At 09:17 29.10.97 -0500, you wrote:
>Can anyone help this seeker?
>
>---------- Forwarded message ----------
>Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 06:16:34 -0500
>From: Brother Albert <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Bede and the magi
>
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>>From: Vance <[log in to unmask]>
>>To: "[log in to unmask]" <[log in to unmask]>
>>Subject: Bede and the magi
>>Date: Tue, 28 Oct 1997 15:06:31 -0500
>>
>>I understand that Bede is responsible for the names that we associate with
>the three wisemen. If that is true, where would I find that? My email
>address is [log in to unmask]
>>
>>Thank you
>>
>>Vance Rains
Dear Brother Albert,
A good study to check in cases like this is Bruce M. Metzger, _Names for
the Nameless in the New Testament: A Study in the Growth of Christian
Tradition_, in: *Kyriakon. Festschrift Johannes Quasten, ed. Patrick
Granfield & Josef A. Jungmann, vol. I, Mu"nster: Aschendorff, 1970,
p.79-99. Metzger has a whole chapter (p.78-85) on _The Names of the Wise
Men_, which includes a rich bibliography of earlier studies of this topic
(p.79 n.3). According to Metzger, the earliest source giving names to the
magi are the anonymous _Excerpta Latina Barbari_, the Latin redaction of a
Greek chronicle which seems to have originated in Alexandria during the
first or second half of the 6th century: "In his diebus sub Augusto
kalendas Ianuarias magi obtulerunt ei mundera et adoraverunt eum: magi
autem vocabantur Bithisarea Melchior Gathaspa" (cit. p.80). As it seems,
Bede himself, in those works which today can be regarded as authentic, does
not give any names, but only takes up the tradition which counted the magi
as three (_In Matthei evangelii Evangelium Expositio_, I, ii, PL 92,13A;
attributed by Metzger to Bede, but I have booked this commentary -- without
having investigated the question myself -- as a pseudo-Bedan text). The
source you seem to be interested in is a Pseudo-Bedan text, the socalled
_Collectanea_ or _Excerpta et Collectanea_ (PL 94,539-560). Their text is
transmitted not in manuscript, but only by an early printed edition of
Bede's works (Basel 1563), and my notes say that these _Collectanea_ are
regarded as being of insular origin, presumably Irish, and can be dated to
the late 8th or early 9th century. The relevant passage is quoted by
Metzger (p.80) from PL 94,541C-D (you might check whether the critical
edition is already out which I have noted as being in preparation at
Cambridge):
Magi sunt, qui munera Domino dederunt: primus fuisse dicitur Melchior,
senex et canus, barba prolixa et capillis, tunica hyacinthina, sagoque
mileno, et calceamentis hyacinthino et albo mixto opere, pro mitrario
variae compositionis indutus: aurum obtulit regi Domino. Secundus,
nomine Caspar, juvenis imberbis, rubicundus, mylenica tunica, sago
rubeo, calceamentis hyacinthinis vestitus: thure quasi Deo oblatione
digna, Deum honorabat. Tertius, fuscus, integre barbatus,Balthasar
nomine, habens tunicam rubeam, albo vario, calceamentis milenicis
amictus: per myrrham Filium hominis moriturum professus est. Omnia
autem vestimenta eorum Syriaca [emeneded by Metzger: seriaca, "silk"]
sunt.
Metzger comments (p.80): "The impression which one gains from this
paragraph is that it was written originally in Greek, and that the author
may well have been describing a piece of art - whether in a manuscript or
in a mosaic -- in which the age, the appearance, and clothing of the Magi
were distinctively depicted."
Sincerely,
Otfried Lieberknecht
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Otfried Lieberknecht, Schoeneberger Str. 11, D-12163 Berlin
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