Summary of La Vie de Barlaam et Josaphat (The Life of Barlaam and Josaphat)
The Indian King Avenis only has one child, a son called Josaphat. A prophecy at
Josaphat’s birth predicts that he will become a Christian. As the king persecutes the
Christians, he tries to stop the fulfilment of the prophecy by locking his son in a luxury
tower, where he hopes he will be happy, and never need to go outside where he might
learn about Christianity. As he grows up, Josaphat dreams of exploring outside his tower,
until he falls ill with longing. As the king is worried about Josaphat’s health, he lets him walk
outside accompanied by attendants. On his walks, Josaphat meets ordinary citizens and
discovers the realities of illness, old age, and death. Shocked by his discoveries, Josaphat
questions the meaning of life.
Meanwhile, a Christian called Barlaam learns of Josaphat’s potential for conversion
through an angel. Barlaam gains access to the prince by pretending to be a merchant, and
convinces Josaphat that Christianity could provide answers for his existential questions.
Whereas the suffering Josaphat witnessed led him to question the meaning of life, Barlaam
persuades the prince that Christianity restores ontological meaning. Once Josaphat is
converted, Barlaam returns to his desert hermitage. Josaphat practices his beliefs in secret,
but when his father discovers that his son is a Christian, he tries everything to convince him
to apostatize, including a public disputation, and surrounding Josaphat with women in the
hope that he will be seduced. When Avenis’s arguments and schemes fail to convince
Josaphat to apostatize, the king doubts his beliefs.
The king gives Josaphat part of the kingdom to rule, in the hope that worldly cares
will distract him from religion. Josaphat continues to practise Christianity with zeal,
however, and his Christian kingdom thrives, while more and more of his subjects willingly
convert. Eventually Avenis recognises the error of his ways, becomes a Christian, and dies
reconciled with God. After ruling justly and converting through example rather than force,
Josaphat withdraws to the desert to live as a hermit. Josaphat and Barlaam live together for
a while as hermits until both die. Revered as saints by their contemporaries, the location of
their bodies is revealed to the new king by another hermit. Their miraculously preserved
remains are taken in a procession to the city, and placed in the church Josaphat built.
Miracles occurred at their shrine, and are reputed to still occur.
Information about the text
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This unusual hagiographic legend is based on the Life of the Buddha, and in its
different variations and languages Barlaam and Josaphat was regarded as a holy text
by six different religions and/or religious denominations: Buddhism, Catharism,
Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Manichaeism.
The legend was extremely popular, and it was translated into many languages and
versions during the Middle Ages. Due to erroneous manuscript attributions,
medieval Europe believed the narrative to have been composed in Greek in the
seventh or eighth century, by Saint John of Damascus, while he was at the
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Monastery of St. Sabas near Jerusalem.1 However, since the late nineteenth century,
a series of scholarly discoveries have proved beyond doubt that the narrative
transmission of Barlaam and Josaphat is much more complex and ancient. The Greek
text in fact dates from the late tenth or eleventh century, and it was translated from
the ninth or tenth-century Georgian version, entitled the Balavariani.2 Moreover, the
Balavariani was translated from the Arabic version: Bilawhar and Būdhāsaf.3 These
translations from Arabic to Georgian, and from Georgian to Greek, were carried out
by Georgian monks in Jerusalem.4 From the evidence of a tenth-century Baghdadi
bookshop stock catalogue, we know that the Arabic Bilawhar and Būdhāsaf was
composed probably by the late eighth century, and certainly before the tenth
century.5 Bilawhar and Būdhāsaf was translated from a Pahlavi (Middle Persian)
translation of the Buddha’s life, which, although now lost, is the most likely source
for the Arabic version of Barlaam and Josaphat.6 The scholarly consensus is that
Indian Buddhist texts, including biographies of the Buddha written down during the
first centuries of the Common Era, were disseminated internationally via the trading
routes known as the Silk Road.7 Many were translated into Pahlavi once they
reached the Sassanian empire in what is present-day Iran.8
So, from Indian Buddhist biographies, to a Middle Persian narrative, to Arabic ascetic
texts; then to a Georgian Christianised text and into a Greek theologised version:
Barlaam and Josaphat was known in many forms and languages throughout the first
millennium.9 However, all western European vernacular versions from the Middle
Ages, except in Hebrew, are descended either from the popular second Latin
translation of Barlaam and Josaphat, or from the Legenda Aurea version.10 While the
first Latin translation from Greek was made in 1047 or 1048 by monks in Amalfi who
were in close contact with Byzantium, this version survives in only one manuscript
and does not seem to have been translated.11 By contrast, a later translation,
probably from the twelfth-century, had a vast diffusion, surviving in sixty-two
manuscripts and becoming one of the bases for subsequent Latin versions and for
vernacular translation.12 In the thirteenth century, Jacobus de Voragine included an
abridged version in Latin in his Legenda Aurea or Golden Legend of c. 1260, in which
Donald S. Lopez Jr. and Peggy McCracken, In Search of the Christian Buddha: How an Asian Sage Became a
Medieval Saint (New York: W. W. Norton, 2014), p. 127.
