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Budge_Ethiopic_Alexander

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ALEXANDER'S GATE. 24 r<br />

"thousand' kings there, and they shall destroy<br />

"multitudes of nations of men, so that the earth<br />

"shall not be seen by reason of the blood which<br />

"hath been shed upon it; then shall the royal<br />

"armies^ go forth, and men shall come into sub-<br />

"jection unto them. Now let not any man hold<br />

"me to be a liar because of what I say, for if he<br />

"doth not believe my words, let him see what<br />

"Jeremiah^ the prophet prophesied concerning these<br />

"things by God. And behold, there is another<br />

"sign which God hath set behind the gate, that<br />

"is, a stone ** which drippeth blood upon the rock;<br />

"and the peoples of those lands shall come forth The stone<br />

"and wash their heads in the blood, and they^eth bio"d.<br />

"shall drink thereof and then return to their own<br />

"nations. So likewise shall God Almighty pour<br />

"out the blood of men upon the earth, even as<br />

"the blood from that stone is poured out upon<br />

"the rock".^<br />

^ In the SyriaCj "twenty-four kingdoms" (p. 155).<br />

^ The allusion here is to the soldiers of the Greeks di-<br />

rected by <strong>Alexander</strong>; see the Syriac version, p. 155.<br />

3 See Jeremiah i. 14.<br />

t In the Syriac, "a sponge full of blood"<br />

5 Following this speech there comes in the Syriac (pp.<br />

156— 159) an account of the battle of <strong>Alexander</strong> with Tu-<br />

barlak, King of Persia, who with the help of Meshazbcri, King<br />

of Inner India, Bar-Sidak, King of Kadesh, and Hurazdan,<br />

King of Javan, gathered together sixty-two kings and 1,100,030<br />

men; <strong>Alexander</strong>'s force consisted originally of 320,000, but<br />

4000 had died since he left Alexandria. The Greeks defeated<br />

the allied forces, but eventually <strong>Alexander</strong> and Tubarlak<br />

HH

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