The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament in English, with introductions and critical and explanatory notes to the several books, edited in conjunction with many scholars by R. H. Charles, volume II: Pseudepigrapha. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913.

The approval thus won from the reluctant Hasids, the Maccabees had deepened and strengthened by their achievements every year in every province of their activity, till the thought was begotten in many a breast, that at last the hope of Israel had come, and, in defiance of all ancient prophecy, was sprung from the house and lineage of Levi.

There are good grounds for regarding Psalm cx as the outcome of such an expectation, and as greeting one of the Maccabees as the long-expected deliverer of Israel. But, however this may be, there is no doubt that our author addresses two or more Messianic hymns to John Hyrcanus, in whom had culminated all the glories and gifts of this great family. The writer already sees the Messianic kingdom established, under the sway of which the Gentiles will in due course be saved, Beliar overthrown, sin disappear from the earth, and the righteous dead rise to share in the blessedness of the living.

Alas for the vanity of man’s judgement and man’s prescience. Our book had hardly been published, when Hyrcanus, owing to an outrage done him by the Pharisees, broke with their party, and joining the Sadducees, died a year or two later. His successors proved themselves the basest of men. Their infamy is painted in lurid colours by contemporary writers of the first century B.C., and by a strange irony the work, or rather, fragments of the work of one of these assailants of the later Maccabees, has achieved immortality by finding a covert in the chief manifesto that was issued on behalf of one of the earlier members of the dynasty.

This second writer singles out three of the Maccabean priest-kings for attack, the first of whom he charges with every abomination; the people itself, he declares, is apostate, and chastisement will follow speedily—the temple will be laid waste, the nation carried afresh into captivity, whence, on their repentance, God will restore them again to their own land, where they shall enjoy the blessedness of God’s presence and be ruled by a Messiah sprung from Judah.

When we contrast the expectations of the original writer and the actual events that followed, it would seem that the chief value of his work would consist in the light that it throws on this obscure and temporary revolution in the Messianic expectations of Judaism towards the close of the second century. But thisisnotso. The main, the overwhelming value of the book lies not in this province, but in its ethical teaching, which has achieved a real immortality by influencing the thought and diction of the writers of the New Testament, and even those of our Lord. This ethical teaching, which is very much higher and purer than that of the Old Testament, is yet its true spiritual child, and helps to bridge the chasm that divides the ethics of the Old and New Testaments.'

' That this ethical teaching belongs to the essence of the book is obvious to any careful student of the work. As such it forms alike its warp and woof. On the other hand, the dogmatic Christian interpolations are patches differing alike in colour and texture from the original material, stitched on at times where originally there was no rent at all, and at others rudely thrust in where a rent had been deliberately made for their insertion, See § 13.

After the first century of our era the fortunes of the Testaments speedily declined in Christendom. Though they are referred to occasionally in the next three centuries, they came to be discredited as an Apocryphal writing and fell under the ban of the Church. Unhappily, further, in the course of these centuries of their waning popularity, they underwent interpolation at the hands of Christian scribes, but happily many of these interpolations had not been made when the book was done into

The reappearance of the Testaments on the stage of history was due to the great Bishop of Lincoln, Robert Grosseteste, in the thirteenth century, who procured from Greece the MS. of this book, which is now in the University Library of Cambridge. This scholar took the book with all its Christian additions to be a genuine writing of the twelve sons of Jacob.

It is perhaps needless to state that, when the critical instinct revived with the Reformation, Grosseteste’s view of the Testaments was summarily rejected. Nay more, as the book was regarded as the work of one writer, it was simply condemned as a Christian forgery. In the course of four centuries only one voice was raised against this mistaken verdict, and that in vain for about two hundred years. The twentieth century sees this book at last come into its own.!

M2 LHe LITLE:

The general title was in all probability ‘The Testaments of the Patriarchs’. Such is the designation in use in the Armenian version. In the Greek MSS. the title varies. In a (= chz) dd it appears as AvadjKa Tov dddexa TlatprapySv tdv vidv “laxwB (+ Tod Tarpidpxov a), a ai dvabjKar TSv 1B" Tarp. mpos Tovs viovs a’tGv. In the Stichometry of Nicephorus, the Synopsis of Athanasius, and the anonymous list of books edited by Montfaucon, Pitra, and others, the book is simply called Tlarpiapxar.

As regards the title of the individual testaments, it was no doubt simply ‘The Testament of Reuben’, ‘ The Testament of Simeon’, &c. If the reader refers to my edition of the Greek Versions of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, pp. xliv—xlvi, he will see that, whereas the a MSS. uniformly give one form of title, the 8 MSS. (with the exception of adg), that is, def, give another, in which in addition to the name of the Patriarch the main subject of the Testament is given. Thus the title of Gad’s Testament is d:a0jxn [ad wep picovs. The titles in dare generally conflated from def and a; in a simply the name of the patriarch is given, while as for g, it takes a line of its own. In the Armenian the titles agree partly with those given in the Greek MSS. def, but oftener do not. From this short summary of the facts it follows that the titles in def, A are secondary. There remain now the forms in a and the single MS. a, and that found in the Hebrew Testament of Naphtali, i.e. apy’ j2 *Sna) navy ‘The Testament of Naphtali the son of Jacob’. The form in a (i.e. simply the name of the patriarch) may be at once dismissed as an idiosyncrasy of this MS. In the a MSS. the title of the individual Testaments resembles closely that of the Hebrew Testament of Naphtali, but the greater number of them are obviously inaccurate and therefore not original. That of Reuben and some others are accurate enough ; thus a gives d1a0jKy ‘PovBhp rod tperordKov viod lax@B kal Aefas, which is true enough; but in the case of Naphtali we have the impossible d:a0jxn Nepdarelu rod dyddov viod ‘Tax kal BadAas. Naphtali was the second son of Bilhah. If, however, we omit in each case the name of the mother, we arrive possibly at the original form of the titles of the individual Testaments. Possibly, I say; for the order of the Testaments is not chronological, but depends on the groupings of the patriarchs according to their respective mothers. Thus the first six patriarchs are the sons of Leah, the next two are the sons of Bilhah, the next two of Zilpah, and the last two of Rachel. Hence it is more than probable that the position of the patriarch as the first, third, or seventh son, was not mentioned in the original title. Thus we conclude that the evidence points to the following as the original form.

APY pI IW NNy Svadjxy “PovBhy viod laxé8 ‘ The Testament of Reuben the son of Jacob’.

$3. THE GREEK MSS.

(2) Bodley MS. Baroccio 133. Quarto. This paper MS. contains several treatises by different hands of the latter part of the fourteenth century. The Testaments occupy folios 179@-2056. Their general title and those of Judah and Gad are written in red. There are two copies of this MS. on paper, one in the Bodley MS. Smith 117, belonging to the close of the seventeenth century, and the second in Emmanuel College, Cambridge. This MS. is remarkable for the large number of omissions, at times of entire chapters.

(6) University Library, Cambridge, ff. i. 24. Quarto. This parchment MS. contains four

1 From the present writer’s edition of the Zestaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, p. xvi sqq.

THE TESTAMENTS OF THEMIWELVE, PA RRIARGHS

works, of which the Testaments are the fourth, written on folios 203a-2626. It belongs to the tenth century. It is written in double columns, twenty lines ina column. The initials and titles are in red, except the first, which is in gold. It was from this MS. that Grosseteste’s Latin Version was made. :

(c) Vatican Library, Cod. Graec. 731. This is a small octavo MS. written on paper, with twenty-two or twenty-three lines on each page. Besides the Testaments it contains extracts from the Fathers. The Testaments are given on folios 972-1676. The script» of the latter belongs Pig to the thirteenth century. “This is the most important of all the MSS.

(d2) Vatican Library, Gk. 1238. This is a vellum MS. in three volumes of the LX X belonging to the thirteenth century. On the close of the LXX follows the Testament of Job, folios 340a-3494, and on 350-380 of our present text. There are from 33-39 lines in each page. Strangely enough, above the general title of the Testaments, Acaéjjxau réy 18 marpiapyov vidy ‘laxdB, appear the words Aextis Tevéoews, which is one of the titles of the Book of Jubilees. That there was a close relation between these books we know independently.

(ec) Mount Athos MS. This MS. is written in two columns of forty lines each in a good hand of the tenth century. The Testaments are given on folios 1974-22ga. This MS. is of great interest, as it contains three large additions to the text: the first before xal éxi avpyous in T. Lev. ii. 3, consisting of a prayer of Jacob; the second after the word jjmepév in T. Lev. xviii. 2, and the third after rijs ys in T. Ash. vii. 2. The third consists of two and two-third columns of certain Christian disquisitions on love and the Trinity. The second is the remarkable Greek fragment, which I have printed in Appendix III in my edition of the Text, and which we show elsewhere to be a translation from a Hebrew work, which was probably an original source of the Testaments.

(7) Paris MS. 938. This is a beautifully written MS. of the tenth century. The Testaments are given on the first seventy-two folios. Each page contains twenty-three lines. On folio 1@ there is a list of Old Testament names, including the twelve patriarchs, with their meanings. The Testaments proper begin on 14. It is characteristic of this MS. that after the title of each Testament it adds the meaning of the proper name, and also that, at the conclusion of each Testament, it adds the number of years that the patriarch lived. In the latter feature it is followed by the first Slavonic Recension (S'). After the Testaments follow the Testament of Job and other writings.

(g) MS. 411 in the Library of the Monastery of St. John the Evangelist in Patmos. It is a quarto MS. written on parchment, and assigned by H. C. Coxe to the sixteenth century.

(2) Mount Sinai MS. No. 547 in the Library of St. Catherine. See Gardthausen, Caz. Codd. Graec. Sinaiticorum, p. 132. This MS., 14°5 by 10°35 cm., was written in the seventeenth century. It contains seventeen lines on each page. It is incomplete and comes to an end with T. Jos. xv. 7. This MS. has the following peculiar introduction : "Iwavvov tod Tore éBpaiov eldnots Tdv diaOnkdy Tv us vidv Tod matpiapyxov “laxoB petappacbeioa amd Lovdaikod diad€xrov els “EAAnuixyjv. The statement is true. but where the scribe got it we cannot determine.

(z) Mount Sinai MS. This MS. was discovered accidentally in the Convent Library in the spring of 1906 by Mrs. Gibson. This MS. was written not earlier than the seventeenth century. It contains 21-23 lines on each page. It has the same peculiar introduction as %. See preceding MS.

$4. THE ARMENIAN MSS.

There are many MSS. of this version. The first five are designated by the symbols attached to them in the Venice edition of the text by the Mechitarist Fathers. The rest owe their designation to the present editor. When cited they appear as A*, A?, &c.

