The Martyrium Arethae and His Companions in Na ran (BHG 166) is one of the best known and most
widespread texts of the Christian Eastern martyrological literature. Written in Greek in the
second half of the 6th century probably from a Syriac model it was translated into several
languages including Arabic Ethiopian Armenian and Georgian. Modern scholars studied this
work since the 19th century when the first editions of the texts connected with the tragic
events of Na ran appeared. Paolo La Spisa's study provides the critical edition of all the
Arabic versions known so far. The Arabic manuscript tradition has transmitted to us ten
witnesses whose in-depth analysis has allowed us to identify three distinct recensions
(labelled in the present edition as Ar1 Ar2 Ar3). This study intends to offer an updated and
corrected edition of some Arabic versions that had already been published in the first decade
of the 2000s (Ar1 Ar2) as well as to offer the standard edition of a still unpublished
version (Ar3). The edition of each recension is accompanied by an Italian translation and by a
historical-philological commentary in which the parallel passages within the Arabic tradition
and the intertextual relations with no-Arabic versions are highlighted. In the introduction
not only the criteria for the edition of the texts have been outlined but the importance and
originality of the Arabic versions are highlighted with respect to the previous and subsequent
versions Greek and Ethiopic respectively. Eventually a brief presentation of the linguistic
features of the manuscript texts belonging to the Middle Arabic spectrum is offered. (Text in
Arabic Italian)
