IOASAF, SIMEON, AND THE GUARDIAN ANGEL

One encounters many icons that show two or more saints that seem to have been randomly thrown together, but of course originally they were not random.  They were either the “name” saints of members of the family who owned the icon (called a семейная икона — semeinaya ikona — “family icon”) or sometimes a combination of “name” saints and saints chosen because they were specialists in helping with certain things (patron saints, as they are called in the West).

Here is a typical example of such an icon:

(Courtesy of Jacksonsauction.com)

Let’s look at the inscriptions:

That at left reads:

ПР(Д) ИОАСАФЪ ЦАРЕВИ(Ч).  The letters in parentheses are superscript (written above) letters.  So in full, the inscription would read transliterated:

PREPODOBNUIY IOASAF TSAREVICH 

You already know that Prepodobnuiy (literally “most like”) is the title used for a monk saint. Ioasaf (or Ioasaph) is his name.  And Tsarevich is his secondary title.  It means literally “Son of the Tsar,” which can be either “Son of the Emperor” or “Son of the King.”  Here it means “Son of the King,” or more loosely, “Prince.”

Now who was this fellow, shown as a monk here?  Well, if the painter had had more space, he would have added an additional word, like this:

Прп. Иоасаф Царевич Индийский
Prepodobnuiy Tsarevich Indiyskiy

That last word — Indiyskiy — means “of India.”  So this saint is “Venerable Ioasaf, Prince of India.”

Now if you have read every posting in the archives (well, maybe you have nothing else to do), you will recall from an earlier article that the saint named Ioasaf, Prince of India has a very interesting origin.  He was actually originally not a Christian saint at all.  He was, in fact the Buddha.  When the story of his early life came west on the Silk Road, spread by Buddhist missionaries, it was taken up in the Christian West and modified to make the “Prince of India” a Christian saint.  So, as I always say, the official Eastern Orthodox Church Calendar actually commemorates the Buddha in a “Christian” guise.

There are two ways of depicting Ioasaf.  The first is to show him robed as a King, often with his fictional advisor Varlaam (Barlaam); the second is to show him after he became an ascetic, robed as a monk, which is how he is depicted in this icon.   However he is shown, his icons make interesting conversation pieces because of Ioasaf’s unusual Silk Road origins.

The middle figure in the icon is:

СВЯТЫЙ АГГЕЛЪ ХРАНИТЕЛЬ
Svyatuiy Angel Khranitel’ — “Holy Angel Guardian,” or in better English, “The Holy Guardian Angel.”  This is a generic figure representing the guardian angel that is believed in Eastern Orthodoxy to accompany each believer.  He is often shown with a sword to demonstrate his power to protect.  The Guardian Angel is a very common figure both in icons and as a border image.

The third saint in this icon, the one at right, is:

ПРЕПОДОБНЫЙ СИМЕОНЪ СТОЛПНИК
Prepodobnuiy Simeon Stolpnik — “Venerable Simeon the Pillar-guy,” or as it is usually translated, “Venerable Simeon Stylites.”  Simeon (died 459) did exist.  He was one of those wild and odd Middle Eastern ascetics.  In his case, he  chose to live atop a pillar in Syria, supposedly to get away from crowds of people (no, that’s not likely to attract attention).   He stayed atop his pillar for some 37 years, and of course made such a spectacle of himself that he attracted even larger crowds of people, and became quite famous, a celebrity in his day.

Now why were these particular saints chosen for this icon?  The Guardian Angel served an obvious purpose as a daily protector.  As for Simeon, today he is often considered the fellow to pray to in order to bring back those who have left the Church (he must be very busy with the numbers leaving these days), but it is more likely that he was chosen for this icon simply because he is the name saint of someone named Simeon.

As for Ioasaf, he too was chosen because he was the name saint of a person involved with the icon.  Given that there is no female saint depicted, we may reasonably assume that this icon was painted for two brothers in a family, brothers named Ioasaf and Simeon, and that the Guardian Angel in the center was expected to represent the guardian of each of the brothers.

At the top of the icon is a small depiction of the “Not Made by Hands” image of Jesus — the image, according to legend, that was created when Jesus pressed his wet face against a cloth.

 

 

 

SAINTS WHO NEVER WERE: VARLAAM AND IOASAF

Look in a Russian Orthodox (or Greek Orthodox) Church calendar, which gives the saints commemorated on each day of the year, and you will find this entry:

Dec 02 / Nov 19:  Venerables Barlaam and loasaph, Prince of India, and Saint Abenner the King, father of St. loasaph (4th c.).

