Barlaam and Josaphat: A Christian Tale of the Buddha

by Gui de Cambrai

  “Sire,” Zardan responded, “I am not so ill that I cannot come to you. I have served you badly, for I have not cared for that which you commended to me. I think, without ceasing, about the wrong I have done you, and my sorrow and sadness about it have put me in this state. If you knew the sorrow, pain, and loss I have caused you, I believe you would kill me—if you did not take pity on me. Death would be a just judgment, and, Sire, if your mercy does not save me, I must be condemned to die.”

  “You? But why?” the king asked. “What have you done? Tell me! I will not judge you for it.”

  “I will tell you, for good or for ill. King, your son is a Christian. A man named Barlaam converted him. I do not know who he is—I saw him only once.1 I realized then that he would cause my downfall. Sire, he reasoned with your son, and Josaphat held it against me when I admonished him for it. I told him that I would tell you about it, and he had himself baptized right away. He kept preaching to me and tried to convert me, but I refused, and he asked me not to say anything to you about it. Barlaam went back to his hermitage because he did not wish to stay any longer.”

  The king was silent. The sorrow and anger he felt in his heart took away his speech. He became mute and restrained his anger only with great difficulty. His heart welled with tears. His gain turned to loss, his joy to anger, and his happiness to suffering. He saw his wealth become poverty, his treasure turn to lack, and his courage to cowardice. He had lost everything, and he felt his life had become a kind of death. He saw his joy become sadness and his nobility abased. He despised his kingdom and his crown, and he felt he had lost his power because he lost the happiness his son brought him. The king abandoned himself to senseless anger, and his rage gave him the strength to speak despite his sorrow. He sent for Prince Aracin (he was his master councilor and an astronomer). The councilor came quickly to Avenir, and the king asked for his advice, for he needed it badly. “The thing I most feared has happened and I am distraught. Advise me, for my son has fallen into Christian belief. Alas!” the king lamented, “I believed he feared and honored me enough that he would never do anything to displease me. Barlaam betrayed him. He manipulated him and tricked me. Alas! He killed my son and murdered me. My son used to love me, but he has become my enemy. He is my son and he should love me, but now he betrays me without reason—he kills himself and murders me. He has gone against reason, his belief deceives him, and he believes a lie.”

  Aracin said, “King, good sire, let go of your sorrow and anger and do not be dismayed. I believe I can give you good advice. Let us find this man who came from so far away to trick your son. Let him be followed and captured, my good lord, and brought before you. By royal command, let him be tortured until he publicly renounces his teaching. When Josaphat sees him renounce his God, then he will know without doubt that his belief is false and that our gods are stronger.”

  “This is good advice, if Barlaam can be found,” the king responded immediately. “But tell me—if we cannot find him, how will we put him to the test?”

  “I will tell you,” the prince replied. “I know a wise man whom I will have brought to you. He resembles Barlaam in appearance, dress, and age.2 His name is Nachor. He is wise and old, and he is clever enough to fool anyone. When Barlaam is called before your son, Nachor will come in his place, disguised so your son will not recognize him. Send for your rhetoricians and all the astronomers of your land and have them gather here. Nachor will appear before them instead of Barlaam, if you will agree to it. At the beginning of the year, when you are at peace in your palace, with your son at your side, you will call for your wise men to argue their beliefs with Nachor. He will pretend to be Barlaam and defend the Christians’ faith and their religion, and he will let himself be bested. When your son hears the debate, he will know that he was wrong, and he will do your will.” The king was relieved and encouraged by this advice, and he approved Aracin’s plan.

