The Ever-new Tongue - in Tenga Bithnua: The Text in the Book of Lismore (Apocryphes) (Apocryphes, 15) 9782503579290, 2503579299

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The Ever-New Tongue The Text in the Book of Lismore

APOCRYPHES collection de poche de l’aelac

Direction Anne-Catherine Baudoin Alain Desreumaux Zbigniew Izydorczyk Enrico Norelli Jean-Michel Roessli Volume 15

Maquette de couverture : Vincent Gouraud Composition et montage : Alain Hurtig

© 2018, Brepols Publishers n.v., Turnhout, Belgium

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.

D/2018/0095/44 ISBN 978-2-503-57929-0 e-ISBN 978-2-503-57930-0 DOI 10.1484/M.APOCR-EB.5.114902 ISSN 1263-946X e-ISSN 2565-9219 Printed in theon E.U. on acid-free Printed acid-free paper paper

The Ever-New Tongue In Tenga Bithnúa The Text in the Book of Lismore Translated, with an introduction by John Carey

BREPOLS

For Lavinia and Francis who love the cosmos, the beauty of its creatures, and the mystery of its being

Apocryphes aelac’s Paperback Series To be published The Gospel of Thomas, by André Gagné Les Actes de Barnabé, par Maïeul roquette Les Actes éthiopiens d’Étienne, par Damien Labadie The Dormition and Assumption of the Virgin Mary, by stephen shoemaker

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fragment of papyrus found in the tomb of a coptic monk in egypt, a fable telling the story of the manger, a romanesque fresco on a poitevin wall, a serialized Latin novel detailing the adventures of the apostles . . . all bear witness to the variety and wide diffusion of christian writings known as Apocrypha. In turn sought after and rejected, exploited and reviled, translated and forgotten, apocryphal works remain mysteriously and powerfully evocative. A mere mention of the word “Apocrypha” frequently summons intimations of an unexpected revelation, of a secret finally unveiled, of a long forgotten truth. however, those who plunge into apocryphal literature in hope of discovering knowledge they have long sought after may discover only disappointment. some Apocrypha, indeed, claim to initiate the reader into truths about Jesus: one reports an esoteric teaching he entrusted to his disciple Thomas; another, the Gospel of Nicodemus, faithfully relates the story of Jesus’s visit to hell as narrated by two men he had brought back to life. Many others, however, have no such pretensions: the Letter Fallen from Heaven appears only to justify the payment of tithes and the observation of sunday. similarly, stories about an apostle turning the wife of a high roman official away from her conjugal duties (as in the Acts

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of Philip, for example) merely reflect some contemporary sexual mores, here a call to chastity in marriage. For those who thirst after glimpses of eternity, documents such as these are of scant attraction. And yet, if readers approach them without expectations of profound, secret revelations about Jesus, his disciples, or his kingdom of heaven, Apocrypha can be a source of enduring profit and pleasure. Indeed, the import of apocryphal texts lies elsewhere: they reveal how christians at different times and in different places understood and represented the figure of Jesus, the meaning of his message, the role of the apostles, the origin of their local churches, and other similar topics. Apocrypha testify to the issues that stirred and provoked early christians to respond with stories and reflections: what is the true nature of christ, asks the Ascension of Isaiah; and how was he both royal and divine, asks the Acts of Pilate. some Apocrypha are very old and reflect traditions contemporaneous with those that ultimately appeared in the New Testament. To historians of christianity and biblical scholars, such texts offer a unique perspective, still little explored, on the nascent forms of christian traditions. They do not give access to historical truths about Jesus or his apostles any more than do the canonical gospels, but they shed light on how the first christian communities lived and what they believed. Imagination was in Apocrypha a vehicle for profound, creative reflection. Thus, the mid-second century Infancy Gospel of Thomas, a narrative of the various misdeeds of the child Jesus, does not simply construct a biography of his early years that indulges in unbridled, or sacrilegious, imagination. rather, the text questions the very terms of the Incarnation, wondering at the fullness of divine grace made manifest in the infant Jesus. Thomas also attempts to explain what the Gospel of Luke meant by saying that “the child grew and became

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strong in spirit.” As reflections on exegetical, dogmatic, and moral issues of the utmost importance to the early christian communities, the Apocrypha in the present collection reveal their richness, not to those who seek in them what such texts cannot offer, but to those who heed paul Valéry’s sentiment that “all stories gain depth as fables.” Far from projecting a unified image of christianity, Apocrypha introduce us to a profusion of its doctrines, mythologies, and languages. The picture of christianity that emerges from these texts is that of an ensemble of astonishingly diverse communities. Bearing witness to this diversity, many Apocrypha have come down to us in multiple versions. Thus, the Doctrine of Addai has been transmitted in Greek, syriac, coptic, ethiopic, Arabic, Armenian, Georgian, and slavic forms. each bears the marks of the socio-cultural environment that produced it, and each in its own way preserves various inflections of doctrine in the first centuries of christianity. That is why, when christianity became the religion of the empire and the authorities attempted to give it a unified image, some Fathers of the church reviled Apocrypha as carriers of nonconformity and heresy. Today, however, as scholarship rediscovers the extraordinary profusion of christianities in the early centuries, there is a need to place within public reach those ancient sources carrying traces of that richness and—sometimes in just a few lines—illuminating the still shadowy traces of christianity’s past. Faced with such diversity of practice, belief, and text, the early church had some difficult choices to make. The Apocalypse attributed to John came close to being excluded from the canon; the Shepherd of Hermas narrowly missed out on being included. In fact, one could argue that there is no intrinsic difference between the canonical and the apocryphal. The New Testament came about when ecclesiastical authorities

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selected, from a wide range of texts, a smaller corpus to serve as a point of reference for the christian faith. Many works not chosen continued to nourish christian piety for centuries and inspired traditions still alive today. For instance, monastic readings for the feasts of the Apostles in the Martyrology draw on edifying stories going back to the apocryphal Acts of the Apostles; and the names of caspar, Melchior and Balthazar, the three Magi whom the evangelical tradition refrains from naming, already appear in coptic paintings in the egyptian oasis of Bawit. To forget Apocrypha is tantamount to erasing the frescoes in our romanesque churches and smashing the stained-glass windows in our Gothic cathedrals; to rendering forever incomprehensible Dante’s Inferno and many pages in Flaubert. As ignorance of christian history grows ever more obvious and disturbing, it is a matter of some urgency to translate and disseminate at least some of the apocryphal texts long a part of our religious and cultural memory. This present series offers translations from the original sources edited and published in the Series Apocryphorum of the corpus christianorum. The translators are also scholars engaged in original research and members of the Association pour l’étude de la littérature apocryphe chrétienne [AeLAc]. Aiming to make apocryphal literature accessible to a broad spectrum of readers, individual volumes introduce each text with a historical preface, provide simple but precise notes, and include indexes. Translators hope that they will lead their readers on exciting journeys of discovery, beyond initial horizons and into the colourful, instructive, and rewarding world of christian Apocrypha.

Table of contents Abbreviations

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Bibliography

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Introduction I. recensions and Manuscripts II. synopsis III. Background and sources IV. Theology

25 30 35 38 104

Translation of “The Ever-New Tongue”

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Appendix: Dating the Text

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Glossary

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General Index

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Index of Scriptural References

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Index of Sources

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abbreviations reference Works and series BsGrT Bibliotheca scriptorum Graecorum et romanorum Teubneriana. cccM corpus christianorum. continuatio Mediaevalis. ccsA corpus christianorum. series Apocryphorum. ccsL corpus christianorum. series Latina. CLH Clavis litterarum hibernensium (D. Ó corráin, Clavis litterarum hibernensium [corpus christianorum claves 1], 3 vols, Turnhout 2017). cseL corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum Latinorum. DIL Dictionary of the Irish Language (e. G. Quin, Dictionary of the Irish Language Based Mainly on Old and Middle Irish Materials, compact edition, Dublin 1983). Gcs Die griechischen christlichen schriftsteller der ersten drei Jahrhunderte. L&S A Bibliography of Celtic-Latin Literature 400–1200 (M. Lapidge, r. sharpe, A Bibliography of CelticLatin Literature 400–1200 [Dictionary of Medieval Latin from celtic sources. Ancillary publications 1], Dublin 1985). pG patrologia graeca. pL patrologia latina. PRIA Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy.

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the ever-new tongue RC Revue celtique. Thes. Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus (W. stokes, J. strachan, Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus, 2 vols, cambridge 19011903). ZCP Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie.

sigla Used for Texts cited ActPhil Acts of Philip. Bcr The carlsruhe glosses on Bede, ed. Thes., vol. 2: 10– 30. CH Corpus Hermeticum (A. D. Nock, A.-J. Festugière, Corpus Hermeticum, 4 vols, paris 1945–1954). Etym. Isidore of seville, Etymologiae. Fél. Félire Óengusso Céli Dé (W. stokes, Félire Óengusso Céli Dé.The Martyrology of Oengus the Culdee [henry Bradshaw society 29], London 1905). LL The Book of Leinster (r. I. Best et al., The Book of Leinster formerly Lebar na Núachongbála, 6 vols, Dublin 1954–1983). LU Lebor na hUidre (r. I. Best, o. Bergin, Lebor na hUidre. Book of the Dun Cow, Dublin 1929). Ml The Milan glosses, ed. Thes., vol. 1: 7–83. NHC Nag Hammadi Codex PH Passions and Homilies from Leabhar Breac (r.Atkinson, The Passions and the Homilies from Leabhar Breac [Todd Lecture series 2], Dublin 1887). SR Saltair na Rann (W. stokes, Saltair na Rann, oxford 1883). TB In Tenga Bithnúa. Tur. The Turin glosses, ed. Thes., vol. 1: 484–94. Wb The Würzburg glosses, ed. Thes., vol. 1: 499–712.

abbreviations

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sigla Used for Manuscripts L The Book of Lismore, the Devonshire collections, chatsworth house. M rennes, Bibliothèque municipale Ms 598/15489. O Dublin, royal Irish Academy  23 O  48 a-b (476), known as the Liber Flavus Fergusiorum. Q paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, fonds celtique nº 1. Y Dublin, Trinity college, 1318 (H 2.16), known as the Yellow Book of Lecan.

Other abbreviations BL NLI rIA TcD

British Library National Library of Ireland royal Irish Academy Trinity college Dublin

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cross (J. e.), hill (T. D.), The Prose Solomon and Saturnus and Adrian and Ritheus (McMaster old english studies and Texts 1), Toronto 1982. cumont (F.), Recherches sur le manichéisme, vol. 1 : La Cosmogonie manichéenne d’après Théodore Bar Khôni, Brussels 1908. curran (M.), The Antiphonary of Bangor and the Early Irish Monastic Liturgy, Dublin 1984. Dando (M.), “Les gnostiques d’Égypte, les priscillianistes d’espagne et l’Église primitive d’Irlande”, Cahiers d’études cathares 56 (1972): 3–34. Daur (K.-D.), Contra adversarium legis et prophetarum. Commonitorium Orosii et sancti Aurelii Augustini contra Priscillianistas et Origenistas (ccsL 49), Turnhout 1985. Davies (o.), o’Loughlin (T.), Celtic Spirituality, New york– Mahwah 1999. Díaz y Díaz (M. c.), Liber de ordine creaturarum. Un anónimo irlandés del siglo VII (Monografias de la Universidad de santiago de compostela 10), santiago de compostela 1972. Diels (h.), Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, Berlin 1906. Dillon (J. M.), Iamblichi Chalcidensis in Platonis dialogos commentariorum fragmenta (philosophia antiqua 23), Leiden 1973. Dorival (G.), “origène et la résurrection de la chair”, in Origeniana Quarta. Die Referate des 4. internationalen Origeneskongresses (Innsbruck, 2–6 September 1985) (Innsbrucker theologische studien 19), L. Lies, ed., Innsbruck 1987: 290–321. Dottin (G.), “Le Teanga Bithnua du manuscrit de rennes”, RC 24 (1903): 365–403. —, “Une rédaction moderne du Teanga Bithnua”, RC 28 (1907): 277–307. —, “Un traité irlandais du Moyen Âge. La langue toujours nouvelle”, Annales de Bretagne 34 (1919): 190–207, 278–97. Dressler (F.), Petrus Damiani. Leben und Werk (studia anselmiana 34), rome 1954.

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Gaster (M.), “Letter written in 1906 to Whitley stokes” (in stokes’s own offprint of his edition of TB), University college, London. Geoltrain (p.), Kaestli (J.-D.), Écrits apocryphes chrétiens, vol. 2 (Bibliothèque de la pléiade 516), paris 2005 (reprint 2006 and 2013). Gounelle (r.), Les Recensions byzantines de l’Évangile de Nicodème (ccsA Instrumenta 3), Turnhout 2008. Gregory the Great, Dialogi, A. de Vogüé, p. Antin, ed., Grégoire le Grand, Dialogues (sources chrétiennes 251, 260, 265), paris 1978–1980. —, Moralia in Iob, M. Adriaen, ed., S. Gregorii Magni Moralia in Iob (ccsL 143, 143A, 143B), Turnhout 1979–1985. Griggs (c. W.), Early Egyptian Christianity from its Origins to 451 CE (coptic studies 2), Leiden 1990. Gwynn (A.), The Writings of Bishop Patrick 1074–1084 (scriptores Latini hiberniae 1), Dublin 1955. Gwynn (e. J.), The Metrical Dindshenchas (Todd Lecture series 8–12), 5 vols, Dublin 1903–1935. —, “The rule of Tallaght”, Hermathena 44 (1927), second supplemental volume: 64–103. Gwynn (e. J.), purton (W. J.), “The Monastery of Tallaght”, PRIA 29c (1911): 115–79. Gwynn (L.), “cináed úa hartacáin’s poem on Bruigh na Bóinne”, Ériu 7 (1914): 210–38. hamel (A. G. van), Compert Con Culainn and Other Stories (Mediaeval and Modern Irish series 3), Dublin 1933. —, Immrama (Mediaeval and Modern Irish series 10), Dublin 1941. hegemonius, Acta Archelai, c. h. Beeson, ed., Hegemonius, Acta Archelai (Gcs 16), Leipzig 1906. —, Acta Archelai, M. Vermes, ed., Hegemonius, Acta Archelai (The Acts of Archelaus) (Manichaean studies 4), Turnhout 2001.

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heist (W. W.), The Fifteen Signs Before Doomsday, east Lansing 1952. hennecke (e.), schneemelcher (W.), New Testament Apocrypha, tr. r. McL. Wilson et al., 2 vols, philadelphia 19631965. herbert (M.), McNamara (M.), Irish Biblical Apocrypha. Selected Texts in Translation, edinburgh 1989. hippolytus, Refutatio omnium haeresium, p. cruice, ed., Philosophumena sive Haeresium omnium confutatio opus Origeni adscriptum, paris 1860. hornung (e.), Das Amduat. Die Schrift des verborgenen Raums (Ägyptologische Abhandlungen 7,1; 7,2; 13), 3 vols, Wiesbaden 1963–1967. hübner (W.), Die Eigenschaften der Tierkreiszeichen in der Antike, ihre Darstellung und Verwendung unter besonderer Berücksichtigung des Manilius (sudhoffs Archiv. Beihefte 22), Wiesbaden 1982. hyde (D.), The Religious Songs of Connacht, 2 vols, London 1906. Irenaeus, Adversus haereses, W. W. harvey, ed., Sancti Irenæi episcopi Lugdunensis Libros quinque adversus hæreses, 2 vols, cambridge 1857. Isaac (e.), “1 (ethiopic Apocalypse of) enoch”, in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol. 1, J. h. charlesworth, ed., Garden city 1983: 5–89. Jackson (K. h.), “The Date of the Tripartite Life of St. Patrick”, ZCP 41 (1986): 5–45. —, Aislinge Meic Con Glinne, Dublin 1990. Jacobs (A. s.), “The Disorder of Books. priscillian’s canonical Defense of Apocrypha”, Harvard Theological Review 93 (2000): 135–59. James (M. r.), Apocrypha Anecdota. Second Series (Texts and studies 5,1), cambridge 1897.

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—, “Irish Apocrypha”, Journal of Theological Studies 20 (1919): 9–16. Joynt (M.), Feis Tighe Chonáin (Mediaeval and Modern Irish series 7), Dublin 1936. Kaestli (J.-D.), cherix (p.), L’Évangile de Barthélemy d’après deux écrits apocryphes (Apocryphes 1), Turnhout 1993. Kitson (p.), “The Jewels and Bird Hiruath of the ‘ever-New Tongue’”, Ériu 35 (1984): 113–36. Klimkeit (h.-J.), Gnosis on the Silk Road. Gnostic Texts from Central Asia, san Francisco 1993. Lagarde (p. de), Aegyptiaca, Göttingen 1883. Lapidge (M.), “stoic cosmology”, in The Stoics (Major Thinkers series 1), J. M. rist, ed., Berkeley 1978: 161–85. Lapidge (M.), sharpe (r.), A Bibliography of Celtic-Latin Literature 400–1200 (Dictionary of Medieval Latin from celtic sources. Ancillary publications 1), Dublin 1985. Lattke (M.), Die Oden Salomos in ihrer Bedeutung für Neues Testament und Gnosis (orbis Biblicus et orientalis 25/1–4), Göttingen 1979–1998. Lecouteux (c.), Pharasmanes, De rebus in oriente mirabilibus (Lettre de Farasmanes) (Beiträge zur klassischen philologie 103), Meisenheim am Glan 1979. Lees (c. A.), “The ‘sunday Letter’ and the ‘sunday Lists’”, Anglo-Saxon England 14 (1985): 129–51. —, “Theme and echo in an Anonymous old english sermon”, Traditio 42 (1986): 115–42. Lowe (e. A.), “An Unedited Fragment of Irish exegesis in Visigothic script”, Celtica 5 (1960): 1–7. Mac Airt (s.), Mac Niocaill (G.), The Annals of Ulster (to AD 1131), Dublin 1983. Macalister (r. A. s.), Lebor Gabála Érenn (Irish Texts society 34, 35, 39, 41, 44), 5 vols, London 1932–1956.

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—, The Book of Mac Carthaigh Riabhach otherwise the Book of Lismore (Facsimiles in collotype of Irish Manuscripts 5), Dublin 1950. Mccarthy (D.), Breen (A.), “An evaluation of Astronomical observations in the Irish Annals”, Vistas in Astronomy 41 (1997): 117–38. Mccone (K.), The Early Irish Verb (Maynooth Monographs 1), Maynooth 1987. Mac Donncha (F.), “Medieval Irish homilies”, in Biblical Studies. The Medieval Irish Contribution (proceedings of the Irish Biblical Association 1), M. McNamara, ed., Dublin 1976: 59–71. MacGinty (G.), Pauca problesmata de enigmatibus ex tomis canonicis (cccM 173), Turnhout 2000. Machielsen (J.), Clavis patristica pseudepigraphorum medii aevi, I: Opera homiletica, 2 vols, Turnhout 1990. McNally (r. e.), Der irische Liber de numeris, diss., Munich 1957. —, Scriptores Hiberniae minores, pars I (ccsL 108B), Turnhout 1973. McNamara (M.), The Apocrypha in the Irish Church, Dublin 1975. —, Glossa in Psalmos. Gloss on the Psalms of Codex Vaticanus Palato-Latinus 68 (studi e Testi 310), Vatican 1986. —, “plan and source Analysis of Das Bibelwerk, old Testament”, in Ireland and Christendom.The Bible and the Missions (Veröffentlichungen des europa-Zentrums Tübingen. Kulturwissenschaftliche reihe), p. Ní chatháin, M. richter, eds, stuttgart 1987: 84–112. —, “The Bird Hiruath of the ‘Ever-New Tongue’ and Hirodius of Gloss on ps. 103:17 in Vatican codex pal. Lat. 68”, Ériu 39 (1988): 87–94

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—, “celtic christianity, creation and Apocalypse, christ and Antichrist”, Milltown Studies 23 (1989): 5–39. —, “The (Fifteen) signs Before Doomday in Irish Tradition”, Miscellanea Patristica, Warszawskie Studia Teologiczne 20:2 (2007): 223–54. McNamara (M.) et al., Apocrypha Hiberniae I. Evangelia infantiae (ccsA 13-14), Turnhout 2001. Mahé (J.-p.), Hermès en Haute-Égypte. Les textes hermétiques de Nag Hammadi et leurs parallèles grecs et latins (Bibliothèque copte de Nag hammadi. section textes 3 & 7), Québec 1978-1982. Matsuoka (T.), Celtic Biblical Stories [in Japanese], Tokyo 1999. Menasce (p. J. de), Škand-Gumānīk Vičār. La solution décisive des doutes. Une apologétique mazdéenne du IXe siècle (collectanea Friburgensia Ns 30), Fribourg 1945. Meyer (K.), “Mitteilungen aus irischen handschriften”, ZCP 4 (1903): 31–47, 234–40, 467–69. Meyer (M. W.), The Letter of Peter to Philip (sBL Dissertation series 53), chico (calif.) 1981. Meyer (M. W.), Wisse (F.), “Nhc VIII, 2. Letter of peter to philip”, in Nag Hammadi Codex VIII, J. h. sieber, ed., Leiden 1991: 227–51. Moland (L.), “calendrier français du treizième siècle”, Revue archéologique N. s. 5 (1862): 87–104. Mulchrone (K.), “Die Abfassungszeit und Überlieferung der Vita Tripartita,” ZCP 16 (1926-1927): 1–94. Murray (K.), “The Voyaging of st columba’s clerics”, in The End and Beyond. Medieval Irish Eschatology, J. carey, e. Nic cárthaigh, c. Ó Dochartaigh, eds, Aberystwyth 2014: 761–823. Nic cárthaigh (e.), “The seven heavens in the Modern recension of In Tenga Bithnua”, in The End and Beyond. Medieval Irish Eschatology, J. carey, e. Nic cárthaigh, c. Ó Dochartaigh, eds, Aberystwyth 2014: 211–83.

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Nic Énrí (U.), Mac Niocaill (G.), “The second recension of the Evernew Tongue”, Celtica 9 (1971): 1–60. Nock (A. D.), Festugière (A.-J.), Corpus Hermeticum, 4 vols, paris 1945–1954. Ó corráin (D.), Clavis litterarum hibernensium (corpus christianorum claves 1), 3 vols, Turnhout 2017. Ó cróinín (D.), “hiberno-Latin Literature to 1169”, in A New History of Ireland, I: Prehistoric and Early Ireland, D. Ó cróinín, ed., oxford 2005: 371–404. Ó cuív (B.), “observations on the Book of Lismore”, PRIA 83c (1983): 269–92. Ó Dochartaigh (c.), “The early Development of the signs Tradition”, in The End and Beyond. Medieval Irish Eschatology, J. carey, e. Nic cárthaigh, c. Ó Dochartaigh, eds, Aberystwyth 2014: 551–65. o’Keeffe (J. G.), “cáin Domnaig”, Ériu 2 (1905): 189–214. —, “poem on the observance of sunday”, Ériu 3 (1907): 143–47. Ó Máille (T.), The Language of the Annals of Ulster (publications of the University of Manchester. celtic series 2), Manchester 1910. omont (h.), “catalogue des mss. celtiques et basques de la Bibliothèque nationale”, RC 11 (1890): 389–423. o’Neill (T.), The Irish Hand. Scribes and their Manuscripts from the Earliest Times, 2nd ed., cork 2014. orchard (A.), Pride and Prodigies. Studies in the Monsters of the “Beowulf”-Manuscript, cambridge 1995. orosius, Consultatio sive commonitorium de errore Priscillianistarum et Origenistarum, K.-D. Daur, ed., Contra adversarium legis et prophetarum. Commonitorium Orosii et sancti Aurelii Augustini contra Priscillianistas et Origenistas (ccsL 49), Turnhout 1985: 157–63.

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—, Historiae adversum paganos, c. Zangemeister, ed., Pauli Orosii Historiarum adversum paganos libri VII (BsGrT), Leipzig 1889. o’sullivan (T.), “A homily on Matthew 25”, in The End and Beyond. Medieval Irish Eschatology, J. carey, e. Nic cárthaigh, c. Ó Dochartaigh, eds, Aberystwyth 2014: 593–605. parrott (D. M.), Nag Hammadi Codices III, 3-4 and V, 1 with Papyrus Berolinensis 8502,3 and Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 1081, Eugnostos and The Sophia of Jesus Christ (Nag hammadi studies 27), Leiden 1991. pearson (B. A.), Nag Hammadi Codices IX and X (Nag hammadi studies 15), Leiden 1981. philo of Alexandria, De uita Mosis, L. cohn, ed., Philonis Alexandrini opera quae supersunt, vol. 4, Berlin 1902: 119–268. pickles (J. D.), Studies in the Prose Text of the Beowulf Manuscript, ph.D. diss., cambridge 1971. pietrobelli (A.), “pourquoi le diable grince-t-il des dents. Aspects du bruxisme dans le monde grec”, F. collard, e. samama, ed., Dents, dentistes et art dentaire. Histoire, pratiques et représentations. Antiquité, Moyen Âge, Ancien Régime, paris 2012: 29–44. pokorny (J.), Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 2 vols, Bern–stuttgart 1959-1969. preisendanz (K.) et al., Papyri graecae magicae, 2nd ed., Leipzig 1973. proclus, Commentaria in Cratylum, G. pasquali, ed., Procli Diadochi in Platonis Cratylum Commentaria (BsGrT), Leipzig 1908. pseudo-Bede, De mundi celestis terrestrisque constitutione, c. Burnett, ed., Pseudo-Bede, De mundi celestis terrestrisque constitutione. A Treatise on the Universe and the Soul (Warburg Institute surveys and Texts 10), London 1985.

