Life of Gerasimos of Emesa

Vita Gerasimi Emesiani

Standard abbreviation: Life Geras.

Clavis numbers: ECCA 500

Category: Apocryphal Acts

Related literature: none

Compiled by: Slavomír Čéplö, Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften

Citing this resource (using Chicago Manual of Style): Čéplö, Slavomír. “Life of Gerasimos of Emesa.” e-Clavis: Christian Apocrypha. Accessed DAY MONTH YEAR. https://www.nasscal.com/e-clavis-christian-apocrypha/life-of-gerasimos-of-emesa/.

Created June 2025.

1. SUMMARY

The text consists of two parts. The first part recounts the story of a man named Gerasimos (Sarāsīmōs in the beginning of A, but Gerāsīmōs elsewhere and in the title; Akhrīsmos in the text of B), a high official in Galilee who resides in the city of Gaulanitis (Golan) during the time Jesus was alive. Gerasimos becomes deathly ill and unable to speak at the exact time Jesus encounters the Canaanite woman with an ill daughter (Matt 15:21-28). The woman is from Emesa (today Homs in Syria) and when she returns there, she is told that her daughter was healed at the exact hour when Jesus said she would be. The woman then learns of Gerasimos’s illness and goes to visit Gerasimos to tell him of the healing Jesus had performed on her daughter across the distance from Palestine to Emesa.

Upon hearing this, Gerasimos sets out to see Christ, but being unable to speak, he writes him a letter and has his slaves deliver it in his presence. When Jesus receives the letter, he sets the slaves free with the words “you are free, not slaves, because we all are one hypostasis.” Jesus then heals Gerasimos and commands him to sell his property (Luke 12:33). Gerasimos sells all his possessions and gives the proceeds away. He then travels to Jerusalem where he sees Jesus on the cross and then, along with all the apostles, sees him risen. Jesus then sends an angel to Gerasimos to command him to return to his country and wait until Jesus sends the Holy Spirit.

Gerasimos does as commanded and when he returns home, Jesus appears to him on a cloud filled with light and tells him to “drop the sickle” from his hand and become his apostle. To that end, Gerasimos should seek out Peter and John the evangelist who will baptize him; then he will receive the gifts of the whole spirit. Gerasimos does as ordered and when he encounters Peter, Peter welcomes him and hits the ground with his staff where a spring of water emerges. Peter then baptizes Gerasimos and “the paraclete spirit” descends on him similarly to how it descended on Mount Zion on the apostles. A voice from heaven commands Gerasimos to become the bishop of Emesa.

The second part then focuses on Gerasimos’s mission in Emesa. He first drives a demon from one of the towers in the city gate. Gerasimos then heads to the part of the city where idols reside and invokes God’s name to destroy them. God sends a stormy wind that topples the idols, upon which the servants of the idols grab Gerasimos, beat him and prepare to stone him (ms. B ends here). A just man by the name of Cosmas Ibn Marūm, who is blind due to a disease, hears of this and rushes to Gerasimos to ask him how he vanquished their gods. As an answer, Gerasimos preaches to the crowd and restores Ibn Marūm’s vision. The Canaanite woman hears the commotion, joins the scene and questions Gerasimos as to his identity arguing “You are not Peter, or John, or any of his disciples.” Gerasimos preaches and when people hear it, the sick and infirm gather around him, numbering 1314. Gerasimos heals all of them (Matt 11:5).

There is a woman in the city by the name of Theophila who had a son who died seventeen years ago. She made him an elaborate grave outside of the city and she went there every Wednesday to mourn him. When she hears of Gerasimos, she seeks him out and asks him to resurrect her son. He tells her that if she believes, her wish will come true. She returns to her husband named Theophilos who is skeptical and chastises her, but he is ultimately convinced and seeks out Gerasimos as well. Theophilos confesses that he too now believes. Gerasimos writes to all the cities under his control and gathers thousands of people. He orders a tall pulpit to be built next to the boy’s grave and tells the people to gather there. Finally on Sunday, 23 Nīsān, at the third hour, Gerasimos takes up the pulpit and prays over the dead boy. When he is finished, a golden mist appears over the boy’s body, reviving him and reassembling his body part by part. The boy leaves the place on his own, praising God. The assembled people marvel, praise God and ask to be baptized. Gerasimos spends the next seven days baptizing them—70 thousand men and 60 thousand women in total.

