RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Barham
Barlaam and Josaphat
the leadership of Simeon coincided with the priesthood of Eleazar is shown by a distinct variety which names Eleazar the priest on the obverse and Simeon, without any title, on the reverse. According to the coins, therefore, during the time of the revolt, Israel had a secular head of the name of Simeon; which leads to the hypothesis that the same man who inspired the people by the name of Bar Kokba was really called Simeon. This theory finds support in certain coins which show the letters of the name of Simeon on both sides of a temple portico above which is a star. Moreover, the Jewish accounts are consistent with it. The Seder 'Olam mentions the three and a half years of a native ruler as the epoch following the wars of Vespasian and Quietus, calling this ruler, however, " Bar Kozeba." And the Talmudic explanations to the Mishnah treatise Ma'aser sheni, when they forbid the payment of tithes with money coined by rebels or otherwise unauthorized, give as examples that of " Ben Kozeba " or the " coins of Kozeba " and the " coins of Jerusalem." By the analogy of the latter, the former might also be a local designation (cf. I Chron. iv, 22); but the variant form first given makes it much more probable that it is from the name of the ruler; and there is no difficulty in identifying this ruler with the Simeon already mentioned, especially as Jewish tradition, quoting (in the Talmud on Ta'anit) from Rabbi Akiba, shows how easy was the transformation of the name of Ben Kozeba into the form Bar Kocheba (or Bar Kokba), with its encouraging reference to the prophecy of Balaam (Num. xxiv, 17).
Not much can be safely asserted of Bar Kokba 's personality and achievements, for the Jewish sources mentioned above tell nothing trustworthy about him which is not already known from Dio Cassius, with the exception of his relations to Akiba and to Eleazar, whom, on suspicion of treachery, he is said to have killed with a kick. The immense number of his adherents (200,000 men, who had pledged themselves to the conspiracy by cutting off a finger), the fabulous size of his citadel of Bittir, and the awful bloodshed there, are merely imaginative projections from the natural facts of such a rising. As a consequence of his failure, Bar Kokba has lived in Jewish memory as a deceiver; but one who could bring about so vigorous and stubborn a revolt and dominate it to its close must have been a man of great power and determination, who had made the nation's cause his own. (August Klostermann.)
Bibliography: The principal source is Dio Cassius, Historia Romana, book lxix, chaps. 12-14, ed. F. G. Sturz, 9 vols., Leipsic, 1824-43; the Samaritan Book of Joshua, ed. Juynboll, Leyden, 1848, may be used cautiously. Consult J. Hamburger, Realencyklopadie fur Bibel und Talmud, vol. ii, Leipsic, 1891; J. Derenbourg, Essai sur I'histoire et la geographie de la Palestine, Paris, 1867; idem, Notes sur la guerre de Bar Kozeba, in Melanges de VEcole des Hautes Etudes, ib. 1878; H. Gratz, Geschichte der Juden, iv, 137 sqq., Leipsic, 1893; Schurer, Geschichte, i, 682-685, 695-696, 765-772, Eng. transl., I, ii, 297-301, 311; A. Schlatter, Die Tage Trajans und Hadrians, Gutersloh, 1897; JE, ii, 505-509.
BARLAAM. See Hesychasts.
BARLAAM AND JOSAPHAT (or JOASAPH):
The abbreviated title of a Greek religious romance commonly ascribed, without adequate reasons, to John of Damascus (q.v.; d. about 754). The fuller title is " History of the Soul-profiting of Barlaam and Josaphat (or Joasaph)." The popularity of the story is manifest from the fact that it was translated into Arabic, Ethiopic, Armenian, and Hebrew, as well as Latin, Icelandic, English, and other European languages. Research has proved that the work is based upon an Indian story (the Lalitavistara, composed 76 a.d.), in which Buddha (transformed into Josaphat) is the hero. Josaphat is represented as son of Abenner, an Indian king bitterly opposed to the Christian religion. His future conversion to a new faith and fame as a religious leader are predicted at the time of his birth by astrologers. Every effort is made by his father to enthral him in pleasures, to conceal from him the miseries of the world, and to shield him from all influences calculated to impress him with a sense of obligation to the world. At last, weary of pleasure and ease, Josaphat goes forth to see the world, is driven to despair by its misery, and is converted by Barlaam, a Christian hermit. To overthrow his son's convictions the king arranges a disputation in which Nachor, a court sage, is to impersonate Barlaam and by a feeble defense of Christianity to discredit it. By special divine interposition Nachor makes a noble defense of Christianity, which leads to his own conversion, and that of the king and his people. Barlaam and Josaphat secured places in the Roman Catholic calendar as saints. It was discovered a few years ago by Prof. J. A. Robinson, by a comparison of the defense of Christianity in the Greek story with the newly discovered Syriac text of the long-lost " Apology " of Aristides (see Aristides, Marcianus), that the former, modified to some extent to suit the purpose for which it was employed, is the original of the " Apology." The Greek text is in MPG, xcvi, 860 sqq. A. H. Newman.
The story of Barlaam and Josaphat forms the subject of the chief poem of Rudolf of Ems, a Middle High German poet (d. between 1250 and 1254), composed in 1220-23. It was based on a Latin book received from Abbot Guido of Cappel, which is said to have been a translation of the Greek legends of John of Damascus, already rendered by a certain Bishop Otho in the twelfth century. Rudolf, however, was unaware of this version or of another, which seems to have been made in the first half of the thirteenth century, and of which only a few fragments have been preserved. The story of the ascetic life of Buddha was highly attractive to a Christian ascetic, and Rudolf was the more drawn to the theme since he wished to atone for the frivolity of his earlier writings, declaring that this poem was no romance of knighthood, love, adventure, or the summertide, but a complete and sincere war upon the world, whereby men and women might be made better and purer.
Rudolf's "Barlaam and Josaphat" contains about 16,000 verses, and describes the victory of Christianity over heathen teachings. It thus summarizes the Middle Ages, and accordingly rises far
Barlaam and Josaphat Barnabites