A®. Mechitarist Library of St. Lazzaro, Venice, No. 345. This MS., five by seven inches, was written in the year 1220 on paper. It belongs to the first recension of the text.

A*, Mechitarist Library of St. Lazzaro, No. 280. This MS. is the worst representative of the second recension of the Armenian version.

A». Mechitarist Library of St. Lazzaro, No. 679. This MS., six by ten inches, was written towards the end of the fifteenth century, in double columns of twenty-six lines each, and consists of 679 folios. It belongs to the first recension.

A’. Mechitarist Library of St. Lazzaro, No. 229. This MS. Bible, eight by ten inches, was written on vellum in double columns of fifty lines each in the year 1655.

A‘, Mechitarist Library of St. Lazzaro, No. 1366. This MS. Bible was written in the sixteenth century on paper, in double columns of forty-three lines each.

A’. This MS. Bible was written in the sixteenth century and belongs to the London Bible Society.

At, This MS. Bible, which belongs to the Catholicos of the Armenian Church at Edschmiadzin

in Armenia, was there photographed by Conybeare in 1891. The MS. is written in two columns of fifty lines each in a beautiful hand.

A’. This MS. Bible, which was written in the seventeenth century, belongs to Lord Zouche.

A», Bodleian Library, Oxford, No. e. 30 (thirteenth century). Only five Testaments are found in this MS.,.and in the following order: Simeon (folio 168*), Levi (173), Joseph (183°), Benjamin (195°), Judah (202°). The MS. is written in two or more hands (latest eighteenth century), and there are two types of text. Fortunately the four first-mentioned Testaments and T. Judah i-xiv. 8°°° (i.e. dy... aioxpopnporeiy) belong to the first recension, and only T. Jud. xiv. 8¢°-xxvi, to the second. This MS. thus attests the same type of text as A*”, but it is more closely related to A? than to A®.

All the preceding MSS. have been used by the present editor. There are three others, of two of which he has no knowledge. .

Ai, A Vatican MS. of the Bible cited once by Conybeare. See ¥OR viii. (1896), p. 260. It belongs to the seventeenth century.

A*. Mechitarist Library, Vienna, No. 126 (Dashian’s Catalog der armenischen Handschriften der Mechitaristen-Bibliothek zu Wien, 1895, p. 71, 411 sqq.), This MS. was written in the year 1388. On the first 105 folios it contains the history of Joseph and Asenath. Then follow the Testaments. Of these Reuben, Dan, Naphtali, are missing. The order of the remaining nine is peculiar, agreeing in the first five with that of A®. Thus we have Simeon, Levi, Joseph, Benjamin, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Gad, Asher. A study of the titles of these Testaments given in Sinker’s Appendix, p. 25, and the German translation of the T. Jud. xxiv-xxvi, and T. Benj. x. 8?-xii, by Dr. Paul Hunanian, makes it at once clear that A* belongs to the first Armenian recension, and furthermore, that Ak is more nearly related to A?” than to A”, and to A® than to A

(A}). The Hof-Bibliothek, Vienna, No. 11 (Dashian’s Catalog der armenischen HSS., p. 19,1891).

§ 5. THE SLAVONIC VERSION AND ITS TWO RECENSIONS S}, S?.

This version is late and is based on the type of text represented by ae/, and of these it attaches most closely to 7; for S! always and occasionally S? agree in making the addition at the close of each Testament, that is to be found in f alone of the Greek MSS. This version, as I have shown in my edition, exhibits traces of the influence also of a.

The two Slavonic recensions S! and S?” are primarily taken from the so-called Palea (Greck [ladaa), which contain short accounts of events mentioned inthe Old Testament. They are printed in Tichonravov’s work entitled Pamjatuiki otrechennot Russkoi Literaturi (2 vols., St. Petersburg, 1863).

§ 6. THE ARMENIAN VERSION IN ITS TWO RECENSIONS Az, Ag. VALUE OF THIS VERSION. As we have already observed in § 4, there are two recensions of this version, At, AS. A, which is found in non-Biblical MSS., includes four MSS., A?*"*. The relations of these MSS. can be represented as follows :—

ae nH: k Ab

A&, which appears to be found only in Biblical MSS., includes AP*4efs, Of these A” stands aloof from the rest. Its idiosyncrasies are innumerable, but in a very few cases, where it diverges from the other representatives of this recension, it has the support of the best Greek MSS. The relations of these MSS are as follows :—

ale Aefg Ab

The variations between A“ and Af are very numerous, but the greater part of them appear to have arisen from internal corruption, or from the attempt on the part of the scribe of A to abbreviate the text. But over and above these differences, there are certain important sections where the differences

THE. TESTAMENTS*OFP* RHE* TWELVE PATRIARCHS

between the two recensions go back to the Greek, as in T. Levi ii. 7-10, xiv. 1, where A@ agrees with a against 8, and in T. Levi iii. i-5, where Ac is less corrupt than a, and gives the nearest reproduction of the original Hebrew archetype.

Exclusive of the sections just mentioned, A, taken as a whole, agrees with 8 S against a (see my edition of the Text, p. xv sq.). But within 6 there are two secondary types of text, to which aef and bdg belong respectively. All but universally A agrees with ddg where ddg differs from aef.

The value of A will be best understood when we come to deal with the Christian interpolations inthe text. These are by no means absent from A, but they are present in a much less degree in A than ina and. This is especially the case in the last two Testaments.

But, however valuable A is, it must be admitted that on almost every page it is guilty of omissions. These omissions are made obvious to the reader by the use of brackets. All words enclosed thus ' 'are omitted by A.

§ 7. THE GREEK VERSION IN TWO RECENSIONS a, B.

The Greek version is found in two forms, a and 8. I do not call them recensions, since, as I have sought in my edition to prove, they very probably go back to distinct forms in the Hebrew.

a and its characteristics. a isrepresented by three MSS.,chz. Their relations may be represented as follows :—

hi are derived from one and the same parent and show signs of a mixed ancestry (i.e. the influence of B), and herein diverge occasionally from c. a shows some omissions such as T. Reub. ii. 3>-4°, T. Jud. vi. 1-2, xii. 6-10, &c. Though much freer than 8 from Christian interpolations, it too has suffered from the Christian scribes’ ill-directed activity.

B and its characteristics. B is represented by six MSS., addefg, which represent two diverging types of text, aef showing affinities with a, and ddg with A. We have already pointed out (§ 5) that S is derived from aef. aef agree closely together, but not so ddg. Furthermore ddg are remarkable for large additions to the text in T. Zeb. vi. 4-6, vii—viii. 3, ix. 8°. These may have belonged to the original tradition.

Space will not admit of a description of dg, but a few characteristics of 6 should here be noted. The variants of this MS. are sometimes due to deliberate emendation. Thus in T. Lev. xvii. 2 the priesthood of an ancient worthy is said to have been wArpys pera xvpiov, i.e. » DY nby, < perfect with the Lord.’ But the scribe of 4, failing naturally to understand this Semitic idiom, wrote mAjpns pera 0Bov xvpiov. Not infrequently it alters the text against all the other authorities. Thus it adds kal edavpacoy in T. Jos. xvii. 5, Gjoeobe in T. Jud. xvi. 2, changes ovvrpéxe into ovvepyet in T. Benj. iv. 5, ovyyevy into cvpmevoOys in T. Jos. vii. 3, and in iv. 5, &c. On the other hand, it possibly preserves two words kai vdrov in T. Jud. v. 2, which have been lost in all the other MSS. Though a good representative of the type ddg, 6 cannot form a secure foundation on which to build a text.

d. This MS. exhibits peculiarities on every page. Though agreeing generally with dg, it attests readings of a and also of aef against de.

The affinities of the various MSS. and Versions may be represented as follows :—

H Hebrew Archetype)

H & (1st Hebrews Recension) ti B(2ndHebrew Recension)

In this table all the main connexions are represented, but not the influence that in a few cases the descendants of 8 have exerted on 42.

§ 8. THE GREEK VERSION A TRANSLATION FROM THE HEBREW.

Apart from Grabe, no notable scholar has advocated a Hebrew original till recently. Even Grabe, though he declared for a Hebrew original, advanced no linguistic arguments in support of his contention. It is remarkable that such a great Semitic scholar as Dillmann (Herzog’s Real- Lncyc.* xii. 362) could write: ‘Since the publication of Nitzsch’s study all are agreed that the book is not a translation, but was originally written in Greek.’ Dr. Sinker in the Cambridge edition of the Greek text is still more pronounced.

To two Jewish scholars, Kohler (1893) and Gaster (1904) within the last twenty years belongs the honour of reopening the question of a Hebrew original of the Testaments, but the former did not advance any linguistic evidence, and the latter, though he brought forward a few good points, failed to establish his thesis. Shortly after the above articles were written the present writer began his study of the Testaments, in the course of which he early came to the conclusion, which he set forth in the Encyc. Biblica i. 241 (1899), that the bulk of the work was written before 100 B.C., and subsequently in full detail in The Greek Versions of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs in 1908. Since that date this thesis has been accepted by all Semitic scholars.

In what follows only a few specimens of the evidence for a Hebrew original can be given. A fuller statement of the evidence will be found in my edition of Zhe Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, pp. xlii-l (1908), and a nearly complete one in my edition of the Greek Versions (pp. xxili-xxxix) above referred to.

1°, Hebrew constructions and expressions are to be found on every page. Though the vocabulary ts Greek, the idiom ts frequently Hebraic and foreign to the Greek language.

T. Reub. i. 6 dyvola vedtntos ‘sins of youth’, i.e, DY] PWD; ul. 8 cvvidy ev TO vopw ANI JI; iv. 6 OvK ey Kalp® abitav ONY N23; vi. IT ev avTa é€eAéEaro ANI 43.

T. Sim. ii. 12 xaéye D3 in its adversative meaning ‘but ’—a non-Greek use. Cf. Eccles. iii. 13, vi. 73 in iv. 4 nyarynoé pe ory Tots ddeApois pov (a) NX DY INN. In B we have the normal rendering ds rods dXrdovs ddeAdors. Vv. 4 ey Aevi adiKnoovor WM 3; v. 5 ov Svvijrovrat mpos Aevi 155 yb>» xb (the same Hebraism recurs in T. Iss. iv. 4; T. Dan v. 4); vi. 5 Be év ait@ tov “Addu. Here as in T. Lev. il. 11 &v aité (or éavt@) OSI, which the translator should have rendered simply by atrés. Cf. Midrash Wajjikra on Ley. xvii. 3 DANN beet) SOY NIN.

