Composed in Syriac in northern

Mesopotamia Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the F ...

, the ''Syriac Alexander Legend'', also known as the ''Neṣḥānā'' ( syr, ܢܨܚܢܐ}, "triumph"), is a legendary account of the exploits of

Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon ( grc, wikt:Ἀλέξανδρος, Ἀλέξανδρος, Alexandros; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek kingdom of Maced ...

. It is independent of the '' Alexander Romance'' and served as a source for

apocalyptic literature Apocalyptic literature is a genre of prophetical writing that developed in post- Exilic Jewish culture and was popular among millennialist early Christians. '' Apocalypse'' ( grc, , }) is a Greek word meaning "revelation", "an unveiling or unf ...

in the 7th century. It is the earliest work to mention the fusion of Alexander's gate with the Biblical apocalyptic tradition of

Gog and Magog Gog and Magog (; he, גּוֹג וּמָגוֹג, ''Gōg ū-Māgōg'') appear in the Hebrew Bible and the Quran as individuals, tribes, or lands. In Ezekiel 38, Gog is an individual and Magog is his land; in Genesis 10, Magog is a man and epo ...

Dating

The composition of the ''Legend'' is commonly attributed to north Mesopotamia around 629–630 CE, shortly after

Heraclius Heraclius ( grc-gre, Ἡράκλειος, Hērákleios; c. 575 – 11 February 641), was List of Byzantine emperors, Eastern Roman emperor from 610 to 641. His rise to power began in 608, when he and his father, Heraclius the Elder, the Exa ...

defeated the

Sasanians The Sasanian () or Sassanid Empire, officially known as the Empire of Iranians (, ) and also referred to by historians as the Neo-Persian Empire, was the last Iranian empire before the early Muslim conquests of the 7th-8th centuries AD. Named ...

. However, some have argued that the Syriac recension was originally produced in an earlier form in the early 6th century and was updated in the early 7th century in light of then-contemporary apocalyptic themes. Another position taken up by some scholars is that the text was composed around the Byzantine-Sassanid events surrounding the year 614. There is also a poem (often wrongly attributed to

Jacob of Serugh Jacob of Sarug ( syr, ܝܥܩܘܒ ܣܪܘܓܝܐ, ''Yaʿquḇ Sruḡāyâ'', ; his toponym is also spelled ''Serug'' or ''Serugh''; la, Iacobus Sarugiensis; 451 – 29 November 521), also called Mar Jacob, was one of the foremost Syriac poet-theo ...

) based on the ''Syriac Legend'' but written slightly later. Finally, there is a shorter version of the ''Legend'' and an original brief biography of Alexander written in Syriac.

Content and influence

Gog and Magog

The ''Legend'' is considered the first work to connect the Alexander Gates with the idea that

are destined to play a role in the apocalypse. In the ''Legend'', Gog ( syr, ܓܘܓ}, gwg) and Magog ( syr, ܡܓܘܓܵ, mgwg) appear as kings of

Hunnish The Huns were a nomadic people who lived in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe between the 4th and 6th century AD. According to European tradition, they were first reported living east of the Volga River, in an area that was part ...

nations. The legend claims that Alexander carved prophecies on the face of the Gate, marking a date for when these Huns, consisting of 24 nations, will breach the Gate and subjugate the greater part of the world. The Gog and Magog material, which passed into a lost Arabic version, and the Ethiopic and later Oriental versions of the '' Alexander Romance''. It has also been found to closely resemble the story of

Dhu al-Qarnayn , ( ar, ذُو ٱلْقَرْنَيْن, Ḏū l-Qarnayn, ; "He of the Two Horns") appears in the Quran, Surah Al-Kahf (18), Ayahs 83–101 as one who travels to east and west and sets up a barrier between a certain people and Gog and Mago ...

in the

Qur'an The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation from God. It is organized in 114 chapters (pl.: , sing. ...

(see:

Alexander the Great in the Quran Alexander is a male given name. The most prominent bearer of the name is Alexander the Great, the king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia who created one of the largest empires in ancient history. Variants listed here are Aleksandar, Al ...

). The ''

Pseudo-Methodius Written in Syriac in the late seventh century, the ''Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius'' shaped and influenced Christian eschatological thinking in the Middle Ages.Griffith (2008), p. 34.Debié (2005) p. 228.Alexander (1985) p. 13.Jackson (2001) p. ...

'', written originally in Syriac, is considered the source of the Gog and Magog tale incorporated into Western versions of the ''Alexander Romance''. The ''Pseudo-Methodius'' (7th century) is the first source in the Christian tradition for a new element: two mountains moving together to narrow the corridor, which was then sealed with a gate against Gog and Magog. This idea is also in the Quran and found its way in the Western ''Alexander Romance''.

Western Alexander romances

This Gog and Magog legend is not found in earlier versions of the ''Alexander Romance'' of Pseudo-Callisthenes, whose oldest manuscript dates to the 3rd century, but an

interpolation In the mathematical field of numerical analysis, interpolation is a type of estimation, a method of constructing (finding) new data points based on the range of a discrete set of known data points. In engineering and science, one often has a n ...

into recensions around the 8th century. In the latest and longest Greek version are described the Unclean Nations, which include the Goth and Magoth as their kings, and whose people engage in the habit of eating worms, dogs, human

cadaver A cadaver or corpse is a dead human body that is used by medical students, physicians and other scientists to study anatomy, identify disease sites, determine causes of death, and provide tissue to repair a defect in a living human being. Stud ...

s and fetuses. They were allied to Belsyrians ( Bebrykes, of

Bithynia Bithynia (; Koine Greek: , ''Bithynía'') was an ancient region, kingdom and Roman province in the northwest of Asia Minor (present-day Turkey), adjoining the Sea of Marmara, the Bosporus, and the Black Sea. It bordered Mysia to the southwest, Pa ...

in modern-day North

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

), and sealed beyond the "Breasts of the North", a pair of mountains fifty days' march away towards the north. Gog and Magog appear in somewhat later Old French versions of the romance. In the verse ''

Roman d'Alexandre The ''Roman d'Alexandre'', from the Old French ''Li romans d'Alixandre'' (English: "Romance of Alexander"), is a 16,000-verseHasenohr, 1306. twelfth-centuryThe Medieval Alexander Project at the University of Rochester estimates it was written s ...

'', Branch III, of Lambert le Tort (c. 1170), Gog and Magog ("Gos et Margos", "Got et Margot") were vassals to Porus, king of India, providing an auxiliary force of 400,000 men. Routed by Alexander, they escaped through a defile in the mountains of

Tus Tus or TUS may refer to: * Tus (biology), a protein that binds to terminator sequences * Thales Underwater Systems, an international defence contractor * Tuscarora language, an Iroquoian language, ISO 639-3 code Education * Technological Univ ...

(or Turs), and were sealed by the wall erected there, to last until the advent of the Antichrist. Branch IV of the poetic cycle tells that the task of guarding Gog and Magog, as well as the rule of Syria and Persia was assigned to Antigonus, one of Alexander's successors.

Notes

References

Sources

* * * * * * * *