Article,

A preliminary study of the "Historia de Melchisedech" in the Latin west

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Apocrypha, (2013)
DOI: 10.1484/J.APOCRA.1.103498

Abstract

The account commonly called Historia de Melchisedech (HistMelch) tells of the early life of the mysterious king of Salem who appears in Gen. 14. Scholars have discovered versions of this apocryphon in virtually all the languages of late antique and medieval Eastern Christendom, including Greek, Coptic, Syriac, Arabic, Ethiopian, Slavonic, Armenian, and Georgian. In the present article the author identifies, edits, and translates three Latin texts of HistMelch, dating from the ninth to fifteenth centuries, all of which were previously unknown to specialists in the apocrypha. All three texts represent independent translations of their (presumably) Greek original or originals. This article also includes a discussion of several other medieval Latin texts dealing with Melchizedek that appear to have been infl uenced in one way or another by HistMelch. The thorough examination of all of these Latin texts, some of which are among the earliest extant witnesses to the apocryphon in any language, is crucially important to the future study of the origins and diffusion of HistMelch.

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