T. Lev. vill. 8 xAddov . . . eAaias midrytos ‘a branch of the oil-olive’, i.e. jow nt; cf. Deut. viii. 8 ; Vill. 14 emixAnOyoetar ato dvoya Kawov WIN DY ) x7).

T. Jud. vii. 1 6yAos Bap’s 135 Sym ‘a numerous army’; xii. 8 gws r9s Cws pov "MI ‘so long as I lived’; xx. 4 év ore doréwv airod, which is absolutely unintelligible, is full of meaning in the Hebrew wy 392 ‘on his very heart’; xxv. 1 eapyou oxymtTpwv ‘chiefs of the tribes’ (o’02Y).

T. Ash. ui. 1 6 Oeds dvaravera: cis adtyy = 72 [3W” omnbds ‘God hath his habitation therein’.

T. Jos. i. 3 Saxe pe 6 Kvptos eis oixTippods evimriov s85 ond one ns (cf. Dan. i. 9), ‘granted me to find mercy in the sight Ofye: Xil. 3 molyoov per’ avToo Kplow WY YHYVD YY.

T. Benj. x. 11 Karouxynoete er eArrids ev epoi = 13 noid yawn ‘ye shall dwell securely with me’. The same mistranslation is found in Ezek. xxviil. 26, xxxiv. 28, &c.

The above instances are sufficient in themselves to prove the derivation of the text from a Hebrew original. The bulk of the above expressions could hardly, on any hypothesis, have been written for the first time in Greek. But the evidence can be multiplied fourfold, both in quantity and conclusiveness.

2°, Dittographic renderings of the same Hebrew phrase, and expressions tn the Greek implying dittographs in the Hebrew MS. before the translator.

In T. Naph. ili. 5 dd xatounoias . . . Tégas THY yhVv doikytov is a Clear instance of dittography. The original may have been 2w» ‘5219 which is twice rendered in the Greek. In vi. 2 the impossible peordv Taptyov éxtos vavrav is due to the same cause. peorov tapiyov pmb xbn, a corruption of ond nba exris vavtTov. One more will here suffice. In viii. 4, 6 there are a strophe and an antistrophe. ‘The latter consists of six lines, but the former of seven. Now if we compare them closely, we discover the six lines of the antistrophe correspond line for line to the first six lines in the strophe. Thus the seventh line is against the structure of the stanza. It is also against the sense. How then did it come to be here? We discover the reason the moment we retranslate into Hebrew. The genuine line kal 6 x’pios dyarjoe twas (cf. the corresponding line in the antistrophe cat 6 xvpios projoer airdv) = DIIAN’ omnds) which was written corruptly a second time as D5INN’ D!DN?D),

3°. Paronomastae which are lost in the Greek can be restored by retranslation into Hebrew.

We can recover more than a dozen of these by retranslation, the most of them having to do with the names of the patriarchs, 1. e. on Simeon, Gershom, Kohath, Merari, Jochebed, Judah, Issachar, Gad, Zebulun, Naphtali, Bilhah, Asher, Benjamin. See my edition of the Greek Versions, pp. XXvi-xxvil.

4°. Many passages ‘which are obscure or wholly unintelligible in the Greek become clear on relranslation.

THE TESTAMENTS OP Teer WeEeLV ECPAPRIARCHS

In T. Reub. iv. 9 roAAa érotnoe atta, where the text is speaking of Potiphar’s wife trying to ensnare Joseph, cannot be oa As Perles has pointed out, > n35n is corrupt for 19 a5yNn, i.e. ‘she lay in wait for him’.

In T. Sim. ii. 6 Kai Aowrov cuprabel TH POovovpéevw

Kal ovyywooket Tos tayaroowt avrov

Kal ovTws maveTat TOD POdvoV cannot be right, and as Perles recognizes the error lies in dyaroow which is against the parallelism and sense. Here rots dy. airév = IN, corrupt for 1x ‘those hostile to him’.

In T. Lev. ii. 8 the second heaven is said to be brighter and more brilliant than the first, qv yap Kal tos év ait@ dzetpov. Clearly there is something wrong here. The greater brightness of the second heaven cannot be due to its greater loftiness. The error, therefore, lies in the tyos. This word 7123, which is corrupt for 1] és or Genes Thus the brightness of the second heaven was due to a boundless light (fds deipov) that was therein. ‘his light may have been physical, if we may adopt the Talmudic view, which represents the sun, moon, and stars as being in the second heaven (Chag. m2").

Inve Jud. ix. 3 kal typOnt vexpods ev oper Suetp, Kal wropevdpevon ev “Avovipap aéOavev (8, S*), the words Kal... dméOavey are omitted by a as unintelligible. But a comparison with the Midrash Wajjissau where the same incident is recounted shows that this clause belongs to the original text, and in the form in which it appears in B, S'. Moreover these authorities help us to discover how the corruption in vexpds arose. veKpos mba, whereas the Midrash has nbn TeTpavpaticpevos. ‘Thus Esau was wounded on Mount Seir and died as he was passing over Anoniram.

T. Jud. xxi. 6 of pev txuduvevovowt aixpadurifopevor, ot b€ tAovTotow apralovres Ta GAXOTpia. Here instead of kwdvvevovow, we require a verb forming an antithesis to wAovtotow. Now xuwédvvevovew 133D* (late Hebrew) which in earlier Hebrew rrwyevovow.

T. Zeb. ix. 2 éay de cis TOAAA StarpeHdow, 7 yn abavier aira, kat yivovra. tetkatappovytat. Here, as Perles has pointed out, edxatappovnta IPN’, which is either a corruption or secondary form of Dt. ‘ melt away’, ‘vanish’. The same corruption underlies os téwp taxpyorovt ( ‘as useless water’) D'DND) O53, corrupt for DDD) O95 ‘ vanishing away as water’.

In T. Jos. xi. 7 érAnOuvev atrov év xpvolw Kat dapyupty kal tépyyt(a). B, A omit xai épy as unintelligible. But by retranslation the source of the corruption springs to light. ¢pyw n7ay, which the translator read as NTAY épyw, but which he should have read as 7739 = ‘household servants’.

The above form a small part of the passages where the Greek text has to be retranslated in order to discover the source of the corruption. In all these passages there is no divergence between the MSS. and. Versions. In the next section we shall discuss only those passages in the text where the MSS. and Versions attest different readings, a generally standing in opposition to B, A, S.

By means of the evidence thus forthcoming we hope to advance a stage further than we have yet reached. We have proved that our book is derived from an Hebrew original: we shall now try and prove that a and @ did not originate in the Greek but are derived respectively from two distinct Hebrew recensions H¢ and HE.

§ 9. THE TWO GREEK TYPES OF TEXT, a AND 8, APPEAR TO BE DERIVED FROM TWO HEBREW RECENSIONS, He anp Hé.

aand # are not, strictly speaking, Greek recensions; for their chief variations appear not to have originated in the Greek, but to go back to diverse forms of text already existing in the Hebrew, which we denote as H¢ and H&. Of these two recensions, H« and H§&, sometimes one gives the correct text, sometimes the other. According to the most likely hypothesis H« was first translated into Greek, i.e. a, and then H was rendered into Greek by a translator who had a before him. In regard to the Book of Daniel the same hypothesis is necessary. The LXX version was undoubtedly made first, and subsequently that of Theodotion from a Semitic text diverging considerably from that used by the translator of the LXX version, not merely in individual readings but also in the subject-matter, especially in Daniel iv. Now in the case of the text before us the same phenomenon is repeated, but on a very much smaller scale. In T. Lev. ii. 7-iii, the description of the Three Heavens is more or less faithfully handed down in a A , whereas in the corresponding chapters in B there is an account of the Seven Heavens. There is no good ground for assuming that this divergence originated in the Greek and not in the Hebrew ; for such duplicate accounts of the same event are found occasionally in the Hebrew books of the O.T., and in the Zadokite Fragments. Moreover, I will now give a few of the passages, where a and 8 undoubtedly presuppose variations in the Hebrew. The variants will be underlined.

T. Benj. xii. 2 (a) exoupnOy trve Karo. (B, A) dweGave . . . ev yyper Kado. Here H§ (i.e. 8, A) is undoubtedly right. In H@ naw ( y4per) was corrupted into nv trve. The same

corruption was present in both H¢ and H4 in T. Zeb. x. 6; T. Dan vii. x (c); T. Ash. viii. 1; T. Jos. xx. 4; whereas both Hebrew recensions were right in T. Iss. vil. 9. The above conclusion is confirmed by the fact that in the Hebrew Test. Naph. i. 1 we find maw ADwI. Though this Testament is not the original Testament of Naphtali, it preserves in several passages a more original text than the Greek.

T. Ash. vi. 6 (a) ciodeper adtov cis Conv aidnov. (B, A) rapapvbcirar airov ev Lon. Here H¢ is right and not H8. ‘The angel of peace, who is mentioned earlier in the verse, conducts the good soul into eternal life. Here cioépes = AN’, which in HP was corrupted into on). ddyyet would have been the usual rendering of nn3°, as we find in T. Benj. vi. 1 6 yap ayyeXos Tis cipyvyns Odyyet THY Wuxnv adrod. The LXX implies the same corruption of m3. into On in 1 Sam. xxii. 4; Isa. lvii. 18, and Symmachus the converse corruption in Job xxxix. 25.

T. Reub. iv. 1 (a) poxGoivres év Epyous Kadots Kal év (B) poxOosvres ev epyois Kai drowAavdpevor ev ypapypappaci. pacw. Here a, which is in part supported by A, is clearly right. ev épyous Kkadots OW OYDYOI, of which ow was corrupted in H& into Ow) kal drorAavepevor.'

T. Ash. vi. 5 (a) dre yap rovnpa 4 Wuxn azépyerau. (B, A) dre yap retapaypévyn 4 Woxn drépyerau. Here Aw ( rerapaypévy) in H4 was corrupted in H@ into Ayw7 zovypd. T. Jos. iv. 7 (aaef) dvreduroverxet. (dg, A) éovirnoe.

Here H@ read AnannA which was a corruption of H8 Awnnn.

T. Jos. iv. 3 (a) tas doAvéryros airjs. (B, A) ris Aiyurrias. Here He 1°]8 ‘from her snares’ (so Perles, but neither 8dAvos nor its derivatives ever render this Hebrew word in the LXX): or An Ny and Hé myn.

The above instances are sufficient to establish the existence of two distinct types of text in the Hebrew— He, HS. For over thirty other passages in the Testaments where the variations postulate the same conclusion see Introd. to my Text, § 12.

§ 10. DATE OF THE ORIGINAL HEBREW.

