Budge_Ethiopic_Alexander

2l6 THE HISTORY OF ALEXANDER TPIE GREAT.
"seek mercy from Him, for His grace is upon
"thee; moreover, [thy] days in this world are
"fleeting and thou must leave it unto others. O
He exhorts "hastc thce to do that which is pleasing [unto
tl'''p?else "Him] before [thou] diest, and set this in thy hand
°°*
"day and night, and be thou not slow [to perform
"it]; for He will never leave thee, and He will
"be with thee at all times." These were the
words of Aristotle's letter.^
In the seventh year of the reign of the Two-
horned, Alexander put" on his royal crown and
apparel, and called unto the chiefs of his army
Alexander's aud the Icings whom he loved from among the
his army. " peoplc of his country, and he spake unto them,
saying, "Hearken unto me, and take heed unto
' In the Greek and Syriac versions here follows a letter
by Alexander to his mother which forms chapp. 27—29 of
the third book of Pseudo-Callisthenes (Miiller, p. 139, Meusel,
p. 784). What follows in the Ethiopic is a version of what
I have called "A Christian Legend concerning Alexander."
In the Syriac version the legend is entitled "An exploit of
• "Alexander, the son of Philip the Macedonian, [shewing] how
"he went forth to the ends of the world, and made a gate
"of iron, and shut it in the face of the north wind, that the
"Huns might not come forth to spoil the countries," and it
is said to have been compiled "from the manuscript in the
house of the archives of the kings of Alexandria'' (see Budge,
p. 144 ff.). A poetical version of the legend in Syriac, at-
tributed to Jacob of Serug (born A. D. 451, died A. D.
521), was given by me in Bezold's Zeitschrift fur Assy-
riologie, Bd. VI. p. 357 — 404.
^ Read ^A-fl*^ •