ABSTRACT
The Book of Barlaam and Iôasaph is a Christianized version of a very ancient “spiritual romance,” which was composed in India and first written down in an Indian language by Buddhist propagandists in one of the centuries that immediately preceded or followed the beginning of the Christian Era. It is written in Greek and has been commonly thought to be the work of St John Damascene. Like the Fables of Bidpai, with which it appears to be contemporaneous, the Book of Barlaam and Iôasaph has for at least fifteen hundred years been a popular work in the West as well as in the East. More than sixty translations, versions or paraphrases of it have been enumerated. Wherever it has appeared it has been warmly welcomed by men of every great creed for untold generations. Its aesthetic, moral and religious teachings have won the approval of Indians, Chinese, Persians, Arabs, Syrians, Armenians, Jews, Egyptians, Ethiopians, and other Oriental peoples. And the manuscripts and versions of it in Greek, Latin, German, Italian, Slavonic, Servian, Czech, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Swedish, Danish, Icelandic, English, Irish, etc., testify to the esteem with which the Book was regarded among European peoples. As it stands now it is a strange mixture of parable and fable, and folklore and history, and romance, in which shrewd worldly wisdom is mingled with the highest and greatest religious truths in such a way that the perusal thereof will increase the piety of the godly, the wisdom of the wise, and the pleasure of those who seek amusement and instruction in the writings of teachers of olden time.