The date of the original Hebrew is not difficult to determine. Thus Reuben (T. Reub. vi. 10-11) admonishes his sons: ‘ Draw ye near to Levi in humbleness of heart, that ye may receive a blessing from his mouth .. . because him hath the Lord chosen to be king over all the nation.’ Herea highpriest who is also king is referred to. Such a combination of officers naturally makes us think of the Maccabean priest-kings of the second century B.C. Moreover, the possibility of doubting this reference is excluded by the words that immediately follow: ‘And bow down before his seed; for on our behalf it shall die in wars visible and invisible and shall be among you an eternal king. A similar statement is made in T. Sim.v. 5. Thus the high-priest is not only to be high-priest and civil ruler, but also a warrior. That the Maccabean high-priests are here designed cannot be reasonably doubted. But the identification becomes undeniable as further marks and tokens of this priestly dynasty come to light. Thus it is said that this priesthood shall be called by a new name (T. Lev. viii. 14). Now the Maccabean high-priests were the first Jewish priests to assume the title ‘priests of the Most High God’—the title anciently borne by Melchizedek, and applied to the Maccabean high-priests in Jubilees, the Assumption of Moses, Josephus, and the Talmud. A kindred title of the same significance is applied according to a growing body of expositors to Simon the Maccabee in Ps. cx. In due accord with these facts our text (T. Lev. viii. 14) declares that a new name should mark the new priesthood.

But the praises accorded in this book could not apply to all the Maccabean priest-kings ; for, since it was written by a Pharisee, it could not have been composed after the breach arose between John Hyrcanus and the Pharisees towards the close of the second century B.C. Thus the date of composition lies between 153, when Jonathan the Maccabee assumed the high-priesthood, and the year of the breach of Hyrcanus with the Pharisees. But the limits can be determined more closely. To only one member of the Maccabean dynasty are the prophetic gifts assigned in our text (T. Lev. viii. 15) in conjunction with the functions of kingship and priesthood. Now in all Jewish history the triple offices were ascribed to only one individual, John Hyrcanus. Hence we conclude that the Testaments were written between 137 and 107 B.C. But the limits may be fixed still more

1 Since xadois would be the stock rendering of DA), it is possible that this word stood in H* and was corrupted into D'Y) in HF,

THE TESTAMENTS 4OF ie Wee EerArRINKeh.

definitely. For the text refers most probably to the destruction of Samaria, T. Lev. vi. 11. In that case our book was written between 109 and 107 B.C. (see my edition, pp. l-liii).

$11. INTEGRITY, AUTHORSHIP, SOURCES.

The groundwork, which consists of about eleven-twelfths of the Testaments, after the removal of the Jewish and Christian additions (§$ 12, 13), presents, it must be confessed, a certain want of coherence, and the parts dealing with the duty of submission to Levi, or to Levi and Judah jointly, come in at times very abruptly. Notwithstanding, I accept on the whole the unity of the book; for its two main characteristics—the strictly Hasid element in the book and its loyal acceptance of the Maccabean dynasty—belong to the period to which our author belongs and to none other before or after. Furthermore, both these parts of the book are universalistic in tone. On the other hand, much of the unevenness of the book may be due to the use of sources and to faulty transmission of the text.

The author was a Pharisee of the early type. He was an upholder of the Law and of the Temple sacrifices: he looked for the Messianic kingdom and the resurrection of the body to a new life therein. He taught the duties of chastity, truthfulness, forgiveness, self-control, and temperance. Our author has drawn freely on earlier books and traditions. He shows a wide acquaintance with the O.T., Sirach,and 1 Enoch, as well as of other ancient works—such as the account of the War of Jacob and his sons against the Amorites utilized in T. Jud. iii-vii, Jubilees xxxiv. 1-9, the Midrash Wajjissau (see my Text, pp. 235-8), and the Book of Jasher: the account of the war between Jacob and Esau utilized in T. Jud. ix, Jubilees xxxvii—xxxviii, and the Jalkut Shimeoni i. 132.

Another very important source for the T. Levi has just been discovered in the lost Hebrew document, from which the Aramaic and Greek fragments are printed in my Greek Versions of the Testaments, pp. 245-56, and translated in my Zestaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, pp. 228-35. This source deals with the temple ritual of the second century B.C. and is therefore of great importance from an historica] standpoint.

Our author drew also upon a Hebrew document dealing with the ‘Two Ways’ in the T. Asher and upon Jewish tradition generally on a great variety of points.

§ 12. JEWISH ADDITIONS TO THE ORIGINAL WORK.

A large body of these additions can be classed under one head, as interpolated at a certain period and written with a well-defined object. The period was about 70-40 B.C., and the object of the additions was the overthrow of the Maccabean high-priesthood, which in the first century B.C. had become guilty of the most abandoned lewdness and baseness.

°, First century additions :—

Lev. x, Xiv—xvi.

LEB x

Naph. iv.

. Gad viii. 2.

In these passages the nation is declared to be guilty of apostasy; the laying waste of the Temple is predicted, and a second captivity: a redemption of the nation either by God Himself or by a Messiah sprung from Judah, and a blessed return to their own land. In all these respects these passages agree with the Psalms of Solomon, which belong to the same period.

Another characteristic of these additions is their frequent citation of the Enoch literature. The citations cannot be found in 1 Enoch, but bear a close affinity to certain passages in 2 Enoch, whence, we may reasonably infer the existence of certain portions of that literature, which were subsequently embodied in some form in 2 Enoch.

HAA88HA

2°, Other additions of various dates :—

T. Jos. x. 5—xviii.

On this section see my edition, pp. lvii—Ixi.

§ 13. CHRISTIAN ADDITIONS.

These additions are found in nearly all the Testaments and were made at different periods. The dominant characteristic of all these additions (which are bracketed in the following translations, and a full list of which is given in my edition, pp. ]xi-lxv) is their dogmatic character. They always import dogmatic Christian statements into a Jewish text, to which they are naturally alien in character. A few English scholars on the ground of these undoubted interpolations have proceeded to infer that all other passages common to the Testaments XII Patriarchs and the N.T. must have been interpolated in the former from the latter. But these scholars have failed to observe the characteristic differences between the two sets of passages in question. In the case of the first we have dogmatic Christian statements interpolated in a Fewish work at variance not only with the teaching and character of that work as a whole, but also at variance with their respective contexts. But in regard to the second, we have ethical sayings and teachings, which are in harmony not only with the spirit of the book as a whole, but also with their respective contexts. The ethical teaching, while very much loftier than that of the O.T., is yet its true spiritual child, and, though not so pure and sublime as that of the N.T., is a product of the school that prepared the way for the N.T.

It is hard to understand the mental attitude of those who regard these ethical teachings as Christian interpolations. Three-fourths of these teachings have no direct parallels in the N.T., and they stand practically on the same level as the rest, which are parallel to, or rather have exercised a direct influence on, the N.T: The only reasonable conclusion is that these ethical teachings belong to the original Testaments.

Fragments of an ethical tradition which was largely independent of the O.T. are preserved in the Story of Ahikar. That this story with its moral goes back to a very ancient date we now know, since Aramaic fragments of the fifth century B.c. have been recently discovered. For the account of this story the reader should consult Dr. Rendel Harris’ study of it at the close of this volume. Now our author appears to have borrowed a few of his sayings from this story. Thus—

‘If thine enemy meet thee with evil meet him with wisdom’ (‘ with good’ Syr. Frag. 20).

Greek version preserved in Aesop. xxvi. 6 tots €6 mpatrovaty pr) POdver, GANG adyxatpe: POovady yap ceavTov

yardov BAdipers.

T. Jos. xviii. 2 ‘If any one seeketh to do evil to thee do him a good turn, and pray for him, and so from all evil shall ye be redeemed of the Lord’. Cia Benye tin 3.

T. Gad ili. 3 (6 prcdv) 7d katopBodvte p¥ovet. vii. 1 av O€ eis trrep buds evododrat pi) Avieicde, GAN’ edyecUe trép avtov va Tedciws edodotrar (bdegAS'). 2 Kat édv emt mAelov sWodrar, ph pOovetre, T. Sim. iii. 6 oupmrabet Te POovoupeve,

These parallels are close ; but it will be observed how our author has touched to finer issues and glorified what he has borrowed, far above the highest imaginings of Ahikar.

Ahikar Syr. 19 (Syr. Frag. 7) ‘My son, go not after the beauty of a woman: and lust not after her in thy heart.’

T. Reub. iv. 1 ph otv mpoodyete, Téxva pou, KéAAoS yuvarkav. Cf. T. Jud. xvii. 1; T. Iss. iv. 4. T. Benj. Vill. 2 6 €xwv Sidvoray Kabapdy (3S!) ... obx dpa yuvaika

eis Topvetay.

With the above we might compare Matt. v. 28 was 6 BXérwv yuvaika mpds 7d emBuufoar abthy nd éuolyevcev

ait ev TH kapdia atrod.

Once more in T. Jos. iii. 5 the words, which Joseph uses with regard to himself, éay d€ ame dyer

6 Kbptds 400 olvoy ovk EmwWov Kal eAdpBavov pov THY Tpodijv Kal ed{dovv adrijy Tots Tévnoww, seem to be used deliberately to contrast his conduct with that of Nadan the nephew of Ahikar, who acted in the opposite fashion, when he believed Ahikar was dead. As Drs. James and Harris have already pointed out, the story of Ahikar lies at the base of the Parable of the Wicked Servant, Matt. xxiv.

§ 14. INFLUENCE ON JEWISH AND PATRISTIC LITERATURE. See my edition pp. Ixxiv—lxxviii.

§15. INFLUENCE ON THE NEW TESTAMENT.

Since the influence of the Testaments on the N.T. has been very extensive only some of the chief instances of this influence can be: touched on here. The reader can consult my edition, pp. Ixxviii—xcii, where it is shown that the Sermon on the Mount reflects in several instances the

THE TESTAMENTS (OF TH iwWeEly Eira hraARkeHs

spirit and even reproduces the very phrases of our text: that many passages in the Gospels exhibit traces of the same, and that St. Paul seems to have used the book as a vade mecum.

1. Forgiveness. Matt. xvii. 15 édy 8€ dpaptyon 6 ddeAdds Gov Uraye Ehey§ov airov petady cod Kal avrod povov. XVIll. 35 €av py) AbiTE cxacTos TO AdEAPG aiTod ad TOY KapdL@y Spov.

T. Gad vi. 3 (8) édv tis dpaptyoe eis oe cire ev Ses Ge, \ ait év €ipyvy . . . Kal €dV . . . peTavonoy des abTH.

vi. 6 jovxacov pi éedéyéns.

Vv. 7 dhes atte dro Kapdlas.

With the above we must take Luke xvii. 3 av Gpdpty 6 ddedpds cou emtipnooy aire, Kal édv petavonoy

» LA aes avTo.

