New light on the sources of the illuminations of the Christian Topography of Kosmas Indikopleustes

Abstract

The illuminations of the Christian Topography were depicted in the 6th century by the author of this cosmological treatise, known under the pseudonym Kosmas Indikopleustes. If his identity still remains uncertain along with other facts of his life, we know from his own words that his doctrine derives from the commentary on the Exodus by the bishop of Persia Mar Aba I (540–552). He used this knowledge of a large repertory of cosmological and biblical illuminations actually conserved only in the three extant manuscripts of the Christian Topography: the more ancient one in the Vatican Library, others in the Monastery of Saint Catherine at Sinai and in the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana in Florence. Though the presence of the twelve springs of Moses in these illuminations, conserved in the latter two manuscripts, has already been interpreted as a consequence of Jewish tradition, this contribution, written in collaboration between an art historian and an expert in Syriac sources, offers a new interpretation of the illumination of the third stage of the Israelites’ journey in the desert. It is based on a fragment of the teaching of Mar Aba, conserved in the Commentary of the Exodus of Isho‘dad of Merv, a Christian bishop lived in the 9th century, never compared before with the illuminations of the Christian Topography. This source clarifies the genesis of the iconography, shading new light on these illuminations, which represent the witnesses of an oral source involving many exegetical traditions. Refs 46.