BARLAAM and IOASAPH (IOSAPHAT). — These are the two principal characters in a hagiographical romance translated from Georgian into Greek by the Iberian saint Euthymius the Hagiorite (d. 13 May 1028), and translated into Latin, in 1048, by a Latin residing at the court of Constantine Monomachus. The same Georgian text probably derives from an Arabic version. Such are the conclusions recently reached by Fr. Peeters (La première traduction latine de « B. et J. » et son original grec, in Analecta Bollandiana, 49 [1931], pp. 276–312), in contrast with the common opinion that dates at least to the beginning of the 7th century the Greek legend composed by a certain monk John of the Laura of Mar Saba, later erroneously identified with St. John Damascene. The first edition of the Greek text was published in 1832 by F. Boissonade (Anecdota graeca, IV, pp. 1–365).
From as early as the 11th century, the Latin translation of this romance began to circulate in Europe and became the source of an extraordinarily rich literature in verse and prose, which has continued to grow even in our own day. Translations and adaptations of it are found in almost all Western languages. The same Greek version was also utilized in Syriac, Armenian, Ethiopic, and Hebrew. The romance in question is nothing other than an adaptation of the Indian legend of Buddha to a Christian subject. In addition to the Indian legend, the author also made use of Christian sources, especially the Apology of Aristides, which was discovered in it and is reproduced there almost in its entirety.
Only later, that is, beginning in the 16th century, did certain editors of martyrologies have the unfortunate idea of transforming the imaginary characters of B. and I. into authentic Indian blessed persons and entering them in their catalogues, above all in Baronius’s Roman Martyrology, Rome 1584, under 27 November.