; width of Gates 22 cubits, iii, 29 BC, 20 cubits Byz 5763,

the latter certainly an error for 22 cubits; height of Gates 60 cubits, iii, 29 BC, 62 cubits Byz 5763f., the latter almost certainly an error for 60 cubits, the 2 of 62 being probably the 2 which Byz lost from the width of the Gates.

Alexander’s Gate at the Ubera Aquilonis 43 a stele inscribed with his name— OTHANY Kal KAHOW Thy Euny Exel T poo aveHeu ny.

Nowhere else does a stele (nor yet stelae) occur in this connection. We are reminded that Ptolemy, v, 8, 9 charted the orfjiat ’Adefavdpou 4° 30’ north of the Albanian Gates, and that Hieronymus placed his Columnae in the far east.!

The striking expression, Mafol Boppa, Ubera Aquilonis, “Breasts of the North,’ occurs in several places: Pseudo-Callisthenes, iii, 26

in C, ii, 29 in BC; Aethicus Ister ed. Wuttke, chap. 23, p. 14; chap. 32, p. 18; chap. 39, p. 27; chap. 41, p. 29, as well as in the Ebstorf Map derived from Aethicus; also in Pseudo-Methodius, ed. Sackur, op. cit. chap. 8, p. 74. It is not certain which of these is the

earliest occurrence, and it is even doubtful whether any of these

authors, whoever they were, coined the term. It seems highly probable, however, that the expression originated through the fusion of certain terms as dm’ éoxdrov Boppa Ezek. xxxviil, 6 and 15 cf. ér’ éoxdtov tod Boppa wbid., xxxix, 2 with some such conception as that found in Midrasch Rabbah, to which attention was first called by L. Donath, Die Alexandersage in Talmud und Mid-

rasch (Fulda, 1873), p. 21, where the passage of the children of Israel through the valley of Arnon is described: The valley of Arnon had a defile formed by two mountain ranges running parallel, whereof the one side had a concavity above, opposite to which on the other side breasts projected. A part of the enemies of Israel posted themselves in the pass to bar the way of the Israelites, while the other part concealed itself in the hollows above in order to throw down therefrom stones and arrows upon them. But God had brought this plan to ruin inasmuch as He caused the breasts of the one mountain 1 Alexander’s orfdn (columna) seems originally to have been associated with or an outgrowth of Alexander’s Bwyoi (arae) erected on the Hyphasis to designate the easternmost point reached by him, cf. Philostratus, Vita Apoll., ii, 43. For the causes contributing to the

transfer of these to the region north of the Caucasus or to the headwaters of the Tanais in northern Europe, vide Anderson, Alexander at the Casyian Gates, pp. 140 ff. with fnn. 19, 20.

In the Commonitorium Palladii, the stele is set up near the Ganges, cf. Pseudo-Callisthenes, ili, 7 ed. Miiller, and the Latin version brought out by F. Pfister, Kleine Texte zum Alexanderroman (Heidelberg, 1910), I, 1, p. 1. See also B. Graef, De Bacchi Expeditione Indica (Berlin, 1886), p. 4. Sir Henry Yule, ‘Cathay and the Way Thither,’ IT (Hakluyt Society Publications,

XXXVII, 1866), 344-5, has a valuable note on the Column or Columns of Alexander in connection with a passage of John de’ Marignolli.

44 Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, and Inclosed Nations range to clash into the concavities of the mountain range opposite, so that the enemy concealed therein were crushed to death.

The Revelations acribed to St. Methodius of Patara begin as a history of the world from Adam and Eve, treating briefly the patriarchs as far as Abraham, the world-kingdoms of Babylon, of the

Medes and Persians, and of Macedon, and culminating in the Christian Roman empire. At this point, historical narrative changes to prophetic utterance, the Revelations proper which pursue the aim of describing the end of the world as imminent. The work is characterized by a division of time into periods of one thousand years each, of which there are to be seven in all, the first six thousand years

constituting the six weekdays and the seventh and last the world sabbath. The point of view of the author is that of one living after the six days of one thousand years each have been completed. This

would put the composition of the work well beyond 500 A. D. whether the work was originally written in Greek or Syrian, the author seems to have made considerable use of Syrian sources in its composition: viz, The Cave of Treasures, sixth century, to which the author is indebted for his chiliastic division of time as well as for the

figure Jonitus, a son of Noah born after the Flood. The episode of Gog and Magog and the unclean peoples shut in by Alexander is also in all likelihood derived from a Syrian source.!

In the manuscripts, the work is always ascribed to St Methodius bishop of Patara, martyred in the early fourth century. This attribution, however, is disproved by the fact that the author made use of sources that can hardly be dated before the sixth century, by the writer’s point of view that six thousand years of the world have been completed, and by his apparent reference to events of the second 1 The most complete discussion of the Latin text is by Ernst Sackur, Szbyllinische Texte

und Forschungen (Halle, 1898) who on pp. 1ff. lists early modern editions, cf. Charlotte D’Evelyn, ‘The Middle-English Version of the Revelations of Methodius,’ Publ. of the Mod.

Lang. Ass’n, XX XIII (1918), 135-203. Greek and Russian editions of the Revelations by V. Istrin, The Apocalypse of Methodius of Patara and the Apocryphal Visions of Dantel in Byzantine and Slavo-Russian Literature (translated title), Moscow, 1897. The portion dealing with Alexander’s exclusion of Gog and Magog occurs in the Syrian Book of the Bee by Solomon of Basra, Syrian text with English translation by E. A. Wallis Budge in Anecdota Oxoniensta,

Semitic Series, vol. I, Pt. ii (Oxford, 1886) and in the Armenian Histoire de la Siounte by Stephannos Orbélian, trad. M. F. Brosset (St Petersburg, 1864).

Alexander’s Gate in Pseudo-Methodius A5 half of the seventh century, such as the return of the sons of Ishmael in the guise of the sons of Umea (that is, the Ummayads, Ommiads), a reflection of the Mohammedan conquests of the seventh century, to which time its composition may be assigned. For our present purposes, the important parts of Pseudo-Methodius are those dealing with the sons of Ishmael and their expulsion

‘in fine quattuor milia annorum’ (chap. 5 incip., Sackur, op. cit. pp. 66, 67) into the desert of Ethribum (sic), and their return in full force as told (zhid., chap. 11, p. 80): ‘In novissimum miliarium seu septimo tune agentem in ipso eradicabitur regnum Persarum. Et in ipso septimo miliario incipient exire semen Ismahel de deserto Ethribum.’ In the original Pseudo-Methodius to be sure, the sons of Ishmael had nothing to do either with Alexander or with his Gate. But the fact that the return of the sons of Ishmael was forecast for the seventh millennium, and the fact that the bursting ofAlexander’s Gate by the Gog-and-Magog peoples was forecast for the same time caused in some quarters at a later time the identification of Gog and Magog with the sons of Ishmael, even though this identification involved the change in the location of the desert of Ethribum from south to north. 1A. von Gutschmid, Kleine Schriften, V (1894), 505 suggests the date 676-678 A. D.; Sackur, op. cit., p. 56 favors the period 668-685. Sackur held that the language in which it was originally composed was Syrian; Pfister, art. cit., coll. 914ff. holds that it was originally written in Constantinople during the last third of that century in Greek. Quite recently an important contribution to the study of Pseudo-Methodius bearing on its date of composition and the language in which it was originally written has been made by M. Kmosko, ‘Das Ritsel des Pseudo-Methodius,’ in Byzantion, VI (1931), 273-296. After a careful study of the Syrian manuscript of Pseudo-Methodius, Cod. Vat. Syr. 58 (A. D. 1584), a manuscript described two centuries ago by Assemani but since overlooked, Kmosko concludes that the original language of the Revelations was Syrian, a view propounded also by Fr. Nau, in the Journal Asiat. XI° série, TX (1917), 415-471. Among the arguments adduced to prove this he cites the form datfar, or difar, found in the list of peoples inclosed by Alexander, a form that he must have seen in the Pedita (it does not occur in the Septuagint), and also the fact that reminiscences of the Syrian Pseudo-Methodius occur in Yakubi, Dinawari, Tabari and other Arabic writers. Kmosko correlates its composition with the eastern cam-

paigns of Heraclius, proposing that the writer, an East Syrian, emigrated to Palestine either after Heraclius’ victory over Khosro Parves in 628 A. D. or after his defeat by the Mohammedan forces at Gavitha Gabaoth (Hieromax, Yarmuk?), August 20, 636, and wrote the Revelations, which were promptly translated into Greek. While I am otherwise disposed

to favor the view of Kmosko, I can hardly see how at so early a date an expression equal to ‘qui fuerunt filii Umee’ (Sackur, op. cit., p. 68, chapter 5) and referring to the Ummayads (Ommiads) could be justified.

46 Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, and Inclosed Nations

To those portions of Pseudo-Methodius, therefore, dealing with Alexander and his shutting in of the Gog-and-Magog peoples behind his Gate we next may turn.

Istrin, op. cit. pp. 17-20, Sackur, op. cit., pp. 72-75,

Chapter V of Greek RedactionI: Chapter 8: | otros KTiver ’ANeEavdpelay THY weyaAnv Hic condedit Alexandriam mag-

kat Baowrever év abr xpovovs évvea- nam et regnavit in ea annis XVIIII. Katdeka. ovTos KaTeNOav eis THY éwavy Iste descendens in Eoam occidit améxtewe Aapetov tov Mysov xal xate- Darium Medorum et dominatus est kuplevoe Xwpav Kal mo\ewv ToAAGY. muultarum regionum et civitatum, et

kal mepievoornoe THY yhv Kal xatnxOn demultavit terram, et discendit és Oaddoons THs érovouatouevns HAiov usque ad mare qui vocatur regio xwpas, 0a kai éwpaxey eOvn axabapra solis, ubi conspexit gentes inmundas kal dvoeidy. of 6€ tTav vidv *Iadef et aspectu orribilis. Sunt antem ex dmoyovo. éBdedUTTovTo =TovTwy tH filiis IJapheth nepotes, quorum inaxabapctav.! AcO.ov yap tacay (wav?) mundiciam videns exorruit. ComeKaTapoedés Kal érepa Cwhdia pvoapa debant enim hi omnes cantharo speTe Kal xiBdn\a Kwvoras pvias KaTTas ciem omnem coinquinabilem vel kal dders Kal vexpQv capkxas éxTtpwpara spurcebilem, id est canes, mures, éuBpva otrw Tedrelws araprnfevra 7} serpentes, morticinorum carnes, duatAdcews awtovra xapaxtipa xat aborticia informabilia corpora, et ea rabrnv KTnvav, ob wiv add\a kal way que in alvo necdum per leniamenta eldos Onpiwy dxabaprwy. Tods vexpovs coaculata sunt vel ex aliqua parte otk amrovy adAAa Aelovs Ho8co»v membrorum producta conpago forairols. Taira mavTa Karafewpjnoas mam figmenti possit perficere vul-

*AréEavipos im’ abtrav ways xal tum vel figuram expremere et haec pvoap&s TeAobpeva, p) Tapayévwvrat iumentorum necnon etiam et omne

éy TH YH ayla Kat pidvpwow aitiy speciem ferarum inmundarum. é& Tov piapav abtav érirndevudtwv, Mortuos autem nequaquam sepeliunt, sed sepe comedent eos. Haec vero universa contemplatus Alexander ab eis inmunditer et sceleriter fierl timens, ne quando eant exilientes In terra sancta et illa contaminent a pollutis suis iniquissimis affectationibus, depraecatus est Deum 1A corruption in the Greek manuscripts has reversed the meaning of this sentence, the thought of which may be rendered from the Latin somewhat as follows:

of 8” Roay Trav vidv "lade? drdyovo, Gv rH ’axabapa lav Oeacduevos E8dedNbrTeETO. |

Alexander’s Gate in Pseudo-M ethodius 47 édenOn Tob Geod éxrev@s kal ouvyyayey inpensius. Et praecipiens congredravras abirovs Kal Tas yuvatkas kal gavit eos omnes mulieresque eorum Ta TEKVA Kal Taoas Tas wapewPodras et filius et omnia scilicet castra 1laitav. kal eényayey aitov’s éws THs lorum et eduxit eos de terra orientali

éwas Ys Kal karediwtey dricow airy et conclusit minans eos, donec inéws ov elonxOnoav & rots mépace troissent in finibus aquilonis. Et

Tod floppa. kat otk éorw eioodos avd non est introitus nec exitus ab ori- , dvaTo\@v peéxpe dvopav, iva pyres entem in occidentem, quis per quod Tepacas Tpos avTovs €AOn. avOes ody possit ad eos transire vel introire. éXurapnoe Tov Gedy Kal émqxovoe Continuo ergo supplicatus est Deum

Ths Senoews adbrod. Kai mpooérate Alexander, et exaudivit eius obkipios 6 beds Sto dpecw, ols éori secrationem. Et praecipit dominus mpoonyupia Maftfot rot Boppa, xai Deus duobus montibus, quibus est étAnoiacay ad\Andots axpt awnxdv vocabulum ‘ubera aquilonis,’ et adidvoxaidexa. Kal Kateoxebace awidAas uncti proximaverunt invicem usque xXavkas Kal éréxpicev aitas dovynrnv, ad duodecim cubitorum. Et conwa xkal ef PotrAwvTac dvot~ac é struxit portas aereas et superinduxit

aunpw py SivwrTar 4 diaddoat & eas asincitum, ut si voluerint eas mwupt py icxtwow, GAN’ attixa 7d patefacere in ferro, non possent, aut tip tn’ aitov oBevyvuTar. } 6€ Pivots dissolvere per ignem, nec valeant Tov davynvTov ote aidnpos bdicrarat utrumque, sed statim ignis omnis THY KaTaKAvow ovTe Tp THY dudAvow. extinguitur. Talis enim est natura

Tacas yap avrep Satpovwy érivocat asinciti, quia neque ferro confringiaidd\ous amepyaterar kat ore dapua- tur ictus ferientis neque igne susciKelas érivora ioxber KaTa TOU dovynvrov pit resolutionem. Universas enim

els xabaipeow adbrov. radra roivyy adinventiones daemonum et calidiTa évayyH Kal KiGdnva Kal pvoapda @yn tates mortiferas vel supervacuas

Taoats Tats payikats Kaxorexviacs operantur haec obscinissime et deKexpnvTar Kal év rotvtors abr&v tiv forme vel sordidae gentes, cuncta purapay Kat amavOpwrov padd\ov 6€ que magicae artis malorum abuNeyew pucdGeor KaTApynoe yontetay % tuntur inmunditer etiam his. Il-

| Tov dovvnvrTov diots, Mote uy SUvacdae lorum sordidam et inhumanam, abrovs pyre mupl pnte oLonpw pnTe magis autem, ut conpetenter dicitur,

ola dnmore érwoig tas torattras Deo odibilem distructa est maledvapoxAedboar mbAas Kal drodpdacar. ficia, ita ut non possent neque ferro év 6€ TOCs EoXATOLS KaLpots KATA THY TOD §©neque per igne vel quodcumquelibet

"TeCexinrA hwviy Kal mpodnretay 7rHv aliud astuciam easdem reserare vel Néyovoay’ ‘ey TH éoxaTn hueépa THs aperire portas et fugire. In novissi-

mis vero temporibus secundum

, Ezechielis prophetiam, que dicit: In

48 Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, and Inclosed Nations ouvTerelas TOD KOopou eeXevoerar Tay novissimo die consummationes mundi

kal Maywy els tiv yiv “Iopand’, ot extet Gog et Magog in terra Israhel. | eiaw eOvn Kal Bacedrets, ots kabetptev Qui sunt gentes et reges, quos retru’"Adé~avdpos &v Tots TEpact ToD Boppa, sit Alexander in finibus aquilonis?

Tay kal Mayoy ’Avinyeape?’s ’Axeat Gog et Magog et Anog et Ageg et Atadap Pwriavol kai ’ANGtavoi Otvvo. Achennaz et Dephar et Potinei et kat Papfror AexAnuol kal Zapparal cat Libii et Eunii et Pharizei et Declemi OexXéor Kai Zapparcavol kai Xaxovioc et Zarmatae et Theblei et Zamarti-

kat ’AuatapeO xai Tappadoi xai ani et Chachonu et Amazarthe et dvOpwropayot of Neyouevoe Kuvoxe@aro. Agrimardii et Anuphagii qui di-

kal ‘A@dpBir. Kal *’ANaves xat cuntur Cynocephali et Tharbei et Pagodovikator ’ApviB.ior kal Badtapes. Alanes et Phisolonicii et Arcnei et ovrot of Bacwrels Kabeornxacw évdov Asalturii. Hi viginti duo reges conTay wUAGY Gv ’ANéEavdpos Ernée. sistunt reclusi intrinsecus portarum, quas confixit Alexander.

In the preceding passage the writer purports to narrate history in retrospect; in the following passage he prophesies the fate of Alexander’s Gate and the eruption of the inclosed in the Last Days, Sackur, op. cit., chap. 13, p. 91: “Tunc reserabuntur portae aquilonis et egredientur virtutes illarum gentium quas conclusit intus Alex-

ander’....a thought frequently echoed.! It was from Pseudo-Methodius rather than from any of the versions of the Greek Pseudo-Callisthenes discussed above that there

was interpolated in the letter of Prester John to the Byzantine emperor Manuel (ca. 1165 A. D.) a passage dealing with the unclean

nations shut in by Alexander. This interpolation was of so late a date that its substance was not reproduced in any of the German

adaptations of the letter. The text is as follows:? ,

[C]15. Habemus alias gentes, quae solummodo vescuntur carnibus tam

hominum quam brutorum animalium et abortivorum, quae numquam 1 E.g. in the Tiburtine Sibyl, Sackur, op. cit., p. 186: ‘Et exurgent ab aquilone spurcissime

gentes, quas Alexander [rex Indus] inclusit, Gog videlicet et Magog. Hec [autem] sunt XXII regna, quorum numerus [est] sicut arena maris.’ The last passage also frequently recurs, cf. especially Godfrey of Viterbo, Pantheon, XVI, 24, in M.G.H., XXII, 146: ‘Et exurgent ab aquilone spurcissime gentes, quas Alexander rex inclusit, Goth videlicet et Magoth. Hec duodecim regna, quorum numerus sicut arena maris.’ 2 F. Zarncke, “Der Priester Johannes,’ Abhandlungen der kéniglich-sdchsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften, XVII (1879) der philologisch-historischen Classe VII, 827-1030, esp. 911

Alexander’s Gate in Prester John 49 timent mori. Et cum ex his aliquis moritur, tam parentes eius quam extranei avidissime comedunt eum, dicentes: ‘Sacratissimum est humanam carnem manducare.’ 16. Nomina quarum sunt haec: Gog et Magog, Amic, Agic, Arenar, Defar, Fontineperi, Conei, Samantae, Agrimandi, Salterei, Armei, Anofragei, Annicefelei, Tasbei, Alanei. 17. Istas nempe et alias multas generationes Alexander puer magnus, rex Macedonum, con-

clusit inter altissimos montes in partibus aquilonis. Quas cum volumus ducimus super inimicos nostros et data eis licentia a maiestate nostra, quod eos devorent, continuo nullus hominum, nullum animalium remanet, quin statim devoretur. 18. Inimicis namque devoratis, reducimus eas ad

propria loca. Et ideo reducimus, quia, si absque nobis reverterentur, omnes homines et universa animalia, quae invenirent, penitus devorarent. [19. Istae quidem generationes pessimae ante consummationem saeculi

tempore Antichristi egredientur a quatuor partibus terrae et circuibunt universa castra sanctorum et civitatem magnam Romam, quam proposuimus dare filio nostro, qui primo nascetur nobis, cum universa Italia et tota Germania et utraque Gallia, cum Anglia, Britannia et Scotia; dabimus

ei Hispaniam et totam terram usque ad mare coagulatum. 20... .]