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Quin (e. G.), Dictionary of the Irish Language Based Mainly on Old and Middle Irish Materials, compact edition, Dublin 1983. remley (p. G.), Old English Biblical Verse. Studies in Genesis, Exodus and Daniel (cambridge studies in Anglo-saxon england 16), cambridge 1996. robinson (F.), Coptic Apocryphal Gospels (Texts and studies 4,2), cambridge 1896. rubinkiewicz (r.), “The Apocalypse of Abraham”, in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol. 1, J. h. charlesworth, ed., Garden city 1983: 681–705. sanchez (s. J. G.), Priscillien, un chrétien non conformiste (Théologie historique 120), paris 2009. sanders (e. p.), “Testaments of the Three patriarchs”, in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol. 1, J. h. charlesworth, ed., Garden city 1983: 869–918. santos otero (A. de), Los evangelios apócrifos (Biblioteca de autores cristianos 148), Madrid 1984. schmidt (c.), Pistis Sophia, tr. V. MacDermot (The coptic Gnostic Library. Nag hammadi studies 9), Leiden 1978. selmer (c.), Navigatio Sancti Brendani abbatis (publications in Medieval studies 16), Notre Dame (Ind.) 1959. silverstein (T.), hilhorst (A.), Apocalypse of Paul. A New Critical Edition of Three Long Latin Versions (cahiers d’orientalisme 21), Geneva 1997. smyth (M.), Understanding the Universe in Seventh-Century Ireland (studies in celtic history 15), Woodbridge 1996. —, “The Date and origin of Liber de ordine creaturarum”, Peritia 17-18 (2003-2004): 1–39. —, “The seventh-century hiberno-Latin Treatise Liber de ordine creaturarum. A Translation”, Journal of Medieval Latin 21 (2011): 137–222.

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—, “The Irish hybrid Lists of the seven heavens”, in Clerics, Kings and Vikings. Essays on Medieval Ireland in Honour of Donnchadh Ó Corráin, e.  purcell, p.  Maccotter, J. Nyhan, J. sheehan, eds, Dublin 2015: 399–410. spittler (r. p.), “Testament of Job”, in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol.  1, J. h. charlesworth, ed., Garden city 1983: 829–68. stancliffe (c.), “red, White and Blue Martyrdom”, in Ireland in Early Medieval Europe. Studies in Memory of Kathleen Hughes, D. Whitelock et al., eds, cambridge 1982: 21–46. —, “Venantius Fortunatus, Ireland, Jerome. The evidence of Precamur Patrem”, Peritia 10 (1996): 91–97. stevenson (J.), “Ascent through the heavens, from egypt to Ireland”, Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies 5 (1983): 21–35. —, “Altus prosator”, Celtica 23 (1999): 326–68. stokes (W.), Saltair na Rann, oxford 1883. —, “The Irish Verses, Notes and Glosses in harl. 1802”, RC 8 (1887): 346–69. —, “The Bodleian Dinnshenchas”, Folk-Lore 3 (1892): 467– 516. —, “The edinburgh Dindshenchas”, Folk-Lore 4 (1893): 471– 97. —, “The prose Tales in the rennes Dindṡenchas”, RC 15 (1894): 273–336, 418–84. —, “The prose Tales in the rennes Dindṡenchas”, RC 16 (1895): 31–83, 134–67, 269–312. —, “The Bodleian Amra choluimb chille”, RC 20 (1899): 30–55, 132–83, 248–87, 400–37. —, Acallamh na Senórach (Irische Texte 4,1), Leipzig 1900. —, “Tidings of the resurrection”, RC 25 (1904): 232–59. —, “The evernew Tongue”, Ériu 2 (1905): 96–162. —, Félire Óengusso Céli Dé.The Martyrology of Oengus the Culdee (henry Bradshaw society 29), London 1905a.

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stokes (W.), strachan (J.), Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus, 2 vols, cambridge 1901-1903. strachan (J.), “contributions to the history of the Deponent Verb in Irish”, Transactions of the Philological Society (1894): 444–568. —, “The Infixed pronoun in Middle-Irish”, Ériu 1 (1904): 153–79. —, “An old-Irish homily”, Ériu 3 (1907): 1–10. suchier (W.), Das mittellateinische Gespräch Adrian und Epictitus, Tübingen 1955. Tardieu (M.), Codex de Berlin (sources gnostiques et manichéennes. Écrits gnostiques 1), paris 1984. Thurneysen (r.), A Grammar of Old Irish, tr. D. A. Binchy, o. Bergin, Dublin 1946. Tischendorf (c.), Evangelia apocrypha, Leipzig 1853 (18712). Trafton (J. L.), The Syriac Version of the Psalms of Solomon. A Critical Evaluation (septuagint and cognate studies  11), Atlanta 1985. Tristram (h. L. c.), “Der ‘homo octipartitus’ in der irischen und altenglischen Literatur”, ZCP 34 (1975): 119–53. Turdeanu (É.), Apocryphes slaves et roumains de l’Ancien Testament (studia in Veteris Testamenti pseudepigrapha 5), Leiden 1981. Veilleux (A.), “Monasticism and Gnosis in egypt”, in The Roots of Egyptian Christianity (studies in Antiquity and christianity), B. A. pearson, J. A. Goehring, eds, philadelphia 1986: 271–306. Vendryes (J.), Airne Fíngein (Mediaeval and Modern Irish series 15), Dublin 1953. Vétant (A.), “Manuscrits de la bibliothèque de rennes”, in Catalogue général des manuscrits des bibliothèques publiques de France. Départements, vol. 24, paris 1924: 1–262.

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Walsh (M.), Ó cróinín (D.), Cummian’s Letter De controversia paschali and the De ratione conputandi (studies and Texts 86), Toronto 1988. Warntjes (I.), The Munich Computus.Text and Translation. Irish Computistics between Isidore of Seville and the Venerable Bede and its Reception in Carolingian Times (sudhoffs Archiv 59), stuttgart 2010. Waßmuth (o.), Sibyllinische Orakel 1-2. Studien und Kommentar (Ancient Judaism and early christianity 76), Leiden 2011. Williams (M.), Fiery Shapes. Celestial Portents and Astrology in Ireland and Wales 700–1700, oxford 2010. Wilmart (A.), “extraits d’Acta Pauli”, Revue bénédictine 27 (1910): 402–12. —, “catéchèses celtiques”, in Analecta Reginensia. Extraits des manuscrits latins de la Reine Christine au Vatican (studi e testi 59), Vatican city 1933: 29–112. Wisse (F.), “Gnosticism and early Monasticism in egypt”, in Gnosis. Festschrift für Hans Jonas, B. Aland, ed., Göttingen 1963: 431–40. Wright (c. D.), The Irish Tradition in Old English Literature (cambridge studies in Anglo-saxon england 6), cambridge 1993. —, “Why sight holds Flowers. An Apocryphal source for the Iconography of the Alfred Jewel and Fuller Brooch”, in Text, Image, Interpretation. Studies in Anglo-Saxon Literature and its Insular Context in Honour of Éamonn Ó Carragáin (studies in the early Middle Ages 18), A. Minnis, J. roberts, eds, Turnhout 2007: 169–86.

introduction

T

he text known as In Tenga Bithnúa (“The ever-New Tongue”; hereafter TB) undertakes to give an account of the entire universe: all that is contained in time and space, and God in his relationship thereto. It is the most ambitious such work to have survived in the literatures of old and Middle Irish, and the grandeur of its theme is matched by the visionary extravagance of its style.1 The latter has been well described by Melita cataldi, who writes of TB as: “A great mélange of imagination and doctrine, of phantasmagorical invention and cosmological and theological thought. In its pages we find enchanting originality and surprising refinement, delicate representations, violent imagery, profound views on the nature of time and the universe, grotesque catalogues of astonishing things, of visions alternatively ecstatic and dazzling or frightening and darkly mysterious.” 2

1. The only other such text of which I am aware is the description of the creation given in the first canto of the mainly Biblical poetic sequence known as Saltair na Rann, apparently composed late in the tenth century (CLH § 103): SR 1–336. I have provided a translation of this in carey 2000: 98–108; and have undertaken an analysis of its content in carey 1985. The poem was recast as a brief prose work, which I have edited in carey 1986. 2. cataldi 2002: 196–97.

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It is on this level, first and foremost, that this “bizarre apocryphal composition” 3 should be encountered: I do not think that there can be any real doubt that the author’s primary aim was to inspire in his audience a sense of beauty, awe and wonder, of the mysterium tremendum and the mysterium fascinosum. But TB’s dizzying panorama surely had deeper purposes as well, purposes both intellectual and spiritual. As socrates is made to say in plato’s Theaetetus, the experience of wonder (θαυ­μάζειν) is the characteristic passion (πάθος) of the philosopher, and is in fact philosophy’s sole origin.4 We find the spiritual uses of an awe-struck contemplation of nature also being evoked by the Irish theologian columbanus (died 615), a monk who stemmed presumably from the same general milieu as the author of TB, and who wrote only a few centuries before his time: “If, then, anyone wishes to know that most deep sea of divine understanding, let him first, if he is able, scrutinise this visible sea. And to the extent that he finds himself unable to know what things hide within the sea, so much the more let him realise that he can know even less concerning the depths of its Maker. And, as is right and fitting, let him presume to speak, not of the creator, but of creation [. . .]. Understand the creation, if you wish to know the creator.” 5 3. The phrase is that of Wright 1993: 35. Another evocation of TB’s imaginative impact is the observation of Williams 2010: 28 n. 95, that “the reader [. . .] is sometimes disconcertingly put in mind of the Qur’an.” 4. Theaetetus 155D. 5. Instructio 1, 4, Walker 1957: 64. on columbanus’ Instructiones in general, see the references in CLH § 329.

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But if we do go looking for enlightenment beneath the surface of TB’s picture of the world, what may we expect to find there? In seeking a clearer picture of the author’s intentions and background, scholars have directed their attention to several aspects of the text. Whitley stokes and Montague rhodes James, as we shall see in greater detail below, were interested primarily in its putative sources: stokes pointed to evidence that TB is an Irish version of a lost Latin apocalypse, while James held that “its right place is not among apocalypses, but among dialogues [. . .] [texts] for the most part thoroughly vulgar and popular in character, full of folk-lore and descending to elementary jokes.” 6 others, observing that TB’s framework includes an exordium and a peroration, have described it as a homily.7 peter Kitson has found evidence that an original core was supplemented with exotic lore drawn from “lapidary texts and travellers’ tales.” 8 Martin McNamara, noting the similarity of some of the concepts in TB to hiberno-Latin exegesis of the opening of the book of Genesis, has argued that “the work might conceivably be better described as a theological treatise than an apocryphon, even though in the climate of ideas with which we are dealing the differences between one and the other may not be too clearcut.” 9 Many other approaches are surely also feasible. Before all else, though, as Father McNamara has rightly emphasized, “much painstaking literary and source analysis is 6. From a passage cited at greater length below:39–40. 7. Thus Abbott, Gwynn 1921: 103, in their entry for the copy of TB in the Yellow Book of Lecan. cf. the discussion on: 98–100 below. 8. Kitson 1984: 114. 9. In herbert, McNamara 1989: 183.

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required before any really informed judgement can be passed on this interesting composition.” 10 The present study is an attempt to contribute to such analysis.

Structure of this book several treatments of the version of TB translated here have already appeared in print, the first being the edition published by Whitley stokes in 1905.11 A new translation of much of this version (corresponding to §§ 1–32, 64–66, 69–74 in the present translation) appeared in Máire herbert and Martin McNamara’s 1989 collection Irish Biblical Apocrypha;12 this was followed a decade later by a rendering of §§ 1–23 by oliver Davies and Thomas o’Loughlin.13 An Italian translation, based on stokes’s edition, has been produced by Melita cataldi;14 and a Japanese translation, which takes account of all previous treatments of the text, was made by Toshi Matsuoka.15 I published a preliminary version of the present translation, incorporating however several variants from the second recension, in a collection of medieval Irish religious texts of which the first edition appeared in 1998, and the second in 2000.16 The present volume is based on an edition and translation of the first and second recensions of TB, including detailed 10. Ibid. 11. stokes 1905. 12. herbert, McNamara 1989: 109–18. 13. Davies, o’Loughlin 1999: 321–26. 14. cataldi 1999. 15. Matsuoka 1999: 3–32. 16. carey 2000: 77–96; I am grateful to Four courts press for kind permission to make use of that work here.

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linguistic analysis and textual notes, which appeared in 2009.17 The aim here is to offer to a broader readership a translation of the first (and most conservative) recension, preserved in the Book of Lismore, together with such other parts of the larger study as may be of interest to non-celticists. This introduction begins with a brief overview of the different recensions of TB and the manuscripts in which these are found. A synopsis of the first recension is then provided. An extended examination of the background and sources reviews the results of previous scholarship and assesses the characteristics and literary genre of TB. Among the sources of TB, particular attention is given to the Acts of Philip (hereafter ActPhil); and their transmission to the West is examined. It is argued that Latin versions of ActPhil II and of an egyptian revelation discourse came together and were used by an Irish author as the basis for a “hexaemeral-eschatological” treatise. This Latin text was written in the seventh or the early eighth century and was later translated into Irish. The introduction concludes with an attempt to characterise the text’s theology. A translation of the first recension constitutes the heart of the volume; this is followed by an appendix which offers a precis of the linguistic evidence for dating TB, based on the much fuller discussion of this question in the earlier edition. All sections of the work presented here have been revised and updated, incorporating findings made since the edition’s publication in 2009.18

17. carey 2009. 18. I am very grateful to the editor of the series, Jean-Michel roessli, and to two anonymous readers, for several suggestions which have led to the further improvement of this version. All remaining faults and deficiencies are my sole responsibility.

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i. recensions and Manuscripts First Recension (the Book of Lismore) As noted above, the translation of TB presented here is based on the copy of the text preserved in the Book of Lismore (hereafter L): a manuscript now kept, as part of the Devonshire collections, in the library of chatsworth house, Bakewell, Derbyshire, england. L was written late in the fifteenth century for the family of Mac carthaigh riabhach, lords of cairbre; its copy of TB (on folios 88–94, following the principal foliation used in the Irish Manuscripts commission facsimile19) is the work of the main hand, designated “scribe A” by r. A. s. Macalister and Brian Ó cuív.20 on the basis of its language, the Lismore version can be shown to go back to a text probably dating from the later old Irish period, somewhat modified by a Middle Irish redactor. evidence for this dating is summarised in the appendix below. some nineteenth-century copies of L have also been preserved.21 sections §§ 43–47 and § 57 of a version of TB closely resembling L, but with some readings that are closer to the second recension, were translated into Latin and are preserved in the twelfth-century english manuscript London, British Library Royal 6.A.xi.22 A version of §§ 72–73 intermediate 19. i.e., the foliation indicated on the upper right corner of rectos: Macalister 1950. 20. Ibid.: xiv–v; Ó cuív 1983: 280–81. on the manuscript as a whole, see most recently carey, herbert, Knowles 2011. 21. These are found in Dublin, rIA Mss 24 C  6 (261), written by Éamonn Ó Mathghamhna for John Windele in 1844-1845; and 23 H 6 (478), written by seosamh Ó Longáin for the royal Irish Academy in 1868. 22. This text was discovered, and published with analysis, by Kitson 1984. A fresh transcription and further discussion are provided in carey 2009: 306–10.

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between the text of the first and second recensions also provided the basis of a poem preserved in the TcD copy of Liber hymnorum, and in Dublin, royal Irish Academy C 3 2.23

Second Recension At some point in the later Middle Irish period a second recension of TB was produced.24 This is preserved in the following manuscripts: Q paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, fonds celtique nº 1: a composite manuscript, the section containing TB having been written c. 1473 by Uilliam Mac an Leagha. TB: fol. 24r–27v.25 Y Dublin, Trinity college, 1318 (H 2.16), loosely referred to as the Yellow Book of Lecan; a collection of manuscripts bound together by edward Lhuyd. our text appears in a section written in 1391 by Giolla Íosa Mac Fir Bhisigh. TB: 81a–86b. O Dublin, royal Irish Academy 23 O 48 a-b (476), known as the Liber Flavus Fergusiorum, written in the first half of the 15th century, possibly in co. roscommon. TB: vol. II, fol. 35ra–37rb. M rennes, Bibliothèque municipale 598/15489: a composite manuscript, the section containing TB having been written in the late 15th century, probably in co. cork. TB: fol. 70r–74r.26 23. Bernard, Atkinson 1898, vol. 1: 185–86; vol. 2: 236; translation and discussion in carey 2009: 360–63. on Liber hymnorum, an Irish collection of hymns and related compositions probably assembled c. 1000, see CLH §§ 265–66; L&S §§ 542–64, 578–91. 24. An edition of this recension was produced by Nic Énrí, Mac Niocaill 1971. Another is provided in carey 2009: 100–230. 25. omont 1890: 391, 394–95. The manuscript’s copy of TB was edited, with some variants from L, Y and M, in Dottin 1919-1920. 26. on indications of the date of this part of the manuscript, see Abercromby 1886: 67–68; and Vétant 1924: 258–60. edition of our text, with occasional variants from Q and Y, in Dottin 1903.

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Úna Nic Énrí and Gearóid Mac Niocaill, the previous editors of the second recension, observed that “few satisfactory criteria are available for dating texts in the transition period from Middle to Modern Irish, and these few yield in the present case only a vague answer.” Basing themselves on the converging indications of several linguistic features, they proposed that “a date in the middle or second half of the twelfth century would be acceptable”; and this assessment seems plausible.27 As a supplement to my edition of L, I provided an edition of the second recension: my principal reason for doing this was the consideration that, since L and the second recension go back independently to a shared exemplar, the second recension’s readings may occasionally reflect that exemplar more closely than do those of L. Thus the second recension preserves the significant number “seventy-two” for the angelic “peoples,” changed to “seventy” by L (§ 19); retains a reference to the seven heavens (§ 20); keeps the word dealb “shape” for the form of the sun and moon where L substitutes cuairt “circuit” (§ 20); describes one of the heavens as being grianda “sunny” where L’s granna “awful” looks like a scribal slip (§ 27); and appears to give a preferable reading when it speaks of streams of fire, not wheels of fire, as descending from a mountain and traversing a plain (§ 66).28

27. Nic Énrí, Mac Niocaill 1971: 3–4. 28. other instances where the readings of the second recension appear preferable to those in L, or contribute to a better picture of their shared exemplar, are discussed in carey 2009, in the textual notes to §§ 1,6; 1,7; 2,6; 3,2; 11,1; 13,3; 25,5; 33,6; 46,3; 47,4; 53,9; 57,4; 65,2; 67,2–3; 68,3–4; 75,4; 77,1–2; 84,1; 85,2; 92,5.

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Short Recension robin Flower noted that a short text, opening with an assembly on the Mount of olives rather than with one on Mount Zion as in other versions, is also attested.29 This is found in the following manuscripts: — Dublin, NLI G 9, late 15th century. TB: fol. 7rb–8rb. — Dublin, rIA 24 P 25 (475), known as Leabhar Chlainne Suibhne, 1513-1514. TB: 123–24. — London, British Library Egerton 136, 1630. TB: fol. 53r– 56r. — Maynooth, R 73, 18th century. TB: 213–20. — Dublin, NLI G 36, 19th century. TB: 113–20 (copied from G 9 above). This version is based on §§ 55–57, 49–53, 35–37, 39–47, 106 of the second recension.30 on the whole the text of this “short recension” is closest to that of M, with some influence from a version similar to Q and Y.31

Third Recension (Modern Recension) The second recension also provided the basis for a further version, variously referred to as the “modern recension” and as the “third recension.” The oldest manuscript, where TB

29. Flower 1926: 556–57. 30. An edition based on G 9, with “variants and occasional corrections where they are supported by the long text” from 24 P  25, has been provided in Nic Énrí, Mac Niocaill 1971: 54–59. I have recently prepared a new edition drawing on all of the manuscripts (carey 2017). 31. For examples of kinship with M, see carey 2009: 50–51; more detailed discussion in carey 2017: 324–25.

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exists in a fragmentary and largely illegible copy, is edinburgh, National Library of scotland Adv. 72.1.47 (formerly Advocates’ Library Gaelic XLVII), perhaps of the 15th century. The other manuscripts are all much later; I am aware of the following from the 18th century: Dublin NLI G  32, G  501; rIA  23 L  24 (29), 23 L  29 (109), 12 F 7 (235), 23 I 25 (412), 23 D 8 (503), 24 B 29 (579), 23 L  35 (858), 23 N  18 (981), 3 C  15 (1021); TcD  1287 (H  1.13), 1413 (H  6.9), 1414 (H  6.10); edinburgh, National Library of scotland Adv. 72.2.5 (formerly Advocates’ Library Gaelic  LV); London, British Library Egerton  171, Egerton 1784; Maynooth, M 52, M 95, R 66. There is a similar number of manuscripts of the 19th century: cork, Murphy  26; Dublin, NLI G  365, G  432, G  656; rIA 23 L 6 (103), 23 B 1 (225), 23 M 1 (329), 23 I 44 (428), 24 C 16 (598), 24 A 22 (659), 23 N 23 (732), 24 L 20 (809), 24 A 20 (928), 23 B 2 (1002); London, British Library Additional 18945; Maynooth, M 39, M 73, B 2. Next to no work has so far been done on this recension: scholars have probably been deterred by its lateness, by the multitude of copies, and by the poor condition of the oldest manuscript. only one specimen of the recension has been published in its entirety to date, based according to robin Flower on “a corrupt modern Ms. copied in 1901 from an original of 1817.” 32 In his remarks on copies of TB in the British Library, Flower noted that some of these exhibit significant divergence from Dottin’s text.33 A detailed exploration 32. Flower 1926: 558, drawing on Dottin 1903: 365 n. 3. The edition is that of Dottin 1907. 33. Flower 1926: 14.

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of such divergence has recently been furnished by emma Nic cárthaigh, who has edited a single section of the third recension from all of the 18th-century manuscripts.34

ii. synopsis TB as it appears in L can be summarised as follows. The text opens with the first words of Genesis: In principio fecit Deus caelum et terram. It then goes on to say that “this account [. . .] concerning the world’s form and creation” had been granted to humanity by the son of God, whose preeminence over all things is expressed by a series of extravagant comparisons (§ 1). Before these matters were revealed, the nature of the universe was completely baffling: thus men had no understanding of the revolutions of the heavenly bodies, of the movements of the waters, or of the cycle of the seasons. These mysteries were finally disclosed to a great assembly convened at Mount Zion (§§ 2–4). This assembly had been gathered from all parts of the eastern world, and included an enormous multitude of bishops and kings. They spent a year and four months praising God (§§ 5–6). At the end of this time, on the vigil of easter, a great noise was heard in the heavens and a dazzling spinning light descended (§§ 7). A voice issued from this light, speaking “in angelic language.” This voice identified itself to the company (now referred to simply as “the wise men of the hebrews”) as that of the apostle philip, called “the ever-New Tongue” by the angels on account of the circumstances of his martyrdom (§§ 8–10): before his death, the pagans to whom he had 34. Nic cárthaigh 2014.

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been preaching had repeatedly cut out his tongue, and each time it had been miraculously restored.35 he had been sent “to make plain to you the wondrous tale which the holy spirit related by means of Moses son of Amram, concerning the making of heaven and earth, together with the things which are in them” (§§ 11–12). philip began by relating how all of the substances in the cosmos had been used to make the human body: for this reason, not only mankind but also the entire universe had been redeemed when christ’s body rose from the dead (§§ 12–14). After an evocation of the void and indeterminate condition which preceded the creation, when nothing existed save God (§§ 15–16), philip went on to give an account of the universe: a description whose basic structure follows that of the six days of creation in the first chapter of Genesis. At the very beginning, God made light. This entailed the creation of the supercelestial heaven (or ríched), and the orders of the angels. At the same time, God made “the many-shaped round circuit which was the material of the world”—in other words, the primal matter which would serve as the basis for his subsequent creations (§§ 17–22). This included the material from which hell was to be made, as God had foreknowledge of the fall of Lucifer (§§ 23–24). 35. The doctrine is so far as I know attested in only two other sources, both Irish and both written later than TB: the Middle Irish Páis Pilip Apstail (text e.g. PH 2547–52; cf. CLH § 164), and a tract “on the genealogy of the apostles, and their deaths and appearances, and the places in which they were buried” (stokes 1887: 363). It seems likeliest that the idea originated with TB itself: its source may already have spoken of the celestial philip as “the ever-New Tongue”, and perhaps already had this phrase as its title. More detailed discussion in carey 2009: 254–55.

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on the second day, God made the firmament. In this context, philip enumerated the seven heavens and the five celestial zones (§§ 25–29). on the third day, God made bodies of water, and also the earth together with precious stones and trees. Different seas and springs are described (§§ 30–42), as well as “four kinds of precious stones with the intelligence and semblance of humans” (§§ 43–47), and four remarkable trees (§§ 48–53). At this point, midway through the narrative, the hebrew sages ventured to say that some of what they were hearing was difficult to believe (§ 54). philip rebuked them for their incredulity, speaking of other marvels as further evidence that nothing is impossible for God: a vast sea beast which had been cast up “on the shore of cephas,” and the giant bird hirúath, the shells of whose eggs could serve as ships on the sea (§§ 56–77). Despite this, a Jew incongruously named [Judas] Maccabaeus persisted in refusing to believe in an invisible tree which philip had described. The tree was suddenly revealed to him, but at the same time his eyes burst and he was scorched by a fiery wind; he died expressing contrition for his doubts (§§ 58–60). The whole company begged for pardon, and philip sternly reminded them of the blasphemy entailed in lack of faith. he was asked to resume his account (§§ 61–63). on the fourth day, continued philip, God created seventytwo kinds of stars, as well as the sun’s circuit. he went on to describe the twelve plains on which the sun shines between the times of its setting and its rising, and six of the varieties of the stars (§§ 64–68). on the fifth day, God made seventy-two kinds of birds and seventy-two kinds of sea-beasts: descriptions of three sorts of birds are given (§§ 69–73). philip went on to speak of various exotic races of men, adding that their heterogeneity represents the lapse of

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fallen mankind from the image and likeness of the one God (§§ 74–82). once he had spoken of the works of the six days, philip was asked about a range of other topics: “the number of the relationships which God set upon his creatures” (§§ 83–84); the horrors of hell (§§ 85-90) and of the Day of Judgement (§§ 91– 92); the notable events associated with midnight (§§ 93–94); and the characteristics of God himself (§§ 95–103). he concluded with an evocation of the joys of heaven, and a prayer that we may all finally come thither (§§ 104–07).

iii. background and sources As a text concerned with describing and explicating all of the mysteries of the cosmos, TB drew on a wide range of sources. We can see this process continuing as it developed in the course of the Middle Ages, with the third recension in particular incorporating significant new material. The discussion which follows is concerned with the types of texts and traditions which lie behind TB as it appears in L. To some extent, this survey recapitulates the analysis presented in a short article written in 1993, and eventually published in 1999.36

Previous Scholarship In his edition, Whitley stokes suggested “with much hesitation” that TB is “a version of a lost Latin Apocalypse of philip”: “excepting the existence of seven heavens [. . .], the nine ranks of the celestial hierarchy [. . .], the horned monster 36. carey 1999.

