As for the story narrated in the Iter ad Paradisum, it is also to be sought for in oriental literature. A remarkable parallel may be traced to an episode in the Talmud,[1] but undoubtedly the direct source is to be found in the Hebrew version of the Alexander-Legend. A manuscript of this version was unearthed at Damascus by Professor Harkavy, who has published a most valuable Russian dissertation on the subject.[2] Subsequently the Hebrew text was translated into English by M. Gaster,[3] a Rumanian scholar, to whose researches the study of Hebrew and Slavonic literature is much indebted. Gaster was fortunate enough to discover a manuscript as old as the twelfth century, but the version itself is much more ancient—probably even earlier than the seventh, as he suggests.
That we have in this version the original of our legend will be evident from the following extract:[4]
Alexander and his companions come to the land of Ofrat, where they find a large river. The entire host cross the river and arrive before a very large gate about thirty cubits high. The king goes from that place and wanders among the hills with all his army for fully six months, till the hills come to an end and they emerge in a plain, where stands another immense and beautiful gate, whose height the eye of no man can reach. Upon it there is an inscription. Menahem,[5] chief of the scribes, reads the inscription, which says: "This is the gate of the Lord, through which the righteous shall enter."
- ↑ G. Levi (Parabole, leggende e pensieri raccolti da libri talmudici, Firenze, 1861, p. 218); Carraroli (La Leggenda di Alessandro Magno, 1892, pp. 125-129).
- ↑ Neizdannaya Versiya romana obǔ Alexandrê, Petrograd, 1892.
- ↑ Article cited above, pp. 485-549.
- ↑ I cite almost textually Gaster's excellent translation (chapters 37-38 of the Romance, pp. 530-531).
- ↑ With this name compare those of Rahámán in the Ethiopia; Simon, Solomon and Papias, in the French poetical versions and Iter (Meyer, Alexandre, ii. pp. 105, 247). Harkavy suggests a reminiscence of "Eumenes" (cf. Wesselofsky, Vizantiiskii Vremennik, iv. p. 549).
