The Six Books is the oldest exemplar of a literary
family of Dormition traditions called the Bethlehem traditions, due to the amount
of narrative occurring in Bethlehem. The text of the Six Books is originally
composed in Greek, although no Greek manuscripts of the text survive. The
earliest extant manuscripts are preserved in Syriac and date from the fifth and
sixth centuries. Shoemaker notes at least five Syriac manuscripts, two of which
are complete, and three sets of palimpsest fragments. There are two major
English translations of these earlier Syriac texts, each undertaken in the
nineteenth century. William Wright translated one of the complete Syriac
manuscripts, and A. Smith Lewis translated a fragmentary palimpsest codex.
Shoemaker is now producing a much-needed critical edition and translation of
the Six Books Narrative.
The Six Books must have been written sometime before
the middle of the fifth century, since the extant Syriac manuscripts are from
the late fifth century, and they were translated from an earlier Greek text.
The Six Books must have been written sometime after Constantine, since the
tradition about the relic of the True Cross and Mary’s practice of praying at
Jesus’s tomb are only conceivable after Constantine’s mother, Helena, journeyed
to the Holy Land. Shoemaker argues that the Greek original and its traditions
can be more specifically dated “almost certainly to the middle of the fourth
century, if not perhaps even earlier. The reasons for this more specific dating
are somewhat complicated, but can be summarized in the following two points:
First, the Six Books is dependent on the Doctrina
Addai. After 400 CE, this text begins to include a story of the discovery
of the True Cross, known as the Protonike legend, which is derivative of the
Helena legend. Because the Six Books includes a story of the True Cross that is
different than the Protonike legend, it must be dependent on a version of Doctrina
Addai that lacked this legend—that is, a version existing before the year
400 CE.
Second, among the heresies addressed by the
fourth-century writer Epiphanius of Salamis, in his Panarion are the
so-called “Kollyridians.” This group offered Mary a degree of veneration that
Epiphanius finds unacceptable. Shoemaker demonstrates the high likelihood that
Epiphanius obtained his understanding of the Kollyridians from his acquaintance
with the Six Books. Shoemaker conjectures that “Epiphanius encountered the Six
Books traditions in Palestine, where he lived prior to becoming metropolitan of
Cyprus in 367.”
Finally, although this is not a rationale for dating
the Six Books in the mid-fourth century provided by Shoemaker, Richard Bauckahm
argues for a date “from the fourth century at the latest, but perhaps
considerably earlier,” because of the position of the dead in the Six Books as
“waiting for the last judgment and resurrection,” which he says can be found in
“no other apocalypse [. . . ] later than the mid second century.”(J.
Christopher Edwards, “The Departure of My Lady Mary From This World (The Six
Books Dormition Apocryphon),” in Early New Testament Apocrypha, ed. J.
Christopher Edwards [Ancient Literature for New Testament Studies 9; Grand
Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan Academic, 2022], 308-10)