Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 7, 1896.djvu/160

138 the Armenian, because in the Greek form the whole Apology of Aristides is put into his mouth (Boisson. 241 ff). The Armenian certainly follows the Greek text of this Apology rather that the independent Syriac text of the Apology itself which Professor R. Harris discovered in Sinai. It of course curtails it to a tenth of its length; but it also adds some particulars not in the Greek, and presents some of the arguments in more methodical and raisonné manner. Here is an example of such addition.

"I pass by the (superstitions) of the Hellenes and of the Egyptians and of the Chaldaeans, who instead of the immortal God worshipped men and women, harlots and Sodomites, and all other kinds of evil doers; yea, and the rat and the weasel and all sorts of vermin."

Now the above is ultimately a translation of some Greek text which began. This rhetorical phrase does not occur in the Greek, yet it is a familiar one in early Christian apologies, and was certainly not inserted by the Armenian de suo.

Still less can the mention of the worship of rats and weasels be a mere addition by the Armenian translator; yet nothing of the kind is found in Boissonade's Greek. But in The Preaching of Peter we have reference to the folly of the Hellenes who worshipped weasels and mice. It is noteworthy that Professor Armitage Robinson has already pointed out that Aristides' Apology was largely based on this very Preaching of Peter, of which we have only a few fragments left. We must then suppose that the Armenian abridged his form of Barlaam and Josaphat from a text which not only included the Apology of Aristides,