  Prince Aracin assembled a great company of men and sent his spies out in all directions, but they could not find Barlaam. Aracin himself went into the wilderness and traveled across it for seven days, because he knew that he would receive a rich reward if he could find Barlaam. He tracked him as far as the Black Mountain, but he could not find him. Instead he found more than three hundred hermits there. They lived a life that would be bitter and harsh for those kings and counts who use their worldly gains to buy rich food and clothing, and to pursue pleasure without charity. (What return do they expect from the miserable gifts they offer, from their anger and resentment, their mistreatment and imprisonment of the poor, and their demands for ransom that the poor cannot pay? They crucify the poor with the chains and shackles of their laws. They trust in their own authority, but their power is evil and no one should put hope in it. They wield their power over the poor and force them to live in misery, when they should share their wealth. Our God who suffered the passion on the cross would be wrong to take pity on high nobles—they are judged by their own unjust conduct toward the poor.

  Ah, my lords, repent! Wicked noblemen, consider the ways of the world! My lords, why do you not remember your own dead ancestors? The scriptures teach us that whoever does not do as he should will receive death. They say that Herod and Nero and Pilate and Lucius are dead, but this is a lie, for I tell you without hesitation that I could find one hundred Herods in this country if I looked for them. Pilate and Herod are alive, and they live quite well in France and in Lombardy. Herod does not lack for anything as long as the king is in Paris, and I believe Pilate is the lord of Vermandois. Today there is no count or king who may not rightly be called a Herod or a Pilate, since today nobles reign over an evil world and they delight in wrongdoing—such is their power and their domain. They are too greedy to understand evil, and evil engenders in them the desire to do more evil. Felonious and disloyal nobles, pay attention to this story! The hermits who lived on the Black Mountain were not consumed by violence like you are.)

  This Aracin, the king’s councilor whom I told you about, took a great company of men with him to look for Barlaam, whom he thought he could capture. He put all his heart, knowledge, and power into the search (he tried to deceive the king’s son, but Josaphat could not be deceived by the words of a pagan), and he arrived at the hermitage. The hermits living in the wilderness wondered who had come to pursue them so assiduously. Like the hound that bays after the beast it tracks, Aracin raised his voice and barked after the hermits, blaming them for what Barlaam had accomplished with the king’s son, whom he had deceived. But did Barlaam deceive the prince? No, he saved him from error, for Josaphat lived a contradiction when he worshipped the creation and despised his Creator.3 Aracin worked on his lord’s behalf to try to make Josaphat renounce his faith, but the king’s son did not care for false belief. He believed truly in the God that the king’s councilor rejected. Aracin was foolish and deceived himself. The king’s son believed in the true faith and knew how to guard against all that Aracin tried to do.

  Prince Aracin fails to find Barlaam

  Aracin was on the mountain with a great company of men. He followed the hermits into their wooded hermitage. They did not flee from him, and they rejoiced when Aracin and his men captured them. They were taken to the prince. One of the hermits was old, white haired, and dressed in a rough garment. He carried holy relics in a pouch around his neck. Aracin looked at him and knew that he was not Barlaam. Aracin knew Barlaam well, and he looked everywhere but did not see him. When he saw that Barlaam was not among them, Aracin cried out, “My lords! I have captured you. Tell me now, where is my enemy? Tell me, for he has deceived the king’s son.”1

  The old man who carried the relics was master of them all, and he responded gently, “There is no enemy among us. He dwells with you, I believe, and leads you astray. We are not against you, for we live with God.”

  “Listen to me,” Prince Aracin demanded. “Show me Barlaam. You know him well, I believe. He has deceived our king’s son.”

 
“He has not deceived him,” the old hermit responded. “Barlaam never preached in order to deceive the prince or take him away from you. He wanted only to teach him God’s law. Barlaam taught him, and he learned. Barlaam came to free him from his false beliefs, and he has surely succeeded.”

  “I seek Barlaam because he most certainly has done the king and all his people a great wrong,” Aracin said. “Show me the way to his dwelling.”

  “I will not do it,” said the hermit. “If he wanted to talk to you, he would have come here voluntarily. Our religion forbids us to take you to him. Our love and fear of God command obedience. Do not interfere in our affairs.”

