This famous apocalyptic sermon was first written in Syriac between AD 685 and AD 690 after the Arab conquest of the Middle East. It was swiftly translated into Greek and from that may, according to Möhring, have been translated into Latin before AD 711 and the Arab conquest of Spain.
The text is famous for both its polemical attacks on the ‘sons of Ishmael’ (Arabs) and the loose-living of Syrian Christians. It also provided the seminal account of a last ‘king of the Greeks or Romans‘ – possibly to be identified with Justinian II – who would restore peace and then lay down his power in the Last Days.
– First Latin Recension (by Petrus Monachus, likely in Italy)
Edition: Aerts & Kortekaas (Leuven, 1998); Garstad (Cambridge, MA, 2012).
Translation: Garstad (Cambridge, MA, 2012). Extracts translated in McGinn, Visions of the End (2nd edn, New York, 1997).
Key early manuscripts: Bern, Burgerbibliothek, 611 (written in a centre influenced by the script of Luxeuil, 727 or shortly after); Paris, BnF, lat. 13348 (provenance Corbie, mid-/late- eighth-century); …
– Second Recension (in Alemannia?)
Edition: Prinz, Deutsches Archiv, 41 (1985).
Key early manuscripts: …
– Third Recension (in N. Italy?)
No edition or translation yet (although I have started one with Stephen Pelle at Toronto).
Key manuscript: Karlsruhe, Badische Landesbibliothek, Aug. Perg. 254 (Provenance Reichenau, c. AD 800, possibly written in Novara or a similar N. Italian centre).
Medieval Apocalyptic 