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cast ashore on the night of the Nativity [. . .], and the use of the number seventy-two [. . .], the folklore in it is found in no other Irish composition. Fragments of the original Latin appear to be preserved [. . .]; and the gibberish quoted as hebrew, ‘the speech of angels’, ‘the language spoken in heaven’ [. . .] resembles in its unintelligibility the Alemakan, ikasame, marmare, nachaman, mastranam, achaman ascribed to Mariamne in The Acts of Philip. There is, however, in the Latin apocryphal literature known to me, no trace of such an Apocalypse.” 37 some details in stokes’s reasoning here are open to qualification: thus several of the “fragments of the original Latin” are either tags such as Dixerunt sapientes Ebreorum, of a sort which it is easy to parallel in other Irish texts, or else quotations from the Bible. his central proposition, that TB ultimately derives from a philip apocryphon, met however with the approbation of M. r. James, one of the leading scholars of apocryphal literature in the early twentieth century. James observed that some of the Latin in TB occurs “in the form of sentences, not isolated words.” “stokes had no hesitation in regarding it as taken from an original in Latin (which he guessed might have been an Apocalypse of philip), and no better opinion than his could be asked for. There was, then, a Latin apocryph of st. philip, which we have in this Irish dress, and, it seems, in no other. To trace its relationships and assign to it a place in literature will be worth while, if it can be done. I may say at once that its right place is not among apocalypses, but among dialogues. There is a fairly large 37. stokes 1905: 96.

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the ever-new tongue class of old writings in the form of question and answer, of which the prototypes have not been fully investigated [. . .]. These texts are for the most part thoroughly vulgar and popular in character, full of folk-lore and descending to elementary jokes. Solomon and Saturn and the Evernew Tongue are the only ones which can claim to be thought of as literature, and these are sufficiently bizarre. It is true that the category of apocalypse runs into that of dialogues, for question and answer are an important element in even the most classical of apocalypses [. . .]. But in the dialogue class they are paramount. These writings may have been developed out of apocalypse, but they constitute a distinct group.” 38

having cited similarities between TB and such questionand-answer texts, together with other repositories of lore available in the early Middle Ages, James went on to note a potential source of another kind: “one episode in the Greek Acts [of Philip]—that called the Acta Philippi in Hellade—resembles, superficially at least, the E[ver-New] T[ongue]. In it the apostle converts an assembly of 300 philosophers, and causes an unbelieving Jewish high-priest to be swallowed up in the earth by instalments. here also [. . .] are sentences of so-called hebrew which recall the ‘angelic language’ of the E.T.” 39 Three main issues inform the trailblazing remarks of stokes and James. should the background of TB be sought among question-and-answer texts rather than among apocalypses? Does it reflect a lost apocryphon of philip? And do some of 38. James 1919: 10–11. 39. Ibid.: 12.

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its episodes betray the influence of the Greek Acts of Philip? The first two of these questions may be dealt with at once; I shall return to the third below. As James himself conceded, the line between apocalypses and dialogues is not always easy to draw. An apocalyptic text is dominated by a supernatural (or at least supernaturally inspired) informant, whose pronouncements are often elicited by questions posed by a hearer or hearers: this is for example a prominent element in the structure of the apocalypse Pistis Sophia, a coptic Gnostic text preserved in a fourth-century papyrus which can as we shall see be compared with TB in other respects as well. James sought however to dissociate TB from such works, and to class it with dialogues such as Solomon and Saturn, which he considered to be “vulgar,” “popular” and folkloristic. Although the influence on TB of literature of this kind can arguably be detected,40 I do not think that the origins of the work can be accounted for on this basis. The queries in texts like Solomon and Saturn are strung together pretty much at random, or else occur in thematic bunches; some are concerned with cosmology or sacred history, but at least as often they involve riddles (James’s “elementary jokes”) or proverbs. The questions in TB seek to ascertain: the identity of the ever-New Tongue (§ 10); the language in which he speaks (§ 11); the mysteries of the creation (§ 15) and of what preceded it (§ 17); the constituents of primal matter (§ 21); the nature of the heavens and the celestial zones (§ 26); the mysteries of the sea (§ 31); the various kinds of trees (§ 48); the twelve plains beneath the earth 40. As I argue below, TB’s account of the making of Adam (§ 13) probably derives ultimately (but not directly) from a question-andanswer text. The passage that seems most likely to reflect the immediate influence of literature of this kind is the enumeration of categories at § 84; see discussion in carey 2009: 377–79.

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(§ 65); the nature of the stars (§ 67); the number of kinds of creatures (§ 83); the nature of hell (§ 85) and the Day of Judgement (§ 91); and the time of the world’s creation and destruction, and of the resurrection of christ (§ 93). There is nothing disjointed, incoherent or trivial here; rather, the questions provide much of the framework for a systematic (if idiosyncratic) exposition of the world’s creation, contents and destiny.

A Revelation Discourse? The dialogue dimension of TB is, in other words, entirely compatible with its classification as an apocalyptic text. More specifically, close parallels with the opening scenario in TB can be found in the apocalyptic (frequently Gnostic) genre of “revelation discourses,” in which the resurrected christ appears to his disciples, usually on the Mount of olives, and reveals to them mysteries which he had not disclosed during his public ministry. here, as in TB, witnesses gathered on a mountain top are at first terrified by the apparition of a blinding heavenly light; this then proves to be a bearer of secret knowledge (in this case, christ), whose utterances are often elicited by questions from his hearers. Marvin Meyer has provided useful overviews of the scriptural and apocryphal background for this theme.41 Thus Jesus prophesies to his disciples on the Mount of olives (e.g. Mark 13:3, 14:26), and ascends from its summit into heaven (Acts 1:12); and paul’s conversion occurs when he sees “a light from heaven brighter than the sun,” and is addressed by a disembodied voice speaking in hebrew (Acts 26:13-14). We find the motifs combined already in Deut 5:22, where God is described speaking to “the whole multitude of your people 41. Meyer 1981: 98–99, 105–12.

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on the mountain, in a great voice out of the midst of fire and cloud and darkness”; and when christ is transfigured atop “a high mountain” the witnessing disciples see his face shine like the sun, and hear a voice speaking from a “bright cloud” (nubes lucida: Matthew 17:1-8; cf. Mark 9:1-8; Luke 9:28-36; 2 Peter 1:16-19). It appears however to be specifically in coptic apocryphal writing that we find these elements repeatedly combined to provide the introduction to a revelatory discourse, delivered by the risen christ. The earliest instance known to me, from the Nag hammadi tract The Sophia of Jesus Christ (second century), may serve as an example: “After he rose from the dead, his twelve disciples and seven women continued to be his followers and went to Galilee onto the mountain called ‘Divination and Joy’. When they gathered together and were perplexed about the underlying reality of the universe and the plan [. . .] the savior appeared, not in his previous form, but in the invisible spirit. And his likeness resembles a great angel of light. But his resemblance I must not describe. No mortal flesh could endure it, but only pure (and) perfect flesh [. . .]. The savior laughed and said to them: ‘What are you thinking about? Why are you perplexed? What are you searching for?’ philip said: ‘For the underlying reality of the universe and the plan.’ ” 42 Further instances appear in The Letter of Peter to Philip (third century: christ addresses the disciples assembled on the Mount of olives as a voice speaking from “a great light”);43 in 42. NHC III 90, 14–92, 5: parrott 1991: 37–41; cf. Tardieu 1984: 203. 43. NHC VIII 2, 134, 8–10: Meyer, Wisse 1991: 236–37; cf. Meyer 1981: 21.

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Pistis Sophia (the disciples are terrified by the radiance of the risen christ as he instructs them on the Mount of olives);44 and, among later coptic apocrypha, in The Book of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ by Bartholomew the Apostle (the risen christ takes the disciples onto the Mount of olives, addresses them in an unknown language, and reveals the mysteries of the heavens),45 The Mysteries of Saint John the Apostle and Holy Virgin (the risen christ assembles the disciples on the Mount of olives; a cherub shining with blinding light appears and conducts John through the heavens),46 and an Encomium on Saint John the Baptist pseudepigraphically ascribed to John chrysostom (the disciples gather on the Mount of olives to be instructed by the risen christ; he places them on a “cloud of light” and conducts them through the heavens).47 I accordingly suggest that the description of the apparition in TB goes back ultimately to a Greek apocalypse similar to those on which the coptic tradition drew; in this connection, it is perhaps relevant that the hermetic texts, which were also composed in egypt at around the same time, likewise have a dialogue format.48

Further Egyptian Parallels There are additional elements in TB with analogues in writings from egypt in the early centuries ad: 44. schmidt 1978: 4–8. 45. Kaestli, cherix 1993: 220. 46. Budge 1913. 47. Ibid.: 344–45. 48. on the connections between Gnostic and hermetic dialogue texts see Attridge 1979: 160; cf. Mahé 1978–1982, especially vol. 1: 21–28, and vol. 2: 436–57.

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Sphericality of Prime Matter The doctrine asserted in § 19 and developed in § 20—that the prima materia had a circular or spherical shape—contrasts sharply with conventional hexaemeral thinking. For medieval writers the starting point was Augustine, who had devoted two chapters of his influential De Genesi ad litteram to explaining that the first matter had been formless (informis: 1, 14-15),49 and who had suggested elsewhere that the appearance of the dry land in Genesis 1:9 referred to matter’s shaping on the third day (De Genesi contra Manichaeos 1, 12).50 Although Augustine did not interpret the days of creation as temporal intervals, and envisaged formless matter as having had no existence separate from that of the creatures of which it is the substance (quae de illa formatae sunt simul concreata sint “[the things] which are formed from it were created together with it”),51 this subtlety was disregarded by many of the Irish exegetes who drew upon his work; and informis materia appears in the Middle Irish pseudohistorical treatise Lebor Gabála (first composed in the eleventh century; CLH § 1141) as one of the works of the first day.52 The position of TB may reflect an interpretation of Augustine independent of this consensus: the idea that, since matter never existed without form and since the universe as a whole is spherical,53 matter as a whole must have been spherical from the first. An alternative derivation is suggested by the closest analogues to the position of TB of which I am aware, two passages in the Corpus Hermeticum. The first, in the Latin treatise 49. Zycha 1894: 20–22. 50. pL 34, 181–82. 51. Zycha 1894: 22. 52. Macalister 1932–1956, vol. 1: 16; cf. carey 1985: 34–36. 53. cf. ibid.: 36.

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Asclepius (§  17), appears to follow on from a reference to “matter or the world” as the “receptacle of all things”:54 “For the roundness of the world [or of matter] is hollow like a sphere (Est enim caua mundi rotunditas in modum sphaerae), invisible as a whole to itself on account of its quality or form, since whatever position you choose on the top in order to look downward, you cannot see what is on the bottom. Therefore it is believed by many to have the same shape and qualities as space. For it is only visible when made manifest by the forms of the appearances with whose images it is seen to be engraved; in reality, however, it is always invisible to itself. hence its lower part—if there can be an area on a sphere—is called Ἅιδης in Greek, since ἰδεῖν in Greek means ‘to see’; for the bottom of a sphere cannot be seen.” 55 The passage is in some ways an obscure one, and it is not possible to undertake its full explication here; André-Jean Festugière 56 sensibly suggests that the author has amalgamated the ideas (a) that the world is a sphere which cannot be perceived as such from its own surface, and (b) that matter is invisible per se and only becomes manifest when forms are imposed upon it. The text’s equivocal usage of mundus and inuisibilis can be parallelled in TB’s own discussion of the material (domna) used to make the world (domun): although it is undifferentiated matter which is being described, its roundness is asserted on the analogy of the spheres and circles in the universe as it now exists; and philip’s statement at § 20 that 54. Ὕλη autem uel mundus omnium est receptaculum; Nock, Festugière 1945–1954, vol. 2: 315. 55. Ibid.: 316. 56. Ibid.: 373.

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all things are disposed in “roundness” (cruinne; cf. rotunditas) “though you do not see it” appears to echo hermes’ observation that we cannot see the sphere which we inhabit. Less equivocal is a section of the eighth tract in the Corpus Hermeticum; here a spherical shape is attributed to the matter of which the world is made before it receives any other qualities (CH VIII, 3): “The Father, forming into a body and heaping together all of the matter subject to his [will], made it spherical (σφαιροειδές).” 57 This section of TB may accordingly reflect a development of ideas current in hermetic circles. Sphericality of the Soul With the assertion in § 20 that “it is in roundness of form that souls are seen after parting from [their] bodies” we may compare an anecdote related by Gregory the Great, in which saint Benedict is said to have seen a soul carried to heaven by angels “in a fiery globe” (in spera ignea).58 This may in fact be TB’s source for this statement: Gregory’s writings were highly regarded by the Irish, and this specific episode provided the basis for a chapter in Adomnán’s Vita Sancti Columbae, written on Iona at the beginning of the eighth century (CLH § 230, L&S § 305).59 The context in our text, however, in a discussion of circles and spheres which is perhaps indebted to hermetic 57. Ibid., vol. 1: 88. 58. Dialogi 2, 35: ed. de Vogüé, Antin 1978–1980, vol. 2: 238. 59. Vita Sancti Columbae 1, 43: ed. Anderson, Anderson 1991: 78. several potential sources for the fiery sphere in Gregory’s account are indicated in courcelle 1967: 105–06; of these, passages from cicero and Macrobius seem the most germane.

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and/or Neoplatonic ideas, raises the alternative possibility that the concept of the round soul may rather have come to TB from such a background. The formulation is remarkably similar to the opinion attributed by a scholium on Iliad 23, 66 to the stoic philosopher chrysippus of soli (c. 280–207 BC) that “after separating from the body [souls] are spherical (σφαιροειδεῖς)”; 60 but it is difficult to see how any significant link could exist between the two. More promising are expressions of the same belief in later platonism, developing naturally from assertions in the Timaeus that the world soul has the same shape as the spherical cosmos (34B, 36e), and that the human soul’s dwelling is the spherical skull (44D). The inference from these statements that the individual soul is spherical is called “relativement rare” by Festugière, who cites Marcus Aurelius’ reference to the “sphere of the soul, true to its own form” (Meditations 11, 12) as evidence that the idea was already current in the second century.61 plotinus alluded to the possibility that souls after death have “spherical forms” (σχήματα­σφαιροειδῆ), without saying that this was his own belief (Enneads IV, 4, 5, 18). Iamblichus however definitely stated that the soul’s “vehicle (ὄχημα) is made spherical (σφαιρικόν), and moves in a circle”; 62 while proclus, who quoted this statement in his own commentary on the Timaeus, said elsewhere in his writings that gods and good daimones have “spherical vehicles” (σφαιρικὰ­ὀχήματα).63 Describing the descent of the soul, Aristides Quintilianus noted that when it enters the sublunary realm it exchanges its 60. erbse 1977: 377; and cf. the remarks of Lapidge 1978: 182. 61. Festugière 1954: 62–63. 62. Dillon, 1973, 152–53. 63. Commentaria in Cratylum, ed. pasquali 1908: 35, 20–26.

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“spherical form” (σφαιροειδὲς­σχῆμα) for a human one (De musica 2, 17).64 how might this doctrine have entered apocryphal cosmology? There are doubtless many possibilities. I will limit myself to mentioning two cases in which the idea is reflected outside philosophical writing. The first is the doctrine, attributed to origen in the sixth century, that the resurrection body will be spherical. It has been shown that there is no evidence of this view in the surviving writings of origen himself; 65 Gilles Dorival has pointed out however that egyptian origenists were accused of teaching that the resurrection body would have a spherical form (σχῆμα σφαιροειδές) as early as 403, when they were denounced by Theophilus of Alexandria, and the charge was repeated by Antipater of Bostra c. 480.66 The second occurs in the fragmentary Gnostic treatise Marsanes, a text in the Nag hammadi collection tentatively dated by its editor to the early third century. In an obscure discussion of the spiritual significance of the alphabet, there are various references to the soul’s having a “spherical form” (σχῆμα σφαιρικόν).67 plotinus and Marsanes were roughly contemporary: plotinus was of egyptian background, and Marsanes formed part of the library of a religious community in Upper egypt. These circumstances raise the possibility that the doctrine of a spherical soul was first articulated in egypt, providing a 64. Winnington-Ingram 1963: 87, 23–24. 65. Thus chadwick 1948: 94–97. 66. Dorival 1987: 315–19. 67. NHC X 1, 25*, 24–26; 27*, 26–28*, 14 (pearson 1981: 292–93, 298–301).

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background for its adoption by origen’s followers and perhaps also by TB’s source. All Qualities Present in Prime Matter The doctrine that all qualities existed already in the “material of the world” (§ 22) appears again to represent a departure from the cosmology of Augustine: although he believed that “the unchanging principles of all creatures exist in the Word of God” and that “before (creatures) came into being they both were and were not” (De Genesi ad litteram 5, 12, 18),68 these forms are spoken of as having preexisted in God’s mind, not in the “formless formable matter (informis formabilisque materies), both spiritual and corporeal, from which all that was to be made would come to be” (5, 5).69 At another point Augustine does compare the world at its first creation to a seed containing within itself “in potentiality and cause” (potentialiter atque causaliter) the tree which it will become (5, 23).70 But this too seems different from the amalgam of properties listed by the author of TB. More closely resembling our text is Bede’s statement, for which I do not know the source, that “the elements of the world were made at the same time in unformed matter” (in materia informi pariter elementa mundi facta sint; De natura rerum 1).71 The phrasing of the paragraph recalls formulations of the idea, put forward by various Greek philosophers, that the elements were precipitated from a primordial whole. Thus Anaximander is said to have held “that the indwelling opposites are separated 68. Zycha 1894: 155–61. 69. Ibid.: 146. 70. Ibid.: 168. 71. c. W. Jones et al. 1975: 192.

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out from the one”;72 while Anaxagoras, speaking of the emergence of the cosmos from a state of original nondifferentiation, wrote that “the compact is separated from the diffuse, and the hot from the cold, and the bright from the gloomy, and the dry from the wet” (fragment 12).73 ovid’s description of chaos includes a similar passage (Metamorphoses 1, 17-20): “Nothing remained in its form, and one thing was resisting others: for in a single body cold fought with hot, moist with dry, soft with hard, heavy with weightless.” so far as I know, however, this doctrine did not form part of the christian cosmology of the Latin West. In light of the links with hermetic tradition suggested above (§ 19), it is interesting to find it reflected at different points in the Corpus Hermeticum. A cosmogonic account in the third treatise includes the following passage: “When all things were mingled together and unformed, the light things were separated upward and the heavy fixed on the wet sand, all things being separated by fire and set in movement by breath” (CH III § 2).74 A similar idea is expressed in the eighth tract, in the description of the origin of the world which has already been cited in the discussion of the sphericality of prime matter above. here the qualities must be infused into matter, but that infusion appears to precede the formation of individual creatures:

72. Diels 1906, vol. 1: 13. 73. Ibid., vol. 1: 319. 74. Nock, Festugière 1945–1954, vol. 1: 44.

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the ever-new tongue “Moreover, sowing the qualities (τὰ­ποιά) of particular things in the sphere, he enclosed them as if in a cave, wishing to adorn that which he had shaped with every quality; and he encircled the whole body with immortality so that matter, even if it wished to lapse from its structure, could not be dissolved back into its own disorder” (CH VIII § 3).75

Angelic Language passages of fantastic language supposedly uttered by philip, explained as samples of an angelic language (§ 8), appear at §§ 8, 10, 16 (twice), 25, 30, 55, 62, 64, 69, 73, 74, and 87. The speech at § 60, although resembling the others, seems intended to be hebrew; as I suggest below, the Acts of Philip may well be the model followed here. These passages are all omitted in the second and subsequent recensions. In L they are written in enlarged script, a convention usually employed in Irish manuscripts to distinguish primary text from commentary and gloss.76 philip’s account of the nature of this language is given in § 11. passages which purport to be hebrew are found in various apocryphal texts, and the words seem sometimes to have a supernatural efficacy: instances occur in the Acts of Pilate, Visio Sancti Pauli, Martyrdom of Matthew, and Acts of Philip.77 perhaps surprisingly, actual specimens of angelic or celestial language 75. Ibid., vol. 1: 88. 76. o’Neill 2014: 3–5. 77. Acts of Pilate 1, 4 (Tischendorf 1853: 219), Visio Sancti Pauli 30 (silverstein, hilhorst 1997: 134–35, cf. Bovon, Geoltrain 1997: 808), Martyrdom of Matthew 21 (Bonnet 1959, 2,1: 245), Acts of Philip II, 18 and Martyrdom of Philip, 9 (Bovon, Bouvier, Amsler 1999: 65, 357). These passages are conveniently translated in elliott 1999: 171, 516–17, 522, 632–33.

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appear however to be relatively rare; I have been able to find only a few examples, chiefly in coptic sources. (a) In Pistis Sophia, christ’s garment bears a mysterious inscription in “the writing of those on high”; another treatise in the same codex contains prayers uttered by Jesus in an unknown language.78 Both works provide specimens of the celestial speech. (b) In the Book of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ by Bartholomew the Apostle, the risen christ and Mary converse in “the language of his divinity”; 79 celestial virgins sing in “the language of the cherubim” and “the heavenly language”; 80 and christ addresses the disciples on the Mount of olives “in a language which we did not understand, but straightway he revealed it unto us.”81 specimens of the language are given in the text. This work belongs to a family of coptic Bartholomew texts, “not older than the 5th-7th centuries.” 82 other works with an egyptian background refer to such a language without giving examples: (c) In the Testament of Job the patriarch’s three daughters, after putting on miraculous girdles which their father had received from God, recite hymns in “the angelic language,” “the language of the archons,” “the language of those on high,” and “the language of the cherubim.” 83 The text survives in several Greek manuscripts, and in a fragmentary coptic papyrus of the fifth century; it appears originally to have 78. Ibid.: 353–54, 370–71. 79. Kaestli, cherix 1993: 198. 80. Ibid.; also: 211. 81. Ibid.: 220. 82. hennecke, schneemelcher 1963–1965, vol. 1: 508. 83. James 1897: 135–36.

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been written in Greek in the first century bc or ad, perhaps in an egyptian Jewish community.84 (d) In the Bohairic coptic version of the Transitus Mariae, Mary recites a prayer “in the language of the people of heaven,” and christ says that she heard him conversing in the same language with the angels; 85 in a sahidic fragment of the same apocryphon christ teaches the disciples a “hymn of the people of heaven.” 86 (e) In the sahidic version of the History of Joseph the Carpenter, a text probably based on a Greek original of the fourth or fifth century,87 Mary speaks “in the language of the people of the heavens.” 88 (f) Finally, mention may be made of a work without any known egyptian associations: the Apocalypse of Abraham. This text survives only in slavonic, but almost certainly originated in a Jewish milieu; an allusion in the clementine Recognitions indicates that it already existed in some form by the midfourth century. Abraham, borne into heaven by an angel, sees “a great crowd in the likeness of men [. . .] crying aloud words I did not know.” 89 The idea of a celestial language seems accordingly to have been well established in egyptian apocryphal tradition; the presence in TB of segments of angelic speech may therefore reflect the egyptian provenance which I postulate for the text on other grounds. 84. spittler 1983: 829–34. 85. Lagarde 1883: 52, 56; cf. robinson 1896: 57, 60–61. 86. Ibid.: 74–75. 87. santos otero 1984: 340. 88. Lagarde 1883: 27; cf. robinson 1896: 158. 89. rubinkiewicz 1983: 696.

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It is noteworthy, however, that the passages in TB bear no close resemblance to the angelic or hebrew words in apocryphal sources, to the strange names and words in Gnostic texts, to magic words, or indeed to any other language or pseudo-language with which they have so far been compared. some isolated scriptural connections can perhaps be made— hæli at the beginning of the first speech (§ 8) surely echoes Eli at the beginning of christ’s cry from the cross in Mark 15:34, and maria (§ 60) recalls the name of the Virgin—but no such explanation can be applied to the material as a whole. Moses Gaster, to whom stokes sent a copy of his edition, could find no parallels in his wide knowledge of the languages of the Middle east: “The gibberish, or the language of the Angels, to which you draw attention, is not hebrew. I for a while, thought it might be Arabic, but on looking again very carefully through the various passages, I had to give up that idea. still it is a problem which ought not to be lightly set aside, and it is this which strengthens me in my belief that we are dealing here with a remnant of that old heretical literature which is full of names and sentences in a mysterious, or so called sacred, language.” 90 Mysterious though the “angelic language” is, certain descriptive observations may be made: (a) some words recur in different speeches: alea §§ 64, 73; fuan §§ 10, 16, 87; nistien §§ 55, 64; tibon §§ 16, 62, 87; uide §§ 16, 64. (b) In some cases different spellings seem intended to have the same, or nearly the same, phonetic realization: 90. Gaster, Letter written in 1906 to Whitley stokes.

