The Voynich Ninja

Continuing about the Alexander's Gate.

Genesis 2:2 tells about "The sons of Japheth: Gomer, and Magog, and Madai..."

Ezekiel 38 tells about how all those guys, like Gog and many with them, will come from their place from the uttermost parts of the north (ap eskhaton borra), and that day, to put it short, will be a pity to many.

Anderson dedicates some pages to the discussion of the region of Gog and Magog (south to the Caucasus, and also north of that), and also of how, in course of time, different tribes were associated with them (scythians, goths...)

Now, the figure of Alexander as a recognized king and hero (importantly, also in the Jewish tradition), became mingled with the legend of Gog and Magog. As Anderson describes, this was due to a series of misconceptions and was not a one-time event - rather a historical process.

As an early step of this fusion, Anderson quotes a lengthy passage from "Sermo de fine extremo", which is ascribed to Ephraem Syrus. Some authors, e.g. Noeldeke or, already after Anderson, Czegledy (see You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and references therein, free registration required) argue that "Sermo" must be of 7th century AD and thus could not have been written by Ephraem Syrus, but Anderson does not share that opinion.

It was a pity that no text of "Sermo" is available in the internet, so I had to spare no little time to type this passage myself!

Quote:5. Tunc divina iustitia advocat reges exercitusque fortissimos, qui sunt ultra illas portas quas fecit Alexander, et surgent ultra portas illas reges et populi multi, et aspicient coelum, invocantes nomen Dei. Annuente autem Deo de coelo suo glorioso, resonabit in portis illis vox divina et in iussu Dei illico portae cadent et subvertentur et exibunt exercitus innumeri et stellae coeli, immo plus quam stellae coeli, innumeri sicut arena maris. Consumpta e superliminare inferiori mensura spithamae et e superliminari superiori etiam spithama a multitudine cuspidum hastarum lacerantium et exeuntum, exinde exeunt cum trepidatione reges et copiae multae; omnes populi ac linguae exeunt per portas illas: Agog et Magog et Naval et Agag, reges et exercitus validissimi, Thogarma, Ascenez et Daiphar et Phutaei cum Lybiis, Amzartaei, et Garmidul, Taleb in capite Sanurtanorum, Azmurtaei, Chusaei, Hunni et Pharzaei, Declaei Thubalaei, et Moschaei cum Chusaeis, quos comitantur Medi et Persae et Armeni, et Turcae et Nemruchaei, et Muschaei filii Chaeon, et Sarugaei filii Jactin et Mahunaei; exercitus et populi multi, quorum non est numerus, erumpunt et invadunt terras; commoventur fundamenta orbis, arena velut fumus ascendit e terra, occultat in alto solem et operit terram velut atra nubes, sicut prophetavit Ezechiel, Buzi filius, in sua prophetia.

6. Etenim, ubi Hunni ad bellum et pugnam exeunt, assumunt mulieres gravidas et conglomerant ignem supra illas, et accedentes incantant supra illas et sic coquunt foetum in ventre earum, ventre autem sciso, extrahunt foetum; quum foetus extraxerunt, ponunt eos in discis et proiiciunt aquas super eos et separant eorum membra in aquis incantatis et assumunt gladios suos et arcus hastasque ac sagittas atque intrumenta intingunt in hisce aquis. Tota supellex quam tetigerunt aquae incantatae ipsis apparet veluti ac si secum multitudinem sex millium secum haberent quando unus es eis cadit in praelio dum decertatur. Omnis qui extendit manum educit simul cultrum. Manducant carnem infantium et sanguinem mulierum bibunt. Pelle militum induti et veluti vento et procellis vecti, in ictu oculi subvertunt urbes, ad terram disiiciunt muros eorum, diruunt arces munitas, celeri cursu alligant et trucidant viros fortissimos. Vento et procella velociores sunt dum currunt. Ubi in regione rumor spargitur egressos advenire Hunnos, undique e toto orbe surgere videntur quia incantatores sunt; inter coelum et terram currus eorum veluti venti volant; gladii eorum hastaeque ut fulgura terribila coruscant, frena manibustenentes duos vel tres equos dirigunt; unusquisque ducit secum quinquaginta vel sexaginta homines qui praeeunt et sequuntur celeres ut venti et procellae; clamores eorum rugitus sunt leonum; formidandi enim Hunni terrent universam terram, quam totam operiunt ut aquae in diebus Noe; se extendent usque ad extremitates orbis, nec est qui stet coram eis.