That the N.T. passages are here dependent cannot be reasonably denied.

2. Duty of loving God and our neighbour. Matt. xxii. 37-9 dyamyoets KUptov Tov Gedy cov ev ody 2. TH WUXH ou... dyaryceas Tov TAyotov Gou ws TeavTOV.

T. Dan v. 3 &yamjoate tov Kipiov ev radon tm Mort ipav Kat &AAMAous ev GANOwWH Kapdia.

Our text, which enunciates the same duty twice elsewhere, T. Iss. v. 2, vii. 6, is the first literatory

authority to conjoin the two great commands of love to God and love to our neighbour. commandments are given separately in Deut. vi. 5 and Lev. xix. 18.

These In the latter passage and

possibly in our text the sphere of neighbourhood is limited to Israelites, but in our Lord’s use there

is no limit of race or country. 3°. Various borrowings of ideas or diction.

Matt. xxv. 35, 36 émelvaca yap Kal eSdkaté por gayey . . . Hobdvyoa Kal émeckepace pe, ev puraKky ney Kal 7AOare Tpds pe.

Luke ii. 19 ouvethper Ta pHuata tadta . . kapdia atts.

Acts xii. 11 égaméotewNev 6 KUpios Tov dyyedov attou kal ege(haTd pe Ek XeLpds.

8 putifer mdvta dvOpwror.

v. 41 ddfav rapa dvOpdrwv oF hapBava.

4°. The Pauline borrowings are too numerous to be dealt with here.

my text.

T. Jos. t. 5, 6 év Auyp@e ouverxOny Kal avros 6 Kipios SrdOpepe pe . . . ev doeveia Auny Kal 6 Kipios éweoké- pad je, €v huraky HpyY Kai Geds pov exapitwcé pe.

T. Lev. vi. 2 ouverfpouv tods Aéyous tovrous év TH Kaporo. (Lov.

T. Sim. i. 8 6 Geos... dar€oreXe Tov dyyeXov abrod

ib wh, SHS eae 2 Kat €ppvoato QUTOV €K TWV XE“pov fLOv.

T. Lev. xiv. 4 16 $s rod vépuov 75 Sober eis Swotiopody Travtos dvOpwtrou,

T. Benj. vi. 4 o0x émddxerar Sdéay . .

. dvOpdtray

The reader can consult

There are over seventy words which are common to the Testaments and the Pauline

Epistles, but which are not found in the rest of the N.T. Only a few of the most notable passages where St. Paul draws upon the Testament will here be appended :

1 Thess. ii. 16 epOacev S€ em attods H dpyh (+ Tod @cod DE FG, Itala. Vulg.) eis téXos.

Rom. i. 32 od povov ard. Tovodcw dAAG Kat cuvevdo- KOUGLY TOLS TPacaoUvOL.

xii. 21 vika év TO dyabo 76 Kakor.

1 Cor. iv. 4 ovdev . . . Quautd otvorda.

Vii. 5 py Gwootepette AAndous, ei pyTe.. . Wa oXohaanTe TH TPOTEUXT-

2 Cor. vil. 10 H yap Kata Gedy AUTH peTdvoray Eis owtnploy uperapeAntov épyaterar.

T. Lev. vi. 11 €Oace S€ attods H dpyh rod Geod eis Téos.

T. Ash. vi. 2 kal mpdocouct rd Kaxdv, Kal cuveudo- Kovawv Tots mpdaooucw (a).

T. Benj. iv. 3 otros 16 dyabdv Trody viKa Td KaKoy.

T. Iss. vil. 1 otk €yvov év enol dpapriav.

T. Naph. vill. 8 xaipos yap cuvovoias yuvaikos, Kal KaLpos eykparetas €lg TpogEevyx HV avTOd.

T. Gad v. 7 } yap kata Oedv adnOrs petdvoia .. . Sdnyet 7d dia BovAvov meds owTnplay.

§ 16. THEOLOGY, FORGIVENESS, THE Two GREAT COMMANDMENTS, UNIVERSALISM, THE MESSIAH, THE RESURRECTION, THE ANTICHRIST.'

Forgiveness.—We have in our text a passage of truly epoch-making importance. Its importance cannot be grasped until we contrast the teaching of the New Testament with that of the Old on the question of man’s forgiveness of his neighbour. In the New Testament from the first page to the last it is either explicitly stated or implicitly understood that a man can only receive the divine forgiveness on condition that he forgives his neighbour. Indeed, in their essential aspects, these two forgivenesses are seen to be one and the same. But.in the Old Testament it is very different. There, indeed, God’s forgiveness is granted, without money and without price, to the sinner who truly seeks it. But the penitent in the Old Testament could accept and enjoy the divine pardon, and yet cherish the most bitter feelings towards his own personal enemy. David on his death-bed shows this unforgiving spirit when he charges Solomon not to let Joab’s hoar head go down to the grave in peace; and commands him to deal similarly with Shimei, though David had promised to

1 This section is reprinted in the main from my edition of the Testaments, pp. xcii sqq.

preserve his life. There is certainly the notable instance of Joseph’s forgiveness of his brethren ; but this act of grace on Joseph’s part does not seem to have impressed later O.T. writers, or led them to urge Joseph’s conduct therein as worthy of imitation. There is, of course, the noble passage on the subject of beneficence to one’s enemy in Prov. xxv. 21, 22: ‘If thine enemy be hungry, give him bread to eat; And if he be thirsty, give him water to drink. For thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head, And the Lord shall reward thee.’ But to show how far these words are from representing the attitude which the saints should adopt to those who wronged them, we have only to turn back to the preceding chapter (Prov. xxiv. 17, 18), where we receive this remarkable piece of advice, ‘Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, And let not thine heart be glad when he is overthrown: Lest the Lord see it and it displease Him, And He turn away His wrath from him.’ Moreover, the righteous man can pray to God to make him strong enough to pay out his enemies: ‘Do thou, O Lord, have mercy upon me, and raise me up, that I may requite them’ (Ps. xli. 10). Thus we may conclude on the whole that in the Old Testament the saint as well as the sinner could indulge in resentful feelings or even in personal vengeance.

Now that we have grasped the conflicting attitudes of the Old and New Testaments on this great moral and religious question, we are able to appreciate the value of the contribution which the Testaments make in this direction. This contribution is found in T. Gad vi. 3—7 (see also § 26, p. lxxviii of my edition). These verses, as I have said in my notes, contain the most remarkable statement on the subject of forgiveness in all ancient literature. They show a wonderful insight into the true psychology of the question. So perfect are the parallels in thought and diction between these verses and Luke xvii. 3, Matt. xviii. 15. 35, that we must assume our Lord’s acquaintance with them. The meaning of forgiveness in both cases is the highest and noblest known to us, namely, the restoring the offender to communion with us, which he had forfeited through his offence. And it is likewise the essence of the divine forgiveness—God’s restoration of the sinner to communion with Him, a communion from which his sin had banished him. But, though such is the meaning of forgiveness in the full sense of the word, our author is aware that it is often impossible to attain to such a perfect relation with the offender. Thus forgiveness comes often to be synonymous with banishing the personal feeling of resentment which rises within us when we suffer wrong, and which, when indulged, leads to hate. When we have achieved this right attitude towards the offender the way is always open for his return to a right relation with us, and so far as we do so we reflect the attitude of God Himself to His erring children.

For the further prosecution of the parallels the reader should consult p. 292. We now see the importance of our text. It shows that pre-Christian Judaism possessed a noble system of ethics on the subject of forgiveness. By the early school of the Hasidim, or the pious ones of the Psalms, the best elements of the Old Testament had been taken up, studied and developed, and the highly ethical code of conduct deduced therefrom had been carried out in actual life by these ancient Quietists. But when Pharisaism, breaking with the ancient ideals of its party, committed itself to political interests and movements, and concurrently therewith surrendered itself more and more wholly to the study of the letter of the Law, it soon ceased to offer scope for the further development of such a lofty system of ethics as the Testaments attest, and so the true successors of the early Hasids and their teaching quitted Judaism and found their natural home in the bosom of primitive Christianity.

Duty of loving God and one’s neighbour.—\t is remarkable that the famous command in the Gospels that embodies all duty in itself, ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thinc heart .... Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself’ (Mark xii. 30, 31)—is already found in the Testaments, though less emphatically and vigorously stated. Thus in T. Iss. v. 2 we have, ‘ Love the Lord and your neighbour’ ; T. Dan. v. 3, ‘ Love the Lord through all your life, And one another with a true heart’; and again in T. Iss, vii. 6, Issachar declares, ‘I loved the Lord; Likewise also every man with all my heart.’

Various ethical teachings.—The Testaments deal largely with the questions of hatred, lying, envy, hate, lust, covetousness and the virtues of long-suffering, truthfulness, love, purity, generosity, and the like. We can touch here only on a few of their pithy sayings on such subjects. Thus: ‘ Anger is blindness, and does not suffer one to see the face of any man with truth’ (T. Dan ii. 2). ‘ Hatred, therefore is evil; for it constantly mateth with lying’ (T. Gad v. 1). ‘Envy dominates the whole mind of man’ (T. Sim. iii. 2), ‘it has no rest while the object of it prospers’ (iii. 3): ‘ Deliverance therefrom cometh through the fear of God’ (iii. 4). Wherefore ‘If a man prospereth more than you, do not be vexed, but pray for him that he may have perfect prosperity’ (T. Gad vii. 1). ‘When envy goes a man’s mind is lightened, so that he can enjoy the well-being of his former rival’ (T. Sim. iii. 5, 6). A man is ‘not to keep a ledger account of the evil done him’ by his neighbour’ (T. Zeb. viii. 5), a clause that St. Paul borrows in 1 Cor. xiii. 5, where Aoyierat 7d Kaxodv

THE TESTAMENTS OF (DRE WAWEEV EePAYT RIAKCHS

is wrongly rendered in A.V. by ‘thinketh no evil’, and misleading in R.V. by ‘ taketh not account of evil’.

As regards the questions of temperance and total abstinence, what better advice could be given than that of this old writer: ‘If ye drink wine with gladness, be ye modest with the fear of God. For if in your gladness the fear of God departeth, then drunkenness ariseth and shamelessness stealeth in. But if you would live soberly do not touch wineat all, lest ye sin in words of outrage ... and perish before your time’ (T. Jud. xvi. 2-3). ‘Be not drunk with wine; for wine turneth away the mind from truth and inspireth the passion of lust... and if the occasion of lust be present, he worketh the sin and is not ashamed’ (T. Jud. xiv. 1-3).