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alba § 73, albe § 16 ale § 16, alea §§ 64, 73 alma § 25, alme § 64 bea § 16, boia § 69 efi § 74, eui § 60 falia § 60, uala § 64 fabne § 16, faune § 74 fuan §§ 10, etc., uaun § 10 itho § 62, ito § 87 limbæ § 25, limbia § 62 Note the apparent equivalences b/f/u and e/oi. (c) More difficult to catalogue exhaustively are looser groupings whose affinity is apparent despite metathesis, vowel change, and the addition of vowels and consonants. some of these have only two or three members: firbia § 87, fribæ § 30 flanis § 30, flaune § 62, flules § 25 intoria § 74, ituria § 87 nablea § 69, nimbile § 74 tamne § 87, tebnæ § 74 other groups however are larger, and offer a wide range of variation. here is the most extensive: abelia § 16, able § 10, alba § 73, albe § 16, alibme § 73, alimbea § 69, alma § 25, alme § 64, ambile § 16, ebeloia § 25, ebile § 69, elbiæ § 25, elobi § 64, erolmea § 55, inbila § 16 (d) Finally, certain endings recur as well. The following list gives all of the endings which I have identified, but not all of the examples of each: -be, -bea, -bia, -biæ: albe § 16, asbæ § 30, fabe § 69, fribæ § 30, habia § 8, libe § 69, salmibia § 69, tibia § 10 -ese, -iase, -isse, -issia: ambiase § 10, dissia § 74, nimbisse § 10, temnibisse § 8 -ne: bane § 16,4, fabne § 16,4, sabne § 25, 1, tebnæ §§ 74, 2

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-te, -teia, -tia: aste § 69, elestia § 87, faste § 60, lenisteia § 62, niteia § 8 -ten, -tien: fiten § 69, nistien § 55, 64 -us: faus § 64 (cf. fas § 64), leus § 74 (cf. lis § 73). clearly, then, we are dealing with a body of material which exhibits some internal coherence: can anything be inferred from this? I can only put forward a tentative suggestion. one of the most striking things about the vocabulary of the angelic speeches is the pervasive presence of certain recurring syllables and consonant clusters; the differences between closely similar words seem moreover generally to be explicable in terms of the ear rather than of the eye. some of the similarities could conceivably reflect the structure of a real language; others (notably the groupings discussed at (c) above) cannot. All of this may be evidence of spontaneous invention. If the author set out to write down simply what arose in his mind or on his tongue—perhaps indeed hoping to achieve something analogous to glossolalia—the result might well be the rhythmical sentences which we find in TB, with their web of tantalizingly imprecise internal echoes. sound sequences pleasing to the ear would be repeated, with variation, again and again; individual words, once articulated, might lodge in the memory and be reused. Note that the author explicitly contrasts his “angelic language” with hebrew at § 16; he may have deliberately set out to devise speeches which drew upon no earthly language. The conjectures advanced above are broadly in harmony with the eloquent and perceptive remarks of Melita cataldi: “È un dolce idioma che sembra portare l’eco di vocalizzi liturgici, inventato per libere associazioni foniche, nato dal piacere di giocare con le assonanze e le allitterazioni, ed è il primo esempio attestato in età postclassica di ‘lingua inesistente’. In essa si esprime l’utopia di un linguaggio unico

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Winds in the Second and Third Heavens ether, the atmospheric region identified with the second heaven in various Irish sources, was generally thought of as a region free from the changeableness and turbulence of the lower atmosphere; Liber de ordine creaturarum, an Irish cosmological treatise often mistakenly attributed to Isidore of seville, and appearing to date from the second half of the seventh century (CLH §  575, L&S §  342), described the excelsum spatium between the lower air and the firmament as being “most pure and most subtle, not having either the swellings of clouds, or the blowing of winds, or the moist gathering of rains or mists, or the frozen solidification of snow or hail, or any movements of the air, or the din of storms and thunders [. . .] or any disturbances whatever of the various hemispheres” (Liber de ordine creaturarum 6, 1).92 More briefly, Saltair na Rann states explicitly that the “ethereal heaven” is “without wind” (118); and the hiberno-Latin Bible commentary Pauca problesmata de enigmatibus (perhaps of 91. cataldi 2001: 12: “It is a mellifluous idiom which seems to carry the echo of liturgical utterances, invented by phonetic free associations, born of the pleasure of playing with assonances and alliterations; and it is the first attested example in the post-classical era of ‘nonexistent language’. In this is expressed the utopia of a unique language—primordial, underlying, ultimate—which survives the confusio of the languages after Babel, and holds them bound in a mysterious unity of origin and destiny.” 92. Díaz y Díaz 1972: 120.

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the eighth century; CLH § 101, L&S § 762) says that the second heaven is aether, hoc est uacuum (§ 74).93 In § 27, however, the second and indeed the third heaven are said to contain the “scattering of winds.” The term “ether” could however be used in several different senses, and TB’s description of the second heaven may reflect the overlap of two of them. I am here thinking specifically of a hermetic fragment, part of a dialogue between Isis and horus. At one point Isis contrasts the eagle, which goes naturally “to the ether, where it is its nature to dwell,” with pigeons which tend toward “the nearer air.” 94 subsequently, outlining a fourfold division of the atmosphere, Isis says that the second layer is the highest in which it is possible for birds to fly, as well as being that “in which the movements of winds are born” (CH frag. 25 § 7).95 here αἰθήρ­appears as the place of winds par excellence: TB may combine some such doctrine as this with the notion of a fiery ether available from such sources as Isidore. “Emissions of Angels” The description of the second and third heavens in § 27 makes a puzzling reference to “emissions of angels.” The word which I have translated “emissions” is dative plural imsitnib. The singular imsitin, earlier presumably *imsitiu, has been plausibly interpreted as verbal noun of *imb-ess-sem-, with a stem occurring also in the verbs do-essim “pours,” do-fuissim “begets, bears, creates”: elsewhere in Indo-european a root 93. MacGinty 2000: 35. 94. Nock, Festugière 1945–1954, vol. 4: 70; cf. the curious speculation in Pauca problesmata (MacGinty 2000: 35) that the ether might be inhabited by birds which never alight upon the earth. 95. Ibid., vol. 4: 71.

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*sem- is attested with the same double sense “schöpfen, gießen.” 96 The present instance of the word appears to be one of only three attestations; the other two occur among the regulations of the monastic movement of the céili Dé, and both carry a strong negative connotation. (a) one of these, in the Middle Irish Ríagail na Céle nDé (CLH § 629), is not entirely clear; it is apparent however that the imsitin is an impure fluid of some kind: “Washing in imsitin: it is forbidden, and it is a defilement for anyone who puts that liquid upon his head. It is more prudent for anyone in holy orders on whose head it goes to anoint and bless himself thereafter” (§ 47).97 (b) In the other instance, found in the ninth-century text called by its editors “The Monastery of Tallaght” (CLH § 628), it is clear that the word refers to a seminal emission: “When imsitin happens to anyone in his sleep, and he does not see an image, and does not remember seeing anything through which pollution might have befallen him, he sings four psalms and washes in water; and it does not prevent his receiving the eucharist next day. For that thing does not pollute him—it is (only) a forgetfulness of spirit at the release of some of the superfluous fluid which is in the body” (§ 88).98 But what relevance could these passages have to angels, and to the architecture of the heavens? The answer may lie in the eclectic range of materials which appear to have appealed to the followers of priscillian (see further below: 73–75). 96. DIL s.v. “imsitiu”; pokorny 1959–1969, vol. 1: 901–02. 97. Gwynn 1927: 76. 98. Gwynn, purton 1911: 164.

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orosius, in a discussion of the doctrines expounded in the Memoria apostolorum, a book allegedly used by the spanish sect of the priscillianists, included the following: “In the same book concerning the prince of Moisture and the prince of Fire (de principe humidorum et de principe ignis) more things are said, seeking to persuade that it is by art, not by the will of God, that all good things are done in this world. For it says that there is a certain Virgin of Light (uirginem quandam lucem) whom God, wishing to give rain to men, shows to the prince of Moisture. When he desires to seize her, in his disturbance he sweats and makes the rain; abandoned by her, he stirs up the thunder with his groaning.” 99 orosius, together with the author of the pseudohieronymian Indiculus de haeresibus (§ 15),100 appears to have drawn on a document prepared by priscillian’s rival Itacius in 388 as part of the court proceedings against him: the current consensus views Itacius’ citations of the Memoria apostolorum as being most probably genuine.101 The scenario here described as a priscillianist doctrine is a version of a Manichaean myth, repeatedly mentioned in the heresiographical literature 102 and also well attested in the 99. Consultatio sive commonitorium de errore Priscillianistarum et Origenistarum 2 (Daur 1985: 160). 100. pL 81, 638. 101. Daur 1985: 137–38. sanchez 2009: 256 points out that priscillian in fact condemned the idea that rain has a diabolic origin; nevertheless, he concedes that “il n’est pas invraisemblable de penser que priscillien connaissait peut-être le mythe sous sa forme gnostique ou manichéenne sans y adhérer pour autant.” 102. survey in cumont 1908: 54–68.

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Manichaean scriptures themselves.103 Thus Theodoret wrote of how, according to Mani, “the archons of matter, desiring the Daughter of Light, and pursuing her, sweat and bring about the rain” (Haereticarum fabularum compendium 5, 10).104 A fuller account is given in the Acta Archelai: “A beautiful and well-dressed virgin, of great elegance, secretly approaches the princes who were led out by the living spirit and fixed to a cross in the firmament; when she appears as a beautiful woman to the males, but shows a handsome and desirable youth to the females. But the princes, when they have seen her in all her finery, fall in love with her and become lustful, and because they cannot catch her they are aroused all the more and excited by the fires of love, for they are overcome by the heat of lust. so when, as they run after her, the virgin suddenly is nowhere to be seen, then that great prince produces clouds from himself, so as to darken the whole world in his anger. As he has been most distressed, like a man sweating after exertion, so this prince sweats from his distress, and his sweat is the rain.”105 That the “sweat” exuded by the lustful spirits in this story is a euphemism for semen was taken for granted by various christian critics (thus Augustine, De natura boni contra Manichaeos, ch. 44; and evodius, De fide contra Manichaeos, ch. 17),106 and is also stated in the ninth-century Zoroastrian apologetic treatise Škand-Gumānīk Vičār;107 cumont, indeed, argued that 103. e.g. Boyce 1951; cf. Menasce 1945: 260, and Klimkeit 1993: 57. 104. pG 83, 488B. 105. Vermes 2001: 51–52; cf. Beeson 1906: 13. 106. Zycha 1892: 882–83; 957–58. 107. Menasce 1945: 252–55.

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this was the doctrine of the sources on which Mani drew.108 Be this as it may, the supposition could also have been made independently by the author of TB or by one of his sources— if indeed imsitin itself means anything more specific than “bodily fluid.” That the archons have become angels in the Irish text is also a natural enough development; it is interesting to note that in the slavonic enoch the rebel angels are chained precisely in the second heaven (2 Enoch 7).109 I suggest accordingly that the phrase is a reference to the rain, drawn from Gnostic-Manichaean cosmology. The reference to “emissions of angels” may, accordingly, reflect priscillianist influences on the text.110 Angelic Trees The statement in § 49 that “there are four of those trees in which it is thought that there are soul and intelligence like the life of angels” may simply be an echo of the mention in § 43 of four precious stones “with the intelligence and semblance of humans.” Alternatively, the derivation may have been in the opposite direction: I can suggest no external source for § 43, and the idea of angelic trees appears to have been current in Gnostic circles. Thus the treatise Baruch written by the Gnostic Justin is said by hippolytus to have allegorically interpreted the trees of eden as angels;111 while Pistis 108. cumont 1908: 56, 61–64. 109. Andersen 1983: 112–15. 110. one of this book’s anonymous readers has called my attention to an analogous doctrine attributed to the Valentinian Gnostics, according to which “every watery nature” (πᾶσα ἔνυδρος οὐσία) comes from the tears of the female emanation Achamoth: Irenaeus, Adversus haereses 1, 1, 8; ed. harvey 1857, vol. 2: 36–38. 111. Refutatio omnium haeresium 5, 4; ed. cruice 1860: 229.

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Sophia speaks repeatedly of the existence of “five trees” in the celestial hierarchies, and has Jesus state that he dictated “the two books of Jeû” to enoch “when I spoke with him from the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life in Adam’s paradise.” 112 The righteous are identified with the trees of paradise in the Psalms of Solomon (14:3–4) and the Odes of Solomon (11:18–19).113 The Sun’s Night Journey The most dramatic possibilities of a derivation from egyptian tradition are afforded by the description of the nocturnal journey of the sun across twelve underworld plains in §§ 64– 66. Allusions to such ideas can be found in sources deriving, directly or at a remove, from Graeco-roman egypt: Apuleius’ account of having beheld “the sun at midnight”; 114 magical papyri which allude to the sun’s journeys beneath the earth, and to its passing through twelve phases in the course of the night;115 and the description in Pistis Sophia of a cosmic serpent whose body contains twelve “prisons” and who overwhelms the sun “when it is beneath the world.” 116 But the closest parallels occur in the Amduat, a funerary treatise of the pharaonic New Kingdom: 117 here the twelve regions through which the sun passes in the night are described in detail—and 112. schmidt 1978: 247. 113. Trafton 1985: 48–51, 131; Lattke 1979–1998, vol. 1: 110–11. 114. Thus Griffiths 1975: 303–06; and cf. carey 1995. 115. K. preisendanz et al. 1973: I, 33–34; III, 499–537; IV, 446–47, 1600–01, 1638–71, 1695–96, 1967–69; V, 50–51; VIII, 80–84; XXXVIII. 116. schmidt 1978: 317–32. 117. The earliest known copy is in the tomb of Thutmosis I (reigned 1505–1493 BC): hornung 1963–1967, vol. 1: xiii.

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some of these details, remarkably, correspond to what we find in TB.118 The specific correspondences to which I wish to call attention are the following: (a) The reference to “the hosts of youths in the playingfields, who utter a cry to heaven for fear of the beast which kills many thousands of hosts beneath the waves to the south,” can be compared with the second hour of the Amduat, in which the sun god re enters the region of Wernes: this place name is followed by determinatives meaning “water” and “fields,” and evidently designates a region more pleasant and fertile than others described in the text.119 re is drawn to Wernes by the cries of its inhabitants; he “assigns them their duties, and distributes to them the green plants of Wernes as food to the gods in the retinue of re.” The people of Wernes also fight on re’s behalf against his archenemy, Apophis the serpent of darkness: as he himself says to them, “It is you who battle for the sake of my body, who protect me against Apophis.” 120 here all of the elements in TB’s description are foreshadowed: the pleasant fields, the cries to a celestial deity, the conflict with a devouring monster. In the Amduat it is the dwellers in the subterranean region who defend the god, rather than vice versa; but the correspondences are striking nonetheless. (b) “The mountain with streams 121 of fire, which traverse (?) the plains of clay with hosts of followers in them” recalls 118. I have discussed these resemblances at length in carey 1994; this article also deals with the Greek, Latin and coptic sources just mentioned. 119. hornung 1963–1967, vol. 2: 43. 120. Ibid., vol. 2: 45, 51, 56. 121. Sic leg.; cf. note on the text and: 32 above.

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the scenario in the fourth and fifth hours of the Amduat: here re traverses Rosetau, a region of sand and darkness. In the lower register of the fifth hour is a picture of a lake of fire, with the caption “The lake concerning which the gods in the realm of the dead lament. The (sun’s) boat does not journey upon it; the dwellers in the underworld cannot master its water, which is in the necropolis. It is fire for those who are therein.” Above the lake appear four heads, each with the hieroglyph for “fire” on its brow. They are called “torchheads,” and described as being “behind this god. Their duty is to devour and drive back his enemies.” 122 The lake of fire, with attendant fire-beings, encountered shortly after the green fields of Wernes, suggests comparison with TB’s streams of fire “with hosts of followers,” visited by the sun after it has illuminated the mellmaige (“playing-fields”). The sand in the egyptian account differs from the clay in the Irish: perhaps there has been semantic drift comparable to that responsible for the range of senses “sand, gravel > sea-bed, stream-bed > clay, mud” attested for the Irish noun grïan. (c) “The enclosure of the great beast against which the twenty-four warriors arise, against which they invoke (?) the valley of torments” recalls a tableau in the Amduat directly above the lake of fire just discussed. occupying the centre of the fifth hour’s lower register is a three-headed winged serpent within an enclosure of sand; between its wings stands the underworld god sokar, of whom it is the guardian. In the upper register appear twenty-four deities: some of these address the serpent, one among them speaking of its destructive powers and calling upon it to “punish all your dead.” 123 122. hornung 1963–1967, vol. 2: 104, 107. 123. Ibid., vol. 2: 98, 106.

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The resemblance of TB’s description to this scene in the Amduat—extending even to the number of “warriors”—is particularly arresting, and strongly suggests that some chain of textual derivation links the two accounts. (d) For “the many thousands who sleep the tearful sleep since the beginning of the world in the valley of flowers,” the closest analogue known to me is again an egyptian one. In the Amduat, and in ancient egyptian funerary literature generally, the dead are frequently portrayed as being roused from dormancy when the sun passes through the underworld region in which they reside, then subsiding again with cries of lamentation as it passes on to the next hour. The gods in the lower register of the third hour are for example described as follows: “This is the way they are: they worship this great god (i.e. re) [. . .]. They live, when he addresses them [. . .]. They wail and lament when this great god has passed them by.” 124 (e) Finally, “the dragons who have been placed under the mist” on “the dark tearful plain” may also derive ultimately from the Amduat, which mentions gigantic serpents at several points in its account of the sun’s passage through the underworld. In only three cases are they found in any numbers. In both the first and ninth hours there are groups of twelve firebreathing serpents, the fire from whose jaws dispels the darkness.125 The fourth hour provides an even closer parallel: here the sun passes through a region of utter blackness, relieved only by the flames breathed forth by enormous snakes which crawl through all three registers; and it is explicitly stated that the snakes are confined to that region, even 124. Ibid., vol. 2: 71. 125. Ibid., vol. 2: 29, 158.

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as the dragons in TB are “placed” or “set” on the dark plain beneath the mist.126 on this basis I propose that the ultimate source of TB was a “revelation discourse” of the type described above, in which a celestial messenger appeared as a blazing light to a group assembled on a mountain. speaking in the language of the angels, this figure spoke of the origins and nature of the cosmos and of the soul, of the nature of the heavens, and of the movements of the sun at night; he may also have mentioned trees with the consciousness of angels. If christian at all, this text was heterodox: it shared ideas with late platonism, Gnosticism, and hermetism, and drew upon native egyptian tradition.127 It may have been translated into Latin in roman Africa, as was probably done in the case of the hermetic treatise Asclepius.128

The Acts of Philip Why it should be philip who acts as revealer—indeed, in the phrase of William heist, as “a sort of christian enoch” 129— is a question fundamental to our understanding of the text.130 In this connection it is relevant to consider philip’s rôle in the 126. Ibid., vol. 2: 83–91, especially: 83. 127. For some reflections on the milieu which may have produced this source text, see further carey 1994: 31–32, citing Wisse 1963; Veilleux 1986; and Griggs 1990: 176–80. 128. Mahé 1978–1982, vol. 2: 56–61. For the transmission of African texts to Ireland via spain see Ó cróinín 2005: 390–91. 129. heist 1952: 65. 130. on philip’s importance to the Gnostics see h.-ch. puech in hennecke, schneemelcher 1963–1965, vol. 1: 271–78; also Bovon 1988: 4458–59.

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“revelation discourses”: in the Sophia of Jesus Christ he is the first to question the divine apparition, and in Pistis Sophia he appears as the recorder of the mysteries being disclosed (I, 42): “philip rushed forward, seated himself, and laid down the book in his hand—for he is the scribe of all the words which Jesus said, and of all the things which he did.” 131 subsequently, addressing philip, Thomas, and Matthew, Jesus says that they will “write down all the speeches which I shall utter and do, and all the things which you will see, so that you may bear testimony to all the things of the heavenly kingdom.” 132 In the Letter of Peter to Philip, it is peter who takes the dominant rôle in convening an assembly on the Mount of olives; curiously, however, the text begins with a letter sent specifically to philip in which peter exhorts him to attend and to submit to his authority. We may here have further oblique evidence of a tradition of revelation discourses dominated by the figure of philip, a tradition which is in this case only implicit in the emphasis on philip’s subordination to peter; Marvin Meyer, who points out the structural parallels between the Letter and the Sophia of Jesus Christ, seems to suggest just this possibility.133 he goes on to propose that philip’s rôle here (and perhaps elsewhere in Gnostic literature) may reflect the historical philip’s involvement “in some way with an esoteric and perhaps protoGnostic samaritan christian movement”: 134 an intriguing suggestion, but not directly relevant to the present study. 131. schmidt 1978: 71; cf.: 32. 132. Ibid.: 72. 133. Meyer 1981: 117–18; cf.: 96. 134. Ibid.; cf. Amsler 1999: 464.

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TB departs radically from such putative sources by taking two decisive steps: the revelation occurs not in the immediate aftermath of christ’s resurrection, but at some later point; and the revealer is not christ, but philip. From the standpoint of the tradition that philip was the repository of the risen christ’s secret teachings, the second of these changes could be seen as following logically from the first; more startling is the description of philip’s epiphany in terms which recall that of the saviour. There may well have existed apocalypses in which philip’s rôle was more prominent than in the texts which have survived: thus epiphanius of salamis, writing in the later fourth century, mentions a “gospel of philip” revered by one egyptian Gnostic group, in which the apostle is made to say that “The Lord revealed to me what the soul must say on its ascent to heaven, and how it must answer each of the powers above.” 135 The most promising evidence is however to be found in the source whose importance was recognised by James: the collection of documents which have been gathered together as the Greek Acts of Philip. our knowledge of this text has been greatly advanced by the edition produced by the late François Bovon, together with Bertrand Bouvier and Frédéric Amsler, accompanied by Amsler’s commentary, which appeared in 1999.136 According to their analysis, the work consists of four autonomous segments. Acts VIII–XV, and the concluding Martyrdom of Philip, represent the oldest section, which appears to have been produced by the ascetic movement of the encratites in Asia Minor, perhaps in the second half of the fourth century. Although the same beliefs animate Acts III–VII, their language, 135. Panarion 1.2.26.13 (pG 41, 352–53); cf. carey 1994: 55. 136. Bovon, Bouvier, Amsler 1999; Amsler 1999.

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and some of their ideas and emphases, reflect a different authorship. Act I is again an independent narrative: it too was composed in an encratite milieu, but appears to date from the very end of the fourth century, or from the early fifth. Finally, Act II represents an orthodox attempt to rehabilitate the cult of philip: although it draws on Act VI, and to some extent on the Martyrdom, distinctively encratite elements are almost entirely eliminated. The editors date it at earliest to the second half of the fifth century.137 It is in this second episode of the Acts of Philip (hereafter ActPhil II), the section whose relevance to TB was already noticed by James, that significant relationships to our text are to be found. In TB, philip descends from heaven in a blinding light and speaks in a voice like thunder. An assembly of hebrew wise men eagerly ask him to instruct them; subsequently, however, they begin to doubt his words (§ 54). At this point a Jew steps suddenly onto the scene and denounces philip as a liar, only to be blinded and then destroyed (§§ 58–60); as he dies he cries out in what is presumably intended to be hebrew (§ 60). In ActPhil II an assembly of Athenian philosophers eagerly ask philip to instruct them, but are dismayed at what he tells them. They send for Ananias, a Jewish priest who races to the scene and denounces philip as a liar, only to be blinded and ultimately destroyed. In the course of their dispute philip calls upon God: “suddenly the heavens opened, and Jesus appeared descending in most splendid glory and in lightning. And his face was seven times brighter than the sun, and his garments were whiter than snow.” 138 137. Full discussion of ActPhil II in Amsler 1999: 85–127. 138. Ibid.: 61.

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one manuscript gives an account of this apparition that is even closer to what we find in TB: “A pillar of fire appeared, descending from heaven as far as the earth, in the midst of the crowd standing around the apostle. And those who stood around, not being able to bear it, fell with their faces on the earth, and fear and trembling seized all.” 139 Ananias applies to philip the epithet “son of thunder” (υἱὸς βροντῆς), assigned in the Gospels to James and John the sons of

Zebedee (Mark 3:17); subsequently, a voice speaking from heaven addresses philip as “once the son of thunder, but now of meekness.” 140 here philip is identified both with thunder and with mildness, by a celestial voice. In TB, philip is himself a celestial voice; his initial apparition is accompanied with the sound of thunder (§ 7); and when he speaks it is like the roar of an army or a great wind, but at the same time it “was no louder in each man’s ear than the words of a friend; and it was sweeter than music” (§ 9). At another point, philip invokes Jesus with the—presumably “hebrew”—words Zabarthan sabathabat bramanouch.141 The parallels are unmistakable. It is not difficult to see how a writer possessing ActPhil II, and also an apocalyptic discourse (in which philip may have played a prominent part), might have drawn upon both in order to produce a text in which it is philip who is the celestial revealer. That the Athenian philosophers of the Acts of Philip have become “wise men of the hebrews” in TB can best be accounted for in terms of the apocalyptic discourse which I have 139. Ibid.: 61, apparatus; cf. Exodus 13:21–22. 140. Bovon, Bouvier, Amsler 1996: 53, 63. 141. Ibid.: 65.

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proposed as TB’s ultimate source: this would have spoken of an apparition in the vicinity of Jerusalem, making hebrews the revelation’s most natural witnesses. The full text of the Acts of Philip survives only in a single manuscript, where it bears the marks of some reworking; almost the whole is to be found in another manuscript, in a much more conservative version. only two parts of the work are otherwise attested: the Martyrdom and ActPhil II. The latter appears alone in two manuscripts; in a third, it is appended to the Martyrdom.142 That ActPhil II circulated independently, and did so more widely than did the Acts of Philip as a whole, increases the likelihood that some version of it may have served as one of the sources of TB.