7. Hic est populus ille multus, de quo dixit Ezechiel (xxxviii, 16) quod veluti nubes operit terram.

Anderson is not in a habit of providing translation - I guess that knowledge of Latin, Greek and three-four modern languages is implied for readers of The Mediaeval Academy of America. So, as a product of modern mass education, I had to resort to Google. It looks like the author speaks of the Gate built by Alexander, beyond which there are folks who will break free when the day comes. He also describes Huns and seems to hint that it is Huns that Ezechiel speaks of under the name of Gog (I guess the reference to the chapter is by Anderson). This is in line with that (as Anderson tells us), as early as Josephus, Gog and Magog were associated with Scythians. And Huns, as subset of Scythians (in the interpretation of ancient people) took the role in this play when they invaded through the Caucasus in 395.

Here Alexander's Gate does not occupy the central place yet, but the overall framework paves the way for suggesting that Alexander built the Gate exactly to exclude biblical Gog and Magog - which suggestion is then indeed put forward by later authors.

I'll continue later.

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is a Florentine humanistic manuscript of Bede's De Tabernaculo. It dates to the XV Century, but I don't know if it belongs to the first or the second part of the Century. Our passage is at f.231v and has "amianthon".
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About "Sermo de fine extremo," if I understand correctly, the Latin translation was written by You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., who published it You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. There is a footnote about Alexander's gates; it mentions Pliny VI,II (whose relevance is not clear to me), a "Syro-Armenian chronicle of Michel the Patriarch" and a poem ("carmen") by Jacob of Serugh. It seems that, according to Syriac sources, the gates were made of bronze and iron ("aere et ferro").

Since the passage from the sermon is enjoyable, and Lamy's Latin accessible, here is my rough translation (I have not made much efforts to properly translate the long list of peoples and leaders).

5. Then divine justice calls very powerful kings and armies, which are beyond those gates that were made by Alexander; and many kings and peoples gather on the other side of those gates,  and they look at the sky invoking the name of God. God agrees, from his glorious sky: the divine voice sounds in those gates and, by God's command, suddenly those gates fall and are destroyed and innumerable armies, as many as the stars in the sky, even more than the stars in the sky, innumerable as the sand of the sea, come out. The upper lintel is consumed by the measure of a span, and the lower lintel also by a span, by a multitude of spear points that lacerate as they come out; from there many kings and armies exit in trepidation; all peoples and languages exit through those gates: Agog and Magog, and Naval and Agag, very powerful kings and armies, Thorgama, Ascenez and Daiphar and Phutans with Libyans, Amzartans, and Garmidul, Taleb as the leader of Sanurtans, Azmurtans, Chusans, Huns and Pharzans [Farsis?], Declans Thubalans, and Moschans [Muscovites?] with Chusans, who are joined by Medes and Persians and Armenians and Turks and Nemruchans and Chaeon son of a Muschan, and Jactin son of a Sarugan, and Mahunans; many armies and peoples, without number, come out and invade the lands; the foundations of the world are shaken, dust rises as smoke from the earth, it hides the sun high above and covers earth as black clouds, as announced by Ezekiel, son of Buzi, in his prophecy.

6. Also, as the Huns come out to war and battle, they take pregnant women and gather fire upon them, and putting them to fire they chant incantations above them and so they cook the foetus in their womb; cutting the womb, they extract the foetus; the extracted foetuses are put in trays and they pour water upon them, and they divide their limbs in enchanted water; they take their swords, bows and spears and arrows and they dip their weapons in that water. All tools that are touched by the enchanted water make it seem that, when one of them falls in the battle where he was fighting, he had with him a multitude of six thousands. Everyone who extends his hand at the same time draws a knife. They eat the flesh of children and drink the blood of women. Wearing leather armour, and as carried by the wind and the storm, they conquer cities in the wink of an eye, bring their walls to the ground, destroy fortified citadels; they move fast and kill very strong men. When they run, they are faster than the wind and the storm. Whenever in a region there is a rumour that the Huns are coming, they seem to appear everywhere in the whole world, because they are enchanters; their chariots fly as the wind between the sky and the earth; their swords and spears strike as terribly as lightning; they command two or three horses holding the reins in their hands; each of them leads five or six hundred of men who precede or follow as fast as the wind and the storm; their noise is the roaring of lions; indeed the formidable Huns terrify the whole world, which they entirely cover, as the waters at the times of Noah. They reach to the end of world, and nobody can stand before them.