Oniversalism.—Although the Testaments were written about the same date as the Book of Jubilees and both books were the work of Pharisees, the views of the two authors were widely sundered on some of the greatest questions, and particularly on that of the destiny of the Gentiles. The author of Jubilees taught that there was no hope for the Gentiles: God had placed them under angelic guardians with the object of accomplishing their destruction (xv. 31). Moreover, the Jew who intermarried with them should be put to death, and the man who gave his daughter in marriage to a Gentile should be stoned with stones (xxx. 7-17). How different the spirit of the author of the Testaments. A true son of the larger-hearted O.T. prophets, he proclaims the salvation of the Gentiles. The promised time has come. The kingdom is already established, and all the Gentiles will be saved through Israel. In the Judgement the conduct of the best heathen will form the norm according to which Israel shall be judged. The teachings of the author on this question will be found in the note on T. Benj. ix. 2.

The first century B.C. additions are likewise characterized by the same Universalism. The Law was given to lighten every man, and the Gentiles were to be saved through the example and teaching of Israel (T. Lev. xiv. 4). The same view of the destiny of the Gentiles is found in the Pss. of Solomon (xvii. 32), though it is perhaps not as favourable as that in these additions. In other literature of the first century B.C. a harsher fate is predicted for the Gentiles, as in 1 Enoch xxxvii- Ixxi and the Assumption of Moses, and in 4 Ezra in the next century.

The Messiah.—In the original work the Messiah is to be descended from Levi, and not from Judah—in other words he is to be first of all priest, and then prophet and king. There are many passages expressing this view: T. Reub. vi. 7-12; T. Lev. viii. 14, xviii; T. Jud. xxiv. 1-3; T. Dan v. 10,11; T.Jos. xix. 5-9. We have here the attestation of a most remarkable revolution in the Jewish expectations of the Messiah. For some thirty or forty years the hope of a Messiah from Judah was abandoned in favour of a Messiah from Levi. But with the breach of Hyrcanus with the Pharisees this hope was abandoned, and so we find that in the first-century additions the hope of a Messiah from Judah reappears (T. Jud. xxiv. 5-6; T. Naph. iv. 5 (?)).

The prerogatives and powers ascribed to the priestly Messiah from Levi are very lofty. He was to be free from sin (T. Jud. xxiv. 1); to walk in meekness and righteousness (T. Jud. xxiv. 1) ; to establish a new priesthood under a new name (T. Lev. viii. 14), and also be a mediator for the Gentiles (T. Lev. viii. 14, emended) ; likewise he was to be a prophet of the Most High (T. Lev. viii, 15); to be a king over all the nation (T. Reub. vi. 11, 12; T. Lev. viii. 14) ; to war against Israel’s national enemies and against Beliar and the powers of wickedness (T. Reub. vi. 12; T. Lev. xviii. 12; T. Dan v. 10), and deliver the captives taken by him, even the souls of the saints (T. Dan v. 11) ; to open Paradise to the righteous (T. Lev. xviii. 10; T. Dan v. 12), and give the saints to eat of the tree of life (T. Lev. xviii. 11). Moreover, he should give the faithful power to tread upon evil spirits and bind Beliar (xviii. 12), who should be cast into the fire (T. Jud. xxv. 3), and sin should come to an end (T. Lev. xviii. 9).

It was the priestly character of the Maccabean priest-kings that gave rise to the expectation that the Messiah was also to be a priest as well as a king.

The Resurrection.—There is to be a resurrection, first of the O.T. heroes and patriarchs, and next of the righteous on the right hand and of the wicked on the left (T. Benj. x. 6-8). The scene of the future kingdom is to be the present earth. It is to last for ever.

Demonology.—The book represents a very developed demonology as a reference to ‘ Spirits’ in Index II in my edition will show. The conception of Beliar in the Testaments is very advanced for this early date.

The Antichrist.—In the first century addition, T. Dan v. 6, we have the most ancient authority at present known to us for the view which connects the tribe of Dan with Antichrist, and helps to explain the exclusion of this tribe from the list of the Twelve in the N.T. Apocalypse.

(z) EDITIONS OF GREEK VERSIONS, i.e.

Of B. Grabe, Spicilegium Patrum’, i. 129-44, 335-74. The text here given is 4 with a few readings from a.

Sinker, Testamenta XII Patriarcharum ad fidem codicis Cantabrigiensis edita: accedunt lectiones cod. Oxoniensts,

Appendix containing a collation of the Roman and Patmos MSS., 1879.

Of a dad 8B. Charles, The Greek Versions of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, edited from nine MSS. together with the Variants of the Armenian and Slavonic Versions and some Hebrew Fragments, The Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1908.

The Armenian Version. H. Sargis Josepheanz, Zhe Treasury of the Old and New Fathers, i. 27-151.

The Slavonic Version. Tichonravoyv, Pamiatniki otrechennot Russkot Literaturi, 1863.

(6) EDITIONS OF THE HEBREW FRAGMENTS. Fragments of the T. Judah are found in the Midrash Wajjissau: see the Charles edition of the Greek Versions, pp. 235-8; and of the T. Naph. in the late Hebrew Test. of Naphtali, of. cit. pp. 239-44; Gaster, ‘The Hebrew Text of one of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs,’ PSA, Dec. 1893, Jan. 1894.

(¢) CRITICAL INQUIRIES. Grabe: see above and Sinker in his edition, and Dict. Christ. Biog. iv. 865-74. Schnapp, Die Testamente der zwolf Patriarchen untersucht, 1884. Conybeare, ‘ On the Jewish Authorship of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs,’ /QOR, 1893, 375-98. Kohler, Zhe Pre-Talmudic Haggada, JQR, 1893, 400-6; ‘Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs,’ Jew7sh Encyc., Charles, ‘ Apocalyptic Literature, Avcyc. Bzb., 1899, 1. 237-41. Bousset, ‘ Die Testamente der zwélf Patriarchen’ in Z. f. W7liche Wissenschaft, 1900, pp. 187-209, 344-6. (zd) COMMENTARY. Charles, Zhe Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, translated from the Editor's Greek Text and edited with Introduction, Notes, and Indices, A. & C. Black, London, 1908. For a complete bibliography see this volume.

§ 18. BRACKETS AND SYMBOLS AND ABBREVIATIONS.

Brackets. The same brackets are used in this book as throughout the entire work; and in addition the brackets ! 1 to signify that the words so enclosed are omitted by A. Symbols and Abbreviations. a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i denote the Greek MSS. a denotes the MSS. c 42 of the first class. 6 denotes the MSS. ab de fg of the second class. A denotes the Armenian Version. A®, Ab*, Ab, Ae, &c., denote the Armenian MSS. A« denotes the MSS. A2>»k of the first class. ABs denotes the MSS. Ab*¢defg of the second class. S! denotes the first Slavonic recension. S? denotes the second Slavonic recension.

THE TESTAMENTS OF THE TWELVE PATRIARCH.

THE TESTAMENT OF REUBEN, THE FIRST-BORN SON OF JACOB AND LEAH

li The copy of the Testament of Reuben, even the commands which he gave his sons ‘before he 2 died in the hundred and twenty-fifth year of his life’. Two years after the death of Joseph ‘his

3 brother', when Reuben fell ill, his sons and his sons’ sons were gathered together to visit him. And 4he said to them: My children, behold I am dying, and go the way of my fathers. And seeing ‘there! Judah, and Gad, and Asher, his brethren, he said to them: Raise me up, that I may tell to my brethren and to my children what things I have hidden in my heart, for behold now at length

5 1 am passing away. And he arose and kissed them, and said unto them: Hear, my brethren, and

6 do ye, my children, give ear to Reuben your father. in the commands which I give unto you. And behold I call to witness against you this day the God of heaven, that ye walk not in the sins of

7 youth and fornication, wherein I was poured out, and defiled the bed of my father Jacob. And»

I tell you that he smote me with a sore plague i loins for seven months; and had not my father 8 Jacob prayed for me to the Lord, the Terd'would have destroyed me. For I was thirty years old

9 when I wrought the evil thing before the Lord, and for seven months I was sick unto death. And 10 after this I repented with set purpose of my soul for seven years before the Lord. And wine and strong drink I drank not, and flesh entered not into my mouth, and I eat no pleasant food; but

I mourned over my sin, for it was great, such as had not been in Israel.

21 And now hear me, my children, what things I saw concerning the seven spirits of deceit, when

TITLE. So hi, cis corrupt: bef add ‘regarding thoughts’; A®¢s ‘the Book of the Chronicles, the words of Reuben, First (> A®) Testament’; A ‘Testament and words of Reuben from the Book of the Chronicles’.

1. hundred and twenty-fifth year. This agrees with the Midrash Tadshe (vill. Eppstein’s edition) which is itself based on Jubilees and the Testaments. It gives Reuben’s age as 125, Simeon’s as 120, Levi’s 137, Dan’s 125,

2. Two years after the death of Joseph. This agrees with Jub. xxviii. 11, 24, which says Reuben was born in 2122 A.M. and Joseph in 2135. As Joseph died at the age of 110, Reuben lived two years longer to attain the age

his brother. So ad only.

3. go the way of my fathers. Cf. Joshua xxiii. 14 ‘Go the way of all the earth’. Cf. 1 Kings ii. 2, Lo.

4. Judah, and Gad, and Asher, his brethren. Joseph alone of the other patriarchs addresses his brethren as well as his sons.

what things Ihavein my heart. T.S. ii. 1. now at length, daz rov viv. Thus the LXX translates OYSN in Gen. xlvi. 30 OYDSA NNN. Cf. dw dpre in John i. 51 insome MSS. Also dz’ apr, Matt. xxvi. 64 aro rod viv, Luke xxii. 69.

5. Hear, my brethren, and do ye, my children, give ear. SoaA°®S'. Cf. T. Jos.i.2. This reading suits the context better than ‘hear, my brethren, and give ear’ B-d g A@°®S; or ‘hear, my (>d) children, and give ear’ dA»,

6. I call to witness against you this day. A reminiscence cf. Deut. iv. 26 where Moses calls heaven and earth to witness. émuapripopais, however, unsuitable with ‘ God’, and épx6, ‘I adjure,’ is more so. Still we might compare Exod. xix. 21 Stapaprupar.

I was poured out. A classical use of efextOnv. Cf. Pindar, sth. i. 4.

7. The importance of prayer is emphasized by our author. Jacob prays for Judah, T. Jud. xix. 2; for Gad, T. G.

8. thirty years old. Jub. xxviii. 11, xxxilil. I-5 says Reuben was only twenty-one.

g. The chastisement lasted seven months, the penance seven years.