Named Historical Figures and Characters: Canaanite woman, John (son of Zebedee), Peter (apostle), Theophila.

Geographical Location: Emesa/Homs, Golan, Jerusalem, Mount Zion.

2. RESOURCES

3. BIBLIOGRAPHY

3.1 Manuscripts and Editions

3.1.1 Arabic

A Bucharest, B.A.R. (Library of the Romanian Academy of Sciences) Ms. Orientale 365, fols. 175^v–180^r (18th cent.)

B Tripoli, Dayr Sayyidat al-Balmand, 156, fols. 215^r–217^v (1606) ~ incomplete at the end

olim Leipzig, Karl W. Hiersemann, Katalog 500/14, fols. 81^r–89^r (10th cent.) ~ lost

Egbaston, University of Birmingham, Mingana Chr. Ar. Add. 172 ~ table of contents of the Hiersemann manuscript, text listed as no. 13

Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. ar. 171, fols. 116^r–121^v (17th cent.) ~ OPAC

Graf, Georg. Geschichte der christlichen arabischen Literatur. 5 vols. Rome: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1944 (Arabic manuscripts listed, vol. 1, p. 268).

Hiersemann, Karl W. 1922. Katalog 500: Orientalische Manuskripte: Arabische, syrische, griechische, armenische, persische Handschriften des 7.-18. Jahrhderts [sic]: meist theologischen, vorzüglich kirchen- u. liturgiegeschichtlichen Inhalts von hoher Bedeutung z. gr. Tl. Inedita und Unica. Leipzig: Karl W. Hiersemann, 1922 (manuscript description, p. 11).

Frantsouzoff, S.A. “Житие св. Герасима из Эмессы: уникальный памятник сиро-византийской агиографии в арабской передаче” (The Life of St. Gerasumus of Emessa: A Unique Monument of Syro-Byzantine Hagiography in Arabic Transmission.) Pages 260–70 in Византия в контексте мировой культуры. Материалы конференции, посвященной памяти А. В. Банк (1906–1984). Edited by V. N. Zaleskaja, E. V. Ctepanova, et al. Transactions of the State Hermitage Museum 28. St. Petersburg: Publishing House of the Hermitage Museum, 2015 (text and translation of part 1).

———. Пять житий. Очерки изучения арабо-православной агиографии. (Five Lives of Saints: Essays on Study of Arabic Orthodox Hagiography. Researches and Publications.) Fontes Scripti Antiqui. S. Petersburg: Publishing House of the Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia, 2021 (edition based on A, pp. 182–89, translation, pp. 189–97).

3.2 Modern Translations

3.2.1 Russian

Frantsouzoff, S.A.Пять житий. Очерки изучения арабо-православной агиографии. (Five Lives of Saints: Essays on Study of Arabic Orthodox Hagiography. Researches and Publications.) Fontes Scripti Antiqui. S. Petersburg: Publishing House of the Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia, 2021 (edition based on A, pp. 182–89, translation, pp. 189–97).

3.3 General Works

Frantsouzoff, S.A. “La réception et le développement de l’hagiographie byzantine dans le milieu arabe orthodoxe (d’après un recueil hagiographique arabe de la Bibliothèque de l’Académie Roumaine).” Pages 285–98 in Byzantine Hagiography: Texts, Themes & Projects. Edited by Antonio Rigo, Michele Trizio, and Eleftherios Despotakis, Byzantios: Studies in Byzantine History and Civilization 13. Turnhout: Brepols, 2018.