7. This is that numerous people about which Ezekiel said that they cover the earth like clouds (xxxviii,16).

From English Recusant Literature, Volume 281 (1603):

"There is a certaine stone, or substance, whiche we Grecians* calle Amianthon, of that nature, that it is not with fire to be consumed. For being put in the flame, it semeth to be burnt unto coles, but being taken out of the fier, it appereth more pure, as doth water being clarified. Such were the bodies of those three children in Babylon, having thorough fasting, the unconsumptible nature of the Amianthon. For in the great flame of the fornaise, they, being as of the nature of golde, did overcome all the force of the fier. Yea they appeared to be of muche more excellenencie, then golde. For the fire dyd not mealt them, but preserved them whole. Yea and that, when nothing inthe worlde did stay or keepe backe the flame. But contrary, Naptha, a kinde of naturall, and unquencheable lime, pitche, and small twygges, dyd so nourrishe it, that it was spread the length of xlix cuites, and so seeding rounde about consumed many of the Chaldeans. The children then being entred, with bodies purified by fasting, ded treade under their feete, and overcomme that deadly fier, breathing a moiste aire, as it were a sweet dewe, upon that vehement fier whiche yet durst not touche so muche as their heare, bicause the same had ben bred and nourished by fasting."

From Johannes Bodini Methods... (1650):

Theophrastus in illa conclusione distinxit alioqui fatendum erit, ejusdem animalis (est autem Academicorum omnium acipfius Theophrasti consensu mundus hic animal) alteram partem, et quidem corpoream, ita coagmentatum, ut partim interest, partim interitus sit expers quae tam ridicula mihi videntur, quam quae Aristoteles ex avorum memoria, disputans, neminem ait interitus coeli meminisse at isto modo aurum, vel adamantem, vel amianthon adamante duriorem, aut etiam ferrum illud quod in Darie nullis ignibus liquescere fertur, sempiternum affirmare, cum nullus meminerit haec a seipsis interitum sensisse..."

Picking up the story of the Alexander's Gate which I left halfways 1,5 years ago.

From "Sermo de fine extremo" Anderson moves on to other sources to show the historical development of the concept. He first considers the Syrian "Christian Legend concerning Alexander" which is currently dated to the first half of 7th century - not the document (there's no original document preserved), but the narrative as such. An English translation was made by Budge, available in his You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., page 144 onwards.

The very annotation specifies at once the notion of the gate: "...how he went forth to the ends of the world, and made a gate of iron..." In a few pages the Syrian story comes to the point when Alexander, travelling with his troops, enters Armenia and Azerbaijan and goes farther, and finally comes to a great mountain and has a talk with the local folks, and asks them: "who are the nations within this mountain upon which we are looking?", and the folks reply that those nations are Huns, and their kings are "Gog and Magog and Nawal the kings of the sons of Japhet..." etc. (a lengthy list follows).

Then Alexander addresses his troops suggesting that they do something wonderful in this land, and as the troops are enthusiastic, Alexander fetches 3000 (no less!) workers in iron and 3000 workers in brass, and they make a gate and also a "lower threshold from mountain to mountain", and then also an "upper threshold", and some bolts of iron, and hammer all that construction into the rocks of the mountains. And the gate and its posts are then covered with "kneaded" iron and brass "like a man when he moulds clay".

Note that no special substance is reported here as yet, brass and iron do well.

Then Alexander makes a prophetic inscription upon the gate about how Huns shall go forth and conquer the lands of the Romans and of the Persians, and after 826 years there will be quite a mess, and the rest of this dismal forecast is better consulted directly from the Budge's book, beginning from page 154.

Some authors argue that the Sermo derives from this Syrian legend, but Anderson explains that conceptually it does not look so. The major shift is that "Alexander, instead of building the gate as a pagan king, builds it as a worshipper, a champion, and an instrument of God; instead of building it to exclude the Scythians, Alans, or various tribes called Huns, he builds it to exclude their Biblical equivalents Gog and Magog... The apocalyptic versions, instead of recognizing that the gate has frequently been passed since the time of Alexander... forecast that the Huns, or Gog and Magog, would go forth through it only after a long time...; they associate its opening with the prophecy of Ezekiel, especially 38:20,... with Revelation 20:7, and even with Jewish ideas of eschatology and the Last Days" [Anderson, p. 24-25].