Transmission to the West: a Priscillianist Connection? The Acts of Philip are known only in Greek: under what circumstances might they have been translated into Latin, and have found their way westward? It is tempting to associate such developments with the movement founded by priscillian of Avila, which may have survived in Galicia for some time subsequent to his execution in 386.143 priscillian’s teachings shared much with those of the encratites: like them, he advocated abstention from meat and alcohol, and discouraged marriage and procreation. he also stressed the spiritual equality of the sexes, an idea which seems to lie behind the prominent rôle accorded in some parts of the Acts to philip’s sister Mariamme. Most of the apocryphal Acts of the apostles reflect encratite ideas, and this was probably one of the main reasons for the enthusiasm with which priscillian studied them. 142. Full details of the manuscripts ibid.: xiii–xxv. 143. Burrus 1995: 165–66.

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A priscillianist connection could also be invoked to account for the apparent influence on TB of an egyptian “revelation discourse”: priscillian is supposed to have derived many of his ideas from disciples of a Gnostic teacher named Marcus, who had come to spain from Memphis in egypt. It was also asserted that priscillian’s followers possessed a Manichaean cosmological text, one of the doctrines of which appears to be echoed in TB (see: 59–63 above). When it is further noted that various scholars have suggested priscillianist circles in spain as an early source from which apocryphal texts were transmitted to Ireland, the case would seem to be complete.144 Although I find it difficult to dismiss such suggestions entirely, it is important to note that the scenario which I have just sketched has serious weaknesses. As remarked above, ActPhil II is the only non-encratite part of the Acts of Philip corpus: since we know that it circulated independently of the rest of the text, we have no grounds for supposing that it was not brought westward alone, in which case it would be harder to see why it should have been of any particular interest to the priscillianists.145 scholars have also voiced grave doubts as to the reality of Marcus of Memphis, arguing that he is most probably a fabrication on the part of priscillian’s detractors.146 These considerations do not exclude the possibility that ActPhil II and the postulated discourse text might have been acquired by a priscillianist group at some point after priscillian’s death, in a spirit of faithfulness to priscillian’s well144. For the arguments, see Dando 1972; Dumville 1973: 322. some further discussion in carey 2009: 58–59. 145. For evidence that priscillian was familiar with ActPhil VIII see sanchez 2009: 255, 276. 146. Babut 1909: 33–36; chadwick 1976: 20–22; Burrus 1995: 96, 130–33; sanchez 2009: 435.

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known interest in the testimony of apocryphal works; 147 but any such hypothesis must remain very tentative.

Hexaemeral and Cosmological Sources Under whatever circumstances these materials were brought together, the resulting fusion was given what can be described as a “hexaemeral-eschatological” framework: one in which the sequence of the days of creation is followed by an account of the last things. something similar is found in such Irish texts as the seventh-century hymn Altus Prosator (CLH § 267, L&S § 580), of whose twenty-three stanzas fifteen are devoted to the creation and structure of the universe, and seven to the end of the world; 148 and in Liber de ordine creaturarum, which assigns twelve chapters to a description of the cosmos and then concludes with three more concerning hell, the purgatorial fire, and the future life.149 I see no reason not to suppose that this stage in the prehistory of TB can be assigned to Ireland—and perhaps, like the two works just mentioned, to the seventh century. This earlier form of the text would have been in Latin, and is reflected in such Latin passages as those in § 25 and § 74 (citations of Genesis; the author used the Vulgate), together with § 26 (mysteries of the heavens on the second day), § 31 and § 48 (mysteries of the sea and varieties of trees on the third day), § 91 and § 93 (the 147. For priscillian’s attitude to the apocrypha see Babut 1909: 120– 35; chadwick 1976: 77–79, 81–85; Jacobs 2000; sanchez 2009: 269–90. 148. For recent treatments of this work, with references to earlier scholarship, see clancy, Márkus 1995: 39–68, 229–35; stevenson 1999; carey 2000: 29–50, 275. 149. Díaz y Díaz 1972; cf. now smyth 2003-2004 and 2011.

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Day of Judgement, and the time of the end of the world), and § 105 (the joys of heaven).150 It is only to be expected that such a work should reflect the thought of patristic authorities whom we know to have been influential in Ireland at this time: Augustine, Gregory the Great and Isidore. Thus Augustine is the likeliest source for the doctrines of the beginninglessness of the thought which led God to create a universe governed by time; 151 of the creation of spirit and matter before time came to be, and of the identification of the first light with the angels; 152 and for the use of Sirach 18:1 to demonstrate that the six days of creation are not to be taken literally.153 The evocation of the mysteries of nature in §§ 2–4 recalls a passage in Gregory’s Moralia in Iob; and Gregory too may have been TB’s ultimate source for an apparition of wind and spinning light which combines elements from God’s speech to Job and the theophany of pentecost: in a discussion of the voice that addressed Job from the whirlwind in Moralia in Job 6, 28, Gregory explicitly compares it with the wind and flames of 150. The Latin passages in §§ 91, 93, 105 can be closely paralleled in other Insular sources; see discussion below: 96–97, 99–100. 151. Thus De Genesi contra Manichaeos I, 1,2–2,4. 152. Thus De Genesi ad litteram 1, 1; 2, 8 (Zycha 1894: 4, 43–45). 153. For a direct confrontation with the problem of reconciling Sirach with Genesis, see De Genesi ad litteram 4, 34 (Zycha 1894: 133–34); the discussion is echoed in e.g. Isidore, Differentiae 2, 11 (pL  83, 74–75), Bede, De natura rerum 1 (Jones et al. 1975: 192), and the apparently eighth-century hiberno-Latin Genesis commentary in st Gall 908 (for a copy of the relevant section of which I am grateful to charles D. Wright; cf. CLH § 40). For further discussion of the adoption of Augustine’s thinking on this question in Ireland, see McNamara 1989: 9.

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pentecost, suggesting that in both cases God may have communicated through an angelic intermediary.154 one of the principal themes of the Book of Job, as of TB, is the demonstration of the creator’s greatness by contemplating the grandeur of the creation: when the doubting hebrews are exhorted to marvel at two gigantic beasts (§§ 56–57), the model was presumably God’s words to Job concerning Behemoth and Leviathan. TB’s use of Job (see further perhaps § 64) was almost certainly guided by Gregory’s exposition in the Moralia.155 Many statements in §§ 33–47 seem to come from Isidore’s Etymologiae: the descriptions of the red sea and the Dead sea (§ 33), the properties of several remarkable springs (§§ 35–39), the account of a river with golden sand (§ 41), and details in the section on precious stones (§§ 43–47). Isidore may also have contributed information on comets and on various stars (§ 68), on the birds of the hercynian forest (§§ 70–72), and on pygmies (§ 79). I call attention to resemblances with the Etymologiae in notes to the text. The author had a general familiarity with such cosmological doctrines as the location of the moon and sun in the first and fourth heavens respectively (§ 27), the existence of twelve zodiacal signs and twelve winds (§ 28), and the division of the heavens into five zones (§ 29). These ideas go back ultimately to such ancient writers as pliny the elder, but were presumably common knowledge in early medieval Ireland: thus we find most of them again—together with much else— in Saltair na Rann.156 154. Gregory the Great, Moralia in Iob, ed. Adriaen 1979–1985, vol. 3: 1396. 155. The discussion of the nature of Gregory’s influence here supersedes that in carey 1999: 62. 156. SR 45–52, 149–60, 205–60; cf. carey 1985.

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“Damigeron” peter Kitson has shown that the account of precious stones in §§ 43–47, while it includes some elements derived from Isidore, is primarily based on a hellenistic lapidary attributed to the magician Damigeron; this version of the text appears to have been written in Italy in the late fifth or sixth century, and may have come to england in the seventh.157 Thus the statement that a king who has adamant “on his right hand” will be victorious in battle (§ 44) recalls “Damigeron”’s claim that whoever carries adamant will be unconquered, but resembles even more closely the subsequent entry in which it is said of the stone memnonius that it grants victory in battle to kings.158 Another echo of the description of memnonius, this time of its ability to expel poisons, may be present in the description of the stone hibien, which “spills every poison from the vessel in which it is placed” (§ 45). Much of the account of istien in § 46 is based, as Kitson has shown, on Damigeron’s description of heliotrope (immediately preceding the treatment of adamant and memnonius): “Being placed in a silver basin full of water, and set opposite the sun, it changes it and makes it seem bloody and dark [. . .]. For the basin begins constantly troubling the water, so that it is turbid like air with thunders and lightnings and rains and storms, so much so that even the ignorant are frightened and upset at the power of the stones.” 159 Kitson’s suggestion that the idea that anyone holding fanes cannot utter a falsehood (§ 47) was elaborated on the basis of 157. Kitson 1984: 117; ed. Abel 1881: 161–95. 158. Abel 1881: 166–67. 159. Ibid.: 165.

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the statement “Whoever carries this stone is never deceived,” again in Damigeron’s description of heliotrope,160 is an attractive one. Further, Damigeron’s statement that the heliotrope “prophesies and foretells future things through ever-flowing streams, and vocally through songs” may have inspired TB’s description of the incomparable music of fanes at matins.161 Although the resemblances to Damigeron and Isidore are numerous and striking, they are not precise. The traits of the stones as given in TB differ in many details from what we find in the earlier works, and are indeed differently grouped; nor, with the exception of adamant, are even the names the same. Kitson suggests that “some Irishman having read a text, most likely in england, remembered a cluster of details which had resonances with his native story-telling tradition, and passed them on by word of mouth to compatriots who had less lore of stones than he”; and he goes on to point out that the entries in Damigeron which seem to have contributed most to TB are bunched at the beginning of the text.162

The Wonders of the East The races of mankind in §§ 75–81 draw primarily on descriptions in a version of the fanciful travel narrative known as the Wonders of the East,163 itself one of a family of texts derived 160. Ibid. 161. Ibid.; Kitson 1984: 124. 162. Ibid.: 126. 163. This work survives in both Latin and old english in three english manuscripts: London, BL, Cotton Vitellius A xv (c. 1000; old english only); London, BL, Cotton Tiberius B v (c. 1025; Latin and old english); and oxford, Bodleian Library, 614 (c. 1125; Latin only). An old French version is found in Brussels, Bibliothèque royale

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from a fabulous travel account purporting to be a letter from the Georgian monarch pharasmanes II to the emperor hadrian.164 claude Lecouteux has argued that Isidore’s Etymologies reflect use of this “Letter of pharasmanes,” indicating that a copy of the latter existed in spain toward the beginning of the seventh century.165 perhaps an early version of Wonders was one of the documents which travelled from spain to Ireland during this seminal period. correspondences between Wonders and TB are as follows: (a) The men of the islands of odaib (§ 76) combine the traits of four of the races in Wonders; two of these races are adjacent in the source, and the other two nearly so. The eyes glowing like candles recall men “whose eyes shine like lamps” (quorum oculi sicut lucernae lucent); 166 and the preceding paragraph in Wonders describes men with giant ears whose bodies are as white as milk (candido corpore sunt quasi lacteo).167 The diet of raw fish is drawn from the description of the homodubii.168 Immediately preceding the homodubii are the cynocephali, monstrous dog-headed men who breathe fire Ms 14562 (s. xiii). All versions, with extended discussion, are printed in pickles 1971: 34–87; Lecouteux 1979 gives the Latin of Wonders as his text D, and the old French and the old english at the foot of the page; and orchard 1995: 175–203, provides new editions of both the Latin and old english versions with a translation of the old english. 164. For a listing of all of the texts in this family, and the indications that it is specifically the Wonders of the East that served as TB’s source, see carey 2009: 368–70. 165. Lecouteux 1979: ix–x. 166. orchard, 1995: 179: § 22; cf. Lecouteux 1979: 44–45: XXVI.5. 167. Lecouteux 1979: 44: XXVI.4. 168. orchard 1995: 176: § 8; cf. Lecouteux 1979: 16–17: XVI.1.

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(ignem et flammam flantes).169 Use of chaindle “candles” rather than lócharna “lanterns” (< lucernae) may indicate that TB drew on the Latin exemplar of the old French version of Wonders; the latter says that the men in question “have faces which shine like candles” (ont les vis luisans comme candelles).170 (b) headless men with their eyes and mouths in their chests (§ 77) are described in all versions of the “Letter of pharasmanes,” 171 and are well known in other sources (e.g. Isidore, Etym. 11, 3, 17). The statement “Burning and great heat are in their bodies, such that no other race can endure it” may be based on a passage toward the conclusion of the text; the version in Wonders reads: “And there is another mountain, where there are black men whom no one is able to approach, for the mountain burns” (Est et alius mons, ubi sunt homines nigri, ad quos nemo accedere potest, quia ipse mons ardet).172 Alternatively, or additionally, this detail may have been suggested by a description, toward the beginning of Wonders, of fowls whose “whole body burns” (totum corpus comburit) if anyone seeks to touch them.173 (c) It is perhaps unnecessary to seek any specific derivation for the description of the sweetness of the Assyrians’ voices (§ 78), but it may be noted that a possible source exists in the description in Wonders of the race of the homodubii: “with long shins like (those of) birds, and a mild voice” (longis pedibus ut aves, leni voce; cf. old english hi habbað long sceancan swa fugeles & liþelice stefne).174 As in § 76 above, the old French version of 169. orchard 1995: 176: § 7. 170. Lecouteux 1979: 44–45: XXVI.5. 171. orchard 1995: 178: § 15; cf. Lecouteux 1979: 26–29: XVII.5. 172. orchard 1995: 181: § 36. 173. Ibid.: 176: § 3. 174. Ibid.: 194.

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Wonders comes closest to TB, reading “they are twelve feet tall, and have a sweet voice like a bird” (il ont .xii. piés de lonc et souef vois comme oisel). (d) The warrior women in TB § 80 are evidently modelled on two races of savage women mentioned side by side in the “Letter of pharasmanes.” 175 In Wonders these paragraphs immediately follow a reference to a mountain between Media and Armenia; 176 while the reference to the women’s great stature recalls the statement that members of the second race of women are thirteen (old French: fourteen) feet tall; while the beards growing to their navels are based on the beards which grow as far as the breasts of the first race. Their ferocity in war may be obliquely derived from the hunting prowess of the first race and the boars’ tusks of the second, but is presumably more directly based on accounts of the martial exploits of the classical Amazons; the statement that they “bear only daughters” likewise probably reflects the belief that the Amazons killed all their male offspring (e.g. orosius, Historiae aduersum paganos 1, 15, 3). If not directly inspired by the reference to the mountain between Media and Armenia mentioned above, the statement that the women live in “the mountains of Armenia” may reflect the belief that the Amazons dwelt in Armenia’s general vicinity (e.g. Etym. 14, 3, 37): thus a poem in the Middle Irish Book of Leinster version of the heroic tale Táin Bó Cúailnge (CLH § 1103) refers to an expedition undertaken by cú chulainn to “the mountains of Armenia” (slebi Armenia) to fight against the Amazons (LL 8838–41). 175. orchard 1995: 180: §§ 26–27; cf. Lecouteux 1979: 30–33: XXI–XXII. 176. orchard 1995: 179: § 25; cf. Lecouteux 1979: 28–31: XVIII– XX.

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Both “Damigeron” and Wonders were known in Anglosaxon england: TB provides evidence that at least some of their contents also circulated in pre-Norman Ireland.

Eschatological Writings Given the eschatological concerns of TB’s closing sections, it is natural that the author should also have been influenced by apocalyptic literature: evidence of this is found not only in the account of the Day of Judgement (§ 92), but also in the description of the “stream of water which goes across the island of torments” (§ 40), and in that of the sun’s nocturnal itinerary (§ 66). For the most part, the eschatological elements present in TB are commonplaces for which no single source can confidently be proposed: the likeliest influences, besides the book of Revelation, are the Apocalypse of Thomas and Visio Sancti Pauli; also an early version of the tract De quindecim signis preserved in the hiberno-Latin collection known as the pseudo-Bedan Collectanea (CLH § 33, 172; L&S § 1257), and known in another version to peter Damian in eleventh-century Italy.177 I call attention to significant correspondences in notes to the text.178

Irish Cognates and Potential Sources Besides its evident indebtedness to sources known to have been available in Ireland at an early date, and to others which 177. The homily in question was apparently composed after 1060: Dressler 1954: 240; on the difficulty of identifying many of Damian’s sources see ibid.: 207. 178. For the tradition of the signs of the Last Judgement in an Irish context, the most recent comprehensive study is McNamara 2007; cf. Ó Dochartaigh 2014.

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were potentially so, TB betrays a kinship with hexaemeral and cosmological texts of Irish authorship: with the seventhcentury Liber de ordine creaturarum, mentioned above; and also with a pseudo-Isidorean Liber de numeris (CLH § 577, L&S § 778) and with Pauca problesmata de enigmatibus (both thought to date from the eighth century).179 some particularly striking instances of such influence merit discussion in some detail: The Seven Heavens The teaching that there are seven heavens is fairly widespread in Irish literature, appearing for instance in allusions to God as ruler of the seven heavens in the poetry of Blathmac (eighth century) and Óengus mac Óengobann (c. 800).180 At least three more or less overlapping theories concerning the nature of these heavens appear to have been current: (a) classical astronomy held that the earth is surrounded by seven concentric spheres, their revolutions causing the movements of the moon, the sun, and the five planets known to the ancients. At least a rudimentary knowledge of this scheme was general throughout medieval europe; in Ireland it is reflected for instance in SR 101–04: “(God) established the course of the seven stars from the firmament to earth: saturn, Jupiter, Mercury, Mars, sol, Venus, lovely Luna.”

179. McNally 1957; McNamara 1987: 84–112; MacGinty 2000. For a more general discussion of early Irish cosmological writings see smyth 1996. 180. carney 1964: 20 § 56 (cf. CLH § 860); Fél. prol. 2 (cf. CLH § 254).

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(b) For the Gnostics the seven heavens were a series of prisons or barriers, presided over by the hostile powers which seek to keep souls confined in physical existence. several Gnostic and quasi-Gnostic writings describe ascent through the heavens as a series of ordeals which must be traversed on the path to salvation: in some of these accounts the “astronomical” character of the heavens is still evident, while in others it is less clear. one or more works in this tradition found their way to the British Isles, and exercised a formative influence e.g. on Fís Adomnáin, a Middle Irish vision text that may be tentatively dated c. 1000 (CLH § 169).181 (c) The third scheme, first attested in hiberno-Latin sources of the eighth century, proposes a seven-heaven model in which the planetary spheres are not a determining factor: its several versions seek to accommodate classical ideas of different levels of the atmosphere (air, ether, the rarefied air atop olympus), together with the Biblical firmament and “upper waters.” This may for convenience be called the “Irish hexaemeral” model, as most of the works in which it occurs mention it in the context of the six days of creation. I have attempted a brief discussion of some of the texts,182 citing examples from Liber de numeris,183 Pauca problesmata de enigmatibus,184 the pseudo-Bedan Expositio in primum librum Moysis (CLH §  41),185 Saltair na 181. The most recent discussion of the relevant Irish material is carey 2014. cf. McNamara 1975: 141–43; stevenson 1983; and, with particular regard to the old english evidence and extensive further references, Biggs 2007: 78–79. 182. carey 1985: 40–44; more recent discussion in smyth 2015. 183. McNally 1957: 122. 184. MacGinty 2000: 35. 185. pL 91, 192Bc.

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Rann,186 and the eleventh-century chronicler Marianus scotus (CLH § 656, L&S § 728).187 The system expounded in TB § 27 does not fit neatly into any of these categories, although it shares elements with the first and third. The placement of the moon in the first heaven and of the sun in the fourth assigns to these two luminaries the positions which they occupied in classical astronomy; and the concern with meteorological phenomena, and the contrasting regions of celestial fire and cold, recall features of the multiple heavens attested in other Irish hexaemeral material. The paragraph perhaps represents an attempt to harmonize an unfamiliar scheme with others better known to the author and his audience. one conspicuous feature of TB’s account which may point in this direction is its description of the second and third heavens, and of the fifth and sixth, in pairs rather than individually: was the author trying to expand a scheme comprising only five heavens? While no close analogues for the paragraph as a whole are apparent, its place does seem to lie within the field of ideas that characterise early Irish cosmology. Dragons in the Atmosphere Dragons in the heavens (§ 28) appear in the Annals of Ulster s.a. 735 (Draco ingens in fine autumni cum tonitruo magno post se uisus est “A huge dragon was seen at the end of autumn, with great thunder after it”) and 746 (Dracones in caelo uissi sunt “Dragons were seen in heaven”; ibid.: 200).188 Daniel Mccarthy and Aidan Breen have pointed out that 735 and 745 were years of high sunspot activity, and suggest accordingly that the term draco 186. SR 105–44. 187. Blatt, Lefèvre 1983, s.v. “olympus.” 188. Mac Airt, Mac Niocaill 1983: 188 and 200; CLH § 700.

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may in these cases designate the Aurora Borealis.189 The idea that dragons might be responsible for the weather is attested in the Book of Leinster version of the tale De Chophur in Dá Muccida, in which two shapeshifting antagonists become “two dragons, each of which was driving (?) snow upon the land of the other” (LL 32987–88; cf. CLH § 1035). cf. further the eighth-century hiberno-Latin gloss on the psalter in Vatican, codex Palatinus latinus 68: the manuscript was written in the eighth or ninth century, while the text itself “appears to date from the early eighth century, and to have been compiled either in Ireland or in Northumbria, presumably in a columban monastery.” 190 here Psalms 148:7–8 (“praise the Lord from the earth, dragons, and all abysses, fire, hail, snow, ice, the spirits of tempest which do his word”) receives the comment: “DrAGoNs: A flying kind of serpents which fly in the region of the air near the earth, in which there are dragons and winds and snow and frost and birds.” 191 The Bird Hirúath The account of an enormous bird in §  57 draws on hiberno-Latin exegesis. Martin McNamara has pointed out that a closely comparable passage appears in the gloss on Psalms 103:17 in Vatican codex Palatinus latinus 68: the relevant section, with McNamara’s translation, is as follows: Hirodius quidam auis magnus est dux omnium auium, qui in monte arena ad hostium fluminis intrantis mare super inminenti confouet ouum et calor solis cum eo XL diebus et conpleto tempore

189. Mccarthy, Breen 1997: 123. 190. McNamara 1988: 89. 191. McNamara 1986: 308.

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the ever-new tongue ad hostium ouum de monte rostro trudit et illo distructo eius dimedium C uiros trans hostium portat et hunc pro admiratione hic ostendit. “Hirodius (heron) is a large bird and leader of all the birds; it warms its egg in a sand mountain on top of a projection (eminence) at the mouth of a river entering the sea, and the heat of the sun is with it for 40 days. And when the time at the mouth (of the river) has been completed, with its beak it casts the egg from the mountain, and after it has been destroyed, the half of it carries 100 men across the mouth (of the river) and out of admiration he shows this here.” 192

As McNamara notes, only part of TB’s description of the hirúath can be matched in this passage. comparanda for other elements can be found in what seems (pace peter Kitson) 193 to be a closely related account: the tract on the bird goballus in the pseudo-Bedan Collectanea. This begins as follows: “There is a certain bird in the regions of India, near the rising of the sun, which has twenty wings, and at the sound of whose voice all are lulled into sleep and stupor; its voice is heard at the distance of a mile. This great bird’s name is goballus. For there is a stone in the ocean of very great beauty, which sometimes appears and at other times is covered by the sands. Now this bird, when it has brought forth a chick very beautiful and fair of voice, seeing the stone shining in the sea on a still day, is gripped by desire for it and flies to seize it; but as soon as it spreads its wings, the stone is covered by the sands. Now there is a very great

192. McNamara 1988: 89–90; cf. idem 1986: 213. 193. Kitson 1984: 132 n. 111.

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whale in the sea, which when it sees goballus flying toward the stone makes haste at once to its nest, and carries off the chicks and devours them. When goballus, very troubled, returns to the nest, thinking to have some consolation after its toil, and finds the nest empty, it cries out seven times, so that it not only sheds great tears itself, but all those who hear it cannot refrain from weeping. Then it plunges itself into the deep, and dies.” 194 There follows an allegorical interpretation which takes the goballus to be mankind, the chicks wisdom, the stone love of wealth, and the whale folly: this corresponds to nothing in TB. But the large bird residing in India, the heaping up of sand, the enmity with whales, and the attention given to the bird’s offspring all recall features in the account of the hirúath, and supplement the echoes already noted in the gloss on the psalter. The ultimate background of these descriptions is not clear, but may derive from the attempt of a lost commentary on Job 39:13–18 to elucidate the passage on the ostrich, which is there likened to the bird herodius; I have discussed this hypothesis elsewhere.195 The Materials of Adam The enumeration of the ingredients of the human body in § 13 draws upon the widespread tradition that Adam was formed from eight (or seven) substances: Émile Turdeanu has provided an updated summary of the detailed discussion of the theme by Max Förster;196 and its Irish and Anglo-saxon attestations have 194. Bayless, Lapidge 1998: 128 § 63. 195. carey 2009: 331–33. 196. Turdeanu 1981: 410–23; Förster 1907–1908.

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been examined by h. L. c. Tristram.197 Most of the early examples from western europe are found in question-and-answer texts, and it seems likely that TB derived its own version from a source of this type. of the groups into which Förster, followed by Turdeanu, subdivides the Latin lists of Adam’s components, two are relevant to a consideration of TB: A and e. Version A is closest to the slavic branch of the tradition, and evidently preserves the list in its earliest form; I cite the specimen in cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 326, an Insular manuscript of the tenth or eleventh century: 198 “Tell me, brother: of what was Adam made? I [will] tell you: he was made of eight parts [. . .]. The first part was from the mire of the earth: thence is his flesh. The second part from the sea: thence is his blood. The third part from the sun: thence are his eyes. The fourth part from the clouds of heaven: thence are his thoughts. The fifth part from the wind: thence is his breath or blowing. The sixth part from the stones of the earth: thence are his bones. The seventh part from the holy spirit which is placed in a man. The eighth part from the light of the world, which is interpreted [to mean] christ.” here there are four points shared with TB: flesh comes from earth, eyes come from the sun, breath is from the wind, bones are from stones. Further correspondences are to be found in the e version: there are at least three Insular examples, and the Anglo-saxon attestations of the theme belong to 197. Tristram 1975; further discussion in Biggs 2007: 4–5 and Wright 2007: 177–82. 198. Förster 1907–1908: 479–80.