The influence of Pseudo-Methodius was truly inraense, and while the consideration of it does not belong here, the statement of Sackur!

may be mentioned, namely that during the Middle Ages the influence of Pseudo-Methodius was second only tv that of the Canon

and the church fathers. The reason for this is not far to seek: as Christendom was threatened by each new peril in the later centuries of the middle ages—the Mongol invasions and the westward advance of the Turks even to the walls of Vienna—Christendom in its direst need and darkest hour found in Pseudo-Methodius not only hope

but even assurance of final victory over Gog and Magog and the might of Antichrist.

In western versions of the Alexander Romance, whenever the nations inclosed are specified as twenty-two in number and their names are given, as they are in J? recensions of the Historia de Prelis, often carried over into vernacular renderings,” these features are not to be traced to the lists found in the Greek Pseudo-Callis1 Op. cit., p. 6, and indeed pp. 4—7. See also Miss D’Evelyn, art. cit., pp. 1444.

2 Western versions in which twenty-two kings or nations are mentioned are ‘Kyng Alisaunder’ ed. H. Weber in Metrical Romances (Edinburgh, 1810), I, 6136ff., 6281ff. (the chief

source of this in Kyng Alisaunder, however, is Aethicus Ister); The Wars of Alexander, E.E.T.S., E.S., XLVII, 5483ff.; see Skeat’s note; Sir John Mandeville, Travels, Chap. 26;

50 Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, and Inclosed Nations

thenes B, Byz, or C, but generally to Pseudo-Methodius. In one particular however Pseudo-Methodius was modified: western versions, instead of taking over the term wbera aquilonis (wafot Boppa) altered this expression into Promuntorium Boreum to conform with

Orosius i, 2, 41.! Strictly, however, the Promuntortum Boreum could form only one side of the Gate, and so strong was the feeling that the Gate required a mountain on each side that this term was divided into its components, with the result that it appears in such forms as Promuntorium et Boreum,? Promontoire et Boyrem,? boreum

et pervinctorium,* Practanicon e Boreon> _ ,

Tradition, as we have seen above, originally placed Gog and Magog in the north, Ezek. xxxvii, 6 and 15; Jerem. i, 14. Furthermore, the brief summary at the beginning of the Syrian Christian Legend expressly states that Alexander ‘made a gate of iron and shut it in the face of the north wind,’ and the body of the Legend confirms this in its description of the approach that he makes to its site. Before Pseudo-Methodius, however, Alexander had shut in the unclean nations where he found them, in what may be regardedas their own haunts, the north. The thought that Alexander found the unclean nations in the east, and then transferred them to the (west

and then?) north before inclosing them is peculiar to PseudoMethodius and may be important.® For in view of the great influence

that he exerted, this thought may have given rise to the notion that

the “Lost Tribes’ originally placed in northeastern Media had somehow found their way to the mountains of Caspia, 1.e., the Caucasus.

Incidentally, in connection herewith, attention should be called ‘Der Grosse Alexander’ ed. Guth in Deutsche Texte des Mittelalters, XIII (Berlin, 1908), 5537; Quilichinus of Spoleto, quoted by Pfister in Miinchener Museum, I (1912), 294¢.; cf. H. Christensen, Beitriége zur Alexandersage (Hamburg, 1883), p. 7, quoting from the 1489 Strassburg Historia de Prelis, I. 1Cf. A. Ausfeld, Die Orosius-Recension der Historia Alerandri Magni (Karlsruhe, 1886),

p. 108 and fn. 3). 2 Paul Meyer, Alexandre le Grand, etc. II, 388. 3 Alfons Hilka, Der alifranzisische Prosa-Alexanderroman, p. 141. The same passage is reported as occurring in the French Prose Romances in H. Weismann, Alexander, Gedicht des zwilften Jahrhunderts, vom Pfaffe Lamprecht, TI, 394. 4 Konung Alexander, etc. ed. J. A. Ahlstrand (G. E. Klemming wrongly on title-page) Middle-Swedish poem (Stockholm, 1862), 4019-4120. 5 Hebrew version referred to by M. J. de Goeje, De Muur van Gog en Magog, p. 91. 6 Cf. Koran, xviii, 82ff. quoted above, p. 28.

Alexander’s Gate 1n Aethicus Ister 51 again to the fact that the term Caspian Gates, originally applied to the Passes between Media and Parthia southeast of Rhagae, was

from the time of Nero applied also to the pass of Dariel in the central Caucasus where tradition originally placed Alexander’s Gate.! Furthermore, Pseudo-Methodius could hardly have exploited the term paftol Boppa, ubera aquilonis, Breasts of the North, if he had left the unclean nations to be inclosed where he says Alexander found them—in the east.

We come next to the work of an author almost equally elusive,

the Cosmography ascribed to Aethicus (Ethicus) Ister. In his description of remote lands he may be regarded almost as a forerunner of Mandeville. Wuttke, whose edition of the Cosmography was published in 1853, identified with St Jerome the Hieronimus Presbyterus named in the title-heading as having translated the work from Greek into Latin, the language in which we have the work, and dated it in the late fourth century.? It has since been established that this date is nearly two centuries too early, and that its composition falls at the middle of the seventh century.? The work contains some important material bearing on the Alexander legend, especially on Alexander’s inclosing of barbarous tribes. His treat-

ment, however, lacks clearness on many points, and thus leaves room for variant interpretations. For instance, in four passages? he seems to locate the Caspian Gates in the Caucasus, probably at the pass of Dariel, whereas in two other instances! it is a temptation to interpret them as located farther north. Also, in four passages® he uses the term wbera aquilonis in such a way as to leave the impression that they are far north of the Caucasus and near the Northern Ocean, and such too is the interpretation of these details in Aethicus given in the Hereford and especially by the Ebstorf Maps, both of 1Cf. Anderson, Alexander at the Caspian Gates, pp. 142-152. 2 Heinrich Wuttke, Die Kosmographie des Istrier Atthicus (Leipzig, 1853).

$A. von Gutschmid, Kleine Schriften, V, 418-425, esp. 421-423, ‘Ueber Ursprung und Abfassungszeit der Kosmographie des Ethicus’ dates its composition about 650 A. D., taking the opening of the Caspian Gates by Heracleius in 627 and the completion of Isidore’s Etymologiae about 630 (apparently utilized by Aethicus) and the building of the Iron Gate of Derbend and of the Caucasian Wall by Khosro Anushirvan as termini post and the use of the Cosmography by the so-called Fredegarius about 660 as the terminus ante.

‘Chap. 32, p. 19; chap. 36, p. 23; chap. 65, p. 44; chap. 69, p. 53. 5 Chap. 59, p. 40; chap. 60, p. 40. 6 Chap. 23, p. 14; chap. 32, p. 18; chap. 39, p. 27; chap. 41, p. 29; ef. also end of chap. 22.

52 Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, and Inclosed Nations which will later be considered p. 86 below. Curiously enough, at the

end of chap. 36, pp. 23, 24, he speaks of the Meopari and their islands in the northern ocean as the place where Alexander made his

submarine descent, and he closes the chapter with the interesting observation: ‘In amicitia secum Alexander ipsos adplicuit et munera dedit eis, ibique aras magnas fixit, quae usque nunc Arae Alexandr

magni dicuntur. Idemque ab ipsis Meoparis inventum dicit 62tumen, unde Caspias portas munivit, in insola Tripicia parvola maris

oceani, quod in nullas alias insulas vel orbem terrarum inveniri cognitum est.’ A feature of the work of Aethicus is that he classifies the Turks as

of the race of Gog and Magog, a passage from which I quote the

pertinent parts, chap. 32, pp. 18, 19: | Turchos... (se. Aethicus) dicit eos usque Euxinum maris sinum insolis vel litoribus inclusos Byrricheos montes et Taracontas insolas contra ubera aquilonis. Gens ignominiosa et incognita, monstruosa, idolatria, fornicaria in cunctis stupris et lupanariis truculenta, a quo et nomen accepit, de stirpe Gog et Magog. Comedent enim universa abominabilia et abortiva hominum, iuvenum carnes iumentorumque et ursorum item charadrium ac milvorum, bubonum atque visontium, canum et simiarum.

Statura deforme, numquam lotus aqua....Et urbem maximam ac munitissimam erexerunt illic nuncupatam Taraconta. Quae gens Antechristi temporibus multam facient vastationem et eum deum dierum appelabunt. Cum semine pessimo eorum reclusa post portas Caspias. 33. Alexander enim magnus macedo hanc generationem capere nec subicere potuit; multis nempe vicibus exercitum vel aciem contra eos direxit et non potuit superare.... 39. Ipsas gentes Alexander magnus recludere voluit sicut et alia XX duo regna Gog et Magog fecit ad ubera aquilonis, quia et istae ex ea prosapia rapida et pessima sunt ultra universas gentes quae sub caelo sunt. Et ita et hane gentem in obsidionem posuit, ut munitos montes obstrueret: sed mare oceanum, parvolas insolas ac minima intervalla, sirtesque sablonem et mollia quaeque litora pelagum undique obductum, ob hoc obstruere non potuit. Sed maximam multitudinem gladio crudeliter interfecit.

****

41. Alexander enim vir magnus et in omnium adinventionum vel utilitate

famosissimus vel operibus insignis et egregius, tam pravas gentes et perfidas, ut supra diximus, ad aquilonem cum comperisset Gogetas et

Alexander’s Gate in Aethicus Ister 53 Magogetas et Honargias forma et omni lineamento transformatas et truculentissimas tam in vita quam et in membris omnibus, quod dici legentibus et audientibus inmensum incutit pavorem atque terrorem, omnia spurcitia comedentes, animosas et odio habentes bona et dulcia atque delectabilia,

amantes mala pravaque et horribilia philosarcas et cruorum putatores, odientes bonum diligentes malum: haec videns egregius princeps nimio merore adfectus et stupore vehementissimo terretus ultra quam credi potest, consternatusque ait: Vae terra fructifera ac melliflua, si ingruerint in eam tot serpentes ac bestiae, vae habitatoribus orbis cum istae coeperint triumphare! Ingemuitque aedificavitque aras in monte Chelion immolatisque hostiis deo, depraecatusque est tota die ac nocte dei consilium et

misericordiam quaerens. Invenitque artem magnam. Praecurrente potentia dei adfuit terrae motus magnus in montana illa, qualis antea numquam fuerat visus neque auditus, et convenerunt montes adversus montes secundum vaticinium prophetae auditum: Surge, contende rudicium adversus montes, et audiant colles vocem tuam, audiant montes iudicium dominr

et fortia fundamenta terrae (Mich., vi, 1). Hine enim montes commovebantur et colles clamabant, quia magno impetu proximaverunt se montes isti usque stadium unum. Faciens itaque consilium salubre princeps magnus, et congregans cunctum exercitum regni sui a finibus orbis terrarum, medium eorum stabilivit iuxta utrumque mare, reliquum vero exercitum in ipsa latibula montium inter colles collocavit et fecit id, cum eis placitum quasi ad pacem foedera sociare ferentesque porcum in diis eorum. Quod pro nihilo ducens Alexander magnus quasi subdolum, congregavit aes plurimum et fudit duas columnas mirae magnitudinis et portas et limina et seras et minans minavit eos et omnem subolem eorum et inclusit eos ad ubera aquilonis in anno uno et mensibus quattuor, erexitque portas et limina et serracula mirae magnitudinis et induxit ac linivit eas asincito bitumine incognito in orbe terrarum, nisi in insola Tripucia unde supra

scripsimus. Tantam enim vehementiam habere adscribitur, ut neque acumine aut ferro incidatur neque igne aut aqua dissolvatur. Tamen dei providentiam huic magno principi credimus fuisse ostensam. Et non 1mmerito magnus dici potest, qui tam utilia argumenta ad agrestium hominum vesaniam retrudendam adinvenit, quorum solutionem temporibus Antechristi in persecutionem gentium vel ultionem peccatorum credimus adfuturam.! 1 The influence of Aethicus is seen in many places, notably in Thomas of Kent, Le Roman de Toute Chevalerie, second half of the twelfth century, on which was based in the fourteenth

century the Middle-English Kyng Alisaunder, vide infra, p. 88. The influence of Aethicus is seen also in Roger Bacon, Opus Maius, passim, as well as in the Hereford and Ebstorf maps, vide infra, pp. 88ff.

54 Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, and Inclosed Nations The earliest work that specifies a distinct number of tribes, kingdoms, or kings excluded by Alexander is the Syrian Christian Legend (p. 154, vide p. 22 above) “the twenty-four kingdoms that are written

in this book.’ In the earlier part of this legend, however, the list of kings totals only fifteen.1 In the west the number twenty-four occurs in Ambrosius Ansbertus (or Autpertus {781 A. D.), ‘In Apocalipsim libri decem,’ Maxima Bibliotheca Veterum Patrum, XIII (Lugduni:

1677), 623: ‘Dicunt etiam alu Alexandrum Magnum Macedonem in partibus Aquilonis has gentes Gog et Magog inclusisse easque in tantum multiplicatas fuisse ut viginti et quatuor regna de se reddidissent’.2 An almost identical statement occurs also in Haymo of Halberstadt (Migne, Patr. Lat. CX VII, col. 1186). It is doubtful, however, whether any connection can be traced between these passages in western authors and the Syrian Christian Legend.? In the original Pseudo-Methodius, however, and in the Greek Pseudo-Callisthenes (iui, 26 in C; 1, 29 in BC, bis, and in the Byzan-

tine Life of Alexander (Byz), 5537), as well as in Aethicus Ister (chap. 39, p. 27 ed. Wuttke) the number of tribes or kings excluded is specified as twenty-two, and this is the number generally specified in the works of which Pseudo-Methodius was the source.t | 1In the Arabic History of Dulcarnain (p. 34, vide supra, p. 31), which is here closely related to the Syrian Christian Legend, is a list of fifteen kings of fifteen tribes headed by Yachuch and Machuch. No further identifications can be reasonably made, and it is implied

that the total of fifteen names given is not the complete list. In the Ethiopian History of Alexander (II, 230ff.) are two lists of which the first contains fifteen names headed by MaAagiig and Yagig and followed by the statement ‘these are their twelve kingdoms:’ while the second list, probably from a source similar to Pseudo-Methodius, states that their kingdoms are twenty-two in number, but the list that follows contains only twenty-one names, headed by Magig and Yagig (vid. supra, p. 33). 2 Quoted by Kampers, op. cit., p. 75, and fn. 5. 3’ The number twenty-four reappears in the early printed editions of the Latin PseudoMethodius, notably that of 1496, quoted by Sackur, op. cit., p. 75, fn. 1; ef. also Max Budinger, Die Entstehung des achien Buches Ottos von Freising (Vienna, 1881), p. 34, fn. 4. It occurs also in the Latin Pseudo-Methodius of the Maxima Bibl. Vet. Patrum, III, 729. 4 In some western authors, however, the number appears as twelve instead of twenty-two, even though their ultimate source seems to have been Pseudo-Methodius. This is notably the case in Sibylline Beda, Migne, Pair. Lat. XC, 1185, a passage that reappears in Godfrey

of Viterbo, Pantheon, in Pistorius-Struve: Germanict Scriptores, II, 158ff., cf. Pertz in M.G.H., XXII, pp. 146-7 (Chap. XVI, 24), quoted above p. 11. For Beda vide Usinger, Forschungen zur deutschen Geschichte X (1870), 621ff.; XI (1871), 146ff. Cf. also von Zezschwitz, Vom rémischen Kaisertum deutscher Nation, pp. 158, 68). The number twelve occurs also in the Strassburg impressions of the Historia de Preliuis of 1489 and 1494.

The Number of Peoples Excluded 55 It is possible, therefore, that twenty-two was not the original number either of kings or of tribes excluded, but that the number is

the result of the conception of Alexander as the protector of the Oixovyévn, that in building the Gate he is safeguarding civilized

nations from barbarian tribes beyond it. Thus the twenty-two nations shut out are, as pointed out by Noeldeke, the traditional number of barbarian nations that he was once credited with having subjugated, now reappearing in a somewhat changed form. As the Historia Alexandri Magni, 111, 35 has it: brérakev vn BapBapwvr Kp’,

‘EAAnver vu’, a thought occurring in all the versions except that of Leo.!

A cursory glance at the lists of peoples excluded by Alexander as they are met with in different places leaves the impression that they have been made up at random without reference to each other. A

careful examination, however, will show that they have many elements in common, and that they started with smaller lists made up out of the genealogical elements found in Genesis x? To these elements were added from time to time the names of peoples invading

from the north, such as Huns, Alans, Sarmatians. To this might be added the names of fabulous peoples such as the Kynokephaloi.4

With the many elements in common presented by the sources studied in this investigation our suspicions are aroused that after all they may be derived from the same general original. Thus it has

been pointed out above that the lists occurring in Pseudo-Callis1 Cf. Noeldeke, Bettrdge, 8, fn. 5; Sackur, op. cit., 75, fn. 2. The number occurs also in Chronica Minora, Excerpta Graeca Barbari ed. Frick, I, 275; Malalas ed. Bonn, p. 195 (249); Muba&Ssir, ed. Meissner, Zs. deutsch. morgenldnd. Gesells.. XLIX (1895), 620.

Entirely independent of this number of nations is the oriental tradition recorded by Ibn Khaldun in the tenth century that the peoples were forty in number. Cf. Graf, op. cit. fn. (37) and the quotation given by Olrik, op. cit., p. 309 from Carra de Vaux, L’ Abrégé des Merveilles (Paris, 1898) pp. 1144f.: “Die Geschichtschreiber nennen vierzig Vélkerschaften

der Gog und Magog....Sie zogen einst aus ihrem Lande, um die Nachbarvélker anzugreifen, aber Alexander versperrte ihnen den Weg, indem er die beriihmte Mauer auffiihrte. Sie werden sie durchbrechen am Ende der Zeiten nach Gottes Verkiindigung.’ 2 Such a small list is found in Dinawari, in the extract given by Noeldeke, Bevtérdge, p. 40,

in German translation, quoted below, p. 97, and comprises Gog, Magog, Nawil, Taris, Minsak, Kumara. 3 A list made up exclusively of such invading peoples seems to present itself as recorded by an Armenian writer of the fifth century quoted by Lamy, op. cit., III, 197-198, quoted above, p. 18 fn. 4See particularly the lists as given in BC and By2, vide supra, p. 41.

56 Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, and Inclosed Nations thenes B and the Byzantine Infe of Alexander (Byz), although show-

ing considerable variation from each other, are fundamentally the same. Similarly it is possible—though the possibility is manifestly remote—that B and Byz in spite of their very few points of agreement with Pseudo-Callisthenes C may go back to to the same original as C’. It was Sackur! who in 1898 established the original identity of

the lists in four versions of Pseudo-Methodius with Pseudo-Callisthenes C, and the Syrian Pseudo-Ephraem, Sermo de Fine Extremo, §5. In the following year Bousset? added seven others including the Syrian Christian Legend. Kampers? followed by adding

the list interpolated in the letter of Prester John. In the meantime Istrint had edited several Greek and Slavic versions of PseudoMethodius containing lists. In the West the influence of Pseudo-Methodius did not touch the

original form of Leo, nor the text of I‘. The episode of the building of the Gate, without the lists of peoples confined, made its way into

the text of I? shortly before 1150 A. D., and into the text of [? generally with the lists of people confined about or shortly after 1150 A.D. The lists do not appear in all I? versions. The lists have been 1 Op. cit., p. 36ff. The Greek codex Ottob. 192, the Latin Pseudo-Methodius, the Syrian Book of the Bee by Solomon of Basra, and the Armenian Histoire de la Siounie by Stephannos Orbelian.

