Cave of Treasures
Encyclopedia
The Cave of Treasures, sometimes referred to simply as The Treasure, is a book of the New Testament apocrypha
.
soon after AD 306 and died in 373, but it is now generally believed that its current form is 6th century or newer.
The assertion that the Cave of Treasures was written in the 4th century is supported by the general contents of the work. These reproduce Ephraim's quaint and sometimes fanciful methods of exegesis and supply many examples of his methods in religious argument, with which we are familiar from his other writings. His pride in the antiquity of the Syriac language also appears in this work. That it was written in Mesopotamia
by a Syrian, there is no doubt, and if Ephraim was not the author, the original author, or perhaps later editor, belonged to the school of Ephraim.
The oldest Christian work on the history of God's dealing with man from Adam to Christ is probably the anonymous Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan
, which, in its original form, is from the 5th or 6th century AD. The writer of the Cave of Treasures borrowed largely from the Conflict of Adam and Eve, or shared a common source with it.
, the author of the Catalogues of Oriental Manuscripts in the Vatican Library, which he printed in Bibliotheca Orientalis in four thick volumes folio. In Vol. ii. page 498 he describes a Syriac manuscript containing a series of apocryphal works, and among them is one the title of which he translates Spelunca Thesaurorum. He saw that the manuscript contained the history of 5,500 years, from the creation of Adam to the birth of Christ, and that it was based upon the Scriptures. He says that fables are found in it everywhere, especially concerning the antediluvian
Patriarchs, and the genealogy of Christ and His Mother. He mentions that the Patriarch Eutychius
also describes a cave of treasures in which gold, frankincense
, and myrrh
were laid up, and refers to the "portentosa feminarum nomina," women of Jesus' ancestry. No attempt was made to publish the Syriac text; in fact, little attention was paid to it until August Dillmann
began to study the Conflict of Adam and Eve in connection with it, and then he showed in Ewald's Jahrbüchern (Bd. V. 1853) that the contents of whole sections of the Book of the Cave of Treasures in Syriac and the Conflict of Adam and Eve in Ethiopic were identical. And soon after this, Dillmann and others noticed that an Arabic manuscript in the Vatican
(No. XXXIX; see Assemânî, Bibl. Orient. i. page 281) contained a version of the "Cave of Treasures," which had clearly been made from the Syriac. In 1883 Carl Bezold
published a translation of the Syriac text of the "Cave of Treasures" made from three manuscripts (Die Schatzhöhle, Leipzig, 1883), and five years later published the Syriac text of it, accompanied by the text of the Arabic version.
Of the subsequent history of the Syriac Cave of Treasures, little is known. The knowledge of parts of it made its way into Armenia soon after the book was written, and more than one translation of it was made into Arabic, probably in the 7th and 8th centuries. In connection with the Arabic translations, they all end with the account of the cruelties perpetrated by Archelaus
and Sâlûm after the death of Herod
. (See Bezold's text, page 247.) The last paragraph of the Arabic text mentions the twelve Apostles who went about with Christ, and refers to His baptism by John the Baptist, and says that He lived on the earth thirty-three years, and then ascended into heaven. Thus for the last twenty-six pages of the Syriac text there is no equivalent in the Arabic version. The same is substantially true for the Ethiopic Conflict of Adam and Eve. The section of the Syriac for which there is no rendering in Arabic or Ethiopic contains a series of statements addressed to the author's "brother Nemesius." It is possible but unlikely that these were added to the work by a later writer. As they do not deal with matters of genealogy, and deal almost exclusively with Jesus Christ's life and crucifixion, they probably failed to interest the Arab translator, and he left them untranslated, unless parts of the original Arabic translation have perished.
That the Syriac "Cave of Treasures" was known and used by Solomon
, Bishop of Perâth Maishân (Al-Basrah) in 1222 is proved by the earlier chapters of his work the Book of the Bee
. He excerpted from it many of the legends of the early Patriarchs, although his object was not to write a table of genealogical succession, but a full history of the Christian Dispensation according to the views of the Nestorians. The best manuscript of the "Cave of Treasures" which we have to the Nestorians, for Brit. Mus. MS. Add. 25875, was written by a Nestorian scribe in the Nestorian village of Alkôsh, and was bound up by him in a volume which included a copy of the "Book of the Bee," whose author, Solomon, was the Nestorian Bishop of Al-Basrah early in the 13th century.