As we saw earlier, the Sermo features apocalyptic motifs already, but within it "Alexander is mentioned but casually and... but a pagan king" [Anderson, p.24], so it's unlikely that it post-dates the Christian Legend.

Another shift of the "apocalyptic" variants is that "the Gate itself became itinerant, and to preserve its mysterious character receded to remote places... of this both the Hereford and the Ebstorf maps give ample evidence" [p. 25]

[To be continued]

The next Syrian source that Anderson explores is the so-called "Discourse" or "Homily" formerly attributed to Jacob of Sarug, who was another renowned Syrian Christian author. Presently this attribution is considered to be wrong, as the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. by Ciancaglini suggests. She does not provide detailed explanation why it is so, but I guess that is because the Discourse is considered to be based on the Christian Legend, and given the latter's dating to 7th century and the fact that Jacob of Sarug died in 521, he could not have been the author. There is another possibility though, that the Discourse does not derive directly from the Christian Legend, but rather they derive from the same common source. As Anderson notes, this possibility was suggested by Bousset. This way or the other, the Discourse and the Christian Legend have the general plot in common indeed.

This Discourse is a poem of ~700 lines, and an English translation is available in the same book by Budge (page 163 onwards). The gate is the central motif here as well, which is accented by its presence in the title. The gate is made against "Agog and Magog" explicitly. The poet depicts Alexander, who gathers ships for his journey, as a provident manager (lines 85-86):

King Alexander made ready iron and brass a great quantity
And in his wisdom he filled the ships therewith.

When the poem comes to Alexander's asking about the nations, the nations are no more called "Huns", but are called "peoples of the house of Japhet and of the house of Magog" (215), "the family of Agog and the family of Magog" (243).

Beginning from line 340, the bard describes the building of the gate:

Then he courageously took pains and made the door
Against Agog and the family of Magog and bound them

Again, the gate is fortified with iron and brass. This time not just 6000, but 12000 workmen (from Egypt) are employed, and thresholds and bolts and posts are cunningly implemented. The construction took six months, after which

Ambassadors went forth into the countries and lands and proclaimed
The great work of the terrible door which the king had made (382-383)

This "door of all doors" motif is new, as compared to the Christian Legend.

After the construction, Alexander suggests to burn incense "for a sweet smell to the Lord" (391). Then Alexander has a vision wherein the Lord advises him through an angel (429 ff):

This great gate which thou hast made in this land
Shall be closed until the end of times cometh.
Jeremiah also prophesied concerning it and the earth had heard,
The gate of the north shall be opened on the day of the end of the world,
And on that day shall the evil go forth on the wicked

That will occur on the "seven thousandth year".

Then shall Antichrist rise upon the whole earth,
Through that gate shall go forth and come that rebel (654-655)

"The identification of Gog and Magog" with the hosts of the Antichrist is already in progress", - notes Anderson.

Yet another Syrian source is the brief life of Alexander previously attributed to Dionysius of Tell-Mahre (9th century), the Swedish translation of which was made by Hedenskog in 1868. I was not able to find the English version to check what the gate was constructed of. Anderson does not comment upon that, but says that the gate is given no eschatological significance in this story.

[To be continued]

Yeah it's an interesting read. And Anton is the right guy to sink his teeth into ANchiTON

I follow everything as diligently as possible, whether I understand or not is a different matter.

Although this is interesting, I am wondering what is the use of an isolated gate in the wilderness unless it is defended by a garrison? It would be as much use as an empty castle. Certainly the people of the time would have understood this point very well.

So, myth, legend, fantasy - yet surely a good story needs to be at least somewhat plausible? Of course it is possible I have forgotten something since the start of this account.

I think by medieval times the gates would be seen more like a magical barrier between two worlds (the world of men and the hellish world of Gog and Magog). The wild peoples within are contained until the end times. They don't really see the gate in military terms, it is more like a seal that, when broken, will unleash havoc upon the world.

Now the "anchiton" substance may have come into play because of this - to validate the gate's supernatural holding power in absence of any army or garrison.