Barlaam and Josaphat

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“Saint Josaphat” redirects here. For the 16th century saint, see Jozafat Kuncewicz.

Saint Josaphat
Saint Josaphat preaching Christianity. 12th century Greek manuscript
Born	unknown
Died	4th Century, India
Venerated in	Eastern Orthodox Church
Feast	November 27
Saints Portal

Barlaam and Josaphat are said to have lived and died in the 3rd century or 4th century in India. Josaphat's story appears to be in many respects a Christianized version of Gautama Buddha’s story.

According to legend, a King Abenner or Avenier in India persecuted the Christian Church in his realm, founded by the Apostle Thomas. When astrologers predicted that his own son would some day become a Christian, Abenner had the young prince Josaphat isolated from external contact. Despite the imprisonment, Josaphat met the hermit Saint Barlaam and converted to Christianity. Josaphat kept his faith even in the face of his father’s anger and persuasion. Eventually, Abenner himself converted, turned over his throne to Josaphat, and retired to the desert to become a hermit. Josaphat himself later abdicated and went into reclusion with his old teacher Barlaam.

The story of Barlaam and Josaphat was popular in the Middle Ages, appearing in such works as the Golden Legend. Although Barlaam and Josaphat were never formally canonized, they were included in earlier editions of the Roman Martyrology (feast day 27 November) - though not in the Roman Missal - and in the Eastern Orthodox Church liturgical calendar (26 August).

There is no evidence that either ever existed. Wilfred Cantwell Smith traced the story from a 2nd to 4th century Sanskrit Mahayana Buddhist text, to a Manichee version, which then found its way into Muslim culture as the Arabic Kitab Bilawhar wa-Yudasaf, which was current in Baghdad in the 8th century. The first Christianized adaptation was the Georgian epic Balavariani dating back to the 10th century. A Georgian monk Euthymius of Athos translated the story into Greek, some time before he was killed while visiting Constantinople in 1028. There the Greek adaptation was translated into Latin in 1048 and soon became well known in Western Europe as Barlaam and Josaphat.

Recent linguistic and geographic research of the spread of Buddha’s tale across Asia and Europe also points toward the saint’s name and tale originating with Buddha. Josaphat’s name may be traced to the Sanskrit term bodhisattva via the Middle Persian bodasif. Investigation by researchers at the Korean Seoul National University indicates that the name Buddha or Bodhisatta in Sanskrit changed to Bodisav in Persian texts in the sixth or seventh century, then to Budhasaf or Yudasaf in an eighth-century Arabic document, and Iodasaph in Georgia in the 10th century. That name was then adapted to Ioasaph in Greece in the 11th century, and Iosaphat or Josaphat in Latin since then. Besides their names, the stories of the two individuals are strikingly similar. [1] Author Holger Kersten proposes an alternate explanation: that "Josaphat" is derived from the Arabic "Judasaf" or "Budasaf", as written in an Urdu version of the tale. He ties this name to Yuz Asaf, a holy figure identified with Jesus by the Ahmadis. This idea, which proposes Jesus escaped crucifixion and died in India, was first introduced to the west by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. However, "Yuz Asaf" is simply the Persian and Urdu pronunciation of the Arabic Yūdhasaf, and does not go back any farther than the Arabic story, which is itself demonstrably derived from Buddhist stories.

The story of Josaphat was re-told as an exploration on free will against fate in the 17th century Spanish play La vida es sueño (Life is a dream) by Pedro Calderón de la Barca. In The Romantic School, [2] Heinrich Heine called it the "blood of the holy poetic arts in the German Middle Ages."