? Beitrdge, pp. 126ff. These are: The Greek and the Latin texts of Pseudo-Methodius according to M. onumenta Orthodoxographa Patrum (1569), I, 93ff.; Chronica Minora I, ed. Mommsen in M.G.H., IX, 159 from the codex Florentinus Laurent, 54 p. 38ff.; the two lists from the Ethiopian History of Alexander (Budge, The Life and Explotts of Alexander the Great,

II, 230f.) quoted above p. 31; a confused list in a corrupt version of Pseudo-Methodius printed in Vasiliev, Anecdota Graeco-Byzantina, p. 34. 3 Op. cit., p. 107ff., quoted above, p. 49.

4 Otkrovenie Mefodija Patarskago, etc. (Moscow, 1897). The lists of Gog-and-Magog peoples are found in the Greek, pp. 20 and 24; those in Slavic on pp. 90, 106, 125, the last

an interpolated version.

5 Thus we have additional lists of these peoples published by Pfister in the Miinchener Museum, I (1912), 267, 268 as found in a number of I? manuscripts, viz, B. Berlin, cod. Lat. no. 49, saec. XV; D. Darmstadt no. 231, saec. XV; Munich, clm. 14796, A. D. 1438; with the list as given in the Strassburg incunabulum of Pseudo-Methodius of the year 1489 and the list as given in the Heidelberg MS. of Quilichinus. In the edition of the Latin I? text (based on all manuscripts (over 40)) in preparation by Magoun, all variants will be given. Pfister, Berl. Phil. Wochenschr. XXXV _ (1915), col. 1550 refers to another list of peoples, not connected with Leo, however, derived from Pseudo-Methodius in the ‘Historia Gothorum, Wandalorum, Suevorum’ in M.G.H., Auct. Ant., XI (1894), 258 ff. from the Codex Matri tensis, bibl. nat: x, 161, saec. XI/XII, f. 154.1

The Insts of Peoples Excluded 57 further added to quite recently.! To these I add the lists as presented in the Polish Historja Aleksandra,? and also that in the Wars of

Alexander,? vv. 5483ff., and last of all that in the History of Dul-

carnain, quoted above p. 31.

1See Magoun and Thomson, ‘Kronika o Alexandru Velikém,’ Speculum ITI (1928), 211; Magoun and Jarcho, ‘Eine russ. Handschrift der Historia de Preliis,’ Archiv fiir slavische Philologie, XLII (1928), 262-274, esp. p. 271, collating the list as given in MS. 2405 of the Rumyantsev Museum (now Lenin Library), Moscow; Stephan Gaevskii, ‘Aleksandrija’ v Davniit Ukrainskoi Literature (Istoriéno-filologiéni Viddil Vse-ukrainskoi Akademii Nauk. Zbirnik No. 98) Kiev, 1929. 2M. Z. P. Krynski, Prace Filolog., TX (1920), 498 practically identical with that in Historia de Prelits, 1494, printed therewith. 3 E.E.T.S., Ex. Ser. XLVII (1886-1887). The text of the other I® Versions listed by Magoun, The Gests of Alexander, pp. 51ff. are not all accessible to me. In the Thornton Prose Infe of Alexander no list occurs.

III ALEXANDER’S GATE BUILT TO CONFINE THE TEN TRIBES OF ISRAEL

A be early development of the tradition of the confinement of Gog and Magog with or without their associated tribes behind the gate and rampart built by Alexander has been traced above. Several centuries later there developed a similar legend concerning the ten (or nine-and-a-half) tribes of Israel commonly referred to as

‘The Lost Tribes,’ tribes traditionally deported to Media by Shalmaneser, king of Assyria. The deportation, which really occurred under Sargon, can not in any sense have been complete,

and the notion that the deportees were lost is a myth of com-

paratively late development.! ,

The relegation of the tribes of Israel to a region in Media beyond

the Euphrates (sic) is based ultimately on the passage II (IV) Kings, xvii, where the Vulgate reads: 6. Anno autem nono Osee, cepit rex Assyriorum Samariam, et transtulit Israel in Assyrios; posuitque eos in Hala, et in Habor juxta fluvium Gozan, in ciwitatibus Medorum. 7. Factum est enim, cum peccassent filii Israel Domino Deo suo, qui eduxerat eos de terra Aegypti, de manu Pharaonis regis Aegypti, coluerunt deos alienos. cf. zbid. xvii, 9-12.

The corresponding part of the Septuagint is: 6. éy eres évvatw 'Qoné avvedaBe Bacrreds ’Acovpiwy tiv Dapdperav, kal araxucey *"Iopand eis ’Acoupiouvs, kal xatw@Kicey abrovs év ’AXaé xal év ’ABarp

morapots Twlavxat 6pn Mardwr.

There can of course be no doubt that the reading of the Vulgate ‘in Hala et in Habor juxta fluvium Gozan, in cwitatibus Medorum,’ 1 Allen H. Godbey, The Lost Tribes a Myth (Durham, N. C.: Duke University Press, 1930); cf. The Jewish Encyclopedia, s.v. ‘Tribes, The Lost.’ Neither work takes up the legend of the reclusion of the tribes of Israel by Alexander. 58

Deportations of the Jews 59 represents truly the location of the deportees from the tribes of Israel with respect to the topographic features involved. The Vulgate like the original Hebrew makes no mention of the mountains.

épn, the reading of the Septuagint. The correct interpretation both of the Vulgate and of the Septuagint should recognize the fact that the deportees of the tribes of Israel were placed south of the main Elburz range, and west of the spur projecting southward from it,

this being the spur that is cleft by Caspian Gates I, i.e., by the Sirdara or Firouz Kouh passes between Media on the west and Parthia on the east. Had the tribes been settled beyond the mountains, 1.e., east and north of them, they would not have been in Media.

Undoubtedly the descendants of the deportees of the ten tribes naturally expanded beyond the regions in which they were first settled after deportation. Then under Artaxerxes Ochus, about 350 B. C., there was a deportation from the remaining two tribes to the region beyond the mountains to the shores south and southeast of the Caspian in Hyrcania for having joined the Phoenicians

in a revolt.! Quite independently of deportations considerable numbers of Jews were at an early period to be found in the Caucasus, north of which in the course of time the Khazars, one of the peoples identified with Gog and Magog, were converted to Judaism, if not actually taken for Jews.

Now that we have called attention to the fact that the Jews dwelling beyond the mountains were likely to be merged with the

Ten Tribes, especially by people living at a distance, it may be pointed out that in the course of time a dual tradition developed - with reference to the ultimate fate of the Ten Tribes, commonly regarded as “The Lost Tribes.’ One tradition, scarcely connected with Alexander, the tradition generally held to by the Jews, and based on several passages in the Old Testament,? promises or looks 1 Cf. Eusebius, Chron. ed. Schoene II, p. 112 ad ann. Abr. 1657; Syncellus ed. Dindorf, I, 486 Bonn; Pseudo-Moses of Chorene, Geogr. V, 30 (pp. 53, 54 ed. Soukry); Oros., iii, 7, 6, a passage that immediately follows the section telling of the birth of Alexander the Great and

that concludes with the significant words concerning the descendants of the deportees: quos usque in hodiernum diem amplissimis generis sui incrementis consistere atque exim quandoque erupturos opinio est,’ the importance of which will be discussed below pp. 63ff. 2 [sav. xi, 11; xxvi, 20; xlix, 9; Jer. xxxi, 7f.; Ezek. xxxvii, 11.

60 Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, and Inclosed Nations forward to the return of the tribes of Israel in a restored and united

Judaism. Indeed, in some quarters during the time of the Maccabees, the impression seems to have existed that the Ten Tribes had

already returned to Palestine, completing the Twelve, while two centuries later Josephus! seems to know the legend that they are still dwelling in a faraway land. The eschatology of the ten Tribes (here nine-and-a-half)next comes into prominence in a composition belonging to the reign of Domitian, The Apocalypse of Ezra (Fourth

Ezra),2 where Ezra sees a vision of a wondrous man who first annihilates all his enemies and then welcomes to himself a peaceful

| multitude. The man is the Messiah; in the peaceful multitude that he receives are recognized the ten (or nine-and-a-half) tribeswho, under the wondrous help of God, have passed beyond the Euphrates

river into a faraway land from which they will ultimately return.

The return of the ten tribes and their victories are forecast in Oracula Sibyllina, ed. J. Geffcken II, 170-176: dewos 6° altots xodos HéEet, nvixa 0) dexadudos am’ avToAlns Aaods Eee (ntnowy Aaov, dv amwrecev "Aacipwos KAwr, oupdtrAwy ‘EBpatwr’ evn 6’ eri rotow ddovyTar. taTepoy av apk~ovow breppevewy avOpworwvr, EKNEKTOL WioTOL ‘EGpato. KaTadovAwoayTeEs

avrous ws TO TAapoweY, Eel KpaTOS OvmoTE NELVEL.

In Commodianus, about two centuries after [V Ezra, God in answer

to the prayers of both Christians and Jews to relieve them of the oppression of the Antichrist leads back the nine-and-a-half tribes from their abode across the river, Commodianus, Carm. Apol., vv. 932-939: Et clamant pariter ad caelum voce deflentes, Ut Deus illis subveniat verus ab alto. Tum Deus omnipotens, ut terminet cuncta, quae dixi, Producet populum celatum tempore multo: Sunt autem Iudaei, trans Persida flumine clausi, 1 Ant. xi, 133. Vide Bousset, Gesch. d. Judentums (4th ed., Tiibingen: 1926), pp. 236-238. 2 IV Ezra xii, 40—xiii, 58, esp. 12ff. and 39-47. German trans. by Gunkel, Tiibingen, 1900. Latin text by Violet, Die Esra-Apokalypse (IV Esra), Leipzig, 1910; German translation by B. Violet, Die Apokalypsen des Esra und des Baruch in deutscher Gestalt, Leipzig, 1924.

The Return of the Deportees 61 Quos usque in finem voluit Deus ibi morari. _ Captivitas illos ibidem redegit ut essent, Ex duodena tribu nove semis ibi morantur.

At their approach the Antichrist flees to the North, vv. 972-4: Mox autem adproperant sanctae civitati paternae, Expavescit enim terribilis ille tyrannus Et fugit in Boreae partem ab exercitu magno.

It is not unlikely that the retreat of the Antichrist in Boreae partem taken in combination with the expression used in Ezek. xxxviii,

6 and 15 dm’ écxdrov Boppa (‘from the uttermost parts of the north’), and also in combination with the expression pafol Boppa

(ubera aquilonis,—‘Breasts of the North’) was not without its influence in bringing about in some instances the identification of the hosts of Gog and Magog with those of the Antichrist. In the course of time also the return of the Antichrist at the head of the hosts of Gog and Magog was seen in the Mongol hosts of Genghis Khan.! 1 My study does not strictly call for a discussion of the Ten Tribes conceived as dwelling beyond the river Sambation (vid. Jewish Encyclopedia s. v. ‘Sambation’) located according

to the earlier view in Judea or Syria, cf. Pliny, N. H., xxxi, 24; Josephus, Bell. Jud., vii, 5, 1; neither does it discuss how this river was later identified with ’Auudppous of the Greek Alexander Romance ii, 30 f. (C); how it was later identified with the river Gozan and consequently conceived of as situated in upper India (Adam Perizol), or as being near the Caspian (Rabbi Menasse ben Israel) as well as being another name for the Euphrates (Gozan). Vide Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible and also the New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Rel. Knowledge, s. v. ‘Gozan;’ also Eisenmenger, Entdecktes Judentum (Konigsberg, 1711), II, 533-556; Neubauer, Jewish Quarterly Review I (1888), 144f., 95ff., 185ff., 408ff. A good summary of this

topic is given by H. Stocks ‘Ein Alexanderbrief in den Acta Cyriaci et Julittae,’ Zs. f. Kurchengesch. XX XI (1910), 1-47, esp. p. 7, 1). Stocks’ statement in the note last referred to (pp. 8, 9: “Die etwa 700 entstandene Apokalypse des Pseudomethodius (vgl. Sackur, Siby]linische Texte und Forschungen, Halle, 1898, S. 68) weiss wenigstens, dass die novem tribus in der Gegend der Wiiste Ethribum in Arabien wohnen’ errs in referring novem tribus to the

Israelites instead of to the Ishmaelites (Midianites). It may be remarked in passing that this is the type of mistake that produced modifications in our legend in the middle Ages. In the same note Stocks, art. cit., pp. 7, 8 says: R. Elieser weiss (Sanh., X, 3), dass sie zehn Stimme im Finstern wohnen, dereinst aber das Licht sehen werden (Jes. xxvi, 20; clix, 49, 9). Nach Midrasch rabbath (Genesis 73) seien sie iiber den Fluss Sambatjon ins Exil gegangen. Nach anderen (Sanh., X, 6 vgl. Pestktha rabbathi, 31) sei das nur bei einem Teil der Fall, wihrend andere nach Daphne bei Antiochien, noch andere durch eine Wolke entriickt worden seien (Jes. clix, 9).—Spiiter treten die Kinder Moses bzw. die Rechabiten an die Stelle der zehn

62 Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, and Inclosed Nations —

At this point Alexander the Great enters the legend, and here belongs the passage from Josephus Ben Gorion, ed. Gagnier (Oxford: 1706), 71, where, after recounting Alexander’s misadventure with a

Crab (Cancer) in somewhat the fashion of the Greek Alexander Romance (Pseudo-Callisthenes), ti, 38 (C) he says: “Inde pergens itinere bidui usque ad montes . . . Choschec seu Tenebrarum pervenit,

quo sol nullum lumen emittit interdiu. Voluit quoque progredi usque in illum locum ubi morantur fili Jonadab, filii Rechab & pars illa tribuum quae simul habitant ultra montes Tenebrarum.’ | Note that they dwell beyond the mountains of darkness, which shows that Ben Gorion located them in the extreme north. Traditionally, however, the sons of Rechab are conceived as dwelling in the south,

in the Arabian peninsula.! }

The other and opposite view of the return of the Ten Tribes is largely the product of Christian prejudice, and conceives of their ultimate return as destroyers, i.e., in the class of Gog and Magog. Both views are included in the following passage from Albertus Magnus, Compendium Theologicae Veritatis, vii, 10, and in the quotation the opposing views are distinguished respectively by the figures [1] and [2]: Gog et Magog, decem tribus ultra montes Caspios clausae, tamen ita quod bene possent exire si permitterentur, sed non permittuntur a regina Amazonum, sub cuius regno et ditione vivunt. [1] Has dicunt Judei in fine saeculi exituras et venturas in Hierusalem et cum suo Messya ecclesiam exstructuras. [2] Alii dicunt, quod per Gog et Magog intellegitur exercitus Antichristi, qui in fine saeculi veniet ecclesiam expugnare.’

Of these two views which seem so utterly diverse and irreconcilable,

[2] is in reality a development of [1]. To establish this it is only Stimme. Eldad haddani (vgl. Neubauer, l. c., p. 98 sqq.) bemerkt, das die Schne Moses, ein reines, langlebiges, gesetztreues Volk, hinter dem 200 Ellen breiten Sambatjon einem Sand- und Steinfluss wohnen. Dieser ruht zwar am Sabbat, aber dann umgibt ihn ein so gewaltiges Feuer, dass niemand sich ihm nahern kann (Neubauer, I. c., p. 101 sq.). Das

Buch ist um 850 entstanden, geht aber vielleicht (so James in Teats and Studies II, 2, p. 93 note, vgl. aber dagegen Schiirer, GJV*, III, 266) auf eine dltere jiidische Apokalypse des Eldad und Modad zuriick. Vide F. Pfister, Rhein. Mus., LXVI (1911), 464ff. 1Cf. The Jewish Encyclopedia, and Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible, s. v. ‘Rechabites’. 2 Vide the passage from Quilichinus of Spoleto quoted below pp. 77ff.

The Messiah and the Antichrist 63 necessary to revert to the view of Commodianus, Carm. A pol. 932ff. quoted above p. 60f., a passage in which the Messiah was Christ, and where it is foretold that the Ten Tribes under his leadership would return from their exile, conquer the Antichrist conceived as Nero, and free Jerusalem. Had the Jews been able to accept this

form of the legend, which means had they been able to accept Christ as their Messiah, all confusion between Gog and Magog on the one hand and the Ten Tribes of Israel on the other would have been avoided. In that case there would have been among the Hebrews as among the Christians two diverse legends: the one of an evil people confined and destined to help the Antichrist, the other a goodly host destined to be released and to support Christ during The Last Days.

But such was not to be; for to the Christians the Messiah of the Hebrews could be only an Antichrist, and the Ten Tribes who had followed such a Messiah could only be of the race of Gog and Magog

or be associated with them.! Indeed, we find even as early as the fifth-century Orosius, after a paragraph in which he tells of the birth of Alexander the Great (5), the paragraph in which he tells of the deportation of Jews to Hyrcania (6) on the shores of the Caspian, the significant words at the end of which I have italicized (iii, 7): 5. Quibus diebus etiam Alexander Magnus, vere ille gurges miseriarum atque atrocissimus turbo totius orientis, est natus.

6. Tune etiam Ochus, qui et Artaxerxes, post transactum in Aegypto

: maximum diuturnumque bellum plurimos Iudaeorum in transmigrationem egit atque in Hyrcania ad Caspium mare habitare praecepit, quos usque

in hodiernum diem amplissimis generis sui incrementis consistere atque exim quandoque erupturos opinio est.

The close proximity of Alexander and the Jews deported to Hyrcania

can hardly fail to be significant because of the profound influence exerted by Orosius. The italicized words are an addition made by Orosius himself, and not found in his sources,? and his use of the 1 Vide Graf, op. cit., p. 783, where this view is beautifully stated, and where he in fn. (66) shows that Lelewel’s suggestion put forth in Géographie du Moyen Age, II (Brussels, 1852), p. 87, n. 185, that the confusion between Gog and Magog and the Jews as being due to the Arabic form for Gog (Jadjoudi) is baseless. 2 Cf. E. Schiirer, Gesch. d. jiid. Volkes, TII (4th ed., Leipzig, 1909), 6ff. with fn. 11,

64 Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, and Inclosed Nations word erupturos is wellnigh sinister. That these wordsof Orosius did not pass unnoticed is shown by their quotation by Roger Bacon.! After accepting St Jerome’s definition of Gog and Magog,? Bacon adds the remark with reference to our passage from Orosius: “et a principe Gog omnes qui subditi sunt Magog appellantur et Judaei

similiter, quos Orosius et alii sancti referunt exituros.’ Most significant are two inscriptions found on a map of the early fifteenth century in the Borgia Museum? which run as follows: ‘Provincia gog in qua fuerunt iudei inclusi tempore Artaxersis [sic] regis Persarum;’

and ‘Magog in istis duabus sunt gentes magni ut gigantes pleni omnium malorum morum. Quos iudeos Artaxersex |sic| rex collexit

de omnibus partibus persarum.’ We may now consider the tribes of Israel as inclosed nations.