10. eat no pleasant food. Cf. Dan. x. 3. Reuben practises abstinence for seven years, Simeon for two, T. S. iil. 4, and Judah till old age, T. Jud. xv. 4, xix. 2, in expiation of their sins. Joseph fasts seven years to preserve his chastity, T. Jos. iii. 4. Issachar in his righteousness and self-control abstains from wine all his life, T. Iss. vil. 3. The righteous man ‘combines fasting with chastity’, T. Jos. ix. 2: the double-hearted man superstitiously combines fasting and

such as had not been in Israel. Socand practically A. Cf. 2 Sam. xiii. 12.

ll. 1. seven spirits of deceit. Origen refers to this passage (//om. 7m Josuam 15», ed. Lommatzsch, xi. 143, as from the Testaments of the XII Patr. as implying various ‘Satanae’. Matt. xii. 45 speaks of seven evil spirits. spirits of deceit. The Testaments contain a vast demonology. The chief of the demons is called Beliar passim (see IT. Lev. iii. 3); the Devil, T. N. viii. 4; the Prince of Deceit, T. S. ii.7; T. Jud. xix. 4; or your Prince (of Dan), T. D. v. 6. Beliar’s works are opposed to God’s law, T. L. xix. 1; T. Iss. vi. 1. He rules over disturbed souls, T. D. iv. 7, or those which yield to their evil inclination, T. A.i.8. He flees, however, from the righteous and keepers of the law, T. D. v.1; T.N. viii. 4. The Messiah will make war on Beliar and take away from him the captive souls, T.D.v. 10; Beliar will be bound, T. L. xviii. 12, and cast into the fire, T. Jud. xxv. 3. The evil spirits.in general are

THE TESTAMENT OF REUBEN 1. 1—3. 6

2I repented. Seven spirits therefore are appointed against man, and they are the leaders in the works

3 of youth. [And seven other spirits are given to him at his creation, that through them should be

4 done every work of man. The first is the spirit of life, with which the constitution (of man) is

5 created. The second is the sense of sight, with which ariseth desire. The third is the sense of

hearing, with which cometh teaching. The fourth is the sense of smell, with which tastes are given

6, 7 to draw air and breath. The fifth is the power of speech, with which cometh knowledge. The

sixth is the sense of taste, with which cometh the eating of meats and drinks ; and by it strength is

8 produced, for in food is the foundation of strength. The seventh is the power of procreation and

9 sexual intercourse, with which through love of pleasure sins enter in. Wherefore it is the last in

order of creation, and the first in that of youth, because it is filled with ignorance, and leadeth the youth as a blind man to a pit, and as a beast to a precipice,

1 Besides all these there is an eighth spirit of sleep, with which is brought about the trance of

2, 3 nature and the image of death. With these spirits are mingled the spirits of_error.] First, the

spirit of fornication is seated in the nature and in the senses; the second, the spirit of insatiableness,

4in the belly ; the third, the spirit of fighting, in the liver and gall. The fourth is the spirit of

5 obsequiousness and chicanery, that through officious attention one may be fair in seeming. The

fifth is the spirit of pride, that one may be boastful and arrogant. The sixth is the spirit of lying,

6 tin perdition and jealousy} to practise deceits, and concealments from kindred and friends. The

called spirits of deceit, T. R. ii. 1,2; T.S. ili, 1; and fasstzm: also wicked spirits, T. S. iv. 9; spirits of Beliar, T. Iss. vii. 7, &c.; unclean spirits, T. B. v. 2; angels of Satan, T. A. vi. 4. Their function is threefold as in 1 and 2 Enoch and the N. T., (1) to tempt men, (2) to accuse them when they fall, (3) to torment them. (2) is not a feature in this book, (3) is mentioned twice, T. L. iii. 2, spirits of retribution, and T. A. vi. 5, the evil spirit which a man serves waits for his soul as it leaves the body at death to torment it. (1) is their most prominent function in the Testaments. Of the tempting spirits, there are the seven spirits of deceit which attack youth, T. R. ii. 1-2, namely, those of fornication (cf., too, T. Jud. xiii. 3), insatiableness, fighting, obsequiousness, pride, lying, and injustice, T. R. iii. 3-6. T. Jud. xvi. 1 adds the spirits of lust, hot desire, profligacy, and filthy lucre. There are also the spirits of jealousy, T. Jud. xiii. 3; and of envy, T. S. iii. 1, iv. 7, which are wicked and poisonous spirits, T. S. iv. 9; the spirits of anger, T. D. ii. 4. There are angels, moreover, which stir men to murder, T. D. i. 7; and idolatry, T. N. ili. 3; and lust, T. Jos. vii. 4. The faithless and wicked fall an easy prey to them, but the spirits first require permission to tempt men, T. B. iii. 3 (cf. Job i. 12, ii. 6). If men yield, the devil makes them into his own instruments, T. N. viii. 6; but if they are single-hearted and do right, then neither the spirits of deceit nor Beliar have power over them, T. Iss. iv. 4; T. B. iil. 3; indeed, the devil and the spirits of Beliar and unclean spirits flee from them, T. N. viii. 4; T. Iss. vii. 7 ; T. B. v.2. Nay, more, the righteous rule over them, T.S. vi. 6, and tread them under foot, T. L. xviii. 12, T. Z. ix. 8 (bdg). These spirits are punished on the judgement day, T. L. ili. 3. 2. against man + ‘by Beliar’ BAS. 3!

leaders in the works. ‘leader,’ 8-fg A*S, which points to the singular YN) in Hebrew, which = ‘ poison’ as

well as ‘leader’. Cf. ‘poisonous spirit’, T. S. iv. 9.

II. 3—III. 2. A late addition to the text, undoubtedly first made in Greek, and chiefly drawn from Greek sources. Not only does this passage intrude between the promise in ii. 1 and its fulfilment in iii. 3, 7, but it has no organic connexion with either. Moreover, the division of the bodily senses here given is based on Stoic theories, e.g. the peculiar meaning attached to wvevpara as that of senses, organs, or appetites. The Stoics held that the soul had eight parts, namely, the five senses, the powers of reproduction and speech, and the dominant part or reason which ruled the other seven. They discharged themselves into the various parts of the body in the form of immaterial currents or mvevpata, Cf. Plutarch, De Plac. iv. 21; also Zeller, Stozcs, 214-15 (Eng. Trans.). For full quotations see my Comm. on the Testt.; also my note in Slav. Enoch xxx. 9. A parallel interpolation occurs in MS. 248 of Sirach xvii. 4, and precedes as here the Hebrew division of various powers.

3. seven other spirits. ‘other’ a, >8S, ‘again’ A. This use of rvevyara is confined to the Stojcs, and has no parallel in the Hebrew 0. The Stoic division gives eight mvevpara, but our text omits éd7, and replaces the eighth power 70 7yepoukdy by mvevpa wis.

4. Spirit of life. Here rvciya is used in its usual sense, cf. Gen. vi. 17, vii. 15. But the Hebrew usage would not imply more than life in an impersonal sense, whereas the Stoic parallel 76 nyeyortxdy, and the next phrase ‘ with which the constitution of man is created’ suggest the power which gives vitality and life to the material organism and constitutes man’s powers into a unity which is personal.

5. sense. veda, and so in verses 5 and 7.

sight ... desire. Cf. 1 John ii. 16 7 émOupia ray dpOadpar. to draw air and breath. Cf. T. N. ii. 8 (note); also Arist. De Sir. 2.

6. power. mretpa.

7. and by it strength is produced, aira can refer only to mvevya. Only d reads airy (yetors).

g. as a blind man toa pit. Cf. Matt. xv. 14.

III. 1-2. This reference to an eighth spirit, of sleep, is due to the interpolator himself, who has also inserted iii. 7. It is not found in Stoic teaching.

1. trance of nature (ékoracts picews). Unlike the preceding bodily powers, sleep is not credited with any contribution to human activity.

the image of death. Cf. Homer, //. xiv. 231, &c.

2. An adaptation of ii. 3-iii. 1 to its present context.

4. spirit of fighting, in the liver. Cf. T. N. ii. 8. i

5. tin perdition and jealousyt. Probably corrupt in the Hebrew text, ANIP) ANIWI for NIP riiyd, Hence read “to practise deceits on an enemy and a rival and concealments’, &c.

THE TESTAMENTS Chetry WeieV it AtTRIARGCH OS

seventh is the spirit of injustice, with which are thefts and acts of rapacity, that a man may fulfil the desire of his heart; for injustice worketh together with the other spirits by the taking of gifts.

7, 8 [And with all these the spirit of sleep is joined which is (that) of error and fantasy.]| And so perisheth every young man, darkening his mind from the truth, and not understanding the law of

9 God, nor obeying the admonitions of his fathers, as befell me also in my youth. And now, my children, love the truth, and it will preserve you: hear ye ‘the words of ' Reuben your father. 10 ©6Pay no heed to the face of a woman, Nor associate with another man’s wife, Nor meddle with affairs of womankind. rr For had I not seen Bilhah bathing in a covered place, I had not fallen into this great iniquity. 12 For my mind taking in the thought of the woman’s nakedness, suffered me not ‘to sleep! until I had 13 wrought the abominable thing. For while Jacob our father had gone to Isaac his father, when we were in Eder, near to Ephrath in Bethlehem, Bilhah became drunk and was asleep uncovered in her 14 chamber, Having therefore gone in and beheld her nakedness, I wrought the impiety ‘without her 15 perceiving it', and leaving her sleeping I departed. And forthwith an angel of God revealed to my father concerning my impiety, and he came and mourned over me, and touched her no more. 4; Pay no heed, therefore, ‘my children’, to the beauty of women, nor set your mind on their affairs ; but walk in singleness of heart in the fear of the Lord, and expend labour on good works, and on study and on your flocks, until the Lord give you a wife, whom He will, that ye suffer not as I did. 2 For until my father’s death I had not boldness to look in his face, or to speak to any of my brethren, 3 because of the reproach. Even until now my conscience causeth me anguish on account of my 4impiety. And yet my father comforted me much, and prayed for me unto the Lord, that the anger

of the Lord might pass from me, even as the Lord showed. And thenceforth until now I have 5 been on my guard and sinned not. Therefore, my children, 'I say unto you!, observe ‘all! things 6 whatsoever I command you, and ye shall not sin. For a pit unto the soul is the sin of fornication,

separating it from God, and bringing it near to idols, because it deceiveth the mind and under-

6. fulfila. ‘do’ BAS. 7. An interpolation. See iii. 1 (note). Sleep is properly a natural power, not a vice like the other seven. aae read ‘which is error and fantasy’. 8. darkening his mind. Cf. Eph. iv. 18 éoxoriopéevor rq Ovavoia, also Rom. i. 21. understanding the law. Here cumoy ey ré vou is a Hebraism. g. the words of. So aaef. Io. Pay no heed, &c. See iv. 1.

associate (a): ‘be alone’ B-gS1. Cf. Sir. ix. 9, where the verb is xdOov, ‘sit,’ in the Greek, DYON ‘eat’ in the Hebrew, and AMY INN ‘talk much’ according to the Syriac (cf. Aboth i. 5). In Sanh. roo and Yebam. 63», where

Sir. is quoted, we have myx on bx ‘turn not aside to her’. Cf. also Nedarim 20°. meddle with affairs, &c. Cf. Sir. xli.21. For mpaéw (abfS), ‘affairs’,areads dyuv, A P* xaddos kal mpages. 11-15, Cf. Gen. xxxv. 21, 22; Jub. xxxili. 1-9. Reuben’s sin is denied in late works, e. g. Gen. rabba 98, 99; Ps.-Jon. on Gen. xxxv. 22. See note on Jub. xxxiil, 2. 13. had gone to Isaac. Jub, xxxiii. 1. Eder near to Ephrath. Gen. xxxv. 19, 21; Jub. xxxiil. 1. Bilhah became drunk. Peculiar to our text. Hence the new turn to the story in v. 15. 14. without her perceiving ita: >8AS. leaving her sleeping. Jub. xxxiii. 4-7 says Bilhah awoke and cried out. She also told the matter to Jacob on his return.