The interesting thing about that entry is that Ioasaph/Ioasaf, Prince of India, is actually the Buddha.  Yes, you read correctly:  the Buddha.  The Eastern Orthodox Church annually commemorates the Buddha in their calendar of saints.

Of course the reason for this is that until relatively recently, no one in Eastern Orthodoxy knew that Ioasaph was the Buddha.  But that is the inescapable conclusion of scholars who have studied the matter, and the reason for it turns out to have been rather simple.

In early times, Buddhist missionaries were found on parts of the trade route extending from the West all the way to India.  And so stories of the life of the Buddha became spread here and there, and one of those stories — the story of the Buddha’s early life — came West.  It is the tale of a young Prince of India who decides to renounce his wealth and power for the spiritual life.

When Christians encountered this tale, it became distorted into the story of a Prince of India who renounced his wealth and power for Christianity, and that, in brief, is how the Buddha came to be a Christian saint commemorated in the Eastern Orthodox calendar.

The name “Ioasaph” — also found as Ioasaf, Joasaph and Josaphat — is simply a garbled version of the word “Bodhisattva” — the title applied to the Buddha before his enlightenment.  The identity becomes more clear if one sees the Arabic intermediate forms Budasaf and Iudasaf.  Barlaam — written as “Varlaam” on Russian icons  — was a pious hermit who counseled Ioasaph.

The story of Barlaam and Ioasaph in Greek was once attributed to the 7th century John of Damascus (the big supporter of icon veneration), but apparently the core was actually transmitted earlier through Manichaean writings on the trade route.  A christianized version comes from the Balavariani, a 10th century Georgian epic; Euthymios of Athos, a Georgian monk, translated the story into Greek in the early 11th century.  It can be traced back through an Arabic version to early Sanskrit Mahayana texts recounting the life of the Buddha.  In its Greek version — the one still considered “history” by countless Orthodox believers — it is called The Precious Pearl.

In the Western church, the two saints are called Barlaam and Josaphat.

When I first began telling “true believers” the facts about this years ago — that Eastern Orthodoxy makes and venerates icons of a saint who was really the Buddha and annually commemorates him in their Church Calendar — they simply refused to believe me.  Today it is common knowledge among educated Eastern Orthodox — yet there Varlaam/Barlaam and Ioasaf/Ioasaph still are, in the Church Calendar, under November 19th by the old calendar, December 2nd by the new:

Sunday, December 2:

27TH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST—PROPHET OBADIAH OF THE 12, MARTYR BARLAAM OF CAESAREA IN CAPPADOCIA, MARTYR HELIODORUS IN PAMPHYLIA, MARTYR AZES IN ISAURIA & 150 SOLDIERS WITH HIM, VENERABLE BARLAAM & IOSAPH PRINCE OF INDIA & HIS FATHER SAINT ABENER THE KING, VENERABLE HILARION-MONK & WONDERWORKER OF GEORGIA, VENERABLE BARLAAM-ABBOT OF PECHERSKY LAVRA, SAINT PATROCLUS OF BOURGES IN GAUL 

Eastern Orthodoxy has a very strong attachment to tradition (one of the chief sources, in fact, of its doctrines and lore of saints and icons), but it has never had a clear boundary between higher and lower traditions, nor has it ever been particularly  careful or scrupulous about actually checking the veracity of those traditions, as this one out of many examples illustrates.  As one person on the Internet remarked concerning this mistaking of the Buddha for a Christian saint, “Saint….OOPS!”  Eastern Orthodox bookstores still sell the life of Sts. Varlaam and Ioasaph.

Those who want a more detailed account of the transmission and transformation of the story of the Buddha into that of a Christian saint will want to read the book In Search of the Christian Buddha: How an Asian Sage Became a Medieval Saint, by Donald S. Lopez Jr. and Peggy McCracken, W.W. Norton & Co, 2014.

There is a useful account of the history of the Varlaam and Ioasaph tale at:

http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/barlaam-and-iosaph-persian-belawhar-o-budasaf-a-greek-christian-or-christianized-novel-of-buddhist-origins-which-througho

The image at the top of this posting shows Varlaam at left, holding a scroll reading, “I declare to you, child, the priceless pearl which is Christ….” (the Greek manuscript of the tale of Varlaam and Ioasaph is titled The Precious Pearl).  Iosaph is at right.

In the complete icon, we also see Venerable Athanasius of Athos at left: