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Cave of Treasures

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TheCave of Treasures(Classical Syriac:ܡܥܪܬ ܓܙܐ,romanized:Maʿarraṯ ġazzē,Arabic:مغارة الكنوز,romanized:Maghārat al-Kunūz,Ge'ez:Baʿāta Mazāgebet,Tigrinya:መዝገብ ገዛ), sometimes referred to simply asThe Treasure,is anapocryphalandpseudoepigraphicalwork, that contains various narratives related to theChristian Bible.[1]It was written in theSyriac language,approximately at the end of the 6th, or at the beginning of the 7th century. Its authorship was traditionally attributed toEphrem of Edessa(d. 373), but modern scholarly analyses have shown that the true author was some other person, who also lived inUpper Mesopotamia,but much later (c. 600).[2][3][4][5][6]

Origin

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This text is attributed toEphrem the Syrian,who was born atNisibissoon after AD 306 and died in 373, but some skeptics believed that its current form is 6th century or newer.

The assertion that theCave of Treasureswas written in the 4th century was supported by the general contents of the work. These reproduce Ephrem's peculiar methods[clarification needed]ofexegesisand supply many examples of his methods in religious argument, with which we are familiar from his other writings. His pride in the antiquity of theSyriaclanguage appears in this work. The text was most likely written by aSyrian Jacobiteliving inMesopotamia.Although it was likely not written by Ephrem the Syrian, it was likely written by an author trained in his school or one of his disciples.[7]

The oldest Christian work on the history of God's dealing with man from Adam to Christ is probably the anonymousConflict of Adam and Eve with Satan,which, in its original form, is from the 5th or 6th century AD. The writer of theCave of Treasuresborrowed largely from theConflict of Adam and Eveor shared a common source with it.

History

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TheCave of Treasureswas introduced to the world byGiuseppe Simone Assemani,the author of the Catalogues of Oriental Manuscripts in theVatican Library,which he printed inBibliotheca Orientalisin four thick volumes folio. In Vol. ii. page 498 he describes a Syriac manuscript containing a series of apocryphal works, and among them is one the title of which he translatesSpelunca Thesaurorum.He saw that the manuscript contained the history of 5,500 years, from thecreation of Adamto thebirth of Christ,and that it was based upon theScriptures.He says that fables are found in it everywhere, especially concerning theantediluvianPatriarchs,and thegenealogy of Christand hismother.He mentions that the PatriarchEutychiusdescribes a cave of treasures in which gold,frankincense,andmyrrhwere laid up, and refers to theportentosa feminarum nomina,women of Jesus' ancestry. No attempt was made to publish theSyriactext; in fact, little attention was paid to it untilAugust Dillmannbegan to study theConflict of Adam and Evein connection with it, and then he showed inEwald'sJahrbüchern(Bd. V. 1853) that the contents of whole sections of theBook of the Cave of Treasuresin Syriac and theConflict of Adam and Evein Ethiopic were identical. And soon after this, Dillmann and others noticed that anArabic manuscript in the Vatican(No. XXXIX; see Assemânî, Bibl. Orient. i. page 281) contained a version of theCave of Treasures,which had clearly been made from the Syriac. In 1883,Carl Bezoldpublished a translation of the Syriac text of the "Cave of Treasures" made from three manuscripts (Die Schatzhöhle,Leipzig,1883) and five years later published the Syriac text of it, accompanied by the text of the Arabic version.

Some passages from theCave of Treasuresare found in theCopticEnconium of Mary Magdaleneof Pseudo-Cyril.[8]

Of the subsequent history of the SyriacCave of Treasures,little is known. The knowledge of parts of it made its way into Armenia soon after the book was written, and more than one translation of it was made into Arabic, probably in the 7th and 8th centuries. In connection with the Arabic translations, they all end with the account of the cruelties perpetrated byArchelausand Sâlûm after the death ofHerod.(See Bezold's text, page 247.) The last paragraph of the Arabic text mentions thetwelve Apostleswho went about withJesus,and refers to his baptism byJohn the Baptist,and says that he lived on the earth thirty-three years, and thenascended into heaven.Thus, for the last twenty-six pages of the Syriac text, there is no equivalent in the Arabic version. The same is substantially true for the EthiopicConflict of Adam and Eve.The section of the Syriac for which there is no rendering in Arabic or Ethiopic contains a series of statements addressed to the author's "brother Nemesius." It is possible, but unlikely, that these were added to the work by a later writer. As they do not deal with matters of genealogy, and deal almost exclusively with Jesus Christ's life and crucifixion, they probably failed to interest the Arab translator, and he left them untranslated, unless parts of the original Arabic translation have perished. A version of theCave of Treasuresmade its way into theArabic Apocalypse of PeterorBook of the Rolls.

