Warszawskie Studia Teologiczne XII/2/1999, 253-269 Witold WITAKOWSKI Uppsala University THEODOXIA AND HER FINDING OF THE HOLY CROSS AN ETHIOPIC VERSION OF THE LEGEND OF THE FINDING OF THE HOLY CROSS IN THE MIRACLES OF MARY In a previous article devoted to some versions of the legend of the Finding of the Holy Cross we drew attention to some Ethiopic texts that seem to have been disre- garded in recent studies devoted to the legend. 1 In addition to the hagiographic ac- count on the holy Kirakos (Cyriacus) and his mother, which is known in other Chris- tian Oriental language versions, we mentioned there several shorter stories that can be found in the Synaxary and two other unpublished texts. One of these, which we shall be dealing with in the present paper, was first made known as the Story of Theodosia who finds the Holy Cross in Jerusalem. 2 Our pur- pose is to publish the Ethiopic text of the Story, together with an English translation, and to investigate its origin. The Legend of Theodosia (Eth. , ), or rather Theodoxia (Eth. , see below) is extant not as an independent text but as a chapter in the well-known collection of the Miracles of Mary ( ). The collection, which is of European origin, reached Ethiopia about A.D. 1400 via an Arabic transla- tion. The Ethiopic translation of the Miracles became enormously popular, and was augmented in the course of time with a large number of new episodes, to the effect that the stories of the original European collection, together with those originating in other literatures of the Christian Near East and entering the collection in Arabic garb, constitute a minority as compared to what was composed in Ethiopia itself. The total number of the known episodes reaches ca. 600, although no manuscript contains all of them. As has been suggested in our paper referred to above, the episode on Theodoxia had its origin in the Coptic Legend of Eudoxia. 1 See W. WITAKOWSKI, "Ethiopic and Hebrew versions of the legend of The Finding of the Holy Cross", [in:] Studia Patristica 35: Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Patristic Studies, Oxford 16-21 August 1999, Leuven 2000, 535-543, forthcoming. 2 H. ZOTENBERG, Catalogue des manuscrits éthiopiens (gheez et amharique) de la Bibliothèque Na- tionale, Paris 1877, 64, no. 51: Histoire de Théodosie, sœur de l’empereur Constantin, qui trouve la sainte croix à Jérusalem, après la mort de sa mère Hélène, et qui reçoit elle-même le nom d’Hélène.