  The prince grew angry when he heard himself so easily dismissed. “Understand this,” he said furiously, “if you do not take me to Barlaam immediately, you will die. The pyre is ready, and you will suffer the most painful death possible. No doctor will be able to cure the wounds I will give you.”

  The old man responded, “We do not fear death, or threats, for we know that whoever wishes to leave this life need not fear death. This life is the true death, and whoever lives in the world does not really live. The threat of death is double in this world. Death ends life, but life itself is like death. Whoever lives in sin is dying and does not really live. Whoever does not repent unceasingly of his sins dies even as he lives. Whoever would live in this sinful world cannot expect to live, for when he begins to sin, then he dies, for sin makes him die. This man is full of death and sin, and sin is the death that will take him without recourse. Sin and death wound his heart and his understanding. No one can sin without death.

  “We live in repentance and purify our thoughts. We do not fear death, for no one can escape it, and your threats mean nothing to us. We do not fear the sword you raise against us, for we have forsaken this life. We came to this path through repentance, but your journey leads you away from it. Do whatever your false heart tells you to do, for none of us is ready to do what you command. You seek Barlaam. We know where he lives, but no matter what threats you make we will not reveal it to you.”

  Aracin understood that his threats would not make the hermits tell him where to find Barlaam. He was livid, and in his rage he had them tortured. He had them beaten with straps until blood dripped from their wounded flesh. The Saracens tortured the holy hermits, and Aracin beat and cursed them, but he could not make them speak.2 (What was it worth in the end, when it was all for nothing and he could not make them reveal where Barlaam dwelled?) Unhappily and against his will, Aracin decided to take them to King Avenir. He and his men continued to strike and torment the hermits, and forced their abbot, the old preacher who carried the relics, to lead them across the wilderness.

  Aracin and his men cursed God and his servants as they traveled, and finally they arrived at the king’s palace in the city. Aracin presented the captives to King Avenir. The uncomprehending king looked at them with fury, for he saw a people he did not love. (In fact he hated them, though this was wrong.) He decided to take vengeance on them since he could not find Barlaam, and this decision revealed his character and made his sin even worse. He commanded his men to torture the hermits: he had them beaten without pity and showed no compassion for their pain. He believed he would gain honor by beating and insulting them.

  Then he stopped the torturers. “My lords,” he said, “come forward and tell me the truth about Barlaam. I have sworn that if you do not tell me, you will die shamefully today.”

  “King, you should not expect us to follow such an order. You cannot make us take you to Barlaam by beating or torturing us. No pain will make us tell you where he is.”

  “Tell me, then,” said the king, “how do you dare to carry bones around your neck?”

  “We have faith in the holy bodies we carry for remembrance,” the master replied. “Those who now dwell in glory will help us reject this world and be saved, and for that we owe them reverence and honor. Any man who would live according to the good religion should honor the saints. Whoever would keep his house clean and free of filth can see the standard by which he must measure himself if his false heart does not falsify the standard. The sinner chooses a standard and then decides what he can do to change it so he will measure up. The house that should be kept clean is a man’s body. The body takes the soul to a dangerous crossing where the roads and tolls belong to the devil. This is why we carry the bones of the dead, to remind us that the body must die and rot in the putrid ground.

  “Pagan king, this is the wager you have made, and you are already losing. King, you will die, do not doubt it, and in fact you are already dying while you live. You cannot escape death. You do not believe, and that is the cause of your death. You are dying and you do not know how you should die or how you should live, because you are drunk on the pleasure of the sins that kill you. You think you have lost your son, but he has been led into the way of salvation. This is a straight way, and whoever follows any other direction strays from it. Now do what you will with us. We do not fear your threats or your tortures.”