According to this conception, they lived not the pure, idyllic, righteous lives which would bring about their return to Jerusalem _

under the leadership of the Messiah, but their transgression in

, having renounced the God of Israel for the worship of other gods remained permanently unforgiven and their lives were so unalterably

impure and unholy as to classify them among the unclean nations and put them on a par with Gog and Magog. Hence, if ever they

were to return, it might be well be under the leadership of the Antichrist.

It is in Petrus Comestor, Historia Scholastica, Lib. IV Regum, xxvi, Migne, Patr. Lat., CXCVIII, col. 1407: that we see a farreaching change consummated: De Captiwitate Decem Tribuum: ‘Contra hune ascendit Salmanasar, rex Assyriorum, et factus est el Osee tributarius. Cumque deprehendisset rex Assyriorum quod Osee rebellare niteretur per Susac regem Aegypti, cul munera miserat, obsedit

eum, et vinctum misit in carcerem Ninive, et obsedit Samariam tribus annis, et cepit eam anno nono Osee et sexto Ezechiae, et transtulit Israel in Assyrios,’ scilicet septem tribus quae remanserant, “et posuit eos luxta | fluvium Gozan ultra montes Medorum et Persarum.”4 1Q0pus Maius, ed. J. H. Bridges (Oxford, 1897), pars quarta, I, 365. 2 Vide supra, p. 19n. 3 Santarem, Aélas, no. 23: Mappemonde du commencement du XV Siécle du Musée Borgia dressée avant les grandes decouvertes.

4'To avoid confusion with the Babylonian captivity, he remarks later: ‘Additio 1. Adhuc

The Historia Scholastica of Petrus Comestor 65 Gradually therefore, at the expense of the river Gozan and the cities of Media, the mountains come into prominence; for where

the original Hebrew and the Vulgate had the equivalent of ‘juxta fluvium Gozan, in civitattbus Medorum,’ and the Septuagint

had sorapots Twtav kat dpn Mrdwr, Comestor now says ‘iuxta fluvium Gozan ultra montes Medorum et Persarum,’ and Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela, a contemporary of Comestor, even goes so far as to say ‘the mountains of Gozan and the mountains of Media.”!

The logical effect of this change which placed the tribes of Israel

beyond the mountains is that the river Gozan can no longer be identified with the Euphrates or Tigris or Gauzanites, but must itself be transferred beyond the mountains, thus preparing the way for its identification with the Ganges or with some river flowing into the Caspian, perhaps the Oxus.? We come now to Comestor’s account of the reclusion of the ten tribes of Israel by Alexander. Although the influence of PseudoMethodius on Comestor’s Historia Scholastica was considerable, Comestor did not follow it in crediting to Alexander the inclusion

of Gog and Magog; rather did he prefer as more germane to his subject to substitute for Gog and Magog the ten tribes of Israel, as recounted by him in the Historia Scholastica, Liber Esther V, 50 (Migne, Patr. Lat., CXCVIII, col. 1498): Cap. V. De reclusione decem tribuum, et morte Alexandrv. (50) Itaque cum venisset Alexander ad montes Caspios, miserunt ad eum

filii captivitatis decem tribuum. Ex edicto enim tenebantur egredi non licere, postulantes ab eo egrediendi copiam. Cumque quaesisset causam captivitatis, accepit eos recessisse aperte a Deo Israel, vitulis aureis immolando, et per prophetas Dei praedictum esse eos a captivitate non redituros. Tunc respondit, quod arctius eos includerent. Cumque angustia viarum obstrueret molibus bituminatis, videns laborem humanum non sufficere, oravit Deum Israel, ut opus illud compleret. Et accesserunt ad se Invicem praerupta montium, et factus est locus immeabilis. Ex quo liquido decem tribus ultra montes Caspios captivae tenentur. Si quae ergo de reditu filiorum Israel ita dicuntur, sub Cyro vel sub Artaxerxe, de duobus tribubus intellegendum.’ 1M. Komroff, Contemporaries of Marco Polo (New York: Boni and Liveright, 1926) p. 304. A few lines later however he refers to the river Gozan. 2 Cf. Eisenmenger, op. cit., II, 533-556.

66 Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, and Inclosed Nations i apparet non esse Dei voluntatem ut exeant. Egredientur tamen circa finem mundi, magnam hominum stragem facturi. Et, ut ait Josephus Deus quid facturus est pro fidelibus suis, si tantum fecit pro infideli?!

I have assumed thus far that, when Comestor uses such expressions as ultra montes Medorum et Persarum, ultra montes Caspios, ad montes Caspios, he means the range between Media and Parthia that is cleft by Caspian Gates I, that is the Sirdara and Firouz Kouh passes, and this is probably the correct interpretation; for these are

the only Caspian Gates through which the Alexander of history passed, and on his way to them he naturally traversed the region to which the tribes of Israel had been transferred. However, there is strong probability that the authors following Comestor used the term to apply to the Caucasus, more specifically to the pass of Dariel,

Caspian Gates II. Inasmuch as the latter was the pass traditionally applied to the exlusion of Gog and Magog, and since this interpretation would place the ten tribes of Israel in the same region with Gog and Magog, thus would be provided the setting for the identification of the ten tribes of Israel with Gog and Magog.? It is to be noted also that Comestor does not state that Alexander originally inclosed the ten tribes of Israel, but that he came to them

where they already were shut in, in this instance in the Caspian mountains, and that they besought him permission to come forth. Alexander, as a worshipper of the true God, on ascertaining that they were apostates from the God of Israel, and that they had gone forth to worship idols, commanded that they be shut in still more closely. Later writers, however, in condensing or in loosely interpreting the 1 The ascription of his thought to Josephus was an error on the part either of Comestor or of his sources, whatever they were. The repetition of this error in later authors in this context is fairly conclusive proof that they were copying Comestor. 2 If the Lost Tribes somehow were shifted from their place of settlement at Hala and Habor beyond the river Ghozan and the cities of Media to beyond the Caucasus, the converse is also true, that we find Gog and Magog (sic) transferred from their abode north of the Caucasus to that of the lost tribes. Cf. ‘Impostoris cuiusdam Epistola ad Fridericum II Imperatorem,’ in J. T. Schannat, Vindemiae Litterariae (Fulda and Leipzig, 1723): ‘Datum anno nativitatis nostre XXIV in Campo Ragahu, iuxta fluvium Chobar presentibus regibus Goch et Mahog olim montanis, presentibus regibus et principibus Libiae, Eufratis et Egypti, adveniente rege et principe Balthasar, qui est iuxta flumen Chobar cum principibus potentissimis et David nomen principis Tartarorum.’

The Itinerarium of Ricold of Monte Croce 67 passage give the impression that it was Alexander who originally shut them in where they were.

Exceedingly valuable as affecting the question whether the Tartars are Gog and Magog and also the question as to whether the Tartars are the descendants of the ten tribes of Israel is Ricold of Monte Croce, [tinerarvum, chap. x, §§35—-48 3!

Primo enim admiracione dignum videtur, quis iste populus ita infinitus numero et multitudine, de quo nichil aperte in libris divinis vel antiquis historiis invenitur, et quomodo potuit esse occultus tantus populus. Et opinantur plures, quod ipsi fuerunt decem tribus Israhel, que captivate fuerant. Nam Teglatfalassar, rex Assur, primo captivavit septem tribus, et posuit eos iurta flumen Gozan ultra montes Medorum, quos multi dicunt esse montes caspios. Hii quoque toto tempore, quo duravit monarchia Caldeorum et Assiriorum et Medorum et Persarum, non potuerunt exire, prohibente edicto publico. Cum vero translata est monarchia ad Grecos per Alexandrum, ipse Alexander miraculose conclusit montes, ut nullo modo possent exire. Dicit autem Josephus et Methodius, quod exibunt circa finem mundi et magnam stragem hominum facient. Et ideomulti credunt esse predones ipsos Tartaros, qui subito apparuerunt et exiverunt circa finem mundi, et in partibus orientalibus ceperunt mundum destruere. Ad hoc duo argumenta faciunt. Nam Alexandrum summe odiunt et nomen eius non possunt pacifice audire. Secundo quia litera eorum valde similis est

Caldee, unde primo exiverunt Iudei, et est Caldea lingua et litera valde consimilis affinis Iudee. Contra hoc facit validum argumentum, quia de lege vel de Moyse vel de exitu de Egipto vel de sacerdotio nullam notitiam videntur habere: et eciam quia et effigiem distantem et diversam videntur habere et mores a Iudeis et a ceteris nacionibus mundi. Ipsi vero dicunt se descendisse de Gog et Magog. Unde ipsi dicuntur Mogoli quasi corrupto vocabulo Magogoli. Methodius autem dicit quod Alexander conclusit cum filiis captivatis Iudeorum Gog et Magog, gentem spurcissimam, et multos alios et quod facient maximam stragem hominum. solucionem relinquo.

I call especial attention to the portions above italicized, the first of which contains an equation in geographical terms of a sort that now becomes fairly commonplace.? In the second italicized portion 1J.C. M. Laurent, Peregrinatores Medii Aevi Quattuor (Leipzig, 1864, 1873). Ricold lived

1242-1320, and completed the Itinerarium about 1300. 2 Cf. especially Ranulph Higden, who, writing about half a century later says, Polychronicon, II, xxxix (Rolls Ser. xli, 3, pp. 78-70): ‘Senecharib, qui et Salmanazar, rex Chaldeorum, devicit Oses regem Israel, Samariamque tribus annis obsessam cepit: decem quoque tribus,

68 Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, and Inclosed Nations Ricold—if the words ‘cum filiis captivatis Iudeorum’ are genuine— charges Methodius with saying what he really did not say. The legend of Alexander’s reclusion of the Ten Tribes of Israel

may be traced in some features of its development in the Latin letter of Prester John and its German adaptations. In the original form of the Latin letter,! §31, it is the sea that is of sand. Into this, from mountains three days’ journey distant, runs a river of stones which flows and is impassable three days out of each seven, §§32, 33.

Beyond this river of stones are the ten tribes of the Jews, §41: ‘Ultra fluvium vero lapidum sunt x tribus Iudaeorum, qui quamvis fingant sibi reges, servi tamen nostri sunt et tributarij excellentiae nostrae.’ They are not spoken of as confined there, and Alexander is not mentioned. In the text of the Ambras-Wiener manuscript, however, the mountains and Alexander make their appearance:? Vernym was ich mayne: enhalb des phlumes der staine die zehen geschlacht der Juden sint besperret, man, weib vnd auch kindt, mit einem gepirg, das wunder hoc ist, die nymmer mer dhaynen tag noch dhain frist von derselben vancknusse kamen vnd irdischen man nie me vernamen, die Alexander bey alten zeiten, der da wunderlich hiess nahen vnd weiten, also lebentige daynne et vertan:

In Der jiingere Titurel, strophe 6057ff. (Zarncke, §34, p. 977), the Jews have become red, and the mountains have come into prominence, and although Alexander is not mentioned, I seem to feel his

presence; for the two mountains (corresponding to the ubera id est, septem residuas tribus captivas transtulit in montes Medorum tuzxta fluvium Gozan, GIRALDUS, id est, ultra montes Caspios, ubi Alexander Magnus inclusit duas immundas gentes, Gog et Magog, quas Antichristus cum venerit liberabit et educet; hunc etiam Judaei expectant et Messiam credunt.’ The value of this equation attributed by Ranulph to Giraldus Cambrensis is hardly impaired by the fact that Giraldus seems not to have made it. For its substance occurs in Ricold. 1 Zarneke, op. cit., pp. 914 (8) ff.

2 Zarncke, op. cit., 963 (137), vv. 571ff. (based on §41).

The Pantheon of Godfrey of Viterbo 69 aquilonis or Boreum and Promuntorium) are called Gog and Magog from the two peoples of that name.

The question presents itself: did Comestor invent the story of Alexander’s reclusion of the ten tribes of Israel out of the biblical sources here quoted? Or did he take the story from some source at present unknown? Apart from the improbability that he would have utilized a story of his own fiction for so important a work, a similar though not identical form of the legend occurs in his younger contemporary Godfrey of Viterbo (died 1190), in whose Pantheon Alexander is credited, apparently for the first time, with having shut in not only the tribes of Israel, here strangely specified as eleven in number, but also Gog and Magog. I quote the part pertaining to the tribes of Israel from Joannes Pistorius Nidanus’ Rerum Germani-

carum Scriptores II (Ratisbon, 1731), Pantheon, (Chronica), Pars XI, pp. 165ff. beginning with the first column: ‘Goth et Magoth

aeternaliter conclusit. Undecim tribus Hebraeorum montibus aeternaliter circumcinxit, de quibus omnibus in versis plenius dicemus atque iucundius.’! The part dealing with the shutting in of the Jews is found on p. 165, second column (227-228): Vidit Hebraeorum populos quasi millia centum, Sub duce Salmanasar captos inibique retentos, Qui de Samaria praeda potentis erant. Fertur Alexander hac plebe petente rogari, Eius ut auxilio queat in patriam revocari. Rex, ubi res patuit, non miserebor, ait. Si populo peccante Deus vos hic religavit, Iussa Dei caeli per me nequeunt vacuari, Ut Deus instituit, sic maneatis, ait. Insuper ipse preces devoto corpore fudit, Ut Deos hos faceret alpina rupe recludi, Ne magis hinc abeant; quod petit ipse fuit. Ardua montana fuerant hinc inde remota, Quae rex transposita videt huc, coniunctaque tota, Concludunt populos, continuatque loca.

Author reddit rationem, cur montes translati sint, utrum per preces Alexandri, vel alio iudicio. 1 This serves as a table of contents for the section following.

70 Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, and Inclosed Nations Rege petente fit hoc, sed non prece traduce regis, Nec prece pagani fieri tam grandia legi, Sed prece Christicolae, saepe venire solent, Dummodo transferri montes rex forte perorat, Incidit in punctum fati quia venerit hora,

Nam si non peteret rex, tamen ista forent. |

I conclude therefore that Comestor did not originate the legend of the reclusion of the tribes of Israel by Alexander, even though his

source, whether extant or not, is unknown. The extension of the legend to the tribes of Israel, however, brought in a confusing element, one of the most confusing accretions ever made to the Alexander Romance. What was to be their relation to Gog and Magog? (1) Were they to be treated as peoples shut in by Alexander

and supplanting Gog and Magog? (2) Were they to be treated as peoples shut in by Alexander coordinate with and parallel to Gog and Magog and yet distinct from them, 1.e., were the tribes of Israel and Gog-and-Magog separate sets of peoples both of which according to legend Alexander similarly shut in? (3) Or, were they to be identified

with Gog and Magog? Such were the questions that came up to engage the attention and ingenuity of later mediaeval authors and cartographers, and they answered them some in one way, some in another. I. The Ten Tribes of Israel are treated as peoples shut in by Alexander and supplanting Gog and Magog, i.e., in contexts in which Gog and Magog are not similarly mentioned.

The following quotations are for the most part based upon the passage of Petrus Comestor, Hist. Schol., Lib. Esther V, 50, quoted

above p. 63, Matthew of Paris, Chron. Maz., IV, 77. (ed. Luard,

Rolls Ser.) :

Creduntur isti Tartari, quorum memoria est detestabilis, fuisse de decem

tribubus, qui abierunt, relicta lege Mosaica, post vitulos aureos; quos etiam Alexander Macedo primo conatus est includere in praeruptis montibus Caspiorum molaribus bituminatis. Quod opus cum videret humanos

labores excedere, invocavit auxilium Dei Israel; et coierunt cacumina montium adinvicem, et factus est locus inaccessibilis et immeabilis. Super quem locum dicit Josephus, ‘Quanta faciet Deus pro fideli, qui tantum fecit

pro infideli??’ Unde liquet Deum nolle ut exeant. Veruntamen, sicut

Gog and Magog Supplanted by the Ten Tribes 71 scribitur in scholastica historia, exibunt circa finem mundi, magnam stragem hominum facturi. Emergit autem dubietas, si isti sint nunc exeuntes Tartari, cum non utantur linqua Hebraica, nec legem sciant Mosaicam, nec utantur vel regantur legalibus institutis. Ad quod respondetur quod nihilominus credibile est, quod isti sunt de inclusis de quibus mentio praelibatur. Dicuntur autem Tartari a quodam flumine per montes eorum, quos iam

penetraverant, decurrente, quod dicitur Tartar; sicut flumen Damasci Farfar nuncupatur.

The passage from the Historia Scholastica, Lib. Esther, v, 50, including the thought falsely ascribed to Josephus, later appears almost verbatim in Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum Historiale IV (V),

Cap. xliii, p. 42b, but in a later passage, XXIX (XXX), Ixxxix, 393b and ff., his critical sense comes to the fore; for the mention of the Caspian Mountains in connection with the Tartars causes him to test the historicity of Alexander’s reclusion of the Ten Tribes in the Caucasus, with the result that he finds it baseless, and therefore

he goes back to the earlier form, as seen for instance in PseudoMethodius, without however mentioning Gog and Magog. The passage reads: Quia vero de montibus Caspiis hic facta est mentio, hic unum quod in dubium mihi venerit inserere volo. Cum enim dicant historie nostre schol-

astice quod Alexander Magnus rex Macedonum oratione impetravit a domino reclusionem [udeorum intus Montes Caspios, ipsosque circa finem mundi praedicent exituros, fratres nostri sancti ordinis praedicatorum in Georgia civitate Triphelis que prope montes Caspios est per vli annos commorati sunt diligenter a Georgianis et a Persis et etiam a Iudeis de inclusione illa inquesierunt et dicunt omnes etiam Judei quod nihil penitus inde sciunt nec unquam istud in suis historiis invenerunt. Hoc autem scriptum habent tantummodo quod Alexander ille quosdam immundos et horribiles prope montes Caspios habitantes qui alios homines et etiam seinvicem comedebant intra montes illos habitare coegit et etiam ibi portas extrul fecit que videlicet adhuc porte Alexandri dicte sunt. Unamque ilarum Tartari confregerunt, ceterum de reclusione hominum in montibus illis nihil aliud reperitur in locis illis.

Nevertheless, from the time of Comestor on, the reclusion of the tribes of Israel by Alexander became almost a commonplace in the

72 Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, and Inclosed Nations

literature of the Middle Ages,! and the legend was destined still to pass through interesting transformations.