; and his chief object was to show how Christ was descended from Adam. He did not accept the genealogical tables which were commonly in use among his unlearned fellow-Christians, because he was convinced that all the ancient tables of genealogies which the Jews had possessed were destroyed by fire by the captain of Nebuchadnezzar
's army immediately after the capture of Jerusalem by the Babylonians. The Jews promptly constructed new tables of genealogies, which both Christians and Arabs regarded as fictitious. The Arabs were as deeply interested in the matter as the Christians, for they were descended from Abraham
, and the genealogy of the descendants of Hagar
and Ishmael
was of the greatest importance in their sight, and it is due to their earnest desire to possess correct genealogical tables of their ancestors that we owe the Arabic translations of the "Cave of Treasures." The Nubians
and Egyptians were also interested in such matters, for the former were the descendants of Kûsh, and the latter the descendants of Mizraim
, and Ham
was the great ancestor of both these nations. And it is clear that Syrians, Arabs, Egyptians and Ethiopians regarded the "Cave of Treasures" as an authoritative work on their respective pedigrees.
In the title "Cave of Treasures" which was given to the "Book of the order of the succession of Generations" there is probably a double allusion, namely, to the Book as the storehouse of literary treasures, and to the famous Cave in which Adam and Eve were made to dwell by God after their expulsion from Paradise, and which by reason of the gold, and frankincense, and myrrh that was laid up in it, is commonly called "The Cave of Treasures" (in Syriac, Me`ârath Gazzê, in Arabic, Ma`ârah al-Kanûz, and in Ethiopic, Ba`âta Mazâgebet).
The Syriac "Cave of Treasures" tells us very little about the real Cave, which was situated in the side of a mountain below Paradise, and nothing about Adam and Eve's way of life there. But in the "Book of Adam and Eve" the whole of the first main section is devoted to details of the physical Cave.
New Testament apocrypha
The New Testament apocrypha are a number of writings by early Christians that claim to be accounts of Jesus and his teachings, the nature of God, or the teachings of his apostles and of their lives. These writings often have links with books regarded as "canonical"...
.
Origin
This text is attributed to Ephrem Syrus, who was born at NisibisNisibis
Nusaybin Nisêbîn) is a city in Mardin Province, Turkey, populated mainly by Kurds. Earlier Arameans, Arabs, and Armenians lived in the city. The population of the city is 83,832 as of 2009.-Ancient Period:...
soon after AD 306 and died in 373, but it is now generally believed that its current form is 6th century or newer.
The assertion that the Cave of Treasures was written in the 4th century is supported by the general contents of the work. These reproduce Ephraim's quaint and sometimes fanciful methods of exegesis and supply many examples of his methods in religious argument, with which we are familiar from his other writings. His pride in the antiquity of the Syriac language also appears in this work. That it was written in Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia is a toponym for the area of the Tigris–Euphrates river system, largely corresponding to modern-day Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and southwestern Iran.Widely considered to be the cradle of civilization, Bronze Age Mesopotamia included Sumer and the...
by a Syrian, there is no doubt, and if Ephraim was not the author, the original author, or perhaps later editor, belonged to the school of Ephraim.
The oldest Christian work on the history of God's dealing with man from Adam to Christ is probably the anonymous Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan
Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan
The Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan is a Christian pseudepigraphical work found in Ge'ez, translated from an Arabic original and thought to date from the 5th or 6th century AD....
, which, in its original form, is from the 5th or 6th century AD. The writer of the Cave of Treasures borrowed largely from the Conflict of Adam and Eve, or shared a common source with it.
History
The "Cave of Treasures" was introduced to the world by Giuseppe Simone AssemaniGiuseppe Simone Assemani
Giuseppe Simone Assemani , 1687–1768, was a Lebanese Maronite orientalist.-Life:Giuseppe Simone Assemani was born on August 27, 1687 in Hasroun, Mount Lebanon. When very young he was sent to the Maronite College in Rome, and was transferred thence to the Vatican library. He was ordained priest on...
, the author of the Catalogues of Oriental Manuscripts in the Vatican Library, which he printed in Bibliotheca Orientalis in four thick volumes folio. In Vol. ii. page 498 he describes a Syriac manuscript containing a series of apocryphal works, and among them is one the title of which he translates Spelunca Thesaurorum. He saw that the manuscript contained the history of 5,500 years, from the creation of Adam to the birth of Christ, and that it was based upon the Scriptures. He says that fables are found in it everywhere, especially concerning the antediluvian
Antediluvian
The antediluvian period meaning "before the deluge" is the period referred to in the Bible between the Creation of the Earth and the Deluge . The narrative takes up chapters 1-6 of Genesis...
