Page:Barlaam and Josaphat. English lives of Buddha.djvu/85

Rh Georgian, and Greek versions, so that it was almost certainly in the Indian original. Either, therefore, that original got to the West, or at least to Syria or Babylon, independently, or the form of the story in the Pirke Eleazar was derived from the Barlaam, and its composition must therefore be later than the seventh century. Of its wide spread through the Barlaam there is no doubt. It found a place in all the great mediæval collections, like the Gesta Romanorum and even in Stainhöwel's Äsop (cf. my edition of Caxton, ii. p. 206).

Of its popularity in England an interesting proof was afforded by a Morality founded upon the parable, written in the fifteenth and printed in the early sixteenth century by John Scott, a pupil of Pynson's (circa 1592). This Morality, entitled Every Man, was translated into Latin by Christian Sterk, and printed in 1548 under the title Homulus; while a Dutch poet, Peter van Diest, obtained a prize for a Dutch version of the same title, which was printed at Cologne in 1536. Dr. Goedeke, from whose monograph I take the above items, is of opinion that the English version was the source of the Conti-