In the Wernigerode ‘Alexander’? the ten Tribes are inclosed behind two mountains Gog and Magog, whereas in Ulrich von Eschenbach’s Alexander? Gog and Magog are the names of two kings under whom the ten Tribes are ruled. The legend of the inclusion of the tribes of Israel by Alexander took shape near the end of the twelfth century. Before another century had passed, these were in some places invested with color and became red. There are considerable traces of erythrism among the Jews, and this may have contributed to the appearance of the Jews in literature with this color. However, Christian tradition was only too prone to represent the Jews as hardhearted and merciless (cf. Math. xix, 8), and to attribute to the Jews in general the evil

spirit of Judas. Now Judas was depicted as having red hair. Out of this tradition grew the Rufus of mediaeval drama, as well as the redness of the hair with which Jews are represented in old paintings and drawings, not to mention the redness of the Jews shut out by 1 The following may be cited: S.S. Hoogstra, Proza-Bewerkingen van het Leven van Alexander

den Groote, Tekst I, 22-236, Tekst II, chap. XX XTII-XXXV; A. J. Barnouw, A. Middle Low German Alexander Legend (reprinted from The Germanic Review, Vol. IV), pp. 32-34, lines 445-483, cf. Paul Jakob Bruns, Romaniische und andere Gedichte in altplatideutscher Sprache

containing ‘Fabelhafte Geschichte Alexanders des Grossen’ (Berlin and Stettin, 1798), 336-366, this text being placed at the foot of the page in the text edited by Barnouw. Both Bruns and Hoogstra’s Tekst I are based on the Seelentrost-Alexander. From the Seelentrost also is derived the incident as told in Middle Dutch History-Bibles; cf. H. Fuchs, Betérdge zur Alexandersage (Giessen, 1907). The incident occurs also in the German History-Bibles; Cf. Th. Merzdorf, ‘Die deutschen Historienbibeln des Mittelalters’ in the Bibliothek des literarischen Vereins in Stuttgart, Bd. C and CI: Historienbibel J, CI, 551-2; Historienbibel IIb, C, 71; Historienbibel ITI, C, 87. The reclusion of the tribes of Israel occurs also in the Spanish Alexandreis, El Libro de Alixandre,’ ed. Alfred Morel-Fatio, in Gesellschaft fiir rom. Literatur, X (1906), 261ff. (208.ff.);

cf. Ricold of Monte Croce, quoted above p. 65; Ranulph Higden, Polychronicon, III, xxviii Rolls Ser. 41, Pt. 3, pp. 450-452. According to Hedenskog, op. cit., p. 21, it occurs also in Seifrid of Austria. 2 Ed. Guth, Deutsche Texte des Mittelalters, XIII (1908), 63ff. esp. 71-72. The Wernigerode Alexander is based on Quilichinus. 3 Ed. W. Toischer, Bibliothek des lit. Vereins in Stuttgart, CX CITI, 20901ff.

4J. Deniker, The Races of Man (New York: Scribners, 1906) p. 50: Cf. M. Fishberg, The Jews (New York: Scribners, 1911), p. 68, points out that in ancient Egyptian monuments Canaanites are represented with red hair and red beards.

The Red Jews 73 Alexander. Thus Mone! points out that Rufus relentlessly goaded

on gentiles and Jews alike to the death of Christ, and that the deeply-moving plea of Pilate’s wife for Christ’s release was rendered

utterly void by the speech of Rufus in which he threatened them with the emperor’s displeasure if he were set free. Actors 1mperson-

ating Jewish réles—roéles that generally represented the Jews as hard-hearted—formerly wore the red wig as traditional.?

In the Jiingerer Titurel (written about 1280 and ascribed to Albrecht von Scharfenberg), str. 6057ff. the red Jews are represented as shut behind mountains called Gog and Magog (as in the Wernigerode Alexander, 71-72) from the peoples of that name. Alexander, however, is not mentioned as the one who inclosed them.? The characterization of the Ten Tribes of Israel as the red Jews has found its way also into a German version of the Gesta Romanorum:*

Alexander der grozz kvnich von Chriechen der regnocht vber ellew Asischew lant zu Orient vnd behabt die herschaft der werlt als man liset in der Chriechischen choronik vnd die pucher sagent Machabez vnd der vacht mit den rotten Juden die da haizzent daz zehent geslecht die vor mangen Jarn der kunich Salmanasar gefangen het Vnd sew satzt zu dem gepirg caspij.°

Similarly Agricola, Sprichwérter I (iiber die Juden): Sie sagen das der grosse Alexander auff Kniui gefallen sey, vuund von gott ernstlich gebetten, Er wolte die Caspios montes lassen Zusamen geen,

vnd die rotten Juden verschliessen, vnd es sey also geschehen. Daher auch die Fabel erwachsen ist von den rodten Juden, welliche mit Enoch vnd Helia vor dem jungsten tage sollen herfiir kommen. 1K, J. Mone, Schauspiele des Mittelalters (Karlsruhe, 1846) I, 57ff. 2 My colleague, Dr Allen H. Godbey, gives the interesting bit of information that it aroused

much comment when Edmund Keene changed the color of the wig worn by him in the réle of Shylock from red to black.

3 Cf. Museum fiir altdeutsche Literatur I (Berlin, 1809), 265 referred to by H. Weber, Metrical Romances (Edinburgh, 1810), III, 325. Some of the details as given in these two works need correction. 4 Adalbert Keller, Gest Romanorum, Der Rémer Tat (Quedlinburg and Leipzig, 1941), p. 9. 5 The latter part of this chapter in the Gesta Romanorum gives other details derived ulti-

mately from Petrus Comestor. This passage and the one from Agricola next quoted were given by H. Bieling, Zu den Sagen von Gog und Magog (Berlin, 1882), 23, where he has an important footnote on the significance of the red Jew ‘Rufus’ in literature.

74 Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, and Inclosed Nations

Before long they appear also in the Alexander Romance with this color, e.g., in the Middle-Swedish Konung Alexander, written about 1380, ll. 3977, 4021, 4041. Toward the close of the Middle Ages, in Hartlieb’s Buch des Grossen Alexander, which was translated from a Latin original,! the red Jews appear transformed into the red

Indians, ed. cit., p. 254: “Wir kamen mit all unserm Heer und Volk zu dem grossen hohen Gebirg, das man nennt Portas Caspias, das ist der Rothen Indien Land.’ II. Alexander 1s credited with having inclosed the tribes of Israel as well as Gog and Magog.

The earliest author in whom I find Alexander credited with having inclosed the tribes of Israel as well as Gog-and-Magog is Godfrey of Viterbo. The part describing the reclusion of the tribes of Israel has been quoted above p. 69. That describing the investment of Gog and Magog follows herewith:? DE GOTH ET MAGOTH, QUOS ALEXANDER INTER MONTES CONCLUSIT.

Finibus Indorum species fuit una virorum, Goth erat atque Magoth, dictum cognomen eorum, De causis quorum scribere pauca volo. Ex aliis scriptis poteris cognoscere, quid sit, Narrat Esaias, Isidorus, Apocalypsis, Tangit et in titulis magna Sibylla suis. Carnibus humanis solet haec gens sordida vescl, Quid sit rex, vel lex, vel dux, vel ius ibi nescit, Regula tunc illis normaque nulla fuit. Fertur ab his lupus atque canis vel rana vorari, 1 The Latin original is represented in Cod. Paris. Bibl. Nat. Nouv. acq. Lat. 310; vide Hans Poppen, Das Alexanderbuch Johann Hartliebs und seine Quelle, Heidelberg Dissertation, 1914 Vide also Rivista di Filologia Classica, XLII (1914), 104ff., and F. Pfister, Der Alexanderroman

des Archipresbyters Leo (Heidelberg; Winter, 1913), pp. 11f. Cf. J. Hartlieb, Das buch der Geschicht des Grossen Alexanders, ed. R. Benz, Jena: Diederichs, 1924.

2 The following quotation from Pars XI of the Pantheon is given as edited by PistoriusStruve, op. cit., and corresponds in subject to Particula XVII of the edition of Pertz published in the M. G. H., XXTI, which does not, however, contain the parts quoted here, cf. M. G. H.,

XXII, 119 and 157. | It is noteworthy that Godfrey does not here mention Pseudo-Methodius among his sources. He was however much influenced by the Tiburtine Sibyl, cf. Pistorius-Struve, Pars X (Parti-

cula XVI as edited by Pertz, ed. cit.). Note also that Godfrey puts Gog and Magog in the orient adjoining India, finibus Indorum.

Gog and Magog in Godfrey of Viterbo 75 Funeribus voluit Goth, atque Magoth, saturari, Turba cadaveribus vescitur ore pari. Patribus ipsorum tumulus fit venter eorum, Tumbaque natorum patris est in ventre suorum, Tale dedit populo vita ferina forum. Turpia sunt plura, quibus utitur atra figura, Vidit Alexander quid turba facit peritura, Praeparat et meritis reddere digna suis. Montis ob hanc causam tenet hanc sub tegmine clausam, Sic quod in aeternum discedere non erit ausa, Ne ferat exemplum vita nefanda malum. O lector, Goth atque Magoth, vis scire quid est hoc? Tecta super tecta, resonant haec nomina lecta, Denique multiplici tegmine tecta fuit. -Gens ea, quae tanto conamine clausa tenetur, Fine dato mundi, post fortior egredietur, Tune quoque deficiet lex nova lexque vetus. Tune Antichristi robur praestabitur isti, Ut queat ecclesiis gens ipsa resistere Christi, _ Ipsaque Christicolis tunc gravis hostis erit. Tune rex Romanus surget, testante Sibylla, Viribus imperil, qui gentem destruet illam, Qui rex Ausoniae fiet et Italiae. Nomen et ille Dei conscriptum fronte tenebit Auratis laminis, cul mundus pace favebit, Postea conversus religiosus erit. Christi sive patris nomen, iussu deitatis Deferet auratis laminis in fronte ligatis, Hostibus iratis proelia dando satis. Denique pro Christo statuet dimittere Romam, Religione bona deponet in urbe coronam, Stare Hierosolymis, vivere mente bona. Huius erit constans animus longaevaque vita, Tunc convertetur Iudaeus et Israelita, Annis centenis rex remanebit ita. Ex tunc terrigenis iam non erit ulla potestas, Grandis et infesta populis tribulatio restat, Pax abolenda perit, turbidus orbis erit. Ista Sibyllinis scriptis praeconia dixi,

76 Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, and Inclosed Nations S1 nec in his contentus eris, patet Apocalypsis,

Kt reliqui libri dent potiora tibi.

Similarly, Quilichinus of Spoleto, writing 1236-1238 A. D., even

though (following Comestor) he places both the tribes of Israel and (following Pseudo-Methodius) the unclean peoples of Gogand Magog behind the same general barrier—Caspia, Caspia porta— nevertheless keeps the two sets of tribes distinct in their identity. Fortunately this part of his work is available: 1 Bousset, Der Antichrist, p. 65, observed the similarity in the legend of the tribes of Israel

and that of Gog and Magog as shut in by Alexander, remarking: ‘So gewinnt iibrigens die Sage von den zehn Stimmen eine grosse Ahnlichkeit mit derjenigen von Gog und Magog. Daraus erklirt sich denn auch, dass bei den christlichen Schriftstellern des Mittelalters eine Verschmelzung eintritt. So heisst es in der Chronik des Gottfried v. Viterbo (XI): Alexander Gog et Magog aeternaliter conclusit ...undecim tribus Hebraecorum montibus aeternaliter circumcinxit (mehr hieriiber ist nachzusehen bei Malvenda, de Antichristo libri XI [Lugduni, 1647], I, 571).’? The work of Malvenda is not accessible to me in the edition cited by Bousset. I desire to point out, however, that the author cited by Bousset to prove his point does not on careful examination entirely bear him out. While I do not deny that fusion between the two legends took place, it did not really materialize until a considerably later time, see below under IIT, pp. 79ff., and then only in a very few instances. In the passage from Godfrey of Viterbo

to which Bousset refers, the reclusion of the tribes of Israel is kept distinct from that of Gog-and-Magog. I quote the whole passage. What actually happened is that, from the time of Comestor on, the legend of the tribes of Israel grew at the expense of that of Gog-andMagog. In both literature and cartography, the two are generally kept distinct, but a few instances of fusion or identification did develop. Strangely enough, in his summary of Godfrey of Viterbo, G. Grion, Nobili Fatti (Bologna, 1872), p. CX XXII made a similar error: “Chiuse con monti Gog e Magog, cio é undici tribt: degli Ebrei.’ Other passages in which Alexander is represented as inclosing both the tribes of Israel and Gog and Magog are: the Spanish ‘E] Libro de Alixandre’, ed. More-Fatio, Gesells. fiir roman. Interatur, X (1906), 261 ff. Also in a manuscript of the Historia de Prelis, recension I’, in the

Stadtbibliothek at Breslau, R. 58, written in 1473, and designated by A. Hilka as Br‘, from which pertinent extracts are given by Hilka, Der altfranzisische Prosa-Alexanderroman (Halle,

1920), pp XX VII-XXXVII, esp. XXXI.

2 F. Pfister, ‘Die Historia de preliis und das Alexanderepos des Quilichinus,’ Miinchener Museum, I (1912), 249-301, the test being according to the Heidelberg manuscript, Cod. Sal. 8, 296, fol. 81r-81v (Pfister, pp. 294ff.). On pp. 267, 268 Pfister has a valuable table giving

lists of various unclean peoples shut in by Alexander. He makes it particularly clear that neither in Leo nor in the Bamberg version, nor yet in I' did the episode of Alexander’s shutting in of the Gog and Magog peoples occur and that when in the later versions the episode was incorporated in the Historia de Preliis, its source was Pseudo-Methodius. ‘Ausser I hat sich auch unabhingig davon [? in seine Darstellung verwoben; der Text von I’, der jedoch die namen der Vdlker nicht nennt, ist in einer, freilich wieder umgearbeiteten Form, nach cod. Seitenstettensis bei Zingerle S. 199 im kritischen Apparat abgedruckt.’

Quilichinus of Spoleto 7 Gentes immundas, quae Tartara turba vocatur, Post hoc rex magnus clausit in arta loca. Horum viginti reges erantque catervae Binis adjunctis, ut docet historia.

Per magicas artes rex magnus clausit eosdem, 5 Ne mundi regna contaminata forent. Hae sunt Gog sunt Magog; nec omnia illa Expedit ut narrent carmina nostra tibi. Aspicies prosam, quae narrat omnia plane;

Versus non patitur singula verba loqui. 10

Apodine Camarce Grimardi Og Magog Junii Sfabelli Amafrogi qui

dicuntur Winchafagii Agethen Lubi Tamarnagi Trabe Megeth Raniceri Tathomi Archmei Philem Olcathardeden (i.e. Olcathar Deden) Amade Sarchmen Alani Saltan. Praeterea inclusit decem tribus filiorum Israel. Sed Judam et Benyamyn non inclusit. Qui- 15 dam etiam dicunt, quod inclusit novem tribus et mediam tribum Manassem.

Est locus ad partes orientis undique clausus, Ex magnis ripis sed patet una via. Introitus talis vocitatur Caspia porta;

Illic rex magnus arte reclusit eos. 20

Illic sunt oppida, sunt villae, sunt quoque castra; Gentibus his tellus illa repleta manet. Sed cur hae gentes immundae sunt vocitatae, Forsan narrabunt carmina nostra tibi.

Credo quod hae gentes comedebant omnia cruda 25 Et pecorum more vivere virtus erat: Hine gens immunda, sic quoque dicta fuit. Et quia rex timuit, ne gens ea crescat in orbe, Huc magnus princeps illico traxit eos.

Tradunt ludei, nec ab his sacra pagina distat, 30 Quod gens Hebrea intra reclusa fuit. Nam, rex Salmanasar captivos duxit Hebreos, Qui tunc Assiriae tunc quoque magnus erat.

Namque tribus denas cepit rex Assiriorum; : Judasque Benyamyn tunc tenuere lares. 35

Post longum tempus Macedum rex clausit eosdem, Qui sunt inclusi iugiter usque modo. Hos Antichristus post ad sua tecta reducet,

78 Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, and Inclosed Nations

Ut tradunt quidam, qui sacra scripta legunt. | Ad fines terrae post haec rex magnus adivit; 40 Occeani lictus cuncta caterva tenet.

Rudolf of Ems, in his Alexander vv. 16661-16766, written shortly before the middle of the thirteenth century, accepted with certain modifications the reclusion of the ten tribes of Israel as told by

Comestor in the Historia Scholastica.' ,

In accepting Comestor, however, Rudolf of Ems did not discard Gog and Magog, but gave a different turn to their origin (vv. 16790-17396) ; for, while Rudolf utilized from Pseudo-Methodius

the account of the Ishmaelian origin of the Midianites, he went still farther and represented Gog and Magog as the descendants of the Midianites defeated by Gideon. Alexander is represented by Rudolf as defeating these in turn and, to save the world from being polluted by them, as conducting them to the ubera aquilonis, behind which and the Promimatorum Boreum he confined them as he already had shut in the Jews in Caspia.? 1Cf. A. Ausfeld, Ueber die Quellen zu Rudolfs von Ems Alexander (Donaueschingen, 1883) pp. 18-19 with footnotes. Oswald Zingerle, “Die Quellen zum Alexander des Rudolf von Ems’ (Germanistische Abhandlungen, IV, 1885 , 101-2) has explained Rudolf’s deviations from the

Historia Scholastica. ‘Die Hist. schol. berichtet dann von der Gefangenschaft der sieben Stimme: transtulit Israel in Assyrios, scilicet septem tribus, quae remanserant et posuit eos iuxta fluvium Gosan ultra montes Medorum et Persarum. Rudolf substituirt das Land zu Caspia—adhuc decem tribus ultra montes Caspios captivae tenentur bemerkt ubrigens weiter unten auch Comestor—und ldsst den Fluss Gaza (Hs. Geza) durch das riche’ fliessen.’ Rudolf von Ems, ‘Alexander’, ausg. von Viktor Junk, Bibl. d. Literar. Verein in Stutigart, vol. CCLXXIIff. (Leipzig: Hiersemann, 1928-); cf. also G. Ehrismann, Rudolf von Ems

Weltchrontk (Berlin: Weidemann, 1915), vv. 1473ff. 2 Cf. Zingerle, op. cit., pp. 113, 114:

‘Um dieselbe Zeit bekriegte Samsab von Eoha Indien und nach Eroberung des Landes

wendete er sich gegen Arabien und Saboa. Da stellten sich die Ismaeliten (Hs.: Der Israhelen Ritterschaft) mit grosser Uebermacht entgegen, so dass Samsab selbst nur mit einem kleinen Reste seines Heeres aus dem Kampfe zu entrinnen vermochte. Nun nimmt

Rudolf Anlass, “kurzliche” zu sagen, wer die Ismaeliten waren, von welchen Gog und Magog und das Geschlecht Azenaz abstammten, die dann zu dreissig Geschlechtern anwachsend in die Wildnis Saboa zogen und sich da vermehrten bis zum letzterwihnten Kriege. Er schildert nachher ihre Lebensweise, erwahnt, dass sie sich vier Konige, Oreb, Zeb, Zebee und Salmana wihlten und dann gegen die Israeliten kehrten, welchen Gott aber ‘“‘umbe ir triuwe”’ beistand, so dass sie unter Gedeons Fiihrung die Feinde besiegten und deren 140000 erschlugen. Im Laufe der Zeit hatten sie sich von dieser Niederlage erholt und waren wieder michtig geworden, bis Alexander kam und sie aus Furcht, dass sie Welt

Rudolf of Ems 79 What Rudolf of Ems has done, therefore, is to contaminate the

Midianites (sons of Ishmael with whom in Pseudo-Methodius Alexander had nothing to do) and the Gog-and-Magog peoples _ (who are represented in Pseudo-Methodius and elsewhere as having

been inclosed by Alexander). Rudolf thus dissociated from the Caspian Gates (Caspia), behind which he represented Alexander as

confining the Jews, the ubera aquilonis-Promuntorium Boreum, behind which he represented Alexander as confining Gog and Magog interpreted as Ishmaelites. Strictly, Gog and Magog were in the north, while the sons of Ishmael had been banished from the

Oixovuévy into the desert of Etribum (sic) in the south. The contamination evidently started from the conception that both the sons of Ishmael and Gog and Magog were banned from the Oixovpévn, the sons of Ishmael being destined to return once more

to devastate the earth in the seventh millennium! the Gog-andMagog peoples being destined to return after bursting Alexander’s Gate in the seventh millennium, and to devastate the earth in the Last Days. In the light of the Mongol invasion, which was doubtless fresh in Rudolf’s mind, the identification of the Mongols (Tartars)

with Gog-and-Magog (Ishmaelites) seemed convincing, and in making the identification he may have been assisted by elements of contemporary opinion reflected in certain Russian sources that have recently become more evident.