Patriarchs, and the genealogy of Christ and His Mother. He mentions that the Patriarch Eutychius
Eutychius
Eutychius was the last Exarch of Ravenna .The exarchate had risen in revolt in 727 at the imposition of iconoclasm; the Exarch Paul lost his life attempting to quash the revolt. In response, Emperor Leo III sent the patrician Eutychius to take control of the situation. Eutychius landed in Naples,...
also describes a cave of treasures in which gold, frankincense
Frankincense
Frankincense, also called olibanum , is an aromatic resin obtained from trees of the genus Boswellia, particularly Boswellia sacra, B. carteri, B. thurifera, B. frereana, and B. bhaw-dajiana...
, and myrrh
Myrrh
Myrrh is the aromatic oleoresin of a number of small, thorny tree species of the genus Commiphora, which grow in dry, stony soil. An oleoresin is a natural blend of an essential oil and a resin. Myrrh resin is a natural gum....
were laid up, and refers to the "portentosa feminarum nomina," women of Jesus' ancestry. No attempt was made to publish the Syriac text; in fact, little attention was paid to it until August Dillmann
August Dillmann
Christian Friedrich August Dillmann was a German orientalist and biblical scholar.-Life:The son of a Württemberg schoolmaster, he was born at Illingen. He was educated at the University of Tübingen, where he became a pupil and friend of Heinrich Ewald, and studied under Ferdinand Christian Baur,...
began to study the Conflict of Adam and Eve in connection with it, and then he showed in Ewald's Jahrbüchern (Bd. V. 1853) that the contents of whole sections of the Book of the Cave of Treasures in Syriac and the Conflict of Adam and Eve in Ethiopic were identical. And soon after this, Dillmann and others noticed that an Arabic manuscript in the Vatican
Clementine literature
Clementine literature is the name given to the religious romance which purports to contain a record made by one Clement of discourses...
(No. XXXIX; see Assemânî, Bibl. Orient. i. page 281) contained a version of the "Cave of Treasures," which had clearly been made from the Syriac. In 1883 Carl Bezold
Carl Bezold
Carl Bezold was a German orientalist. He initially had an interest in Chinese, and translated from Syriac. He became known as an Assyriologist. Nevertheless in 1909 he edited and printed the Ge'ez epic Kebra Nagast, collating the most valuable texts and with critical notes. [Bezold, Carl...
published a translation of the Syriac text of the "Cave of Treasures" made from three manuscripts (Die Schatzhöhle, Leipzig, 1883), and five years later published the Syriac text of it, accompanied by the text of the Arabic version.
Of the subsequent history of the Syriac Cave of Treasures, little is known. The knowledge of parts of it made its way into Armenia soon after the book was written, and more than one translation of it was made into Arabic, probably in the 7th and 8th centuries. In connection with the Arabic translations, they all end with the account of the cruelties perpetrated by Archelaus
Herod Archelaus
Herod Archelaus was the ethnarch of Samaria, Judea, and Idumea from 4 BC to 6 AD. He was the son of Herod the Great and Malthace the Samaritan, the brother of Herod Antipas, and the half-brother of Herod Philip I....
and Sâlûm after the death of Herod
Herod the Great
Herod , also known as Herod the Great , was a Roman client king of Judea. His epithet of "the Great" is widely disputed as he is described as "a madman who murdered his own family and a great many rabbis." He is also known for his colossal building projects in Jerusalem and elsewhere, including his...
. (See Bezold's text, page 247.) The last paragraph of the Arabic text mentions the twelve Apostles who went about with Christ, and refers to His baptism by John the Baptist, and says that He lived on the earth thirty-three years, and then ascended into heaven. Thus for the last twenty-six pages of the Syriac text there is no equivalent in the Arabic version. The same is substantially true for the Ethiopic Conflict of Adam and Eve. The section of the Syriac for which there is no rendering in Arabic or Ethiopic contains a series of statements addressed to the author's "brother Nemesius." It is possible but unlikely that these were added to the work by a later writer. As they do not deal with matters of genealogy, and deal almost exclusively with Jesus Christ's life and crucifixion, they probably failed to interest the Arab translator, and he left them untranslated, unless parts of the original Arabic translation have perished.
That the Syriac "Cave of Treasures" was known and used by Solomon
Solomon
Solomon , according to the Book of Kings and the Book of Chronicles, a King of Israel and according to the Talmud one of the 48 prophets, is identified as the son of David, also called Jedidiah in 2 Samuel 12:25, and is described as the third king of the United Monarchy, and the final king before...