2
Ibid., pp. 95, 130.
3
Ibid., p. 122.
4
Ibid., p. 94.
5
Ibid., p. 55.
6
Ibid., p. 54.
7
Ibid., pp. 14, 55.
8
Ibid., p. 54.
9
Ibid., pp. 14, 54, 55, 57, 61, 133.
10
Ibid., pp. 137, 139, 143, 170. Prior to his death in 1240, Abraham ibn Ḥasdāy, a prodigious translator
from Barcelona, adapted an unidentified Arabic version of Bilawhar and Būdhāsaf into Hebrew. This is
Ben ham-melekh we-han-hazir, or The Book of the Prince and the Hermit. See ibid., pp. 170-71, 240.
11
Ibid., p. 137.
12
Ibid.
1
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he ‘follows the established plot of the Greek story’.13 This was the second basis for
other Latin versions and for vernacular translation.14
The text here is the early 13th century verse version of the legend composed by
Chardri/Chardry, who also composed La Vie des set dormans and Le petit plet.
Chardi’s version is often passed over in favour of Gui de Cambrai’s more detailed and
elaborate version. However, the apparent simplicity of Chardri’s language shouldn’t
detract from the complex nature of his text, which is a profound meditation on the
nature of salvation.
The dominant themes of Chardri’s text as a whole (and often of the legend of
Barlaam and Josaphat in its other versions too) are: travel, translation (in theory, in
practice, and of relics), spiritual searching, and literary creation.
Translation
Lines 1 – 24. In this prologue, Chardri, the author, introduces and justifies his work:
(S)he who wants to aim for anything good [‘entendre’ can mean ‘to aim’ or ‘to understand’]
Can learn a lot from examples/exempla
[Especially concerning] the straight/right way of salvation [‘dreite veie’ or ‘straight way’ is a
key literal and metaphorical image in this narrative].
It has often been proven [lit: ‘seen many times’]
That people are improved by a moral story
More than by the writings
Of Augustine or Saint Gregory.
For this reason I want to preserve [lit: ‘put in memory’]
The sweet life of a beautiful child,
To stamp out the great folly
In which we delight night and day.
I believe that through God [lit: ‘in God’] this work
Will not all be for nothing [lit: ‘will not be completely lost’];
Because many times it has happened
That a man likes a narrative a lot [the word for ‘narrative’ used here is ‘geste’, implying a
story of heroic deeds]
[Even if] another man does not enjoy it.
13
14
Ibid., p. 139.
Ibid., p. 143.
This might happen:
If one man does not want to pay heed to it,
There might be another man by chance
Who will pay great attention to it,
He will care for it so much through love
That he will amend his foolish life.
Whoever may speak ill or good of it,
I do it for God alone [lit: ‘without another thing’].
Lines 2887 – 2930. In this final section, Josaphat’s successor, the king, recovers the saints’
bodies, bringing them back from the desert to the city. The relics work miracles:
Sad at heart, the king
Summoned his barons,
And went straight to the cave,
[To] where the old man showed them.
The king ordered that the treasure,
Which was worth more than silver or gold, be dug up,
He found both the bodies intact,
As if they [had] slept in the meantime.
They gave off a strong sweet perfume
To the people who were around.
The king took possession of them with the utmost respect [lit: ‘took them very highly’],
He commanded them to be put in gold and in silver,
He ordered them to be carried in a rich procession [lit: ‘richly’]
That treasure which he held most dear
Into the city where he lived,
And into the church that Josaphat had ordered built
When he first came there,
Through whom [Josaphat] Christianity was revived [lit: ‘returned’],
He [the king] ordered the bodies to be placed [in the church] with great honour [lit: ‘very
richly’]
With a great crowd of many people [as witnesses].
At this great translation
God, through/by His most holy name carried out
Great/many miracles for their love,
And He does [so] still even to this day.
Lords, now you can understand well,
[That] he who wants to use his time well
And love God as well as he is able,
On account of this will have a great, rich [heavenly] recompense.
Because God through/by His most holy name
Has the reward all ready.
He who wants to serve God loyally
Will be blessed in heaven and amongst people;
If he lives, his soul will be on earth,
If he dies, he will go in his entirety to God.
There will be a crown there on high,
Where joy is everlasting.
When we can attain this joy,
We are really mad, to want to act half-heartedly/lie
And on account of a small trouble/weariness,
Leave off serving God and His virtue,
When we can, with a small amount of work
Gain so much in the end,
As did Josaphat, the child,
As you have just heard.