These Russian sources are in particular two passages from the Russian Primary Chronicle, the materials composing which antedate

1116 A. D., recently pointed out by Cross.? At the end of Remivon ihnen verunreinigt wiirde, mit sich “in ubera aquilonis” fiihrte und dort zwischen

den genannten Bergen und “Promimatorum Boreum,” wie die Juden in Caspia, einschloss.’

1 See esp. Sackur, op. cit., pp. 66ff. (Chap. 5); pp. 80ff. (chap. 11); also Istrin, op. cit., p. 12ff. (Chap. III); pp. 26ff. (Chap. VIIIff.). The prophecy of their final invasion is stated better in the Greek, Istrin, op. cit., p. 15: weAdouvoe 5¢ decévae &AXO Ere Grraké kal épnuooat racav rH viv eis TO KaTakparjoat THs olxovperns.

2S. H. Cross, “The Earliest Allusion in Slavic Literature to the Revelations of PseudoMethodius,’ Speculum, IV (1929), 329-339. The Russian Primary Chronicle as a whole has recently been made accessible in English translation with introduction by S. H. Cross, ‘The Russian Primary Chronicle,’ Harvard Studies and Notes in Philology and Literature, Vol. XII, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1930; in German by B. Trautmann, Die Altrussische Nestorchronik in Ubersetzung herausgegeben, Leipzig: Markert & Peters, 1931.

80 Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, and Inclosed Nations niscence I, Cross, art. cit., p. 334, we find: ‘After these eight races (i.e., sons of Ishmael), at the end of the world, shall come forth the unclean peoples shut up in the mountain by Alexander of Macedon.’ At the end of Reminiscence II, Cross, art. cit., p. 336, we find: ‘Hereafter, at the end of the world, eight peoples shall come forth from the

desert of Yathrib (i.e., the sons of Ishmael), and these corrupt nations, which dwell in the northern mountains, shall also issue forth at God’s command.’ “These corrupt nations’ have been referred to, previously in Reminiscence I as those shut in by Alexander of Macedon. It is scarcely to be concluded that Rudolf of Ems had used these two sources just quoted; but the thought was in the air at the time, as may be seen in the recurrence of this idea in other places. For example, F. Pfister observes:! Diese Prophezeiungen wurden bald in einem franzésischen Kloster ins

Lateinische iibersetzt und so auch dem Abendlande bekannt. Gerade unter Friedrich IT konnten sie wieder als zeitgemiisses Trostbuch dienen, als unter dem Enkel des grosses Tschingis Khan die Tartaren von Russland und Polen aus in Schlesien einfielen. Da sah man in thnen die Ishmaeliten, von deren besiegung Methodius sprach, und hoffte auf ihre Vernichtung. Und ganz wenige Jahrzehnte vor der Mongolenschlacht bei Liegnitz hat ein Bearbeiter des lateinischen Alexanderromans die Episode von der Einschliessung der wilden Vélker, die er mit dem Gesamtnamen der Tartaren be-

zeichnet, in die Historia de Preliis eingesetzt, ebenfalls auf Grund der Methodius-A pokalypse.

Similarly, Mathew of Paris? quotes a speech of a Russian archbishop delivered in 1244 A. D. on the origin of the Tartars: Reliquias ipsos credo fuisse Madianitarum fugientium a facie Gedeonis usque ad remotissimas partes subsolani et boreae, et sese recipientium in

loca horroris et vastissimas solitudines, qui Etreu dicitur. Habebant autem duodecim duces, quorum maior dicebatur Tatarcan, a quo Tartari

dicti sunt, quamquam dicant nonnulli ipsos a Tarrachonta dictos. | 1 F, Pfister, ‘Die deutsche Kaisersage und ihre antiken Wurzeln,’ Werbeschriften des Landes-

verbandes der Vereinigungen der Freunde des humanistischen Gymnasium in Batern, No. 8 (Wiirzburg, 1928), p. 18. 2 Mathew of Paris, Chron. Maior., ed. Luard, IV, 386 (Rolls Series).

The Guildhall Giants 81 The latter explanation seems to be due to the influence of Aethicus.!

III. Alexander represented as confining the Tribes of Israel 1dentsfied, equated, or fused with Gog and Magog.

If the Tartars (Mongols) are not the descendants of Ishmael and Midian, but if rather, as claimed by themselves, they are descended from Gog and Magog, or if, as sometimes claimed by others, they

, are descended from the tribes of Israel, there emerges the possibility of identifying, equating, or fusing the Tribes of Israel with Gog and Magog, and the idea that Alexander in confining Gog and Magog was confining by that act also the Tribes of Israel. This fusion in its mature and complete form is both rare and late, but one that must nevertheless be recognized.”

But the term Gog and Magog refused to be eliminated. Nay more, as its definiteness of meaning decreased, its sphere of application widened, and the deflection went so far as to affect the London

Guildhall giants or their predecessors, who seemed to have borne some such name as Corineus and Goemagot (Gogmagog). So potent was the combination Gog and Magog felt to be that it seems actually to have led to the dropping of the first member in the combination

Corineus and Gogmagog (Geomagot). The surviving member Goemagot (Gogmagog) was thereupon split, and there emerged a brand new pair of giants, even Gog and Magog.3 Herewith may be quoted from the Middle-English metrical version of the Revelations of Methodius, in which the pertinent lines that seem to show the 1 See also the words written by a Russian chronicler upon the first incursion of the Tartars in 1224, quoted by Cross, art. cit., p. 330.

2Cf. Albertus Magnus, Compendium Theol. Veritatis, vii, 10, quoted above p. 62; Guth, Der Grosse Alexander, 6284-6286, cf. however ibid. ll. 69ff. and 5530-5542, and Ulrich von Eschenbach, Alexander, Il. 20902ff.; ‘The Prose Life of Alexander,’ ed. Westlake in E. E,

r. S. CXLIT, 104ff.; Sir John Mandeville, Travels, ch, xxvi; ef. Ranulph Higden, Polychronicon, II, xxxiv (Rolls Ser. 41, Pt. 3), pp. 68-70. Vide supra p. 67 the quotation from Ri-

cold of Monte Croce, Liber Peregrinationis, chap. x, §§35-48, esp. the end. Cf. also Giovanni Villani and Giovanni Fiorentino given below, p. 84.

3 For Gog and Magog, the Guildhall giants, see H. Bieling, Zu den Sagen von Gog und Magog (Berlin, 1882), esp. p. 21ff. Bieling did not cite the passage from the Middle-English Pseudo-Methodius quoted below.

82 Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, and Inclosed Nations confusion of Gog and Magog with the British hero Goemagot! are as follows: For pan xall gogmangog nere cum owte of pe mownts of calpye. That god closyd all & sum. At Alexandyrs prayere suyrly. pey xall dystroy all crystendome. pey xall cum owt so hydowysly. men all most wax defe & dum. So xall pey drede here felony.

The Gate as originally conceived, being made of metal and covered over with dc’yxurov against which both steel and fire were helpless, should have stood secure in its own strength. However, it was still theoretically possible to approach it or to go around or over or under it, and so it was that imagination invested it with certain auxiliary devices for defending it. The brambles mentioned in the Greek Alexander Romance in the manuscript C (iii, 26) as having been planted and as having been so well watered that they overgrew

, the mountain may first be recalled. We are reminded in this connection of the story that Eisenmenger, op. cit., II, 734 records that he had read in the Commentary on the lesser prophets by Rabbi Joseph Kimchi. The latter remembered having read in some book that he evidently could no longer specify not only the traditional construction of a gate and wall built by Alexander to exclude certain

peoples, but also that upon this selfsame wall Alexander with great | skill and ingenuity constructed men of iron who without interruption

were wielding certain kinds of hammers and axes and making the wall to resound under their blows, so that the people living inclosed within the mountains might abide under the conviction that the work of building and fortifying was ever in progress, and that it would be utterly unavailing for them to attempt to burst forth. Among Arabic writers Omara tells a story that he credits to alHasan according to which Alexander mounted upon the rampart that he erected a stone eagle which, whenever Gog and Magog : 1 Charlotte D’Evelyn, ‘A Middle-English Metrical Version of the Revelations of Methodius,’ XX XIII, (1918), 135-303, esp. the note to lines 771ff. on p. 188.

The Defenses of the Gate 83 approached, uttered a screech that could be heard an eight days’ journey in every direction, and whenever the people within range heard it, they prayed to God that he would avert the menace from

them.! :

According to another form of the legend,? Alexander erected trumpets which, resounding with the wind, gave Gog and Magog the impression that Alexander was there guarding the exitsfrom the Caucasus in full force. This legend is so impressive that it is herewith quoted in full: Der Erheiterer meiner kranken Stunden erzihlte mir auch eine sehr merkwiirdige Sage, die bei den Russen an der Wolga im Saratow’schen und selbst bis Vladimir hin in Bezug auf den Kaukasus umginge. Wenn in diesen Gegenden, sagte er, ein Bauer Sonntags den Seinigen aus der Bibel

vorlise, und dann zu den Worten Gog und Magog kime, so pflegte er daher folgende Geschichte erzihlen. Unter Gog und Magog seien zwei Riesenvolker zu verstehen, die friiher die ganze Erde iiberschwemmt und

Alles geraubt und gemordet hitten, bis Alexander Makedonsky (der Makedonier) aufgestanden wire, der sie besiegt und in den Kaukasus gejagt, wo sie sich in den Thilern und Schluchten der Berge versteckt hitten. Alexander Makedonsky habe sie hier nun freilich nicht vertreiben

kénnen. Er habe aber zwolf ungeheuer grosse Trompeten verfertigen lassen und dieselben vor den Eingaingen des Kaukasus so aufgestellt, dass, wenn der Wind hindurch geblasen, sie einen starken Ton von sich gegeben

hitten. Die Gog und Magog nun im Kaukasus wenn sie diesen Ton gehort, hiitten sich in der Meinung, es seien die Schlachttrompeten des Alexander Makedonsky, immer verborgen gehalten und sich nicht weit hervor gewagt. Im Laufe der Jahrhunderte seien aber schon einige von diesen Trompeten umgestiirzt, und es wiirden in Zukunft alle umfallen. Dan wiirden Gog und Magog wieder hervorbrechen, die Erde iiberschwemmen und Alles wieder zu unterst und zu oberst kehren.

The Trumpets have had a long history in legend. As far as I am aware, the first notice of them was given to the western world by 1 Vide I. Friedlander, Chadhirlegende, p. 149, with n. 3 and the text printed on p. 315, 7ff. and 315ff.

2J.G. Kohl, Reisen in Siidrussland (1st ed., 2 vols., Dresden and Leipzig, 1841), I, 292; (2nd ed., 3 vols., Dresden and Leipzig, 1847), II, 190-191: Cf. Encycl. Brit., 11th ed. s. v. ‘Gog.’

84 Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, and Inclosed Nations

Ricold of Monte Croce, Liber Peregrinationis,! from which the pertinent portions are quoted: Erant pastores et intendebant venacioni. Ipsi autem montes qui dividebant

eos inter desertum et provinciam habitabilem, erant inaccessibiles nisi per quendam locum, ubi erat fortilictum maximum et nullus in eo. Cum autem ibi aliquis appropinquaret, tantus audiebatur quasi equorum et

hominum et maxime strepitus tubarum, quod omnis audiens territus fugiebat. Hoc autem erant artificio venti. Quidam autem ex Tartaris, intendens venacioni, secutus est canes persequentes leporem. Lepus vero

directe fugit ad fortilicium, et intravit, fugiens canes. Venator autem aviditate prede et venacionis non advertit tumultum, et cum valde propinquus timeret intrare, venit bubo et stans supra portam cepit cantare. Tune Tartarus dixit intra se: ‘““Non est habitacio hominum, ubi lepus fugit et bubo cantat.”’ Et sic fiducialiter intrans neminem invenit. Et locum lustrans et fictionem tumultus inveniens rediit ad suos et petit fieri princeps,

si illos cum omni securitate transduceret. Et sic transierunt. Referens autem, quomodo intraverat sequens leporem et indicium bubonis, ordinaverunt Tartari, quod, licet necessitate coactus fugeret canes, tamen quia quasi quodammodo indicavit viam, dignus erat honore, et ideo honorant leporem et depingunt eum in suis armis et tentoriis; bubonem vero, quia nulla necessitate coactus apparuit et supra portam sedens cantavit, dicunt fuisse angelum Dei, et Deus vocavit eos ut venirent. Et ideo bubonem

dixerunt non mediocriter esse honorandum, ut leporem. Ordinaverunt ergo quod honorabiles et maiores Tartarorum deferrent plumam et quasi

Tartars.) :

coronam de pelle bubonis supra capillum. (14ff. tells of the high price of

owls’ pelts because of the demand for them thus created among the

It is highly probable, as Graf has suggested, that it was Ricold

who brought the story into the west, where it underwent a number of modifications. Giovanni Villani? and probably from him Giovanni Fiorentino? in his Pecorone say nothing of the hunter or of the hare. In order to keep the Tartars confined (the Tartars being descended

from the Ten Tribes of Israel) and to make effective the work of reclusion, Alexander erected on the tops of the mountains a number 1J.C.M. Laurent, Peregrinatores Medti Aevi Quattuor (Leipzig, 1864), Cap. XI, De Exitu Tartarorum, §§2-14. 2 Cronica (Istor. Fiorent.), V, 29, ed. F. G. Dragomanni (Florence, 1844). 8 Pecorone, Giornata xx, Novella 1.

The Trumpets Blown by the Wind 85 of trumpets so cunningly framed that they resounded with every breeze. In the course of time the owls, by building their nests in the

mouths of the trumpets, stopped them up, so that gradually they ceased to function. When the trumpets had become silent, the Tartars ventured to climb the mountains, and sallied forth into the fertile lands of India. Wherefore to this day the chiefs of the Tartars wear the feathers of the owl in their caps as a memorial of the services rendered by the birds to their forefathers.

A still farther modification of the trumpets is found in Fazio degli Uberti,! which would be difficult to understand except when placed in its proper connection.

The trumpets appear also in cartography; for on the Carta Catalana of 1375,? in a space surrounded by the Caspian Mountains,

_ 1s sketched the figure of Alexander, and near him are seen two trumpets with only one trumpeter still preserved and the inscription:

‘Aquests son de metall, e aquests feu fer Alexandri, rey gran e poderos.’ In Mercator’s Weltkarte (Duisburg, 1569), the trumpets

are equipped with trumpeters to blow them and together they constitute a memorial set up by the Tartars on the mountains to signalize the liberty they have won by bursting the Gate. See below, pp. 102f. An entirely different story of the passing of the Gate by Gog and Magog interpreted as the ten Tribes of Israel is told in Mandeville’s Travels.2 According to this the Jews finally shall make their escape by following underground a fox that has burrowed through to their side of the Gate. Writing in the tenth century, Tabari‘ in connection with Koran, 1 Dittamondo, II, 26; IV, 2 where Capello has the comment: “Gog e Magog populi sono oltra il Caucaso de la parte di septentrione, i quali Alexandro incaten6, aco che non passassono a darli impac¢o di qua, in questo modo, che lui s'accampo

per lo iugo di monti e fe levar tutti i passi, e poi congegno gran canoni di ramo per li luochi ove sempre era vento, e per forca del vento quel canoni sonavano, e quei populi credevano fossero le stremite del campo, e non s’attentavano movere, e molti anni poi sonono, fin che i griffi li struppono facandogli lor nidi.’ (cod. di Torino N, I, 5, f, 131r.) This quoted from Graf, op. cit., p. 790, n. (90). 2 Vide Santarem, op. cit., nos. 32-33; vide infra p. 101.

3 P. Hamelius, ed., ‘Mandeville’s Travels,’ E. FE. T. S., O. S., Nos. CLIII, CLIV, CLITI, pp. 176-178, chap. xxx. 4H. Zotenberg, tr. Chronique de Tabari, I (Paris, 1867), 523 (Partie I, Chapitre cxii, end).

86 Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, and Inclosed Nations

Xvill, 99 and xxi, 96 quotes from ‘Ali-ben-Abou-T4leb an interpretation which puts on a moral basis the bursting of the Gate destined for the Last Days: On rapporte qu’ ‘Ali-ben-Abou-Téleb a dit: Aujour-d’hui YAdjoudj et Madjoudj s’efforcent de sortir et de briser le mur de Dsoul-Qarnain; mais ils n’y pouvent parvenir. Chaque jour, quand le soleil se léve, un million d’entre eux se placent 4 un endroit devant le mur et le léchent avec leur langue; lorsque le soleil se couche, il est aussi mince que la coquille d’un oeuf. Alors ils disent, Demain matin nous le briserons et nous sortirons; mais ils n’ajoutent pas: sil plait 4 Dieu. Or, le lendemain matin, ils trouvent le mur aussi épais qu’ auparavant. Ils font aussi tous les jours. Mais, quand I|’arrét de leur délivrance sera arrivé, il naitra parmi eux un enfant qui serait croyant et qui deviendra grand. Lorsqu’il s’approchera de ce mur qu’ils léchent, et qu’ils diront, le soir, Nous l’avons amoindri, demain

nous le briserons, ce croyant ajoutera: s’il plait 4 Dieu. Le lendemain matin ils trouveront le mur mince, et ils le briseron et sortiront.! , 1 Axel Olrik, Ragnarék (Berlin, 1922), pp. 303-4, quotes from J. Hammer, Rosendl, I (1813),

287-91 a German translation from a Turkish version of the Persian corresponding to this passage.

ALEXANDER’S GATE AND THE REGION OF THE INCLUSI SHIFTED TO NORTHERN EUROPE OR THE URALS Wie that the extension geographic(Dulcarnain’s) knowledge it Gate was inevitable the site of of Alexander’s and Rampart shutting in Gog and Magog should be shifted even to regions

north of the Caucasus toward the Northern Ocean. For did not Alexander, according to certain later versions of his Romance (CBByz) as well as Pseudo-Methodius and Aethicus Ister build his

gate, at the pafol Boppa, ubera aquilonis, Breasts of the North? And did not Ezekiel speak of Gog of the land of Magog as coming out of the uttermost parts of the North? In this connection the location of the Caspian Sea on mediaeval maps was a decisive element. Ptolemy, like Herodotus before him, had very properly charted it as an inland sea, but mediaeval cartographers generally rejected Ptolemy and charted it as an arm of the

Northern Ocean. Gog and Magog hardly appear on these maps before the eleventh century, and for the present I shall limit my attention to five maps dated within the period of the eleventh to the

thirteenth century inclusive.! Thus, in the Cottoniana of London belonging to the eleventh or twelfth century (sometimes called the Anglo-Saxon Map and assigned to an earlier date), Gog and Magog 1 These may most readily be seen as edited by Konrad Miller, Mappae Mundi: die aeltesten

Weltkarten, 6 vols. (Stuttgart, 1895-1898), but can generally be found also in J. Lelewel, Géographie du Moyen Age, 5 vols. in 4 (Brussels, 1852-57), as well as in M. F. Santarem, Atlas ...4 pts. in 1 vol. (Paris, 1849-1852). The maps are as follows: 1. Cottoniana, London, Brit. Mus. Cotton. Tiberius B V.; 11-12th century; Miller, ii, 10; Lelewel, no. 7; Santarem, no. 9.