That the SyriacCave of Treasureswas known and used by Solomon, Bishop of Perāth Mayshān (nowBasra) in 1222 is proved by the earlier chapters of his work theBook of the Bee.He excerpted from it many of the legends of the early Patriarchs, although his object was not to write a table of genealogical succession, but a full history of theChristian Dispensationaccording to the views of theChurch of the East.The best manuscript of theCave of Treasureswhich we have, in theBritish Library,Add MS 25875, was written by an Eastern Christian scribe in theAlqosh,and was bound up by him in a volume which included a copy of theBook of the Bee.

Contents

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The author of theCave of Treasurescalled his work "The Book of the order of the succession of Generations (or Families)," the Families being those of the Patriarchs andKings of IsraelandJudah;and his chief object was to show how Jesus was descended fromAdam.He did not accept the genealogical tables which were commonly in use among his unlearned fellow-Christians, because he was convinced that all the ancient tables of genealogies which the Jews had possessed were destroyed by fire by the captain ofNebuchadnezzar's army immediately after the capture of Jerusalem by the Babylonians. The Jews promptly constructed new tables of genealogies, which both Christians and Arabs regarded as fictitious. The Arabs were as deeply interested in the matter as the Christians, for they were descended fromAbraham,and the genealogy of the descendants ofHagarandIshmaelwas of the greatest importance in their sight, and it is due to their earnest desire to possess correct genealogical tables of their ancestors that we owe the Arabic translations of theCave of Treasures.TheNubiansand Egyptians were also interested in such matters, for the former were the legendary descendants of Kûsh, and the latter the descendants ofMizraim,andHamwas the great ancestor of both these nations. It is clear that medieval Syrians, Arabs, Egyptians and Ethiopians regarded theCave of Treasuresas an authoritative work on their respective pedigrees.[9]

In the titleCave of Treasureswhich was given to the "Book of the order of the succession of Generations" there is probably a double allusion, namely, to the Book as the storehouse of literary treasures, and to the legendarily famous cave in which Adam and Eve were made to dwell by God after their expulsion fromParadise,[10]which was said to contain gold, and frankincense, and myrrh and was thus commonly called "The Cave of Treasures".

The SyriacCave of Treasurestells us very little about the supposed physical attributes of the cave, said to be situated in the side of a mountain below Paradise, and nothing about Adam and Eve's way of life there. But in the "Book of Adam and Eve", the whole of the first main section is devoted to details of the physical cave.[11]

References

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  1. ^Toepel 2013,p. 531-584.
  2. ^Ri 1987,p. 183-190.
  3. ^Leonhard 2001,p. 255-293.
  4. ^Minov 2013,p. 155-194.
  5. ^Minov 2017,p. 129-229.
  6. ^Wet, Chris L. de (2017-07-14).The Unbound God: Slavery and the Formation of Early Christian Thought.Taylor & Francis.ISBN978-1-315-51304-1.
  7. ^Budge, E. A. Wallis (1927).The Book of the Cave of Treasures.London: The Religious Tract Society. pp. 1–38.
  8. ^Marquis, Christine Luckritz (2016)."An Enconium of Mary Magdalene: A new translation and introduction".In Landau, B. (ed.).New Testament Apocrypha: More Noncanonical Scriptures.Vol. 1. William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. p. 197.ISBN978-0-8028-7289-0.
  9. ^Budge, E. A. Wallis (1927).The Book of the Cave of Treasures.London: The Religious Tract Society. pp. 1–38.
  10. ^Wet, Chris L. de (2017-07-14).The Unbound God: Slavery and the Formation of Early Christian Thought.Taylor & Francis.ISBN978-1-315-51304-1.
  11. ^Budge, E. A. Wallis (1927).The Book of the Cave of Treasures.London: The Religious Tract Society. pp. 1–38.

Sources

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