, Bishop of Perâth Maishân (Al-Basrah) in 1222 is proved by the earlier chapters of his work the Book of the Bee
Book of the Bee
The Book of the Bee is an historical/theological compilation containing numerous bible legends. It was written by Syrian Nestorian Solomon, Bishop of Bassora . It was written in Syriac.-Book:...
. He excerpted from it many of the legends of the early Patriarchs, although his object was not to write a table of genealogical succession, but a full history of the Christian Dispensation according to the views of the Nestorians. The best manuscript of the "Cave of Treasures" which we have to the Nestorians, for Brit. Mus. MS. Add. 25875, was written by a Nestorian scribe in the Nestorian village of Alkôsh, and was bound up by him in a volume which included a copy of the "Book of the Bee," whose author, Solomon, was the Nestorian Bishop of Al-Basrah early in the 13th century.
Contents
The author of the "Cave of Treasures" called his work "The Book of the order of the succession of Generations (or Families)," the Families being those of the Patriarchs and Kings of Israel and JudahKingdom of Judah
The Kingdom of Judah was a Jewish state established in the Southern Levant during the Iron Age. It is often referred to as the "Southern Kingdom" to distinguish it from the northern Kingdom of Israel....
; and his chief object was to show how Christ was descended from Adam. He did not accept the genealogical tables which were commonly in use among his unlearned fellow-Christians, because he was convinced that all the ancient tables of genealogies which the Jews had possessed were destroyed by fire by the captain of Nebuchadnezzar
Nebuchadnezzar
Nebuchadnezzar was the name of several kings of Babylonia.* Nebuchadnezzar I, who ruled the Babylonian Empire in the 12th century BC* Nebuchadnezzar II , the Babylonian ruler mentioned in the biblical Book of Daniel...
's army immediately after the capture of Jerusalem by the Babylonians. The Jews promptly constructed new tables of genealogies, which both Christians and Arabs regarded as fictitious. The Arabs were as deeply interested in the matter as the Christians, for they were descended from Abraham
Abraham
Abraham , whose birth name was Abram, is the eponym of the Abrahamic religions, among which are Judaism, Christianity and Islam...
, and the genealogy of the descendants of Hagar
Hagar (Bible)
Hagar , according to the Abrahamic faiths, was the second wife of Abraham, and the mother of his first son, Ishmael. Her story is recorded in the Book of Genesis, mentioned in Hadith, and alluded to in the Qur'an...
and Ishmael
Ishmael
Ishmael is a figure in the Hebrew Bible and the Qur'an, and was Abraham's first born child according to Jews, Christians and Muslims. Ishmael was born of Abraham's marriage to Sarah's handmaiden Hagar...
was of the greatest importance in their sight, and it is due to their earnest desire to possess correct genealogical tables of their ancestors that we owe the Arabic translations of the "Cave of Treasures." The Nubians
Nubians
The Nubians are an ethnic group originally from northern Sudan, and southern Egypt now inhabiting North Africa and some parts of East Africa....
and Egyptians were also interested in such matters, for the former were the descendants of Kûsh, and the latter the descendants of Mizraim
Mizraim
Mizraim is the Hebrew name for the land of Egypt, with the dual suffix -āyim, perhaps referring to the "two Egypts": Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt....
, and Ham
Ham
Ham is a cut of meat from the thigh of the hind leg of certain animals, especiallypigs. Nearly all hams sold today are fully cooked or cured.-Etymology:...
was the great ancestor of both these nations. And it is clear that Syrians, Arabs, Egyptians and Ethiopians regarded the "Cave of Treasures" as an authoritative work on their respective pedigrees.
In the title "Cave of Treasures" which was given to the "Book of the order of the succession of Generations" there is probably a double allusion, namely, to the Book as the storehouse of literary treasures, and to the famous Cave in which Adam and Eve were made to dwell by God after their expulsion from Paradise, and which by reason of the gold, and frankincense, and myrrh that was laid up in it, is commonly called "The Cave of Treasures" (in Syriac, Me`ârath Gazzê, in Arabic, Ma`ârah al-Kanûz, and in Ethiopic, Ba`âta Mazâgebet).
The Syriac "Cave of Treasures" tells us very little about the real Cave, which was situated in the side of a mountain below Paradise, and nothing about Adam and Eve's way of life there. But in the "Book of Adam and Eve" the whole of the first main section is devoted to details of the physical Cave.