1. Legend of the Three Monks of the East or of St. Macarius.⁠[429]—Labitte and D’Ancona ascribe this legend to the sixth, seventh or eighth century; but Ozanam maintains that it must be later than Islam, seeing that in the epilogue the saint inquires of his guests what news they have of the Saracens. Graf considers it to be of Græco-Christian origin, but the mystery surrounding the person of the saint himself contributes to render the origin of the story still more obscure.

2. We will briefly examine the descriptive features that may point to a Moslem origin.

In the course of their long and adventurous pilgrimage the three monks cross Syria, Persia and Ethiopia. Passing through a country inhabited by dog-headed men, they traverse a land of pygmies and reach a territory swarming with dragons, basilisks, asps and other venomous creatures. Pursuing their way, they cross a desert region strewn with stones and rocks and, passing through the country of elephants, finally come to a land of deep shadow, behind which rises the monument erected by Alexander the Great as a boundary marking the end of the world.

The early Moslem tales referred to in a former chapter as being the remote prototypes of Dante’s hell, and notably a hadith of the time of Mahomet, give a similar division of the earth into seven regions, some of which are identical with those of the legend. Thus, the dog-headed men appear in the third earth of the hadith; the fifth is full of serpents and scorpions; and the fourth is formed of sulphurous stones.⁠[430] Finally, the region of darkness recurs in all the versions of the tale of Dulcarnain, who in Arabic legend is identified with Alexander the Great; and the monument appears as a wall built, according to the Koran, by Dulcarnain as a protection against the peoples of Gog and Magog, who, according to a version of the Islamic legend—like the pygmies of the Christian legend, whose stature was only an ell—measured but a hand and a half in height.⁠[431]

The three monks then penetrate into the infernal regions and there witness tortures, some of which are noteworthy for their resemblance to Moslem punishments already mentioned. Thus, as in all the versions of the Miraj, sinners are seen tormented by serpents in a lake of burning sulphur; further on, the monks behold a giant chained in the midst of flames—a figure that also appeared in the hadiths depicting hell⁠[432]; again, a woman is shown tormented by an enormous serpent in a manner as horrible as that of the Moslem tortures⁠[433]; and so on.

3. The Moslem character of the tale, however, is most apparent from the following episode:

The pilgrims have left hell behind them and now enter a wood of lofty trees, upon the branches of which sit a multitude of souls reincarnate in the form of birds. These cry out to God with the voices of human beings begging Him to forgive them their sins and explain to them the wonders they have witnessed.

Graf, in seeking to account for the frequent occurrence of this myth in mediæval legend, finds no precedent but that of early Christian symbolism, in which the soul is represented in the form of a bird. But in Christian symbolism the dove alone represented the Holy Ghost and only very occasionally, on the monuments of the Catacombs, the souls of the faithful. Moreover, the legend does not speak of symbols, but of the reincarnation of souls in birds, which live in a wood close, it is precisely stated, to paradise—features that will be seen to have a more satisfactory explanation in Moslem hadiths.

From early times it was a general belief in Islam that the spirits of men who fell in Holy Warfare and, occasionally, the souls of the faithful lived, incarnate in birds such as starlings, in a garden or wood at the gates of paradise, awaiting the day of resurrection. These birds, some of which are white and others green, fly freely through the garden and rest on the branches of the trees, the fruits of which they eat. They drink of the waters of the rivers flowing through the garden and spend their time in converse with God. The souls of Moslem children are likewise transferred to little birds, which fly about among the others. All these birds know and speak to one another. According to other hadiths, they are as white as doves or of a brilliant white like foam.

Some hadiths quote the colloquies God is supposed to hold with these birds, and the text remotely resembles the words attributed to the human birds in the Christian legend. Thus⁠[434]:

God asks them, “Know ye perchance of a better fate than that reserved unto you?” and they answer, “No. Our sole desire were that our spirits might return to our bodies once more to fight and be sacrificed in Thy service.” In other hadiths, the birds in which live the souls of the faithful other than martyrs, are made to utter the prayer, “Gather us, O Lord, to our brethren and grant us that which Thou hast promised unto us.”

This belief was so deeply rooted in Islam that it gave rise to other holy legends as well as to theological polemics.⁠[435] In the legends, a bird incarnating the spirit of an ascetic or mystic is supposed to appear on earth. In their polemics, the theologians in all earnestness discuss the nature of this being, which in the body of a bird harbours the mind of a man.

4. Vision of St. Paul.⁠[436]—The passage in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians (XII, 2-4), in which the Apostle refers to his being wafted to the third heaven, was the nucleus round which this legend grew. It first appeared in the form of an Apocalypse written in Greek about the fourth century, and does not seem to have spread to Western Christianity before the ninth century. Indeed, as a vision it only dates from the twelfth, and in its more literary forms from the thirteenth century. In transmission from East to West it underwent considerable changes, which have not yet been explained.⁠[437] A comparison of the later texts with similar Moslem legends may therefore be of interest as pointing to the hidden channel by which the tale reached Western Europe.