2. Heinrich of Mainz, Cambridge, C. C. C. LXVI, 12th century: Miller, ii, 13; Santarem, no. 10. 8. London, Brit. Mus. 14. C. 1X, 13th century; Miller, ii, 15 and ascribed by Miller to Ranulph Higden: Santarem, no. 15. 4. The Hereford Map, Richard of Haldingham, 1276-1283; Miller, iv. 5. The Ebstorf Map, end of 13th century; Miller, v. 87

88 Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, and Inclosed Nations

are placed in the angle between the ocean and the Caspian, to the west. In the map of Heinrich of Mainz of the twelfth century, Gog and Magog are placed in the corresponding angle, or rather quadrangle, to the east of where the Caspian diverges from the ocean, three sides of the quadrangle being surrounded by water, while the Rampart constitutes the fourth or southern side. The Ebstorf map places UBERA AQUILONIS to the west of the entrance to the Caspian,

while on the east side, as in the corresponding place on the map of Heinrich of Mainz, is a quadrangle containing besides the illustration the inscription: ‘Hic inclusit Alexander duas gentes immundas Gog et Magog, quas comites habebit Antichristus. Hii humanis carnibus vescuntur et sanguinem bibunt.’ The Hereford map, of the same general date as the Ebstorf map, has in the corresponding place the following inscription: Omnia horribilia plus quam credi potest: frigus intolerabile, omni tempore ventus acerrimus a montibus quam incole Biza vocant. Hic sunt homines truculenti nimis, humanis carnibus vescentes, cruorem potantes, filii Caini maledicti. Hos inclusit Dominus per magnum Alexandrum;

nam terre motu facto in conspectu principis montes super montes in circuitu eorum ceciderunt: ubi montes deerant, ipse eos muro insolubili cinxit.

Isti inclusi idem esse creduntur qui a Solino Antropophagi dicuntur, inter quos et Essedones numerantur: nam tempore Antichristi erupturi et omni mundo persecutionem illaturi.

The chief source of these elements both in the Ebstorf and Hereford Maps is Aethicus. There is an Alexander Romance in cartography as well as in literature. On the Ebstorf map, on an island in the ocean farther west, is found the following: “Taracontum

ci et insula quam inhabitant Turchi de stirpe Gog et Magog, gens

, barbara et immunda, iuvenum carnes et abortiva hominum manducantes, omnium truculentissimi.’ Similarly the Hereford map has: “Terraconta insula quam inhabitant Turchi de stirpe Gog et Magog, gens barbara et immunda juvenum carnes et abortiva manducantes.’

Thus the Ebstorf and the Hereford maps did for Aethicus, the

source of these inscriptions, in cartography what the MiddleEnglish Thomas of Kent in the Roman de toute Chevalerve and its

derivative Kyng Alisaunder did in literature.

Alexander’s Gate Shifted to Northern Europe 89 The geographers of the near east, both because of the influence of Ptolemy and through their own knowledge, kept the Caspian as an

inland sea, and some of them thrust Gog and Magog back to the region of the upper Volga or the Urals. Thus the Arabic geographer

Sururi tells of Dulcarnain,! whom he explains as Alexander the Great: “‘Darauf zog er, bis er kam ins Land der Bulgaren . . . und er

baute eine Mauer als Schutzwehr um abzuhalten das Verderben der Volker Jagug und Magug.’” (The Bulgars here mentioned are of course the Bulgars in their earlier habitat on the Volga and toward the Urals.)? Here should be quoted the anecdote reported by the compiler of the Russian Primary Chronicle concerning a fabulous nation in the remote northeast which, with allowance made for the point of view would probably, be far to the north of the Caucasus (translation in Cross, art. cit., 336): I wish at this point to recount a story which I heard four years ago, and which was told me by Gyurata 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, 1In his Commentar zu Sa‘di’s Gulistan (Caspari, Gramm. d. Arab. Spr.2, p. 382), quoted by Uhlemann, art. cit., p. 269. 2 Inasmuch as some of the material involved is not directly accessible to me I quote herewith Graf, op. cit., note (97): ‘Nell’ Ural sembre che li ponessero alcuni scrittori siriaci, come Ebedieso Sorense, Elia Damasceno e Mares di Salomone, i quali narrano che Taddeo apostolo e Ageo suo discepolo giunsero predicando la fede, e dopo aver percorso I’ Assiria, la Partia, la Persia, l’ Armenia,

lIrcania, sino al paese di Gog e Magog, al di la de Mar Caspio. V. Assemani, Bibliotheca orientalis Clementina-Vaticana, t. III, parte 2%, p. xv. Nell’ anonima Historia ducum Hungariae Gog e Magog si pongono a oriente della Scizia: ‘Ab orientali vero parte vicina Scythiae fuerunt gentes Gog et Magog, quos inclusit Alexander.’ Cap. I ap.Schwandtner, Script. rer. hung., vol. I, p. 3. Abulfeda pone il paese di Gog e Magog al di la del paese di Chipgiac e dice che la giogaja di monti ond’ é rinchiuso é contigua alla giogaja della terra.

Géogr., trad. di M. Reinaud, p. 294. Il traduttore nota a tale proposito che 1 Russi chiamano cintura della terra una diramazione dell’ Ural. Abulfeda pone inoltre in prossimita dell’ Ural, come pare, una Terra cava, il cui popolo non puo uscir fuori, stante la profondita di essa, e nessuno vi pud discendere.

90 Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, and Inclosed Nations 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 iron. 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 Gyurata, “These are the peoples shut up by Alexander of Macedon. As Methodius of Patara says of them [cf. chap. 8, Sackur, op. cit., p. 72f. and Istrin, op. cit., pp. 18-20, vide supra pp. 46ff:]: ‘ “Fe 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 marveled. They ate every nauseous thing, such as gnats, flies, cats, and serpents. They did not bury 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 regions in the regions of the north, and by God’s commandment, the mountains enclosed them round about 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.” ’

V

ALEXANDER’S (DULCARNAIN’S) GATE AND RAMPART (WALL OF GOG AND MAGOG) SHIFTED TO EASTERN OR NORTH-

, EASTERN ASIA

Te original location of Alexander’s Gate in legend was in the Caucasus at the pass of Dariel. Such was conceived to be its : location both according to Greek and Latin authors! and according to the Syrian Christian Legend? to which must be traced the passage

in the Koran, xvii, 82ff. which tells of Dulcarnain’s travels and of his building the gate against Gog and Magog. Logically therefore, inasmuch as Dulcarnain was identical with Alexander, the location of Dulcarnain’s Gate also should have been at the pass of Dariel. Dulcarnain’s Gate, like Alexander’s, was between two mountains, and could not have been located at the pass of Derbend whose iron gate was between the mountains and the sea. Although from about the twelfth century the Iron Gate of Derbend was identified with Alexander’s Gate, the Mohammedans did not regard it as the Gate of Dulcarnain. There is no real evidence to prove that the legend of Alexander’s Gate at the pass of Dariel ever became established as a native legend in Georgia. The utter absence of all reference to such a legend in the Georgian annals seems conclusive, though negative, evidence for such a view, and still further confirmation seems to be found in the passage from Vincent of Beauvais, Spec. Hist., XXIX (XXX), Ixxxix, 393b and ff., quoted above p. 71. If the location of Dulcarnain’s Gate was not in the Caucasus but in the far east or northeast—a notion concerning Alexander’s Gate that became prevalent among the Mohammedans, and that occurs

to a certain extent even among writers and cartographers of the Christian west—, several reasons may be adduced as contributing to

this change of view: 1 Anderson, Alexander at the Caspian Gates, esp. pp. 142-152. 2 See above, pp. 20ff. 91

92 Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, and Inclosed Nations 1. The extension of the legend of Alexander’s eastern expedition to China as seen, for instance, in the Syrian version of the Alexander

Romance (the Syrian inheriting this episode from the lost Persian); cf. Budge, The History of Alexander the Great, 109ff.

and Theophylactus Simocatta, vu, 9, 6ff. , 2. The description in the Koran of the course pursued by Dulcarnain

before he arrived at the site where he built the gate, Koran, xviii, 86: ‘Then he continued his way, until he came to the place

where the sun riseth; and he found it to rise on certain people, unto whom we had not given anything wherewith to shelter themselves therefrom. Thus it was; and we comprehended with our knowledge the forces that were with him. And he prosecuted his journey from south to north, until he came between the two

mountains; ete.’ ,

3. The interpretation of the term Dulcarnain, lord of two horns, as the lord of the rising and of the setting sun, and the consequent

emphasis placed on his expeditions to the east and to the west at the expense of his expedition to the north, cf. Hassan al Thabit quoted above p. 29 fn. 4. The expedition of Sallam the Interpreter, 842-844 A. D., and its influence as related below pp. 93ff. The Mohammedans may be pardoned, therefore, if they were not in a position to know the descent of their hero Dulcarnain and his Gate from the Alexander Romance, and if, when their interest was

, stimulated to find out the location of Dulcarnain’s Gate ‘and Rampart, they went far afield. Even as great a scholar as de Goeje

took far too restricted a view of the problem,' and arrived at the conclusion that Dulcarnain’s Gate and Rampart, the Wall of Gog and Magog, was ultimately derived from reports of the Great Wall of

China and its Jasper Gate. De Goeje, cites in his own Dutch translation a passage from Tabari? which purports to relate an incident that occurred at Derbend, 22 A. H. According to this 1M. J. de Goeje, ‘De Muur van Gog en Magog’, Verslagen en Mededeelingen d. koninkl. Akad. van Wetenskapen, Afd. Letterkunde, 3° reeks, Deel V (Amsterdam, 1888), 87ff.

*De Goeje, art. cit., pp. 94-96: the passage corresponds to that found in H. Zotenberg: Chronique de Tabari (Paris, 1871), ITI, 499ff., a version, however, that is less complete and interesting.

Alexander’s Gate Shifted to Asta 93 passage, Schahrbaraz, prince of Armenia, is represented as being in the presence of Abdarrahman ibn Rabi‘a, Arabian general at al-Baéb (Derbend). Several years previously, Schahrbaraz had dispatched a man to look up the site of Dulcarnain’s Gate, and to report upon its appearance. Even as they were conferring, a man travelworn and emaciated but wearing a magnificent ruby came into

their presence. An inquiry as to whence he had acquired the ruby showed that this was the selfsame man that had been sent to report concerning the Gate, which from his description was thus shown to be neither at al-Bab nor yet in the Caucasus but apparently somewhere in central Asia, and the ruby was one which he was bringing with him as a souvenir which an eagle had secured for him by diving

to the bottom of the moat in front of the Wall. The Gate was identified through bearing the inscription from the Koran, xviii, 98.

The particulars need not be dwelt upon, but the incident proves that at this time (and probably also through the time of Sallam, Dinawari, Tabari, Masudi, Hamza of Ispahan, and Istakhri) the Moslems did not identify Dulcarnain’s Gate and Wall with the Iron

Gate and Caucasian Wall built by Khosro Anushirvan and apparently completed about 542 A. D., or about a century before the time concerned in this passage from Tabari. This is important as

showing that at this time the record of the great Persian king, Khosro I Anushirvan, 531-579 A. D., was too near in the past, and

his achievement in building the Iron Gate of Derbend and the Caucasian Wall too well established, to permit its attribution to either Alexander or Dulcarnain.! We pass now to the expedition of Sall4m the Interpreter, which took place about two centuries later, 842-844 A. D.2 Ibn Khordadhbeh, loc. cit., recounts the following: 1 See Anderson, Alex. at the Casp. Gates, 154ff. especially the quotations from the Derbend Nameh there cited in the translations of Kazem-Beg and Klaproth. 2 The story is told in Ibn Khordadhbeh, edited by de Goeje, Bibliotheca Geographorum Arabicorum, pars VI: Arabic text, pp. 162ff., French translation, ibid., pp. 124ff. Cf. C. E. Wilson, ‘The Wall of Alexander against Gog and Magog and the expedition sent out to find it by Khalif Wathig in 842 A. D.’, in [Friedrich] Hirth Anniversary Volume, Asia Major (London:

1922) 575-612. This is particularly valuable for its translations of the pertinent portions of Persian and Arabic authors: Firdausi, ca. 1005 A. D. (p. 583); Nizami, ca. 1200 A. D. (pp. 583f.); Istakhri, ca. 950 A. D. (p. 585); Idrisi, ca. 1154 A. D. (pp. 585-590); Jurjani, ca. 1460

94 Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, and Inclosed Nations

, Voici ce qui m’a été raconté par Sallam l’Interpréte: Le Khalife alWathik-Billah, ayant vu en songe que la muraille elevée par Dhou 1Karnain [explained by de Goeje as Alexandre le Grand] entre nos contrées

et Gog et Magog avait été ouverte, chercha une personne capable pour aller sur les lieux et pour examiner |’état ou elle se trouvait.—Wathik had genuine reason to be concerned about the wall; for if the dream were true, it portended the end of the world. He therefore commissioned Sallam the Interpreter who spoke thirty languages, saying ‘Je désire que tu ailles a la muraille pour examiner et pour me rendre compte de ce que tu aura

vu.’ With a train of two hundred mules and an escort of fifty stalwart young men Sallam proceeded.—‘Nous partimes de Sorra-man-ra4 (Samarra), munis d une lettre adressée par al-WAthik Billah 4 Ishak ibn Isma‘yl,

qui gouvernait l’Arménie et résidait 4 Tiflis, ’invitant 4 faciliter notre voyage. Ish4k nous remit une lettre pour le “Maitre du Tréne:” celui écrivit 4 notre sujet au roi des Allans; ce roi au Fylan-schah, et ce dernier au Tarkhan, roi des Khazares.’

Sallam clearly did not find the Wall in the Caucasus. From Tiflis his probable course was north through the pass of Dariel, then due east to the Tarkhan (at Semendar). He probably did not go via the pass

of Derbend; for if he had, specific mention of it (al-Bab) could hardly have been avoided. However the use of the two terms ‘Maitre du Tréne’ and ‘Fylan-schéh’ does leave some doubt; for later writers route him by way of the pass of Derbend.! Konrad Miller,? however, does not route him by way of the pass of Derbend; and further, I am ready to hazard the opinion that, even if we admit that Sallam went by way of the pass of Derbend, his failure to report Dulcarnain’s Gate and Wall as there is significant, as showing that both in his time, as well as in A. H. 22 referred to above, the legend of Dulcarnain’s Wall had not become established there. He probably observed also that the physical characteristics of the pass of Derbend A.D. (pp. 590f.); Sadiq Isfahani, ca. 1635 A. D. (p. 592); and above all Ibn Khordédhbeh, ca. 846 A. D. (pp. 592-597). Cf. also Konrad Miller, Mappae Arabicae, Arahsche Welt- und Lénderkarten (Stuttgart, 1929), IV Band, Asia II, pp. 93-95. Miller and Wilson are in agreement (against de Goeje) that Sallam did not go to the Great Wall of China. Wilson holds that Sallam located the Gate in the arc of mountains south of Lake Baikal, while Miller holds that he located it farther west in the breach that the Irtysh makes in the Great Altai. 1See Herbelot, Bibl. Orientale, s. vv. Tagiouge’ and ‘Serir.’ 2 Konrad Miller, Charta Rogeriana (Stuttgart, 1928).

the Koran. | Alexander’s Gate Shifted to Asia 95

did not agree with the description of Dulcarnain’s Wall and Gate in

From the Tarkhan (at Semendar) his course skirted the Caspian to the north and turned eastward through the land of the Bashkirds. He passed through towns in ruins, and was told that they were the remains of towns attacked and laid waste by the peoples of Gog and Magog. Still farther on, they reached the village Yka, in which Dhou’l-Karnain had once encamped with his troops. Three days’ march beyond this point is the wall which closes a gap in the mountains one hundred fifty cubits across. Through this gap or ravine the peoples of Gog and Magog used to come forth before it was closed

by Dhou’l-Karnain’s wall. The gate itself consists of double doors of iron, each fifty cubits wide, fifty (sic) cubits high, and five cubits thick. The key is a cubit and a half long, and hangs by a chain eight cubits long. The identity of the wall with that of Dhou’l-Karnain is proved by the following: ‘Sur l’un des battants de la porte il y a une inscription en lettres de fer qui renferme dans la langue primitive ces paroles: Quand le terme du décret de Dieu sera venu, rl Pécrasera; la parole du Seigneur est certaine.’

The story of Sall4m’s journey has had an altogether undeserved influence. Not only did de Goeje use it in his attempt to prove that Salla4m went to the Great Wall of China, which he certainly did not, but he used it also as his chief argument to prove that the episode of Dulcarnain’s Wall in the Koran was merely an echo from the

Great Wall. Furthermore, Idrisi, who completed his map of the world, the Charta Rogeriana, in 1154 at the court of Roger II at Palermo, charted Dulcarnain’s Wall in accordance with Sall4m’s report.! Konrad Miller, in his investigations of Idrisi and the Arabian geographers, holds that Sallam did not go to the Great Wall, but that the place he describes was in reality the breach in the

Altai Mountains made by the Irtysh river. Accordingly, in his restoration of Idrisi’s map, he charts Dulcarnain’s Gate in north1 Cf. Bibl. Georg. Arab. ed. de Goeje, pars. VI (Leyden, 1889), p. XVI; ‘La description du | voyage de Sallam 4 la muraille de Gog et Magog par Djaihany, dont Edrysy nous a conservé

la plus grand partie, contenait plusiers détails qui ne se trouvent dans le man.A. Comme Djaihany a incorporé l’ouvrage d’Ibn Khordadhbeh dans le sien, et que son text s’accorde en général mot pour mot avec celui de notre édition, nous sommes en droit de supposer que ces détails se trouvaient dans son exemplaire du livre des routes et des royaumes.’

96 Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, and Inclosed Nations eastern Asia in the ninth part of the sixth clime, and holds that the

, rampart flanking the Gate was a ridge of mountains called the Kuphaia. It may be obsrved,, however, that this is probably nothing more than a corruption of the Caucasus, Kaf, Kabk, Kabkh, which

receded as the geographical horizon widened. It is probable that Idrisi’s map was the determining influence that caused a number of

later occidental maps to chart Gog and Magog in the far east or northeast. Idrisi may have influenced also some of the occidental versions of the Alexander Romance, e.g., Lambert li Tors, quoted below p. 98. I return now to pursue the influence of Sall4m’s journey and of Ibn Khordadhbeh’s report of it in the orient, and the first writer to be considered is Kodama (7 922 A. D.).1

Besides being under the influence of Ibn Khordddhbeh and | Ptolemy, Kodima seems to have known the legend that Alexander

had gone even to China.? Kodama equated Alexander and Dulcarnain.? Accordingly, he made the building of the Gate an episode

of Alexander’s eastern expedition. After having slain Porus and conquered India, Alexander proceeds to Tibet and China where he is confronted with the following situation (French trans., p. 206, Arab. text, p. 264): C’est la qu’il apprit qu'il y avait au nordest un peuple ture trés nombreux qui inquiétait les pays voisins par ses invasions. Alexandre consulta a leur sujet de roi de la Chine. Celui-ci lui raconta qu’il n’y avait pas de butin a, faire chez eux excepté des troupeaux et du fer, et que leur pays était un

coin de terre enclavé entre le mer Verte, ot personne ne peut passer, du cété du nord, et des montagnes trés hautes et inaccessibles, du cété de Pouest et du sud; qu’en effet, ils n’avaient d’autre issue qu’un défilé étroit comme une courroie et que, si ce défilé était fermé, ils ne pourraient plus

en sortir et le monde serait délivré de leurs ravages. Alexandre ayant reconnu la justesse de cette observation, ferma le défilé par un mur et c’est de ce mur que parle Dieu dans le Koran. (18, 82ff.) 1 De Goeje, Bibl. Georg. Arab., pars VI, p. XXII, observes: ‘Le pére de Koddma, qui était chrétien, avait connu Ibn Khordddhbeh personellement ... Kodama fit profession d’islamisme entre les mains du Khalife Moktafy (290-295) et mourut en 337 [A. H. 337/A. D. 929].’ 2 Cf. Budge, The History of Alexander the Great, pp. 109-113. 3 Kodéma, however, did not credit Alexander with having built the Iron Gate of Derbend, nor the Caucasian Wall, but credited the construction of these works to Khosro Anushirvan, cf. Bibl. Georg. Arab., VI, 200, 10-202, 2.

