At this time BARLAAM, a monk of great sanctity and knowledge in divine things, who dwelt in the wilderness of Sennaritis, having received a divine warning, travels to India in the disguise of a merchant, and gains access to Prince Josaphat, to whom he unfolds the Christian doctrine and the blessedness of the monastic life.  Suspicion is raised against Barlaam, and he departs.  But all efforts to shake the Prince’s convictions are vain.  As a last resource the King sends for a magician called Theudas, who removes the Prince’s attendants and substitutes seductive girls, but all their blandishments are resisted through prayer.  The King abandons these attempts and associates his son with himself in the government.  The Prince uses his power to promote religion, and everything prospers in his hand.  Finally King Abenner is drawn to the truth, and after some years of penitence dies.  Josaphat then surrenders the kingdom to a friend called Barachias, and proceeds into the wilderness, where he wanders for two years seeking Barlaam, and much buffeted by the demons.  “And whan Balaam had accomplysshed his dayes, he rested in peas about ye yere of Our Lorde. cccc. &.  Ixxx.  Josaphat lefte his realme the xxv. yere of his age, and ledde the lyfe of an heremyte xxxv. yere, and than rested in peas full of vertues, and was buryed by the body of Balaam.” [Fol. ccc. lvi.] The King Barachias afterwards arrives and transfers the bodies solemnly to India.

This is but the skeleton of the story, but the episodes and apologues which round its dimensions, and give it its mediaeval popularity, do not concern our subject.  In this skeleton the story of Siddharta, mutatis mutandis is obvious.

The story was first popular in the Greek Church, and was embodied in the lives of the saints, as recooked by Simeon the Metaphrast, an author whose period is disputed, but was in any case not later than 1150.  A Cretan monk called Agapios made selections from the work of Simeon which were published in Romaic at Venice in 1541 under the name of the Paradise, and in which the first section consists of the story of Barlaam and Josaphat.  This has been frequently reprinted as a popular book of devotion.  A copy before me is printed at Venice in 1865.[4]

From the Greek Church the history of the two saints passed to the Latin, and they found a place in the Roman martyrology under the 27th November.  When this first happened I have not been able to ascertain.  Their history occupies a large space in the Speculum Historiale of Vincent of Beauvais, written in the 13th century, and is set forth, as we have seen, in the Golden Legend of nearly the same age.  They are recognised by Baronius, and are to be found at p. 348 of “The Roman Martyrology set forth by command of Pope Gregory XIII., and revised by the authority of Pope Urban VIII., translated out of Latin into English by G.K. of the Society of Jesus.... and now re-edited ... by W.N.  Skelly, Esq.  London, T. Richardson & Son.” (Printed at Derby, 1847.) Here in Palermo is a church bearing the dedication Divo Iosaphat.