5. As in the Miraj, Mahomet was accompanied by Gabriel, so St. Paul in his nocturnal ascension is led by the Archangel Michael.

The first torture of hell witnessed by St. Paul—that of the avaricious, hanging by their feet, their tongues, or ears from the branches of trees—is evidently an adaptation from the Isra; and it must be confessed that in the Moslem story there exists a relation between the sin committed and the member tortured that is altogether lacking in the Christian legend.

Over a turbid river, in the Pauline vision, stretches a bridge as fine as a hair, connecting this world with paradise; this bridge the righteous souls cross with ease, but the wicked fall into the river. Here the plagiarism is flagrant; for this is clearly a copy of the “sirat” or Moslem bridge crossed on the Day of Judgment, according to a Koranic myth, the Persian origin of which has been explained above.⁠[438] Indeed, one of the early traditionists, Abu Said al-Khadari, in describing the “sirat” as being finer than a hair, uses the very same simile as the author of the Pauline vision.⁠[439] It need hardly be pointed out that the position of this bridge, stretching from the earth to heaven across hell, is the same in both Christian and Moslem legends.

A wheel of fire that in ceaseless rotation torments the sinners is another instance of a torture copied from Islam. It will be remembered that in several hadiths a precedent was found for the torture appointed by Dante to Sodomites⁠[440]; among them is one dating from the eighth century that says, “In hell there are people bound to flaming wheels, the wheels of wells that turn in ceaseless rotation.”⁠[441]

6. Although other picturesque features may be passed over as of minor importance,⁠[442] the end of this apocryphal vision is remarkable for two scenes of singular poetic beauty. In the first of these, St. Paul from hell sees angels leading a righteous soul to paradise, while demons drag off a wicked soul to torture. All the religious books of Islam devote a chapter to this subject. Thus, the author of the Tadhkira comments at length on a hadith, in which the death of the righteous man is contrasted with that of the sinner; and the fate of their souls, as they are led by angels or demons to heaven or hell, is depicted in awe-inspiring scenes.⁠[443] But, as this scene of the Pauline vision recurs in many other Christian legends, all bearing upon the same struggle between angels and devils for the possession of the soul, its study may be held over until later, when these particular legends will be dealt with in detail.

The final vision of St. Paul is summarised by D’Ancona as follows:

The sinners humbly beg the Apostle to intercede on their behalf. The Miserere, uttered by millions of souls, fills the four heavens and reaches to the throne of Christ, Who thereupon descends and sternly rebukes the reprobates. For the sake of His disciple, however, He grants them a weekly respite from torture, from the ninth hour of Saturday to the first hour of Monday.

In the summary of the Greek Apocalypse, given by Graf, the analogous scene is as follows:

The Archangel Gabriel descends with the heavenly hosts, and the damned implore his assistance. St. Paul, who has wept over the indescribable tortures he has just witnessed, joins the angels in their intercession on behalf of the sufferers. Christ appears and, moved to pity by their prayers, grants the sinners an annual respite on Easter Sunday, the anniversary of His resurrection.⁠[444]

Graf has pointed out that the main difference between the Greek Apocalypse and the Western Visio Pauli lies in the fact that, whereas in the former the respite from torture is annual, in the latter it is weekly.⁠[445] When and by whom was this change introduced? Islamic legends prior to the Visio latina show the same belief in a weekly day of rest for the damned, extending from the eve of Friday to the morn of Saturday. The point will be more fully dealt with when the cycle of Christian legends on this subject of a respite comes under discussion. Meanwhile, the conclusion to be drawn is, that the Visio Pauli reached Western Europe through Moslem adaptations of the Greek Apocalypse. A brief survey of these Islamic legends will complete the comparison.

One, current in the ninth century, forms but a new episode in the legend of Mahomet’s ascension.⁠[446]

Mahomet from heaven hears the cries of pain uttered by the undutiful children in hell and, moved to pity, intercedes with God on their behalf; but God refuses to grant his request, unless the parents join him in his prayers. After witnessing the torture of the children, Mahomet returns weeping to the Throne of God and thrice repeats his entreaties, only to meet with the same answer. The Prophet then appeals in pleading tones to the parents, who are in heaven; but they, remembering the ingratitude of their children, are loth to act. However, in the end he succeeds in softening their hearts and obtains permission to lead them to hell, where at the sight of their tortured children they burst into bitter tears. The sinners reply with cries for mercy, and the entreaties of the parents, added to those of the Prophet, finally obtain the pardon of the sinners.

A similar legend, telling of the delivery from hell of the Moslem sufferers through the intercession of the Prophet, is given in the Tadhkira.⁠[447]

From the bottommost pit of hell the damned, with cries of anguish, call on Mahomet to intercede on behalf of his flock. At the same time they beg the Lord to forgive them their sins, addressing Him in terms similar to those of the Miserere of the Pauline vision, “Have mercy upon us, O Lord!” God grants their pardon and sends Gabriel to deliver the believers from hell.