medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Dear brother Ambrose,
It is true – the “Nicodemus’ Gospel” is composed by 2 parts: “Acta/Gesta
Pilati” ( ÐñÜîåéò ÐéëÜôïõ) and the Christ descent in the Hell. According to
one of the best connoisseurs of the apocrypha J-P. Migne the authors of
both parts are anonymous. One can not indicate precisely when the texts
were conflated – the most ancient manuscript where the texts have been seen
together seems to be the Latin manuscript of Einsiedeln, Xth century. But
the second part has its own Greek versions (4 manuscripts in The
Bibliotheque imperiale, 2 in the Library of Munich, 1 in Vatican, and 1 in
Venise ( J.-P. Migne, Dictionnaire des apocryphes ou tous les livres
apocryphes, Paris, 1856, vol. I, col. 1092). In addition to that I should
mention the fact that the other work containing the majestic scene of
Christ descent in the Hell – “Epiphanius homily”, attributed of St.
Epiphanius of Cypre, IVth century, is written entirely in Greek (Homelie
d’Epiphane sur l’ensevelissement du Christ par A. Vaillant, Zagreb, 1958).
Here Christ is freeing Adam and Eve and “many other boddies” (alla kai
polla somata ton ap’aionos kekoimenon hagion avestesan).
As Jon Cannon says in his rich message based on the very informative Karl
Tamburr’s book “The Harrowing of Hell in Medieval England” such precedent
catabasis (descents) had been these ones of Gilgamesh and Odyssey. For me
Christ descent in the Hell is a Christian imitation of the Orpheus descent .
So the above mentioned Christ descents in the Hell (“Nicodemus’ Gospel”
and “Epiphanius Homily”) are a retelling, a loan translation of the Orpheus
descent. And that is great cultural deed – one of most beautiful episode
from Thracian and Greek mythologies had been covertly adopted by
Christianity, building an early important link, when Church dogmatism was
very strong, before Renaissance, between ancient heritage and Christianity.
Replying to the question of Carlo Valdameri I could share the vague
impression to have seen at some Orthodox icons a peripheral images of
Carinus and Leucius.
In Christ/ Vo Hriste: Georgi Vasilev
P.S.
I should kindly recommend to people interested on a contemporary
recreation of the image of Orpheus to read the marvelous cycle of short
poems “The Birth of Orpheus”, “The Orpheus and Euryduce”, “The Death of
Orpheus” by the great Bulgarian poet and humanist Stefan Gechev
(http://www.utoronto.ca/tsq/03/gechev.shtml;
http://www.stefangechev.com/Works/English/English.index.htm)
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