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the same tradition. The list is given as follows in the Catechesis Celtica, a collection of arguably Irish religious texts preserved in the tenth-century manuscript Vatican, codex Regina lat. 49 (CLH § 192, L&S § 974):199 “The Lord’s day, a blessed day, on which there breathed that portion of mire from which flesh is made, that portion of salt whence tears are salty, that portion of blood whence blood is ruddy, that portion of wind from which is the breath, that portion of flowers from which is the diversity of eyes, that portion of clouds from which is the instability of minds, that portion of dew from which is sweat. These are the eight portions from which Adam was made; another portion, the soul, was made from heavenly things.” earth and wind have here the same rôle as in A, but sun has become flowers 200 and stones have dropped out. In other respects, however, e resembles TB where A does not: tears are derived from salt and blood from fire; and although “the freckling and pallor of faces, and the colour in cheeks” are not the same thing as uarietas oculorum, the derivation of both from flowers (an ingredient lacking in versions ABcD) makes some connection virtually certain. Does TB represent a version of the list in transition between A and e, or a subsequent hybrid of the two? The latter seems likeliest: our text lacks the clouds shared by A and e, and in any case mixtures and contaminations of all kinds are very common in material of this type. An instructive parallel is the hiberno-Latin Liber de numeris, which contains a text of version e sharing with A and TB the derivation of bones from 199. Wilmart 1933: 111. 200. evidently through scribal error; thus Wright 2007: 179.

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stones, and with BcD and the earliest example of e (that in sélestat, Bibliothèque municipale, 1093, c. 700) that of hair from grass.201 TB’s own mixed background may be further reflected in the phrase “red heat of blood.” This resembles both the calor sanguinis of Liber de numeris and the rubicundus sanguis of the Catechesis Celtica, and perhaps results from the conflation of two strands of e’s Insular transmission (themselves due to an early divergence calor/color?). The same two traits of blood are specified in the Durham Ritual (pondus ignis. inde rubeus est sanguis et calidus) and in the Anglo-saxon examples.202 The Sucking Beast The beast which causes tides by sucking in the seas (§ 66) can most readily be compared—even though none of the sources in question is earlier than TB—with monsters in other Irish texts. Thus a creature which causes the tides by sucking in and spewing forth the sea also appears in a brief Middle Irish tract in oxford, Bodleian Ms Rawlinson B 502: here Augustine is cited as authority for an account of a monster which lives in the Indian ocean, so huge and terrible that even the angels fear it. It causes the tide to ebb by swallowing the seas, and to flood by spewing them forth; it also attempts to seize the sun in its mouth, but cannot reach it because of its great heat.203 A very similar description is found in the pseudo-Bedan De mundi celestis terrestrisque constitutione (Germany (?), ninth-twelfth century). Again we are told of a monster (here a great serpent) which causes the tides and tries to seize the sun; in this case it is named Leviathan and is said to 201. relevant passages in cross, hill 1982: 68. 202. Ibid.: 26, 67–68. 203. Borsje, Ó cróinín 1995.

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encircle the world, and earthquakes are attributed to its anger when burnt by the sun’s heat.204 Further monsters in Irish sources more or less closely resemble the above: thus the Middle Irish commentary on the poem Amra Coluim Chille (CLH § 843) includes a description of the sea beast rosualt, which causes plagues by spewing water upward, downward, or toward the land; 205 and mysterious creatures called súgmairi “suckers” are mentioned in some late tales about Find mac cumaill, and in an early Modern Irish poem on remarkable rivers and water phenomena.206 The lateness of all of this material means that it provides no direct assistance in identifying a source for our passage. It is interesting that the tidemonster seeks to seize the sun in the rawlinson tract and in pseudo-Bede: perhaps these texts, and the question-andanswer collections which speak of the sun as passing by night through the belly of Leviathan,207 preserve traces of the same traditions which are embodied more fully in TB. The List of Events at Midnight An Insular context can be demonstrated for the catalogue of notable events which took place at midnight (§ 94).208 This paragraph enlarges upon the theme of midnight as the time of great turning-points in cosmic and human history, already 204. pseudo-Bede, ed. Burnett 1985: 22, 4. 205. stokes 1899: 256–57. 206. stokes 1900, line 4534; Joynt 1936, line 70 v.l. (cf. CLH § 1054); carey 2013. 207. cross, hill 1982: 35–36; suchier 1955: 123 § 10. 208. That this material belongs to this stage in TB’s development is also indicated by the fact that it is introduced by a question in Latin (§ 93).

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adumbrated in the account of philip’s own epiphany during the easter vigil (§§ 6–7). L assigns sixteen events (one of them mentioned twice) to this specific hour. such statements as the assertion that, at the crucifixion, there was darkness upon the earth from the sixth to the ninth hour (e.g. Matthew 27: 45–46); or that the holy spirit came upon the apostles at the third hour (Acts 2:15), led writers from an early date to correlate the various canonical hours with events in sacred history: examples appear in the Apostolic Constitutions 8, 34; in Tertullian, On Prayer 25; and in cassian, Institutes 3, 3. In Ireland, we find these ideas alluded to in the seventh-century Antiphonary of Bangor (CLH §§ 281, 341; L&S § 532); 209 and treated in the eighth-century miscellany Prebiarum de multorium exemplaribus (CLH § 37, L&S § 777); 210 in a note preserved in Dublin, TcD 1336 (H 3.17); 211 and, considerably elaborated, in “Tánic teirt, dénamm tarbai,” a Middle Irish poem of 40 quatrains found in Leabhar Breac and in Dublin, rIA 23 N 10 (CLH § 317).212 The passage in TcD 1336 states that midnight (midnocht) is to be celebrated “for it is then that the elements were created”; “Tánic teirt” likewise assigns the creation to midnight. Authority can be found for assigning various of the other incidents in the list to midnight also; but this is by no means the case for all of them. Thus, as just noted, the Gospels of Matthew and Luke explicitly state that christ’s sufferings on the cross lasted from sext to none; the “harrowing of hell” is assigned to 209. Discussion in curran 1984: 171–84. 210. McNally 1973: 165–66; L&S § 777. 211. Best 1907. 212. Best 1912. A discussion of the Insular associations of midnight which includes old english evidence is given in Biggs 1986: 6–7.

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the hour of none by cassian; while christ’s resurrection was associated with the dawn (Matthew 28:1–2; cf. cassian). I propose that the author of TB expanded his catalogue of midnight events by drawing upon lists of other kinds: specifically, upon lists of events held to have occurred on sunday and Friday. “sunday lists” are widely attested, notably in the Insular literatures; 213 “Friday lists” are less common, but various specimens can be cited from Irish and Anglo-saxon manuscripts.214 It seems noteworthy, given that TB appears itself to have been a homily for the vigil of easter, that one Anglo-saxon homily for easter contains lists for both days.215 several events held to have taken place at midnight were also thought to have occurred on Friday or sunday: this overlap would have made it all the easier for our author to draw upon Friday and sunday lists in order to extend his account of midnight. “poaching” of this kind is of course amply attested elsewhere; thus c. A. Lees cites an instance of a sunday list being augmented with items from a list of “manifestations of the Godhead in christ.” 216 The following table lists the events assigned to midnight in TB, and indicates whether they have been associated with midnight, with sunday or with Friday in other sources:217 213. Lees 1985; Biggs 2007: 79–80. 214. Lees 1986: 128–30. 215. Ibid.: 117–19; cf.: 129 n. 29. 216. Lees 1985: 148. 217. For full references, see carey 2009: 396–405. Besides the texts noted in the paragraphs immediately preceding and following this table, sources include the Byzantine Greek version of the Gospel of Nicodemus (Gounelle 2008: 296–97); pseudo-Bede on Exodus (pL 91.307B); hiberno-Latin sunday lists (McNally 1973: 182–85; cf. CLH § 624, L&S §§ 903–05); the tracts Epistil Ísu (ninth century;

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resurrection creation Fall of Lucifer Making of Adam slaying of Abel sodom and Gomorrah Beginning of Flood passover crossing the red sea Babylon Nativity crucifixion [Islands of sab] harrowing of hell end of world

Midnight × ×

Sunday × × ×

? × ×

× × ×

× ×

× ×

Friday × × × × × ?

× ×

The Latin query Quo tempore die uel nocte mundus factus est uel distruetur, et Dominus surexit a mortuis? (“At what time of day or night was the world made, or at what time will it be destroyed; and at what time did the Lord rise from the dead?”) in § 93 closely resembles a passage in a christmas homily in Catechesis Celtica; speaking of christ, the latter says: Ideo in horis nocturnis, idest in media nocte, natus est et resurrexit, quia in media nocte factus est mundus et in media nocte distruetur (“Therefore in the hours of night, that is at midnight, he was born and resurrected, because the world was made at midnight and will o’Keeffe 1905: 198–95, cf. CLH § 626) and Comrad arin Aíne (late Middle Irish or early Modern Irish; Gaidoz 1888; hyde 1906, vol. 2: 218); the Middle Irish poems “Dénaid cáin Domnaig Dé dil” (idem 1907: 143–44; cf. CLH § 626) and “Gnímhradha in sheseadh lái láin” (carney 1969: 158; cf. CLH § 108); the old english homily In die sancto Pasce (Lees 1986: 117–18, 128); and French Friday lists of the thirteenth century (Moland 1862: 104).

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be destroyed at midnight”).218 A similar statement appears in an unpublished homily in the same manuscript: [. . .] et in medio noctis factus est mundus, et iterum distruetur; et in medio noctis ueniet iudicare uiuos ac mortuos in die iudicii. “[. . .] and at midnight the world was made, and will be destroyed again; and at midnight he will come to judge the living and the dead on the Day of Judgement.” 219 In his edition of the eighth-century hiberno-Latin calendrical tract known as the Munich computus (CLH § 551, L&S § 336), Immo Warntjes has noted the existence of further related passages, often attributed to Jerome, in several Irish works: the Munich computus itself; 220 the instance in Catechesis Celtica just cited; De ratione conputandi (CLH § 545, L&S § 324);221 De diuisionibus temporum (CLH § 543); 222 and the Bobbio computus (CLH § 556).223 Warntjes suggests that this statement “may have had its origin in an Insular Biblical commentary attributed to Jerome, and was for that reason wellknown in the Irish monastic intellectual milieu; at least Irish computists of the seventh and early eighth centuries appear to have been extremely fond of this passage as an explanation for the reckoning of a day beginning at midnight.” 224 218. Wilmart 1933: 105. 219. Biggs 2007: 79–80. 220. Warntjes 2010: 2–3. 221. Walsh, Ó cróinín 1988: 134. 222. pL 90, 657B. 223. pL 129, 1307c. I give the text as cited by Warntjes, by whom it has been “checked against the sole Ms witness.” 224. Warntjes 2010: cxxxii. several of these examples are already collected in Walsh, Ó cróinín 1988.

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Homiletic Structure The opening and closing sections of TB (§ 1, 104–07) can be identified as the exordium and peroration of a homily. The scriptural citation or pericope which begins the exordium is Genesis 1:1: an appropriate opening for a text which purports to describe the creation, particularly one which undertakes “to make plain [. . .] the wondrous tale which the holy spirit related by means of Moses son of Amram, concerning the making of heaven and earth, together with the things which are in them” (§ 12). The verse is also liturgically appropriate, as the first chapter of Genesis furnishes the first lection in the easter vigil service: this usage is found in the roman, Gallican, spanish and Milanese rites,225 also in the ninth-century Welsh manuscript known as the Liber Commonei.226 The revelatory apparition of philip described in TB is stated to have occurred at “the end of the eve of easter” (§ 7; cf. §§ 42, 95); and the text contains discussions of the relationship between the creation and the easter miracle (§§ 12–14) and of the importance of midnight (§ 94). Nearly three decades ago, Martin McNamara already proposed that TB’s “central theme seems to have had to do with the bearing of the easter mystery on the present scheme of things. It is probably because of this that the revelation given by the evernew Tongue takes place at the easter Vigil.” 227 There is accordingly every reason to believe that TB was in fact intended as a homily for the vigil of easter, and that Genesis 1:1’s use as a pericope may be taken as evidence of this. 225. remley 1996: 78–87, 219–20. 226. Fischer 1952; cf. Breen 1992: 152–53, with remarks on this collection’s use of Irish material. 227. McNamara 1989: 16.

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The verse was used in the same way for instance by Augustine, who preached two easter vigil sermons on this theme (Sermones 221 and 223).228 The same typology provided the basis of the early pseudo-Augustinian Sermo 157; 229 and another example is included in the Catechesis Celtica.230 The paired evocations of the horrors of hell (§§ 85–90) and the delights of heaven (§§ 104–06) are also characteristic of the genre: similar passages, designated “eschatological conclusions” by Frederic Mac Donncha,231 occur at the end of several Irish homilies.232 The account of heaven contains an extended passage in Latin (§ 105), which has been translated into Irish in the second recension. As Tomás o’sullivan has noted, this is taken from a pseudo-pauline homily with the incipit Admoneo uos, preserved in two continental manuscripts of the ninth century: Ipsa sunt praemia caelestia pro his supradictis: mannam caelestem manducabimus cum Christo, ubi lumen solis non indigetur neque lunae neque stellarum, sed Dominus lux erit, quia ipse est fons luminis et origo sanctitatis : ubi mira tranquillitas : ubi suavitas : ubi pax ingens, ubi caritas inplebilis, ubi vita perennis : ubi senectus non apparebit : ubi iocunditas accipietur : ubi sensus declarabuntur : ubi paradisus abundans et dulcis : ubi splendor angelorum, ubi candor iustitiae, ubi palma regalis, ubi flumina 228. pL 38, 1089.1092. 229. pL 39, 2055; cf. Machielsen 1990, § 942. 230. Wilmart 1933: 39–44. 231. Mac Donncha 1976: 60. 232. Thus strachan 1907; LU 2406–93, 2746–58; and PH 3634–54, 4302–65, 4665–81, 5014–25, 5623–31, 5929–43, 6163–79, 6396–406, 8288–349.

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aurea, ubi suavis laudatio angelorum et conventus omnium sanctorum, ubi Hierusalem caelestis : ubi non est ullus dolor nec tristitia, sed laetitia sempiterna : ubi sunt angeli et archangeli : ubi iusti et electi Dei sedebunt cum Deo, et Deus erit cum illis in regnis perpetuis sine fine in saecula saeculorum amen.233 “Those are the heavenly rewards for the aforesaid: we will eat the heavenly manna with christ, where the light of the sun is not needed, nor that of the moon and the stars, but the Lord will be light because he is himself the source of light and the origin of holiness; where there is wondrous tranquillity; where there is sweetness; where there is vast peace; where there is fulfilling love; where there is everlasting life; where old age will not appear; where joy is obtained; where meanings will be declared; where there is paradise, abundant and sweet; where there is the splendor of angels; where there is the brightness of justice; where there is the royal palm; where there are golden rivers; where there is the pleasing praise of the angels and the assembly of all the saints; where the heavenly Jerusalem is; where there is no grief or sadness, but perpetual happiness; where the angels and archangels are; where the just and the chosen of God will sit with God, and God will be with them in perpetual kingdoms, without end, forever and ever, amen.” The presence of this extract in TB, and the close resemblance of the homily as a whole to another with strong Insular associations, have led o’sullivan to postulate the derivation of both from a “common source of Irish origin.” 234 233. Wilmart 1910: 409. 234. o’sullivan 2014: 594–95.

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The analysis so far has postulated two phases. In the first phase, Latin versions of an egyptian “revelation discourse” and of ActPhil II came together, perhaps in spain and conceivably in a priscillianist milieu. In the second phase, these materials were used by an Irish author as the basis of a “hexaemeraleschatological” treatise, cast within the framework of an easter vigil homily. That this was written in Latin is suggested by the survival of Latin phrases in the existing text of TB; that it was written in the seventh or the early eighth century seems plausible in light of the sources used, and of the broader intellectual background with which the author was familiar.

Translation into Irish There is also evidence of a third phase in TB’s development. Throughout most of the text, philip is interrogated by a group of “wise men of the hebrews” (usually referred to in Latin). In § 5–6, by contrast, there is an elaborate account of an enormous multitude of kings and bishops assembling from throughout the eastern world at Mount Zion: the gathering at Jerusalem, and the heavenly revelation which is communicated to it, are both strikingly reminiscent of Acts 2:1–12. This florid set piece, with its discrepancy from the bulk of the text (and also from the Latin traces of TB’s immediate source) seems likely to represent innovation. since the passage exhibits linguistic features which are characteristic of old Irish, it appears likely that it was added at the same time that the work which became TB was translated from Latin into the vernacular. other features in the text probably have the same origin: the repetition of the same phrases or images to fill out certain sections (see e.g. §§ 50–53, 70–72, 104–07); and the adoption of elements from vernacular narrative. I here note a few potential examples of the latter.

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While the characteristics of the remarkable trees in §§ 50–53 clearly draw upon the descriptions of the Tree of Life in Genesis and Revelation, elements also recall what is said concerning the yew known as the eó Mugna in Irish legend, described as follows in the late old Irish or early Middle Irish text Airne Fíngein (CLH § 984): 235 “A tree which is under concealment since the time of the Flood in Ireland, and it sheds three showers of fruit through a mist, so that the plain on which it is is full of its acorns thrice. And when the last acorn falls from it, the blossom of the first acorn comes upon it. And the Flood spared it without injury, and the eye of no son of man has seen it until tonight. Mugna is the name of that tree [. . .], the son of the tree from paradise.” With this we may compare the tree sames bearing fruit three times in a year (§ 50), and the supernatural concealment of the tree Nathaben (§ 53). similarly, some of the details in the account of the death of “Judas Maccabaeus” (§§ 58–60), the main source of which is of course the Acts of Philip, can be paralleled in the origin legend of the river Boyne.236 Many versions of this story survive; 237 I cite that in the Middle Irish topographical poem “síd Nechtain sund forsin tṡléib”: “I assert that Bóand was the wife of Nechtan son of fierce Labraid. There was a secret well in his stronghold, from which every dark mystery (mírún) used to gush. 235. Vendryes 1953: 4–5; cf. further stokes 1893: 485; idem 1894: 419; idem 1895: 278; Gwynn 1903–1935, vol. 3: 144–46; Best 1910: 138–40, 150. 236. cf. carey 1999: 62–63. 237. e.g. Vendryes 1953: 3; van hamel 1933: 37–38.

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There was none who would gaze to its bottom whose bright eyes would not burst (nach maided a dá rosc rán); if he went to left or right, he would not come thence without being disfigured [. . .]. once white Bóand came—her lofty pride puffed her up—to test the power of the abundant well. As she went three times around the well imprudently, three waves burst from it from which came Bóand’s death.” 238 In other versions we are explicitly told that Bóand circumambulated the well counter-clockwise.239 The motifs of eyes which burst upon beholding a supernatural wonder, and of disrespect expressed by turning against the sun, do not so far as I know appear together except in these two tales, and it is reasonable to suppose that TB has drawn upon some version of the Boyne legend. It is interesting to find so many Irish elements associated specifically with the tree of Nathaben. The same sections which are notable for their use of repetition also seem to have drawn upon Irish voyage literature, using imagery reminiscent of the tales Nauigatio Sancti Brendani (ninth century? cf. CLH § 231) and Immram Snédgusa ocus Maic Ríagla (earliest version assigned to the tenth century; CLH § 1075).240 Much of this additional material serves to flesh out the account of the works of the six days, suggesting that the coverage of these matters was uneven and often sketchy in TB’s Latin forerunner. 238. Gwynn 1903–1935, vol. 3: 28–30. This poem forms part of the corpus of toponymic material, in prose and verse, known as Dindṡenchas Érenn; references to editions and scholarship in CLH § 1144. 239. stokes 1892: 500; idem 1894: 315–16; Gwynn 1914: 229 § 74. 240. see notes on §§ 53, 66, 72, 73.

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even in its most conservative version, therefore, TB can be seen to have a long and complicated history. In the form in which we have it, it is doubtful whether it can be called an apocryphon: it belongs rather to the diverse and fascinating world of medieval Irish cosmological writing. But two apocryphal texts appear to have inspired its first composition. If the suggestions advanced above are valid, then TB preserves the only traces of a lost egyptian apocalyptic discourse, and provides us with our sole evidence that any part of the Acts of Philip found its way into Latin christendom.

iV. Theology The author’s view that the contemplation of the mysteries and majesty of nature is a way of turning the mind to the creator has been briefly indicated at the beginning of this introduction; and this attitude is certainly one that permeates the work as a whole, and is harshly dramatised by the destruction of a doubter in § 60. Another key concept, bound up with the recurrent focus on easter, is the idea that christ’s resurrection is mirrored in the seasonal rebirth of nature, and has also secured for all creation the promise that it will participate in the general resurrection. Adumbrated in §  12, the doctrine is most clearly stated in §  14: that the presence of all substances in the human body means that the entire cosmos has been redeemed by christ’s sacrifice and resurrection. The idea may be seen as providing a unifying theme for TB as a whole: the text’s concern with cosmology and eschatology, considered within the liturgical context of the easter vigil, makes perfect sense in light of this compelling synthesis. I have been unable to find any close comparanda elsewhere, and the

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doctrine may well be original to TB or to its primary source. It is interesting however to observe rather similar concepts being formulated by eriugena, a brilliant Irish thinker active in ninth-century Francia, in his Periphyseon (CLH §  444, L&S § 700)—a work which I take to be roughly contemporary with TB itself: “All things visible and invisible, that is, the sensible and intelligible world, are restored in him, and recalled to an ineffable unity [. . .]. And so let no one make light of the Word of God having become human, as if only human nature were to be saved thereby; but let him most firmly believe, and most clearly understand, that by the son of God becoming human every creature on heaven and earth has been saved (per inhumanationem filii dei omnis creatura in caelo et in terra salua facta est).” 241 As in TB, this doctrine is bound up with the view that “in man is established every visible and invisible creature.” 242 eriugena’s source for these ideas was the Ambigua ad Iohannem of Maximus the confessor; the similarities with TB, however, suggest that some of the appeal of Maximus’ ideas for him may have lain in their similarity to teachings to which he had been exposed in Ireland. Liber de ordine creaturarum, for instance, written in Ireland or in an Irish milieu toward the end of the seventh century, also associates the resurrection of mankind with the redemption of the world: “For when the human condition of being born and dying comes to an end, then the earth too will not experience increase and decline of 241. Jeauneau 1996–2003, vol. 5: 75–76, ll. 2392–402. 242. In quo (uidelicet homine) omnis creatura uisibilis et inuisibilis condita est (ibid: 49, ll. 1517–19).

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its greenness and dryness.” 243 I have undertaken to explore this question in more detail elsewhere.244 The length of this introduction is itself indicative of the richness and complexity of the mysterious text to which it is devoted; further points of detail are discussed in footnotes to the translation. More perhaps than any other work of medieval Irish literature, TB reflects the coinherence in Irish religious thought of cosmology and theology, of a powerful (sometimes indeed feverish) imagination and a subtle speculative intelligence. repeatedly copied and adapted over centuries in the manuscript tradition, it remains deeply intriguing for our own times.

243. Cum enim nascendi et moriendi in hominibus condicio cessauerit, tunc etiam uiriditatis et ariditatis suae incrementa et damna ipsa terra non habebit (Díaz y Díaz 1972: 170). 244. carey 2012: 75–104.

Translation of “The ever-New Tongue”

Detail from fol. 89v of the copy of The Ever-New Tongue in the Book of Lismore, showing the beginning of § 25 of this translation. A Latin version of Genesis 1:7 is followed by a paraphrase in Irish, and preceded by a passage (in enlarged script) in the purported language of the angels. © Devonshire collection, chatsworth. reproduced by permission of chatsworth settlement Trustees.

T “

he ever-New Tongue” follows below.1 § 1. In the beginning, God made heaven and earth, etc.2 The high King of the world, who is mightier than every king, who is loftier than every power, who is fiercer than every dragon, who is kinder than every son, who is brighter than suns, who is holier than every elder, who is more vengeful than men, who is more loving than every mother, the only son of God the Father, bestowed this tale upon the many peoples of the world, that is, concerning the world’s form and creation.3 § 2. For the form of anything which is seen in the world was not known, save to God only. For (the situation of) the race of Adam was “a head in a bag,” and “being in a dark house” 4; 1. The Irish is here rendered in roman type, while passages of Latin are in italics; in the case of the Latin, the original is also provided in footnotes. 2. In principio fecit Deus celum et terram et reliqua; Genesis 1:1. 3. This paragraph follows a pattern well attested in the exordia of hiberno-Latin and Irish vernacular homilies: a Biblical pericope, followed by a eulogistic description of the speaker. For general characterization of such passages see Mac Donncha 1976: 59–71. 4. With this expression cf. the simile “like a child in a lightless house” (§ 57).