  The king was enraged and commanded that all the hermits be killed. And I will tell you exactly how. First he had their tongues cut out, and his men did it without sparing any pain. He treated them vilely. He had their holy eyes gouged out, and then, to assuage his anger, he had their hands and feet cut off. He made them suffer a grievous martyrdom. He took angry vengeance against those who had done him no wrong, but they willingly received the pain and the martyrdom. They offered the pain to their Creator, for they suffered the pain for him, and they exchanged their suffering for joy, since God gave them their reward and they would have it forever. Their souls are in paradise—whoever loses in this world gains much in the next. The saints who lived in the wilderness merited the crown that God gave them for their torture and martyrdom. There were twenty-seven of them.

  Gui has told the story to this point and translated it into French, and here he finishes the story of the hermits’ martyrdom.3 The story says that our Lord received their souls well, because the pains they had endured had brought them to their Creator. The martyrdom they suffered here below made them emperors and lords in great glory above.

  King Avenir sent for Aracin. “I am very disappointed that Barlaam cannot be found,” he said. “Go find your master Nachor and bring him to me. I want to know if he can return what Barlaam stole from me. I will ask Nachor if he can break my son away from the false belief that causes fear in my heart. Go quickly, good councilor.”

  “Sire, right away.” Prince Aracin went to Nachor, who dwelled in the wilderness (not to serve God, though; he served the devil and devoted his wisdom to the devil’s ends). Nachor was skilled in divination and lived by art and trickery. He was knowledgeable about evil but knew little about the good. Aracin told him about his plan and asked him to use all his skill to bring the king’s son back into the right path. Nachor agreed, and Aracin returned to the king. “Nachor has agreed to come and he will be here tomorrow,” the prince reported, and King Avenir thanked him.

  Aracin was impatient. He rose early the next day and called for the king’s knights. “My lords,” he said, “I have news of Barlaam. Last night one of my sergeants saw him in the wilderness. He fled there to hide because of the crime he committed against the king. Get ready and come with me. We will use my man’s information to find him, and then we will take revenge for the wrong he has done to us.” The knights were happy to hear the news and they assembled as Aracin had commanded. They entered the hermitage and combed the woods, seeking the hermit who had converted the king’s son to the good faith.

  Nachor came out of his cave as though he was lost and confused, and he pretended to be sad and mournful. He listened for the cries of those who sought Barlaam, and when he heard them, he fled through the wilderness where the hermits lived. First he ran to one side, then another; he showed himself, and then he hid. He pretended to be angry, and Aracin was very pleased to see that his men believed Nachor was the man they
had come to capture. “Stop him! Don’t let him escape!” they cried. “If he escapes, the king will be angry, and we will suffer for it!” Aracin’s men pursued Nachor as he ran from bush to hedge. They spurred their horses in pursuit and captured Nachor, but they thought they had taken Barlaam. Nachor did not know what to do, so he pretended to be sad and hid his pleasure with the appearance of fear. The soldiers treated him badly, and he pleaded Aracin for mercy.

  Without revealing anything about his plot, Aracin asked the captive his name. “My name is Barlaam,” Nachor responded. “I am a Christian and I believe in God, who created everything, including you and me.” Aracin was very pleased by this response (he knew who Nachor was, but none of the others recognized him and that pleased him). He went quickly back to court and had Nachor brought before the king.

  King Avenir addressed the false Barlaam. “Show me what kind of man you are. Why have you treated me this way? Why have you separated me from my son? Evil Barlaam, the devil is in you and you have done me a great wrong. Why have you taken my son from me?”

  “King, you have not lost him,” Nachor responded. “He is not lost if he believes in God, and he will receive a rich reward for his belief. I thought to do a good deed when I made your son a Christian.”

  “I wonder why you do not fear death,” said Avenir. “You have spoken treason and you will die in great pain and without redemption if you do not renounce this error.”

  “You are foolish to threaten me,” Nachor responded. “What you call an error, I consider a good deed. I do not fear your threats or judgment.”

  The king pretended to be very angry. He sent for his master councilor and commanded him to take Nachor away and have him closely guarded. The councilor locked him in prison.