Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 7.djvu/29

. vii. JAN. 12, i9oi.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

21

LONDON, SATURDAY, JANUAEY 1%, 1901.

CONTENTS. -No. 159.

NOTES : Ethiopia ' History of the Blessed Men,' 21 - Shake- speariana, 22 Lotteries Etymology Best Book of the Nineteenth Century, 23 Regiments at Culloden Snuff - ' D.N.B.' and Portraits, 24 Battle of Fontenoy Earliest Printed Eulogy of Shakespeare, 25 Papers of 1796 Indexes to 'N. & Q.,' 26 Voluntary Mutilations in France Moon Lore, 27.

QUERIES : King's Preachers of Edward VI. Quotation- Sir W. F. Carroll Lines on the Skin Date Wanted Genealogical Trees Col. Williams Boulder Stones Grierson of Dublin, 27 " Roker " Teddye Family Flogging at the Cart Tail Thomas Scott Nicholson " Codrington" "Churmagdes " " Peaky -blinder " Surnames Sir J. Douglas Arundel : Walden Scotch Names in Froissart, 28 Norman Architecture Sainthi 11 Family "Petering" Memoirs of Methodists Flower Divination Messiter "Twopenny Tube " " Thackeray's bed books" Hawkins Family Etymology Poem by Dr. Hatch " In the swim " Alsopp, 29.

REPLIES : Passage in Chaucer, 30 Installation of a Mid- wife, 31' Go to the Devil,' Ac. Pitched Battle, 32 Max Mliller and Westminster Abbey" Frail ""Blackstrap " The Title of Esquire, 33 Yeomanry Records Grave of George Heriot Sir R. Moray Rev. T. Campbell "John Company "Easter Magiant, 34 Author and Reference for Verses Watch-chain Ornament Bally whaine Date of Crucifixion " Let them all come "Nature Myths, 35 George Abbott, M.P. " Gallimaufry " Achill Island, 36 J. Mervin Nooth Julius Caesar, 37 The Penny- Margery, 31

NOTES ON BOOKS :-Ellis's Lords and Clopinel's 'Ro- mance of the Rose' 'Photograms' "Useful Arts" Series' Man 'Reviews and Magazines.

Notices to Correspondents.

THE ETHIOP1C 'HISTORY OF THE

BLESSED MEN.'

As a pendant to the Syriac history of Zozimus, by Jacob of Edessa (9 th S. vi. 261), the 'History of the Blessed Men who lived in the Days of Jeremiah the Prophet ' is note- worthy. This has been translated from the Ethiopic by Dr. E. A. VVallis Budge, and is included in his "Life of Alexander the Great

a Series of Translations of the Ethiopic

Histories" (London, 1896). According to this narrative, when Zedekiah, the wicked king, made an idol, Jeremiah was sent to rebuke him. The king caused the prophet to be cast into a pit, from which he was rescued, and removed the sacred objects from the ark in the Temple. Then Jeremiah and the saints of Jerusalem were carried by the angels to an island in the sea, where there was a mountain in which there was no pain, sorrow, hunger, cold, fiery heat, injustice, &c., but love arid peace between every man and his fellow. Whilst this faithful remnant enjoyed the felicity of the Fortunate Isles, Darius sent the Jews back

to Jerusalem. Then he was conquered by Alexander, the two-horned, who demanded from the priests and people the scarlet cloak, the symbol of royalty of the kings of Judah. This was refused, but, after slaying the priests, Alexander wore the cloak for three days and then laid it down again. Alexander visited the Island of the Blessed. The inhabitants there told him they were of the people of Israel, of the tribes of Levi and Judah, and kinsmen of Jeremiah. They lived upon the fruit of the trees, which Alexander saw laden with fruit. Few details are given here, but they are supplied at a later point in the history of a monk called Gerasimas, who lived in a cave near Jordan, and, having read in the ' Book of Alexander ' of the saints in the Fortunate Islands, had a strong desire to visit them. After many prayers, an angel was sent to be his guide ; and when he was weary of walking a lion carried him to a sea, and thence he was transported, in the same fashion as Zozimus, to the island. The remainder of the story closely resembles the Syriac narrative. The land is without pain, and by some miraculous second sight the blessed men "have seen and known " the events in far-off Palestine the Annunciation, the slaughter of the Innocents, the Crucifixion, and the spread of Christianity. After the long conversation in which all this is set forth, Gerasimas goes to his appointed dwelling-place, and in the morning says to his host, "If the blessed come to seek me, say unto them, ' Gerasimas is not here with me.'" This instigation to falsehood excites indignation, and Gerasimas has to return to his own land, where he writes an account of his travels. The further details as to the sinless life of the people of the Blessed Islands are practically identical in the two narratives ; but the setting is, as will be seen,

Suite different, and in the Ethiopic story the techabites are not named. The Greek re- cension of the narrative of Zozimus is printed in the 'Anecdota Apocrypha' (1893) of Mr. M. E. James, and an English translation by Mr. W. A. Craigie appears in the supple- mentary volume of the " Ante-Nicene Chris- tian Library " (1897). There are versions in Slavonic, Ethiopic, and Arabic, as well as in Syriac. The Slavonic identifies the Blessed Men as Brachmani.

Dr. Wallis Budge's collection of Alexander traditions in which the Macedonian is some- times transformed in to a Christian monarch is a remarkable volume. The student of folk-lore and legend will find in it a mine of interesting matter. WILLIAM E. A. AXON. Manchester.