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for formerly it was not known what shape the world had, or who had made it, until this tale came from heaven for the opening of the mind and intellect of all, so that a way of life and of salvation for souls might be discovered and found. § 3. For everything was utterly obscure to the eyes of the race of Adam. But they used to see the migration of the stars, that is, the moon and the sun and the other stars, which were revolving every day without ever resting. And they used to see the springs and rivers of the world flowing, which never rested at any time. And they used to see the travail of the earth, and the weakness and slumber of the light and of the fruits with the coming of winter. And they used to see the resurrection of the world with its warmth and its light, with its flowers and its fruits, at the rising up of the summer once again. § 4. Nevertheless, they did not know who made it, until there came this tale of the creation of the world with its shapes and its agencies which God had established. All of that was utterly obscure, then, until this tale was related: until the ever-New Tongue disclosed it, who spoke from the heights of heaven above the assembly of Mount Zion.5 § 5. For the assembly of the east of the world had been gathered: that is, everyone from the mountains of Abian as far as the shores of the red sea, and from the Dead sea as far 5. §§ 2–4 express (rather repetitively) the idea that all humanity was utterly ignorant of the nature of the universe until the revelation described in the body of the text. A comparable array of natural phenomena is listed by Gregory the Great as corroboration of the truth of the resurrection in Moralia in Iob 14, 55 (Adriaen 1979–1985, vol. 2: 742); forerunners and parallels to Gregory’s exposition are noted in Bynum 1995: 22–27, 79, 129, 143. For an instance in the Middle Irish homiletic tract Scéla na Esérgi (CLH § 178), see stokes 1904: 252.

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as the islands of sabairnd.6 And this was the number of the assembly: that is, three thousand, four hundred and eighty-five bishops; and fifty-four thousand, nine hundred and sixty-nine kings from among the kings of the world. § 6. That gathering was held, moreover, until the end of four months and a year, that is, summer, winter, spring, autumn, under nine hundred canopies of white linen with golden ornaments, on the summit of Mount Zion. Five thousand, nine hundred and fifty great torches and precious stones gave light to illuminate the assembly, lest any storm inconvenience it at any time. Two hundred and fifty bishops, and five hundred priests, and three thousand in (the other) ecclesiastical grades, and one hundred and fifty innocent youths, and five hundred high kings with their followers before them, used to go at midnight into Jerusalem chanting, and they used to return every matins with songs of the rejoicing that is hymned in the holy clouds, that is, “Glory to God in the highest,” etc.7 Then the hosts of the assembly would rise up before 6. It is uncertain whether the author had any specific sources for the names Abian and Sabairnd. one possibility however might be Isaiah 60:6: in a context that can be compared with the cosmopolitan multitude in Acts 2:1–12, large companies from many regions are described as coming to Zion to do homage to the God of Israel: Inundatio camelorum operiet te, dromedariae Madian et Epha; omnes de Saba uenient, aurum et thus deferentes et laudem Domino adnuntiantes (“A flood of camels will cover you [i.e. Zion], the dromedaries of Midian and Epha; everyone will come from Saba, bearing gold and frankincense and proclaiming praise to the Lord”). For sab/sabairn as a group of islands cf. conceivably Psalms 72:9: Reges Tharsis et insulae munera offerent; reges Arabum et Saba dona adducent (“The kings of Tarshish and the islands of the sea will offer presents; the kings of the Arabs and of Saba will bring gifts”). 7. Gloria in excelsis Deo et reliqua; Luke 2:14.

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them between two plains, as this excursion and the multitudes returned to Mount Zion with the song of rejoicing, with the songs and mighty shouts and splendours of each king. § 7. suddenly then, when it was the end of the eve of easter, something was heard: a noise in the clouds like the sound of thunder, or it was like the roaring of a fire and of the sea; at the same time it was a thunderous wind. suddenly something was seen: a sunlike blaze, like a radiant sun in the midst of the noise. That bright sunlike blaze was turning upon itself too fast for the eye to follow; for it was seven times brighter than the sun.8 § 8. suddenly thereafter something was heard; for the eyes of the host were gazing upon the noise,9 for they thought that it was a sign of the Judgement. something was heard, a bright voice which spoke in angelic language: “Hæli habia felebe fæ niteia temnibisse salis sal”; that is, “Listen to this tale, sons of men! I have been sent from God to speak to you.” 8. The ultimate source of this expression is Isaiah 30:26: Et erit lux lunae sicut lux solis, et lux solis erit septempliciter, sicut lux septem dierum (“And the light of the moon will be like the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be sevenfold, like the light of seven days”). cf. § 100 below. 9. The synaesthesia in the phrase “gazing upon the noise” is striking; cf. “bright voice” immediately below, and the sound “brighter and clearer [or more radiant] than the voices of men” (§ 9). This transgression of the normal categories of perception effectively conveys the transcendental source of the revelation itself. I am grateful to one of this book’s anonymous readers for pointing out the locutions “seeing voices” at Exodus 20:18 and “seeing a voice” at Revelation 1:12; and for calling my attention to a reference to divine utterances in a “visible voice” which “roused the eyes more than the ears” in philo of Alexandria, De uita Mosis 2, 213 (cohn 1902: 250).

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§ 9. Immediately weakness and fear fell upon the hosts. It was not terror without cause. The sound of the voice was resounding like the shout of an army, but at the same time it was brighter and clearer than the voices of men. It roars above the encampment like the howling of a great wind, which at the same time was no louder in each man’s ear than the words of a friend; and it was sweeter than music. § 10. The wise men of the hebrews answered and they said: 10 “Let us learn from you your name, and the reason for your name, and your essential nature.” something was heard, the ever-New Tongue which spoke in an angelic voice: “Nathire uimbæ o lebiæ uaun nimbisse tiron tibia ambiase sau fimblia febe able febia fuan,” that is, “It was among the peoples of the earth, indeed,” he said, “that I was born; and I was conceived from the union of a man and woman. This is my name: philip the apostle. The Lord sent me to the tribes of the pagans, to preach to them. Nine times my tongue was cut from my head by the pagans, and nine times I persisted in preaching again; therefore I am called the ever-New Tongue by the company of heaven.” § 11. The wise men of the hebrews said: “Let us learn from you in what language it is that you speak to us.” he said: “The language in which I speak to you is that in which the angels speak, and every rank of heaven. And sea-creatures and beasts and cattle and birds and serpents and demons understand it, and that is the language which all will speak at the Judgement.” § 12. “It is this, then,” he said, “which has dispatched me to you: to make plain to you the wondrous tale which the holy spirit related by means of Moses son of Amram, concerning the making of heaven and earth,11 together with the things 10. Et dixerunt. 11. Genesis 2, 1.

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which are in them. For that tale tells of the making of heaven and earth; and likewise of the creation of the world which has been accomplished by christ’s resurrection from the dead on this eve of easter. For every material and every element and every nature which is seen in the world, they were all combined in the body in which christ rose again—that is, in the body of every human.12 § 13. “There is in it, first of all, material from wind and air; from it proceeds the respiration of breath in people’s bodies. And there is in it material of heat and seething from fire; that is what makes the red heat of blood in bodies. And there is in it material from the sun and the stars of heaven also; so that that is what makes the brightness and the light in people’s eyes. And there is in it material from bitterness and saltiness; so that that is what makes the bitterness of tears, and the gall of the liver, and abundance of anger in people’s hearts. And there is in it material from the stones and clay of the earth; so that that is what makes the mingling of flesh and bones and limbs in people. And there is in it material from the flowers and bright colours of the earth; so that it is that which makes the freckling and pallor of faces, and the colour in cheeks. § 14. “With him the whole world rose again; for the nature of all creation was in the body which Jesus had put on. For if the Lord had not suffered for the sake of the race of Adam, and if he had not risen again after death, the whole world would be destroyed together with the race of Adam at the coming of the Judgement, and no creature of sea or land would be redeemed, but the heavens would burn up as far as the third

12. For “combined” as a rendering of con-rairceda preferable to “brought together” (as in carey 2009: 115), see Breatnach 2017: 75–76.

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heaven: save for the three heavens of the lofty ríched 13 alone, nothing would survive unburnt. There would be no earth, nor any race of the living or the dead in the world, but only hell as far as heaven, unless the Lord had come for their redemption: all things would perish thus, without renewal. § 15. “This is why I have come to you,” said philip: “so that I may relate this tale to you. For the making of the world’s form is opaque and very obscure to you, as it has been related since ancient times.” “It is well, then,” said the wise men of the hebrews. “Tell us some of the innumerable wonders which happened then; for it is utterly obscure to us, unless it be related to us clearly.” § 16. something was heard: the ever-New Tongue which spoke in the angelic language, saying: “Læ uide fodea tabo abelia albe fab,” which in Latin is, “In the beginning, God made heaven and earth.” 14 And he said: “Ambile bane bea fabne fa libera salese inbila tibon ale siboma fuan.” It would be tedious to recount in hebrew everything which is related in that:15 that there was 13. Ríched means “heaven” in the sense of the habitation of God, rather than the planetary and stellar heavens of astronomy. The word’s original sense was “royal seat” ( -dos- at any point. The situation is more complicated when we consider conus-n-esta (v.ll. co nd-ethta Q, cero chaitea Y, da n-itheadh O, da n-ithi M): on the one hand, only L attests the form in question; on the other, the nasalization after -s- would seem to point to a relatively early date for the reading in L. If we do assign conus-n-esta to the original text, as I am inclined to do, then TB’s treatment of this pronoun may be compared with the situation in the Tripartite Life: -da-/-ta- preponderate, but we do find isolated instances with -s-. In summary, then, the survival of class c points to a date of composition in the old Irish period; features (a), (b), and (e) above suggest the later portion of that period; while the Middle Irish developments in (c) and (d) can best be explained as the work of one or more redactors.

Verbs The Deponent The deponent has survived in most instances in TB, the following verbs appearing with deponent endings only: airlithir, conjunct -cuirethar, dícsigidir, do-airissedar, do-cuirethar, do-moinethar, preterite for-cóemnacair, for-luathar, for-tuigethar,

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gainithir, ro-finnathar/ro-fitir, ro-laimethar, suidigidir. The only non-deponent forms of labraithir are evidently secondary (see discussion of the verbal endings -ann and -tait below). of the five originally deponent verbs which show nondeponent forms, three are also attested in TB with deponent endings: beside the non-deponent instances of do-fiúchtrathar we find -diuchtradar; while -foruaisligfider contrasts with foruaisliges, and soillsidir with soillsighfid. consistently non-deponent is fáilt(n)igid; note also the unique attestation of do-foillsig (§ 71). This distribution suggests a date for TB not later than the end of the ninth century, as the deponent’s decline seems to have advanced further by the tenth. The survival of deponent endings in the case of so many verbs in -(a)ig- is particularly striking: John strachan was of the opinion that “the evidence seems to prove decisively that the verbs in -ig- had disappeared before the beginning of the tenth century”; and Jackson inclined more cautiously to the same view.13

Simplification of Compound Verbs several distinct developments in the language are to be classed under this general heading. (a) Already in old Irish a compound verb can assume prototonic form even in independent position, if the pretonic preverb ends in a vowel and is followed by a stressed syllable beginning with a vowel or f-: thus instead of the opposition do-icc/ní ticc we find the simpler ticc/ní ticc. There are several examples of this in TB: tig and ticfet from do-icc; thalla from do-alla; tindnaig and tidnacar from do-indnaig; tarbad from do-adbat; thimceallat from do-imchella; thadhlibed from do-aidlibea. 13. strachan 1894: 551; Jackson 1986: 24.

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(b) In a subsequent development, verbs of this type came to be inflected as simple verbs; Jackson notes only a few such forms in the Tripartite Life and Saltair na Rann.14 TB has only diuchtrait from do-fiúchtrathar, and thidnaicius from do-indnaig. (c) Later, and even rarer in the Tripartite Life and Saltair na Rann,15 are simple verbs based on compound verbs which do not have the structure described in (a) above. In this class TB has aisnither and asnidet; ergit (vs ad-regat § 75); indisit. In this respect, then, the situation in TB is roughly comparable to that in the Tripartite Life and Saltair na Rann. The rarity of the later forms in TB could also be explained on the hypothesis that these are isolated readings which have crept into the text in the course of transmission —an explanation which could be extended to the instances in the Tripartite Life as well. (d) Another kind of univerbation is that effected by prefixing ro or no to compound verbs; although a few forms like ro héilled (Ml 127 a 13) can be cited from old Irish sources, this is for the most part a Middle Irish development. In TB we find ro thidhnaic (§ 1); ro teclumadh (§ 5); ro frecair (§ 18, etc.); ro thusmed (§ 23); no thindscanaind (§ 86) and ro tindscan (§ 94); ro teilced (§  94); ro fhuaslaic (§  94); ro chuimrigh (§  94); ro fhorberad (§ 96); and ro airlem and ro aittrebam (§ 107). With this collection we may contrast the attestations of the infixed augment: leaving out of the reckoning as-beir, do-cuirethar, do-gní, and imm-cuirethar, which retain an infixed augment in the later language, there are by my count 30 instances in TB, involving 19 verbs. A case can be made for viewing the presence of the univerbated forms as a secondary feature of the text. Thus it is note14. Jackson 1986: 28–29. 15. Ibid.

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worthy that they are all inflected as weak verbs, although con-rig, do-fuissim, do-indnaig, and fris-gair take dental preterites in old Irish: elsewhere in the text the dental preterite is retained (some 20 instances, including do-fuissim and fris-gair). Ro teclumadh moreover shows a metathesis attested only in Middle Irish sources; while ro fhuaslaic shows Middle Irish loss of the preverb do-. In light of these observations it may also be significant that, apart from the persistent ro frecair, all examples of univerbating ro and no are concentrated at the beginning and end of TB: indeed, 4 out of the 12 forms occur in a single paragraph. The relative rarity, conspicuous lateness, and uneven distribution of the verbs with univerbating augment all indicate that this feature should be attributed to a later redactor rather than to the original author of the text.

Sense of the Augmented Preterite The difference in sense between the augmented and unaugmented preterites appears to have become blurred in the course of the ninth century, and was no longer a living part of the language in the Middle Irish period; already in the Tripartite Life the two forms are used interchangeably.16 In TB augmented forms preponderate over unaugmented in a proportion of approximately 13:8, which might be taken to indicate that the same falling together had run its course by the time that the text was written; in fact, however, most of the augmented preterites in TB do seem to have a “resultative” force.17 That there are so many such forms is due to the character of the work: most of the narration which it contains 16. Jackson 1986: 32–33; Mccone 1987: XII.4.1. 17. For this term, and a lucid and perceptive characterization, see Mccone 1987: IX.3.2.1.

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relates to the origins of things, hence to past events constitutive of reality in the present. The same is true of references to the life of christ, and probably of the list of midnight happenings in § 94 as well: the audience is intended to feel a link between the night on which the revelation is received and the expanse of sacred history. If the presumably secondary examples with univerbating ro (discussed above) are left out of the reckoning, roughly three quarters of the augmented preterites in TB can be interpreted as resultatives; there are however some two dozen instances which cannot. The clearest cases are those in which augmented and unaugmented forms are used in parallel clauses, e.g. nat robai talam [. . .] nat batur cuartu (“the earth [. . .] did not exist [. . .] the circuits [. . .] did not exist,” § 16); lotar Tuath De tre Muir Ruadh ⁊ ro baidhed Forunn (“the people of God crossed the red sea, and pharaoh was drowned,” § 94). clearly, then, the old Irish usage was in decline to at least some extent when TB was written; again, this suggests a date in the second half of the ninth century.

Personal Endings Three of the personal endings whose usage was introduced or extended in the Middle Irish period are attested in TB: (a) 3 sg. conjunct -ann/-enn, (b) 3 pl. independent -t(a)it, and (c) 3 pl. preterite conjunct -satar/-setar. In only two cases, ro raidsetar (§ 11) and -labrunn (§ 47), is the reading of L confirmed by the Mss of the second recension, and even in L the form of labraithir at § 11 which may reflect an example of this ending is not fully legible. of the forms attested only in L, -fuilngsetar and don-ethand occur in a single paragraph (§ 60), suggesting that they are the work of a single secondary hand; it is significant that in one other case

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(ternann, § 40) -ann in L is contradicted by the readings of the second recension (therna vel sim. QYO). of the remaining examples, ro raidsetar and labertait occur in a single paragraph (§ 11), while labertait and -labrunn are forms of a single verb (cf. discussion of deponents above). This clustering, together with the paucity of instances over all, strongly suggests that these endings were introduced by a redactor and did not form part of the original composition. having noted these peculiarities of distribution, we may consider the endings individually. (a) -ann/-enn: -ternann (§ 40), -labrunn (§ 47), don-ethand (§ 60). The view generally received is that this ending first appeared late in the tenth century; 18 apart from a single instance in a poem attributed to Dallán mac Móire (c. 900; CLH § 1207), the earliest examples in the collection made by James carney occur in the poems of cináed ó hArtucán (died 973; CLH §§ 1151–55).19 (b) -t(a)it: labartait (but the reading is doubtful), labertait (both in § 11). This ending has been discussed by carney; some of the examples which he cites may belong to the old Irish period.20 The most interesting feature of this ending is the date of its disappearance: carney was unable to find any attestations of it later than the poetry of cuán Ó Lothchán (died 1024; CLH §§ 1156–67). (c) -satar/-setar: ro raidsetar (§  11), fo-dercsatar (§  56), fuilngsetar (§ 60). extension of the 3 sg. preterite ending astar/-estar to non-deponent verbs is already attested in the old Irish glosses (e.g. ad-roneestar Wb 4 c 35, ro dligestar Ml 36 a 29); a corresponding extension of plural -satar/-setar took 18. Thus Jackson 1990: 123. 19. carney 1983: 203–06. 20. Ibid.: 200–01.

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place by analogy, evidently considerably later. The Tripartite Life has only three examples of the latter development, two of them closely related; in Saltair na Rann however the ending has been extended to 18 non-deponents, with a total of 22 instances.21 It seems reasonable to see the tenth century as the period in which this wider use of -satar/-setar became common; in TB, the isolation of the examples is highlighted by the fact that the text contains no attestations of the earlier extension of -astar/-estar to non-deponent verbs. If I am correct in seeing all of the forms discussed in this section as the work of a single redactor, the evidence discussed above would suggest a tentative estimate of c. 950–1025 for the time of his activity.

Inflection of Strong Verbs It can be seen from the above that many of the verbal forms in TB are Middle Irish. over all, however, the inflection of strong verbs reflects old Irish usage, with such a high number of conservative forms that it appears reasonable to postulate an old Irish date for the exemplar, rather than to see the forms in question as instances of archaism. Thus we may note the following: (a) s-subjunctive: ad-cí (past pass. -aiciste § 18); ar-icc (past pass. -airesta § 2); con-icc (pass. -coimastar § 92); do-adbat (past 3 pl. taidbsitis § 96); do-icc (past 3 sg. -thised §§ 14, 89); do-roich (past 3 sg. doda-roigsed § 89); in-fét (1 sg. -ecius § 15, past pass. -ecestar § 15); ithid (past 2 pl. -esta § 62); ro-cluinethar (2 pl. at-cloit-si § 42, 3 pl. -cloitis § 73); ro-icc (1 pl. ro-issam § 107); ro-saig (past 3 sg. ro-sossed §§ 53, 86); tarmi-tét (past 3 sg. -tarmtheissed § 82). 21. Jackson 1986: 30.

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(b) reduplicated future: ad-fét (cond. 3 sg. at-fesedh § 66); ad-gainethar (cond. 3 sg. -athgigned § 14); ara-chrin (cond. 3 sg. ar-chiurad § 96); con-icc (cond. 3 pl. -coimsaitis § 99); fo-ceird (cond. 3 sg. fos-cichredh § 89, 96); fo-loing (cond. 3 pl. -foilsatis § 96); in-fét (cond. 1 sg. -eicsind § 86, 90, 3 pl. -eicsitis § 95). (c) t-preterite: ad-gnin (3 pl. at-genatar § 11); ar-eim (3 sg. arroet § 14); at-reig (3 sg. as-reracht §§ 14, 42, 58, 94, 95); do-eissim (3 sg. do-rosat § 25, do-forsat § 82); fo-fich (3 sg. forid-racht § 60); fris-gair (3 sg. fris-cart §§ 20, 66, 68, 86, 3 pl. fris-cartatar § 10); inessuirg (3 sg. -indsort § 60); mairnid (3 sg. mert § 58). (d) reduplicated preterite: do-gní (3 sg. do-gene §§ 4, 19); forcumaing (3 sg. for-coemnacair §§ 13, 15, -forchoimnacair §§ 58, 61). (e) strong preterite passive: ad-cí (-acces § 7); as-beir (as-robrath §§ 16, 17, as-breth § 25); con-beir (cotam-aipred § 10); con-dieig (condiacht § 53); dingid (-decht § 60); do-eipen (-terpad § 23); imm-aig (immom-racht § 12); imm-díben (im-ruidbed § 10); in-fét (-eces § 4); ro-cluinethar (-clos §§ 8, 16, 104); ro-fitir (-fes §§ 2, 53). some of these forms are sufficiently common in later literature that they have little or no evidential value when taken in isolation. For others, however, this is not the case: thus TB appears to be the only text to have preserved the old preterite passive of dingid. old forms of rare words, such as in-essuirg, are also unlikely to be mere conventional survivals.

The Substantive Verb Usage of the relative and conjunct stem fil in the present indicative is not particularly conservative. The following points should be noted: (a) The specifically relative form file appears only once (§ 80), while there are eleven instances of relative fil. (b) There is one clear instance in which -fil’s logical subject is its grammatical object (tindtud followed by nasalisation in

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§ 62). on the other hand, the innovative 3 pl. form is attested twice (fulet (fuilet Y) § 65, failet § 106), with no counterexamples of singular -fil with plural object. (c) Another inflected form of fil appears to be reflected in L’s a failti-si (§ 62); see however the textual note on the passage in question in my edition.22 relative forms without final vowel are attested already in the glosses (Wb 4 c 1, 33 b 18; Ml 121 c 8; Bcr 18 c 4), and the two instances of the 3  pl. inflected form may be secondary—it is suggestive that one of them occurs at the very end of the text, where several other late forms are attested. As it stands, however, the evidence here points away from an early date of composition for TB.

The Copula The following forms are attested in TB: — present: 3 sg. abs. is(s); rel. as (once is); conj. nocho(n), in. 3 pl. abs. it; rel. ata. — present subjunctive: 3 sg. conj. nochobo, mad. 3 pl. conj. ciat[u]. — past subjunctive: 3 pl. conj. comtis. — Future: 3 sg. rel. bas; conj. connaba. — conditional: 3 sg. rel. budh. 3 pl. conj. noptis. — preterite: 3 sg. abs. ba; conj. nibu; rel. nadbu. In general this paradigm conforms with old Irish usage; on ciat[u] and noptis see separate discussion in the textual notes to the edition.23 Nocho(n) is a Middle Irish spelling of nícon: the use of the latter as a negative form of the 3 sg. pres. ind. of the 22. carey 2009: 477. 23. Ibid.: 456, 465.

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copula in ninth-century Irish has been discussed by Thurneysen.24 The absolute relative form bad in the conditional may be compared with bed, attested already in Ml 89 b 7, 105 b 14.

Prepositions some isolated later forms can probably be attributed to the scribal tradition of L. otherwise the evidence for case confusion is limited to a few of the text’s final paragraphs (§§ 92– 100), and to instances of dative for accusative plural: the prepositions involved are etir (iter lamaib § 97), for (for talmandaib vs for talmanda [both in § 92], forna srothaib § 92, fornaib coic cathrachuib § 94), and tar (dar innsib § 94, tairsib § 100). As it happens, most of the relevant passages are omitted in the second recension; but forna srothaib can be matched in YOM, rendering it likely that all of these forms go back to the shared exemplar. The bunching together of these forms at the end of the text suggests that they are the work of the Middle Irish redactor; cf. my remarks above regarding the incidence of univerbation.

Particles Jackson notes that “except for sporadic archaisations, not always correctly used, the o. Ir. preverbal particle nád gave place to ná in M. Ir.”; he goes on to state that although ná has for the most part replaced nád in the Tripartite Life, the older form has survived in eleven cases.25 In L there are four in24. Thurneysen 1946: 538. 25. Jackson 1986: 20.

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stances of nad/nat vs three of na: since the second recension has the later nach in all cases where its readings can be closely compared, we can only conjecture how many of these go back to the TB exemplar. Nád is the spelling generally found in old Irish sources; since nat is attested at Wb 15 d 6, however, the instances of this spelling in TB need not be considered secondary.

conclusions Not surprisingly, perhaps, the evidence is equivocal. As I have indicated at various points in the preceding discussion, the balance between conservative and innovative forms seems to me to be most easily explained on the hypothesis that TB was composed in the ninth century, but passed through the hands of a redactor perhaps c. 1000. It is not possible to be dogmatic, however, especially given that a text which is in other respects so unusual may well have been written in a register different from that of the linguistic witnesses with which I have been comparing it. stokes’s view, that TB may have been written in the tenth century by a writer with a good command of many features of the older language, therefore remains a possibility.

Glossary Apocalypse: A text in which mysteries of the cosmos and/or the supernatural realm are revealed. This revelation may be accomplished through a vision, a visionary journey, the testimony of a preternatural informant, or a combination of these means. Augment: An unstressed element that, in varying contexts and at varying periods, may either precede a verb or be inserted before its stressed syllable. The augment can designate a change in tense or mood, and/or be used to support an infixed pronoun. Bohairic: A dialect of coptic. Céili Dé: “companions of God” or “vassals of God”; members of an ascetic monastic movement in Ireland and scotland that arose in the later eighth century. Columban: An adjective designating the direct or indirect influence of saint columba or colum cille of Iona (died 597), and/or of the monastic federation that regarded columba as its founder. Conjunct particle: A verbal particle following which a simple verb has the endings of a compound verb, and a deuterotonic verb becomes prototonic. Deponent endings: An alternative set of endings in -r found with a restricted number of verbs, increasingly rare after

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the old Irish period. The Irish deponent differs from its Latin counterpart in that its endings only resemble those of the passive, without being identical to them. Determinative: A type of egyptian hieroglyph that is written following the characters designating a word’s sound, in order to give a clearer indication of its sense. Deuterotonic verb: A compound verb with the stress on the second syllable. Early Modern Irish: The Irish language of the period c. 1200–c. 1650. Eschatological: relating to the “last things,” i.e. the end of the world and the fate of the soul after death. Exemplar: A source text, often no longer extant, from which one or more recensions and/or copies derive. Exordium: The formulaic opening of a homily, often built upon a scriptural quotation or pericope. Find mac Cumaill: one of the greatest heroes of Gaelic tradition; already attested in tales of the old Irish period and ubiquitous in the folklore of modern times. Hexaemeral: relating to the Biblical account of the six days of creation. Hiberno-Latin: Latin as written by Irish authors, whether in Ireland or abroad. opinion differs as to whether this can, on formal grounds, be regarded as a distinct variety of Latin. Infixed pronoun: An unstressed personal pronoun, usually designating the direct object, that is inserted between the stressed syllable in a verb and a preceding unstressed element (either a preverb or a conjunct particle). Infixed pronouns are characteristic of old Irish, but their use progressively diminishes during the Middle Irish period. Lapidary: A text describing the properties of various stones. Middle Irish: The Irish language of the period c. 900-c. 1200.