Alexander’s Gate Shifted to Asia 97 The influence of the legend of Alexander’s building the Gate and also the continuation of the Koran tradition and influence is seen in Dinawari (died 895/6) translation quoted from Noeldeke, Bevtrdge, p. 40: Alsdann zog er zu dem Volke, von dem Gott der Erhabene erziihlt: Da sagten sie: ‘O Zweigehiérnter, Gog und Magog richten Unheil im Lande an,’

und nun geschah die Erbauung des Walls and was Gott sonst in seinem Buche berichtet (Koran, Sura 18, 93ff.). Da fragte er sie, wer jene verschiedenen Volker seien; sie antworteten: ‘Wir wollen dir die in unsrer Nihe befindlichen nennen; es sind Gog, Magog, Nawil, Taris, Minsak, Kumara.’ Nachdem er dann mit dem Bau des Walles, der sie von jenen Volkern trennte, fertig geworden war, verliess er sie und kam zu einem Volke von rother Farbe mit réthlichem Haar, bei dem Manner und Frauen

getrennt und nur drei Tage im Jahre zusammen leben. } Inasmuch as Dinawari continued the Koran tradition (which itself continued the tradition of the Christan Legend) and mentioned

the terms Gog, Magog, Nawil (see above p. 69) Taris (Tiras), Minsak (Meshech), Kumara (Gomer), and in the last sentence reflects the legend of the Amazons, we would expect him to locate Dulcarnain’s Wall in the Caucasus, nevertheless his general context

shows that he made the building of the Wall an adjunct of Dulcarnain’s eastern expedition. In Tabari, 839-923 A. D., the case is even clearer, as may be seen from the following :! ‘Alexandre est appelé Dsoul-Qarnain pour cette

raison qu'il alla d’un bout a autre du monde. Le mot garn veut dire une corne, et on appelle les extremités du monde cornes. Lui,

étant allé aux deux extrémités du monde, tant a lorient qu’a Poccident, on l’appelle Dsoul-Qarnain.’ Then Tabari proceeds to give a running comment and interpretation of the Koran, 18, 82ff., failing to notice, however, that before he came to the site between

the two mountains beyond which dwelt Gog and Magog, Dulcarnain ‘prosecuted his journey from south to north’: ‘Dsoul-Qarnain était allé d’abord 4 Voccident, et, lorsquw’il revint, il alla a orient, par le Tibet et construisit le mur de Yadjoudj et MAdjoud). 1 Zotenberg, Chronique de Tabari, Partie I, Chapitre CXII, vol. I (Paris, 1867), pp. 518ff.;

cf. ibid., Partie I, Chapitre XIII.

98 Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, and Inclosed Nattons

...dusqu’a ce qu'il arrivat entre les deux digues, c’est-a-dire entre

deux montagnes. A l’extrémité de l’orient se trouvaient deux montagnes élevées, entre lesquelles il y avait une grande vallée et un passage d’une montagne 4 |’autre. On dit que ce passage était large de mille coudées.’ A similar thought is found Al-Makin (1201/2-1273/4 A. D.), and also in Abu-Shaker (middle of the thirteenth century) who, quoting

from a certain chronicle, represent Alexander as going, not to the north, but to the east, and not to the Caucasus or to the mountains of Caspia, but to the land of Kaf (= Caucasus?, ef. Idrisi’s Kufaia).! Similarly Firdausi (ca. 940-1020 A. D.), instead of placing the building of Alexander’s Gate in the expedition to the north, placed it in the expedition to the east.? Here, as in the account given to

Ibn Khordadhbeh by Sallém, the dimensions of the Gate are enlarged: “Il était haut de cing cents coudées, et large de prés de cent brasses.’ | Godfrey of Viterbo, Pantheon, XI, quoted above p. 74, similarly places Gog and Magog in the east adjoining India, and in Lambert

li Tors, Li Romans d’ Alizandre: Gos et Margos i vienent de la tiere des Turs et cccc™ hommes amenérent u plus.

il en jurent la mer que pour sire a Netnus et le porte d’infier que garde Celebrus, que l’orguel Alixandre torneront 4 reus. por cou les enclot puis és estres desus, dusc’a l’tans Ante-Crist n’en istera mais nus;?

If the Tartars are to be equated with Gog and Magog and regarded as descendants of the Ten Tribes, Giovanni Villani, Cronica V, 29 1 Cf. Budge, Life and Exploits of Alexander the Great, TI, 372, 396: ‘The writer of the chronicle saith:—Alexander waged many wars, and ruled over the seven climes of the earth, and he came to the land of Kaf, to the place where the sun riseth, and he built there a gate, and shut in Gog and Magog, and he closed it with chains of iron. Now these peoples who were

left lived outside the gate, and for this reason they were called Terku.’—On p. 372 n. 3. Budge has a note explaining that a word play is here intended on the name Turk, as though derived from an Arabic word meaning to leave. The Turks were ‘the people who got left out.’ * Cf. Jules Mohl, Le Livre de Rois, French translation (Paris, 1877), V, 178-181; summary in Fr. Spiegel, Erdnische Altertumskunde, II, 596; cf. also Noeldeke, Beitrdge, p. 51.

| 3 Ed. Michelant, Bibliothek d. lit. Vereins in Stuttgart, XIII, 300; cf. Paul Meyer, Alexandre le Grand, II, pp. 386ff.

Alexander’s Gate Shifted to Asia 99 and Giovanni Fiorentino, Pecorone, Giorn. xx, Nov. 1 (see above p. 84f.), may be recalled. Joinville, in speaking of the embassy sent by Louis [X to the Tartars, states that the Tartars themselves told the envoys that the land from which they came was a great desert of sand beyond which Gog and Magog were inclosed.! So Hayton of Armenia, Liber de Tartaris, chap. xvi: ‘Regio illa in qua

Tartari primitus habitabant, est sita ultra magnum montem de Belgian de quo monte fit mentio in historiis Alexandri.’ Gervase of

Tilbury, Otia Imperialia, dec. II, c. 3, likewise says: ‘In India est mons Caspius, a quo mare Caspium vocatur, inter quem et mare Gog et Magog, ferocissimae gentes, a Magno Alexandro inclusae feruntur.’ Although this identification of Gog and Magog with the Mongols, commonly called Tartars in the West, is fanciful, it must nevertheless be noticed, e.g., in Marco Polo, Chap. LIX (Yule, I, 285): ‘Here also is what we call the country of Gog and Macog;

they however call it Una and Muncut after the names of two races of people that existed in the Province before the migrations of the Tartars. Ung was the title of the people of the country, and Mungul a name sometimes applied to the Tartars.’ Marco Polo

says this without any reference to Alexander’s Gate, which he previously (Chap. IV) had identified with the Iron Gate of Derbend.? Before resuming the consideration of the geographic legend that located Alexander’s (or Dulcarnain’s) Gate in central Asia or in the far east or northeast, we may find it of advantage to draw a distinc1 Aistoire de St. Lous, xciii. 2 Anderson, Alex. at the Casp. Gates, p. 159. In the present passage, it is true that Polo does not specifically mention the Great Wall, but Yule is probably right in holding that his mention

of Gog and Magog implies its presence in his mind. Cf. herewith the words of Abulfeda (1273-1331) quoted by Yule, Cathay and the Way Thither, I (Hakluyt Society Publications, London, 1866), 36, exciii: “China is bounded on the west by the lands between India and China; on the south by the sea; on the east by the eastern Atlantic; on the north by the lands of Gog and Magog, and other regions respecting which we have no information.’ Cf. the translation of the same in Hakluyt’s Voyages, III, p. 413. Interesting also are the words of Ibn Batuta in Canton, Yule, Cathay, II, Hakluyt Society Publications, 37, p. 489-490:

“Beyond this city of Sin-ul-Sin there are no other cities, whether of infidels or Musulmans. Between it and the Rampart, or Great Wall of Gog and Magog, there is a space of sixty days’ journey as I was told. This territory is occupied by wandering tribes of heathen, who eat such people as they can catch, and for this reason no one enters their country or attempts to travel there. I saw nobody in this city who had been to the Great Wall, or who knew anybody who

had been there.’

100 Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, and Inclosed Nations tion between oriental geographers (including Idrisi) and those of the west with reference to the problems and conditions with which they

were confronted. Oriental geographers generally followed the tradition of Ptolemy in dividing the earth into seven climes and in retaining the Caspian as an inland sea; and with the Caspian as an

inland sea they did not fall under the influences concerning the location of Gog and Magog that have been pointed out above (p.

87f.). In considering Gog and Magog (which Ptolemy did not mention) and Alexander’s Gate, they were guided by the Koran, xvill, 82ff., and to a considerable extent by attempts to locate the

whereabouts of the Gate, as for instance that of SallAm. Their problem in charting Gog and Magog and the Gate was not com-

plicated by that of the Judaer Inclust. In the ninth century, a contempory of Sallam and Ibn Khordadhbeh, Alfargani, located the land of Gog at the easternmost limits of the seventh clime, the very ends of the earth, and this became a tradition generally followed by later geographers.! Their Asia was an Asia truncated at the northeast, and this being granted, there was less difference between the location assigned to

Gog and Magog by Idrisi, and that assigned to them for instance by Jurjani (1460 A. D.),2 who in speaking of the seventh clime says nothing of Gog and Magog, but gives a description of the Wall of Alexander, Dhu’l-Qarnain, remarking: ‘The situation of the Wall is in the extreme north, at the back of Turkestan, and to the north of Khoten.’

While it is possible that these ideas made some impression in western Europe, the great travelers of the thirteenth century, such as Plan de Carpini, William of Rubruck, and Marco Polo, brought back first-hand information which provoked considerable change in the maps. Some of these travelers passed north of the Caspian, and 1 Tdrisi charted the Gate of Dulcarnain in Clime VI, part 9; Jagug in Clime V, part 10; Magug in Clime VI, parts 9 and 10 and in Clime VII, part 9; vide Konrad Miller, Charta Rogeriana. East and north of these regions was water. Uhlemann, op. cit., p. 273 refers to Kazwini, Cosmographie, ed. Wiistenfeld, I, 416, as making the usual reference to Koran, xviii, 82 ff. and then adding: ‘Jajug und Magug waren Sthne Japhet’s, des Sohnes Noah, und Jagug und Magug sind zwei grosse Volker, abstammend von Turk, den Japhet Noah’s Sohn geboren. Ihr Wohnsitz ist im Osten, im siebenten Klima.’ 2 Quoted by Williams, art. cit., p. 591.

Alexander’s Gate Shifted to Asia 101 thereby proved it to be an inland sea. Alexander’s Gate now became identified with the Iron Gate of Derbend, but Gog and Magog, and the inclusi Tartart, and the anclusi Judaet, were likely to be pushed back to central Asia or to the far east or northeast. I shall therefore give a brief conspectus of these features as they appear in some of the more significant charts and globes comprised within the three centuries beginning with the early fourteenth—from Petrus Vesconte

and Marino Sanuto through Mercator and Hondius. The map of Petrus Vesconte made for illustrating Marino Sanuto’s

Liber Secretorum Fidelium Crucis (1320)! retains the porte ferree and M. (i.e., Mons) Caspis correctly between the Black and the Caspian sea and a little to the north, but places Gog and Magog in the far east next to the ocean and apparently beyond China, while to the north of them on a wide peninsula set off from the mainland by a mountain wall is the inscription: ‘Hic fuerunt inclusi Tartari.’ In the Mappemonde des Grandes Chroniques de St Denis (1364—-

1372),2 there is in the far northeast, apparently on a land lying beyond the water, the inscription: ‘Hic sunt inclusi Goz et Magoz.’

In the Carta Catalana (1375),3 the Monte de Caspis has been transferred to the remote east, far from the Caspian sea, and beyond it are Gog and Magog. In a space circumscribed by the mountains is seen the figure of Alexander the Great and two trumpeters blowing

their trumpets, with the inscription: ‘Aquests son de metall, e aquests feu fer Alexandri, rey gran e poderos.’! In the map of the Musée Borgia, early fifteenth century, in the remote east next to the sea and confined are two divisions with the respective inscriptions: (1) ‘Provincia gog in qua fuerunt iudei inclusi tempore Artaxersis regis Persarum;’ (2) ‘Magog in istis duabus

sunt gentes magni ut gigantes pleni omnium malorum morum Quos iudeos Artaxerxes rex collexit de omnibus partibus Persarum.’

In the map of Andrea Bianco (ca. 1436)* Gog and Magog are located on a peninsula projecting into the remotest east. 1 Reproduced in Lelewel, no. 27; Santarem, no. 25. 2 In the manuscript of the Bibliothéque de Ste Geneviéve, reproduced in Santarem, no. 21. 3 Lelewel, no. 21, Santarem, no. 32-33. 4 For the interpretation of the trumpets, vide supra, pp. 82ff. esp. 85. 5 Lelewel, no. 35; Santarem, no. 23, entitled Mappemonde du commencement du xv® siécle du Musée Borgia dressée avant les grandes decouvertes.

6 Santarem, no. 38-39.

102 Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, and Inclosed Nations

A Genoese Map of 1447! shows some interesting features. In the east-and-west mountain range some distance beyond Parthia is - the Porta ferrea and under it ‘ubi Alexander trataros in... .’ South of this range still farther east is Gog, while north of it is Magog. Northwest of Magog and a considerable distance northeast of the

Porta ferrea is an inscription concerning the ten Tribes, unfor-

tunately mutilated: “Hic adeo...habitantur ex ebreorum g.... t....mne tribus decem ec.... qui leges suae. ... gener....? In the region adjoining that occupied by the ten Tribes is the tribe of Dan in which the Antichrist is to be born (inscription mutilated). The great map of Fra Mauro (ca. 1459),? while not otherwise

important for our purpose, has an inscription on the site of the Caucasus recording the not insignificant observation that there are still people who believe that it was in the Caucasus that Alexander built his barrier.? So Schoner’s Globes of 1515 and 1520, Santarem, no. 52, places the Judei inclusi in the extreme northeastern corner of Asia, north of Cathay. Finally, we come to the great Map of Mercator, Duisburg, 1569.4 While Mercator offered much that was new, he still held fast quite

surprisingly to much that belonged to tradition, the latter being especially evident in his treatment of Tartaria. For example, we find the Desertum de Belgian magnum arenosum et sterile charted south of the Arctic circle between 150 and 160 east longitude, and the Belgian Mons east of this, both of these being inscriptions that

2Santarem, nos. 43-48. |

| 1 Published by Wuttke, ed. cit., pp. XXX-XXXIT.

3 As of less importance, I note that on the map in a manuscript of the British Museum (1489) reproduced for the first time and given in facsimile by Santarem, no. 50, the Judez claust are in the far northeast.

north of India.

Behaim’s Globe, Santarem, no. 58, 1492 A. D., locates Og, Magog just west of Thibet and

Waldseemiiller, 1507 A. D., places the Judei claust in the extreme northeast, north of Cathay. Ruysch, 1508 A. D., Santarem, no. 61, Lelewel, no. 44, puts the Judez inclust in the extreme

northeast of Asia, with Gog and Magog south of them. | 4G. Mercator, Dret Karten .. . Europa—Britische Inseln—Weltkarte. Facsimile-lichtdruck

nach den Originalen der Stadtbibliothek zu Breslau, hergestellt von der Reichsdruckerei herausgegeben von der Gesellschaft fiir Erdkunde zu Berlin. .. . (Berlin, 1891).

Alexander’s Gate Shifted to Asva 103 might well have been taken out of Hayton, Liber de Tartaris. North of the Arctic circle between 150 and 170 east longitude is found

the inscription: ‘MONGUL que a nostris Magog dicitur,’ while south of this space is found: ‘UNG que a nostris Gog dicitur,’— inscriptions that might well have been taken from Marco Polo, except that Marco Polo placed these close to the Great Wall of China, which Mercator charted far to the south along 50 north latitude. East of the Belgian Mons, on which are seen the figures of two trumpeters, is the inscription: “Hic in monte collocati sunt duo tibicines aerei quos verisimile est Tartaros in perpetuum vindicatae libertatis memoriam eo loci posuisse, qua per summos montes

in tutiora loca commigraverunt.’ He may have seen the trumpets in some source like the Carta Catalana, and not knowing their background and history (vide supra, pp. 85ff.) he misinterpreted them, though very interestingly.!

Alexander’s Gate and the Judei inclust are terms conspicuously : absent. Mercator may have suppressed them in the belief that they were fabulous, but other terms equally fabulous—the desertum de

Belgian and mons Belgian with Tartaria and the equivalents of Gog and Magog beyond—belong to the legend of Alexander's Gate

and the inclosed peoples; and instead of twelve trumpets once blown by the wind to sound the alarm for the defence of the Gate and now fallen into decay, there are two trumpeters set up in brass

by the Tartars to blow their horn in commemoration of having passed the mountains on their way to freedom and a better land. We have now followed the history of Alexander’s Gate out of the

mists of antiquity through the Middle Ages into the full light of modern times. Well into the second Christian millennium, the Gate had stood as a symbolic bulwark of the civilized world against the barbarians exemplified as Scythians, Alans, Huns, Khazars; against Gog and Magog interpreted as Turks, Tartars, Mongols; against the Midianites and the tribes of Israel beyond the pale. The Gate itself had wandered from the Caspian Gates to the pass of Dariel, 1 Of the Atlases bearing his name, all published after his death, I have examined those of 1613, 1633, and 1635, and in these many of the above mentioned features have disappeared, including the trumpeters, and we find the more cautious inscriptions: ‘UNG quae GOG nonnullis dicitur’ and ‘Sumongul quae MAGOG Mercatori Mongul.’

104 Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, and Inclosed Nations

from the pass of Dariel to the pass of Derbend, as well as to the far north; nay, it had traveled even as far as remote eastern or northeastern Asia, gathering in strength and increasing in size as it went, and actually carrying the mountains of Caspia with it. Then, as the full light of modern day came on, the Alexander Romance ceased to be regarded as history, and with it Alexander’s Gate passed into the realm of fairyland.

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106 Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, and Inclosed Nations Ausfeld, Adolf, Zur Kritik des Griechischen Alexanderromans. Programm, Bruchsal, 1894. Bacher, W. Nizami’s Leben und Werke und der Zweite Teil des Nizamischen Alexanderbuches, dissertation, Leipzig, 1871. Bacon, Roger, Opus Majus. Ed. J. H. Bridges. 3 vols., Oxford, 1897-1900;

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