Glossary

177

Old Irish: The Irish language of the period c. 600-c. 900. Pericope: A scriptural quotation opening a homily, and often announcing its theme. Peroration: The formulaic conclusion of a homily, in which the homilist prays for the salvation of himself and his hearers. Prima materia/prime matter: The original undifferentiated substance from which all physical things were made. Prototonic verb: A compound verb with the stress on the first syllable. Recension: A distinct version of a text, comprising one or more manuscript copies. Register: In a pictorial text such as the Amduat, the term used for one of the horizontal sections into which the exposition is divided. Ríched: An Irish word which can be used to mean “heaven” in all of its senses or, more specifically, for the supercelestial “place” of God above the other heavens. In TB it is consistently used in the latter sense. Sahidic: A dialect of coptic. Suffixed pronoun: An unstressed personal pronoun, usually designating the direct object, that is appended to the simple verb that governs it. suffixed pronouns are confined almost entirely to the old Irish period. Univerbation: The conversion of a compound verb to a simple verb. The effects of univerbation are increasingly prominent in the course of the Middle Irish period. Zones: In pre-modern astronomy, five divisions of the heavens, and of the surface of the earth, arranged in bands between north and south. The arctic zones are at the two poles, the torrid zone surrounds the equator, and there is a temperate zone between the latter and each of the former.

General index Abel: 96. Abian, mountains of: 110–11. Abraham: 54. Abuaidi, islands of: 139–40. Achamoth: 63. Adam: 41, 64, 89–92, 96, 109–10, 114, 129, 137, 140–43, 149. adamant: 78–79, 126–27. Africa: 68, 139. air: 58–59, 85–87, 114, 120, 140, 143–45, 149. Alab, tree of: 129. Alien, stream of: 126. Amazons: 82. Ananias: 71–72, 134. angels: 36, 38, 43–44, 53–54, 59–64, 68, 76–77, 92, 99–100, 113, 117–18, 120, 122, 128, 130, 135–36, 138–40, 143, 146–51, 153. Antipater of Bostra: 49.

apocalypses: 27, 38–42, 44, 70, 72, 83, 104. Apophis: 65. apostles: 36, 73, 94, 113. Arabia: 129. Arabs: 111. archangels: 100, 118. Armenia: 82, 142. Assian, spring: 124. Assyrians: 81, 141. Athens: 71–72. Augustine: 45, 76, 92. Aulol, lands of: 127. Aurora Borealis: 87. autumn: 111. Babylon: 96, 149. Baruch: 63. beasts: 113, 116, 121–22, 131– 32, 135, 140, 143–45, 147, 149, 151. Behemoth: 77. Bethlehem: 149. Benedict of Nursia: 47.

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birds: 37, 59, 81–82, 87–89, 113, 116, 130, 132–33, 135, 137–40, 143–45, 147, 149. blasphemy: 37, 131, 134. body, human: 36, 49, 89–92, 104, 113–14, 148. Bóand: 102–103. Boyne: 102–103. cain: 148. campania: 124. carbuncle: 127. caucasus: 141. céili Dé: 60. cephas, shore of: 37, 131, 133. christ: 35–36, 42–44, 53– 55, 64, 69–72, 90, 94–96, 99–100, 104–105, 109, 113–15, 118, 126, 130–32, 140, 142, 148–53, 167. christmas: 96; see also Nativity. cicero 47. comets: 77, 138. concealment: 119, 125, 130, 133. counter-clockwise circumambulation: 103, 133. creation of the world: 109– 10, 113–14, 118, 128, 148– 49.

— before the: 41, 50, 115–16, 140. crucifixion: 94, 96, 114, 130, 149. cú chulainn: 82. cynocephali: 80–81. daimones: 48. Dan, river: 128. Dar, stream of: 127. Dard, lands of: 124. Daughter of Light: 62; see also Virgin of Light. Dead sea: 77, 110, 123. demons: 113, 148–49, 151. destruction of the world: 114–15, 146–49; see also eschatology. Devil: 118, 136, 148–49; see also Lucifer. dialogues: 27, 39–41, 44; see also question-andanswer texts. dracontites: 127. dragons: 68, 86–87, 109, 116, 121, 127–28, 137–38. earth: 35–37, 84, 87, 90–91, 98, 105–06, 109–10, 113– 17, 122–23, 132, 134–35, 138–40, 143, 145, 147–51, 167. east: 110, 123, 132, 135, 137, 139, 147. easter: 98, 104.

General ndex easter vigil: 35, 94–95, 98, 101, 112–13, 126, 149. ebia, island of: 141. ebian, island of: 123. ebión, spring: 124. eden: 63. egypt: 29, 44–68, 70, 74, 101, 104, 123, 149. “emissions”: 59–63, 120. encratites: 70–71, 73–74. england: 30, 78–79, 83, 87. enoch: 64, 68. eó Mugna: 102. epha: 111, 131. eschatology: 83, 99, 104, 136; see also destruction, Judgement. ether: 58–59, 85, 120. ethiopia: 124. eve: 129. ever-New Tongue: 35–36, 41, 98, 109–10, 113, 115– 17, 119, 128, 131, 134–35, 137, 143, 146, 148; see also philip. exegesis: 27. exordium: 27, 98, 109. fanes, precious stone: 78–79, 127–28. Father, God the: 152–53. Find mac cumaill: 93. fire: 32, 65–67, 72, 76, 80, 86–87, 91, 112, 114, 118–

181

22, 125–27, 133, 135–38, 141–42, 144–49, 152. firmament: 37, 62, 84–85, 119, 147. fish: 140–41, 147. Flood: 96, 102, 149. flowers: 91, 110, 114, 118, 137, 139. Fones, tribes of: 142. Friday: 95–96. fruits: 110, 128–30, 133, 143. Gabuen, stars of: 137–38. Galicia: 126. Galilee: 43. glossolalia: 57. Gnostic literature: 41, 44, 49, 55, 63, 68–70, 74, 85. goballus: 88–89. God: 25–26, 35–38, 42, 50, 61, 76–77, 100, 104, 109– 13, 115–19, 122, 128–32, 134–35, 138, 140–44, 146–53. gods: 48, 66. Gomorrah: 96, 149. Gregory the Great: 47, 76. hab, lands of: 127. hadrian: 80. heaven(s): 35–38, 41, 44, 58–59, 63, 68, 70, 72, 75–77, 84–86, 98–99, 105, 109–10, 113–17, 119– 22, 126, 128, 134–35,

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139–40, 143–44, 146–48, 150–51; see also ríched. — seven: 32, 37–38, 84–86, 116–17, 119–21, 147–48, 150. hebrews: 35, 37, 71–73, 77, 101, 113, 115–17, 119, 122, 125–26, 128–31, 135, 137, 143, 146, 148–49, 167; see also Jews. heliotrope: 78–79. hell(s): 36, 38, 42, 99, 115– 16, 118, 122, 131, 134, 136, 143–46, 148, 150, 152. — harrowing of: 94–96, 149, 151. hercynian birds: 77, 139. hermes Trismegistus: 47. hermetic literature: 44–47, 51–52, 59, 68. herodius: 87–89. hexaemeral(-eschatological) literature: 29, 75–77, 85– 86, 101, 119–20. hibien, precious stone: 78, 127. hirúath: 37, 87–89, 132. holy spirit: 36, 90, 94, 98, 113, 153. homilies: 27, 98–101, 109, 153. homodubii: 80–81. horus: 59.

humans, monstrous races of: 37–38, 79–83, 140–43. idolaters: 124, 128. Idumaea: 124. imsitin: see “emissions”. India: 88–89, 123, 126, 132, 141. Indian ocean: 92. Iob, spring: 124. Ior, river: 128. Isidore of seville: 58, 76, 78–79. Isis: 59. istien, precious stone: 78, 127. Itacius: 61. Ithier, tribes of: 141. James: 72. Jerome: 97, 128. Jerusalem: 73, 100–101, 111, 130, 152–53. Jesus: see christ. Jeû, two books of: 64. Jews: 37, 40, 54, 71, 132; see also hebrews. Job: 76–77. John chrysostom: 44. John the Baptist: 44. John the evangelist: 44, 72. Jordan: 128. Judaea: 125, 149. Judah: 132. Judas Iscariot: 132–33.

General ndex “Judas Maccabaeus”: 37, 102, 131–33. Judgement, Day of: 38, 42, 76, 83, 96–97, 112–14, 136–37, 140, 143–49; see also eschatology. Justin: 63. kin-slayers: 124, 128, 148. lakes: 122, 127, 145. languages: 143, 151. — angelic: 35, 39–40, 52– 58, 68, 108, 112–13, 115– 16, 119, 122, 133–35, 138, 140, 144. — Arabic: 55. — Aramaic: 131. — Bohairic: 54. — coptic: 41, 43–44, 53– 54, 65. — hebrew: 39–40, 42, 52, 55, 57, 71–72, 115–16, 133. — old english: 79–81, 85, 89–90, 92, 94–96. — old French: 80–82, 96. — sahidic: 54. — slavonic: 54. — unknown: 44, 53–54, 130, 133. lapidaries: 27. Leviathan: 77, 92–93. Lhuyd, edward: 31. Libya: 124, 127, 142.

183

lies: 78, 125, 128. light: 35–36, 42–44, 68, 71, 76, 90, 99–100, 110, 112, 116, 139, 145, 151–52. lightning: 116, 121, 145, 147. Lucifer: 36, 96, 118, 136; see also Devil. Mac an Leagha, Uilliam: 31. Mac carthaigh riabhach: 30. Mac Fir Bhisigh, Giolla Íosa: 31. Macrobius: 47. Mani: 62–63. Manichaeism: 61–63, 74. Marcus of Memphis: 74. Mariamne: 39, 73. Mary: 53–55, 150. Matthew: 69. May: 139. May Day: 123, 127. Media: 82. memnonius: 78. Memoria apostolorum: 61. Midian: 111. midnight: 38, 93–97, 111, 139–40, 142, 148–49, 167. Mineus: 126. monsters: 37–39, 65–66, 92–93, 123, 131–32, 135, 141, 149, 151; see also sea–beasts.

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moon: 31, 77, 84–86, 99– 100, 110, 112, 116–17, 119, 127, 130, 147, 152. Moses: 36, 98, 113. Mount of olives: 33, 42–44, 53, 69. music: 78, 81–82, 113, 120, 122, 126, 128, 130, 133, 137–39, 141–43, 148. Nabataea: 129–30. Naboth, island of: 139. Nabuan, mountain of: 125. Nathaben, tree: 102–03, 129–30. Nativity: 39, 96, 126, 132, 149; see also christmas. Nechtan son of Labraid: 102. Neoplatonism: 48, 68. New Kingdom: 64. noise: 35, 112–13, 141. north: 121, 123, 136, 138. Northumbria: 87. odaib, islands of: 80, 141. olympus: 85, 120. origen: 49–50. ostrich: 89. palestine: 130. paradise: 64, 99–100, 102, 129, 136–37, 139, 148, 152. Paradisus Auium: 130, 137.

passover: 96, 149. paul: 42. pentecost: 76–77. pericope: 98, 109. peroration: 27, 98. peter: 69. pharaoh: 149, 167. pharasmanes II: 80–82. philip: 35–40, 43, 46, 52, 68–73, 94, 98, 101, 113, 115, 133–34; see also ever-New Tongue. pillars: 118, 121–22. plagues: 93, 121–22, 129, 137–39, 149. planets: 84–85. plotinus: 49. poison: 78, 123, 127, 129. prime matter: 36, 41, 45–47, 50–52, 76, 117–18, 148– 49. prince of Fire: 61. prince of Moisture: 61. priscillian of Avila: 60–61, 73–75. priscillianists: 61, 63, 73–74, 101. punishments: 66, 143, 145. pygmies: 77, 141. question-and-answer texts: 40–41, 89–91, 93; see also dialogues.

General ndex races: see humans. rain: 61–62, 78, 116, 120. — of fire: 126, 147. rameses: 149. re: 65–67. red sea: 77, 96, 110, 123, 132, 149. resurrection: 36, 42–44, 49, 53, 70, 95–96, 98, 104, 110, 113–14, 142, 148. revelation discourses: 29, 42– 44, 68–69, 74, 101, 104. ríched: 36, 115–17, 120, 151; see also heaven. rivers: 110, 123, 125, 135, 139, 144, 152–53. — of fire: 126, 135, 147. rosetau, underworld region: 66. rosualt: 93. roundness: 36, 45–50, 117, 148. sab, islands of: 96, 123, 129, 137, 149. saba: 111. sabairnd, islands of: 111. sabes: 139. saints: 100, 148, 151, 153. sames, tree: 102, 128. sea(s): 26, 37, 41, 75, 87–88, 90, 112, 114, 116–18, 120– 23, 128, 131, 135–38, 140– 41, 143–46, 148–52.

185

— of fire: 122, 135, 138, 149. sea-beasts: 37, 92–93, 113, 116, 138, 143–44, 151; see also monsters. selenites: 127. seon, spring: 124. serpents: 64–67, 87, 92, 113, 116, 124, 127, 143. seventy-two: 32, 39, 124, 135, 138, 143. siloe: 125. simon peter: 131. singing: 111–12, 117, 120, 122, 130, 133, 137–40, 142, 148, 152. sirius: 138. snow: 87, 116, 120, 123, 126, 139, 141, 145. socrates: 26. sodom: 96, 149. sokar: 66. solis gemma: 127. son of God: see christ. souls: 47–50, 68, 70, 76, 85, 91, 110, 117, 145, 148–52. south: 122–23, 130, 133, 136. spain: 73–74, 80, 101, 126. sphericality: see roundness. spring (season): 111. springs: 37, 77, 110, 123–25. stars: 37, 42, 77, 84, 99– 100, 110, 114, 116–17, 120,

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127–28, 130, 135, 137–38, 141, 143, 147, 151–52. — shooting: 119. stones, precious: 37, 63, 77– 79, 88–89, 122–23, 126– 28, 129. streams: 32, 65, 83, 99–100, 116, 123, 125–26, 135–36, 144, 147. — of fire: 32, 147. súgmairi: 93. summer: 110–11, 138–39. sun: 32, 37, 42, 65–68, 77– 78, 84–88, 90, 92–93, 99– 100, 109–10, 112, 114, 116– 17, 120–21, 125, 127, 130, 132–33, 135, 147, 151–52. — night journey: 37, 41, 64–68, 83, 135–137. sunday: 91, 95–96, 122, 125, 137–38. synaesthesia: 112. Tagus: 126. Tarshish: 111. Tebe, islands of: 126. Theophilus of Alexandria: 49. Thomas: 69. thunder: 58, 71–72, 78, 86, 112, 116, 118, 121–22, 125, 127, 147. Thutmosis I: 64. tides: 92–93, 122–23, 136.

torments, island of: 83, 125. torments, valley of: 136, 144. Tree of Knowledge: 64. Tree of Life: 64, 102, 129. trees: 37, 41, 63–64, 68, 75, 102, 122, 128–30, 133, 140, 143. Trinity: 134. Valentinian Gnostics: 63. Virgin of Light: 61; see also Daughter of Light. voice: 112–13, 133, 138, 140, 142, 145. warrior women: 82, 142. water: 37, 122, 127, 144. waters, celestial: 85, 119. well: 102–03. west: 122–23, 135, 147. Wernes, underworld region: 65–66. whales: 89, 123, 132, 141, 147, 150. winds: 58–59, 76–77, 87, 90–91, 112–14, 116, 120– 22, 126–27, 133, 135, 139, 145, 147–48. winter: 110–11, 123, 127, 132, 139. Zion: 33, 35, 101, 110–12, 124–25, 129, 133. zodiac: 77, 121. zones: 37, 41, 77, 119, 121. Zoroastrianism: 62.

index of scriptural references Genesis 1: 27. — 1:1: 35, 98–99, 109, 115. — 1:7: 108, 119. — 1:9: 45. — 1:26: 140, 142. — 3:22–23: 102, 129. — 22:17: 144. — 32:12: 144. Exodus 20:18: 112. Deuteronomy 5:22: 42. Job 3:7: 135. — 39:13–18: 89. Psalms 72:9: 111. — 103:17: 87–88. — 139:18: 144. — 148:7–8: . Sirach 18:1: 76, 118. Isaiah 14:13: 136. — 30:26: 112, 151. — 34:4: 147. — 60:6: 111. Jeremiah 33:22: 144.

Matthew 13:42: 146. — 13:43: 151. — 13:50: 146. — 17:1–8: 43. — 22:30: 151. — 25:34: 152. — 25:41: 118. — 27: 45–46: . — 28:1–2: 95. Mark 3:17: 72. — 9:1–8: 43. — 13:3: 42. — 14:26: 42. — 15:34: 55. Luke 9:28–36: 43. — 23:44: 94. John 1:42: 131. Acts 1:12: 42. — 2:1–12: 101, 111. — 2:15: 94. — 26:13–14: 42. 1 Corinthians 1:12, 3:22, 9:5, 15:5: 131.

188 Galatians 2:9: 131. 2 Peter 1:16–19: 43. Revelation: 83. — 1:12: 112. — 6:12: 147. — 6:13: 147.

the ever-new tongue — 6:14: 147. — 7:1: 147. — 13:1–4: 132. — 20:8: 144. — 21:23: 152. — 22:2: 102, 129.

index of sources Acta Archelai: 62. Acts of Philip: 29, 39–41, 52, 68–73, 102, 104. — I: 71. — II: 29, 40, 71–72, 74, 101, 133–34. — III-VII: 70–71. — VI: 71. — VIII-XV: 70. Acts of Pilate: 52. Admoneo uos: 99. Adomnán, Vita Sancti Columbae: 47. Airbertach mac coisse, “ro-fessa i curp domuin dúir”: 130. Airne Fíngein: 102. Altus Prosator: 75, 129. Amduat: 64–67. Amra Coluim Chille: 93. Anaxagoras: 51. Anaximander: 50–51. Annals of Ulster: 86, 156, 160. Antiphonary of Bangor: 94.

Apocalypse of Abraham: 54. Apocalypse of Peter: 125. Apocalypse of Thomas: 83, 136, 147–48. Apostolic Constitutions: 94. Apuleius, Metamorphoses: 64. Aristides Quintilianus, De musica: 48–49. Asclepius: 46, 68. Augustine — De Genesi ad litteram: 45, 50, 76. — De Genesi contra Manichaeos: 45, 76. — De natura boni contra Manichaeos: 62. — Epistulae: 136. — Sermones: 99. Augustinus hibernicus, De mirabilibus sacrae scripturae: 118. Bede, De natura rerum: 50, 76. Blathmac: 84. Bobbio computus: 97.

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Book of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ by Bartholomew the Apostle: 44, 53. caesarius of Arles: 150. carlsruhe glosses on Bede: 171. cassian, Institutes: 94–95. Catechesis Celtica: 91–92, 96, 99. chrysippus of soli, scholia on the Iliad. cináed ó hArtucán: 168. clementine Recognitions: 54. Collectanea, pseudo-Bedan: 83, 88–89, 147; see also De quindecim signis. columbanus — Instructiones: 26. — Precamur Patrem: 150. commodian: 150. Comrad arin Aíne: 96. Corpus Hermeticum. — III: 51. — VIII: 47, 51–52. cuán Ó Lothchán: 168. Dallán mac Móire: 168. Damian, peter, Opusculum 59: 83, 147. “Damigeron”: 78–79, 83. De Chophur in Dá Muccida: 87. De diuisionibus temporum: 97.

De mundi celestis terrestrisque constitutione: 92–93. De quindecim signis: 83, 146–47; see also Collectanea. De ratione conputandi: 97. De tribus habitaculis: 150–51. “Dénaid cáin Domnaig Dé dil”: 96. Dindṡenchas Érenn: 103. Dúan in Choícat Cest: 137. Durham Ritual: 92. Encomium on Saint John the Baptist: 44. 1 Enoch: 135. 2 Enoch: 63. epiphanius of salamis, Panarion: 70. Epistil Ísu: 95. eriugena, Periphyseon: 105. evodius, De fide contra Manichaeos: 62. Expositio in primum librum Moysis: 85. Fís Adomnáin: 85. Glossa in Psalmos: 87–89. “Gnímhradha in sheseadh lái láin”: 96. Gospel of Nicodemus: 95. Gregory the Great — Dialogues: 47. — Moralia in Iob: 76–77, 110, 118, 136.

ndex of Sources hippolytus, Refutatio omnium haeresium: 63. History of Joseph the Carpenter: 54. Iamblichus: 48. Immram Curaig Úa Corra: 137. Immram Snédgusa ocus Maic Ríagla: 103, 137, 140. In die sancto Pasce: 96. Indiculus de haeresibus: 61. Irenaeus, Refutatio omnium haeresium: 63. Isidore of seville — Differentiae: 76. — Etymologiae: 77, 80–82, 119–20, 123–29, 138–39, 141. Jerome: 128, 150. Lebor Gabála: 45. Letter of Peter to Philip: 43, 69. “Letter of pharasmanes”: see Wonders of the East. Liber Commonei: 98. Liber de numeris: 84–85, 91– 92, 120. Liber de ordine creaturarum: 58, 75, 84, 105–06, 118, 151. Liber hymnorum: 31. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations: 48. Marianus scotus: 86.

191

Marsanes: 49. Martyrdom of Matthew: 52. Martyrdom of Philip: 70–71. Maximus the confessor, Ambigua ad Iohannem: 105. Milan glosses: 168, 172. “Monastery of Tallaght”: 60. Munich computus: 97. Mysteries of Saint John the Apostle and Holy Virgin: 44. Nauigatio Sancti Brendani: 103, 130, 137, 139. Odes of Solomon: 64. Óengus mac Óengobann, Féilire Óengusso: 84, 159. orosius — Consultatio sive commonitorium de errore Priscillianistarum et Origenistarum: 61. — Historiae aduersum paganos: 82, 130. ovid, Metamorphoses: 51. Páis Pilip Apstail: 36. Pauca problesmata de enigmatibus: 58–59, 84– 85, 120–21. philo of Alexandria, De uita Mosis: 112. Pistis Sophia: 41, 44, 53, 63– 64, 69.

192

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plato. — Theaetetus: 26. — Timaeus: 48. pliny the elder, Historia naturalis: 77, 121, 127–28. plotinus, Enneads: 48. Prebiarum de multorium exemplaribus: 94. proclus, Commentaria in Cratylum: 48. Psalms of Solomon: 64. pseudo-Augustine, Sermo 157: 99. pseudo-Bede, commentary on Exodus: 95. Qur’ān: 26. Ríagail na Céle nDé: 60, 153. Saltair na Rann: 25, 58, 77, 84–86, 139, 143–44, 153, 160, 162, 165, 169. Scéla Lái Brátha: 143–44. Scéla na Esérgi: 110. Sibylline Oracles: 125. “síd Nechtain sund forsin tṡléib”: 102–03.

Škand-Gumānīk Vičār: 62. Solomon and Saturn: 40–41. Sophia of Jesus Christ: 43, 69. Táin Bó Cúailnge: 82. “Tánic teirt, dénamm tarbai”: 94. Tertullian, On Prayer: 94. Testament of Isaac: 125. Testament of Job: 53. Theodoret, Haereticarum fabularum compendium: 62. Transitus Mariae: 54. Treatise on the Psalter, old Irish: 160. Tripartite Life of Patrick: 159–60, 162–63, 165–66, 169, 172. Turin glosses: 162. Venantius Fortunatus: 150. Visio Sancti Pauli: 52, 83, 125, 136. Wonders of the East: 79–83. Würzburg glosses: 134, 157, 168, 171, 173.

Apocryphes collection de poche de l’aelac Volumes parus 1. L’Évangile de Barthélemy, par Jean-Daniel Kaestli, avec la collaboration de pierre cherix, 1993, 281 p. 2. Ascension d’Isaïe, par enrico Norelli, 1993, 186 p. 3. Histoire du roi Abgar et de Jésus, par Alain Desreumaux, 1993, 184 p. 4. Les Odes de Salomon, par Marie-Joseph pierre, avec la collaboration de Jean-Marie Martin, 1994, 225 p. 5. L’Épître des Apôtres et le Testament de notre Seigneur, par Jacques-Noël pérès, 1994, 152 p. 6. Salomon et Saturne, par robert Faerber, 1995, 209 p. 7. Actes de l’apôtre André, par Jean-Marc prieur, 1995, 209 p. 8. Les Actes de l’apôtre Philippe, par François Bovon, Bertrand Bouvier & Frédéric Amsler, 1996, 318 p. 9. L’Évangile de Nicodème, par rémi Gounelle & Zbigniew Izydorczyk, 1997, 273 p. 10. Les reconnaissances du Pseudo-Clément, par Luigi cirillo & André schneider, 1997, 652 p. 11. Les Actes de Mar Mari, par christelle Jullien & Florence Jullien, 2001, 175 p. 12. La Gloire des Rois, par robert Beylot, 2008, 490 p. 13. Les Apôtres Thaddée et Barthélemy, par Valentina calzolari, 2011, 260 p. 14. The Syriac Pseudo-Clementines, par F. stanley Jones, 2014, 354 p. 15. The Ever-New Tongue, par John carey, 2018, 208 p.