IV. 1. Pay no heed . . . to the beauty of women, &c. Cf. ili. 10; T. Jud. xvii. 1; T. Iss. iv. 4; also Sir. ix. 8. Abodah Zara 20? forbids a man to look on a beautiful woman if single, or a homely one if married.

singleness of heart, dm\drnre ris kapdias = na>-pn, Wisd. i. 1; Col. ii. 22; Eph. vi. 5. See note on uprightness in T. Iss. iii, 1.

on good works and. So aA. év épyos kai dromhav@pevoe BS. i.e. the B recension had a corrupt Hebrew nw) DwyDa instead of DW Owyn2.

your flocks. Cf. stress on husbandry, T. Iss. v. 3 ; vi. 2.

3. This is the first occurrence in Jewish literature of the conscience as a fully-developed conception. The LXX first uses the word in the technical sense in Wisd. xvii. 10 det d€ mpocetAnhev ta xadera (rovnpia) cuvexomevn TH TvvErdnoet. See also T. Jud. xx. 2 (a). The action of the conscience is described (without the term) in T. Jud. xx. 5; T. G. v. 3.

impiety a. ‘Sin’ BS).

4. that the anger of the Lord might pass. Jub. xxxiii. 15 says ‘ Reuben was granted life and forgiveness’.

until now, gos viv a. peravody, ‘repenting’,dg A. éws evvoioy, ‘ (even) in thought’, aef.

5. [say unto you. a only.

6-7. Cf. T. Jud. xv. 1, xviii. 2-6, on the evils of fornication.

6. A pit, BdOpos, aaf. 8dcOpos, ‘destruction’ B-af. MMW has both meanings. f

separating it from God ... near to idols. This recurs in T.S.v. 3. Cf. Kethub. 11> ‘Most idolaters are adulterers’, also Wisd. xiv. 12 apy yap ropveias (= spiritual unfaithfulness) emivoca cidodou.

THE TESTAMENT OF REUBEN 3. 6—6. 5

5 7 standing, and leadeth down young men into Hades before their time. For many hath fornication

destroyed ; because, though a man be old or noble, ‘or rich or poor', he bringeth reproach upon

8 himself with the sons of men and derision with Beliar. For ye heard regarding Joseph how he

guarded himself from a woman, and purged his thoughts from all fornication, and found favour in

g the sight of God and men. For the Egyptian woman did many things unto him, and summoned

1o Magicians, and offered him love potions, but the purpose of his soul admitted no evil desire. There-

11 fore the God of your fathers delivered him from every evil (and) hidden death. For if fornication overcomes not your mind, neither can Beliar overcome you.

1 '!For! evil are women, my children ; and since they have no power or strength over man, they use

2 wiles by outward attractions, that they may draw him to themselves. And whom they cannot

3 bewitch by outward attractions, him they overcome by craft. ‘For! moreover, concerning them,

the angel of the Lord told me, and taught me, that women are overcome by the spirit of fornication

more than men, and in their heart they plot against men; and by means of their adornment they

deceive first their minds, and by the glance of the eye instil the poison, and then through the accom-

4 plished act they take them captive. For a woman cannot force a man openly, but by a harlot’s

5 bearing she beguiles him. Flee, therefore, fornication, my children, and command your wives and

your daughters, that they adorn not their heads and faces to deceive the mind: because every woman

6 who useth these wiles hath been reserved for eternal punishment. For thus they allured the

Watchers who were before the flood; for as these continually beheld them, they lusted after them,

and they conceived the act in their mind ; for they changed themselves into the shape of men, and

7 appeared to them when they were with their husbands. And the women lusting in their minds after

their forms, gave birth to giants, for the Watchers appeared to them as reaching even unto heaven.

6 x Beware, therefore, of fornication ; and if you wish to be pure in mind, guard your senses from every

2 woman. And command the women likewise not to associate with men, that they also may be pure

3in mind. For constant meetings, even though the ungodly deed be not wrought, are to them an

4 irremediable disease, and to us a destruction of Beliar and an eternal reproach. For in fornication

5 there is neither understanding nor} godliness, and all jealousy dwelleth in the lust thereof. There-

leadeth down ... to Hades. Cf. Prov. vii. 27, where LXX has kxardyovow as here.

before their time, odk év xaip adrév = ony NOI. Cf. T. Jud. xvi. 3. 7. many hath fornication destroyed. Cf. Prov. vii. 26; also Sir. ix. 8, where read dmexravOnoay for emavnOnoar. or rich or poor. a only. a! 2. derision, y&hora, de AS. mpdckoppa, ‘an offence’ or ‘ stumbling-block’, a, i.e. UPD for PInv.

8. For ye heard, Xc., ‘for since Joseph guarded himself from every woman . . . he found’, &c. BAS!. found favour in the sight of God (‘of the Lord’ BAS'). Cf. T.S.v.2; also 1 Sam. ii. 26; Luke ii. 52, Acts vii. 10 says of Joseph ‘God .. . gave him favour’. g. Cf. T. Jos. vi.

did many things unto = 71D, perhaps corrupt for JINN, ‘ lay in wait for’. 10. delivered him, &c.- Cf. Acts vii. 10. evil, a. ‘visible and’ B-d A& S}, i.e. YN1 for V9. 11. Beliar is powerless with the pure. Cf. Jub. i. 20, x. 6 (note); Eccles. vii. 26. V. 1. For. a only. evilare women. Cf. Eccles. vil. 27, 28. by outward attractions, év cyjpact, i.e. figure, bearing, attire, and gestures. 2. by outward attractions, dia oyjparos a. Suvapews BAS}, i.e. 171 for WW or jN, 3. they plot. Cf. Eccles. vii. 26, 27. glance of the eye. Cf. T. Iss. vii.2; T. B. vi. 3: also Prov. vi. 25 ; Sir. xxiii. 4.

4. openly . . . beguiles him. a only. ; \

5. adorn not their heads and faces. Enoch viii. 1 says that the fallen Watchers taught women to beautify the face and wear precious metals. For Hebrew adornments see Isa. iii. 16. .

reserved for eternal punishment, «is kéAaowv aid@moy rernpnra. Cf. Jude 6 els kpiow . . . rernpynkev; 2 Pet. il. 4 eis Kplow THpoupéevors :

6. thus they allured the Watchers. Jub. iv. 15 (see note) says the Watchers descended to instruct the children of men, and afterwards proceeded to take wives of the daughters of men (Jub, v. 1). See Chron. Jerahmeel xxv. 2-4. In xxv. 7, 13 Azazel is said to be ‘appointed chief over all dyes and all kinds of ornaments by which women entice men to thoughts of sin’. Is this story in view in I Pet. iii. 3-5; 1 Tim. il. 9?

lusted after them A > >* edeg; ‘justed after one another’ a B-g.

7. reaching unto heaven. Their height was 3,000 ells, 1 En. vii. 2.

VI. 1. Beware ... offornication. Cf. iv.6; T.S.v. 3; Tobit iv. 12. if you wish . . . guard BAS!: ‘be pure in mind: guard also’ a,

2. Cf. iii. 10. Note that purity of heart is required. Cf. Matt. v. 27, 28. .

3. a destruction of Beliar and an eternal reproach a: ‘an eternal reproach of Beliar’ BS': ‘a great reproach’ A. ' .

4. godliness, <cia¢Beiay. Probably corrupt for evAdBecay, ‘ discretion ’.

5-12. Many passages in the Testaments set forth Levi’s merits and claims. Cf. T.S. vii. 2; T. L. il. 11, vill. 14,

fore, 'then I say unto you!, ye will be jealous ‘against the sons of Levi', and will seek to be exalted 6 over them ; but ye shall not be able. For God will avenge them, ‘and ye shall die by an evil death’. 7 For to Levi God gave the sovereignty [and to Judah with him and to me also, and to Dan and 8 Joseph, that we should be for rulers]. Therefore I command you to hearken to Levi, because he shall know the law of the Lord, and shall give ordinances for judgement and shall sacrifice for all Israel until the consummation of the times, as the anointed High Priest, of whom the Lord spake. 9 I adjure you by the God of heaven to do truth each one unto his neighbour and to entertain love 10 cach one for his brother. And draw ye near to Levi in humbleness of heart, that ye may receive 11 a blessing from his mouth. For he shall bless Israel and Judah, because him hath the Lord chosen to 12 be king over all the nation. And bow down before his seed, for on our behalf it will die in wars visible and invisible, and will be among you an eternal king. 71,2 And Reuben died, having given these commands to his sons. And they placed him in a coffin until they carricd him up from Egypt, and buried him ‘in Hebron! in the cave where his father was.

THE TESTAMENT OF SIMEON, THE SECOND SON OF JACOB AND LEAH.

ls The copy of the words of Simeon, the things which he spake to his sons before he died, in the hundred and twentieth year of his life, at which time Joseph, ‘his brother!, died. For when Simeon

xvill. 1,2; T. D.v. 4; T. N. viii. 2; T.G. viii. 1; T. Jos. xix.11. The salvation of Israel is to come from both Levi and Judah jointly, T. S. vil. 1, &c. Only in T. G. viii. 1 (probably corrupt) is Judah placed before Levi. Levi is priest and king, T. R. vi. 7-12; T. L. viii. 14, xviii. 1, 2; as high-priest, T. S. vil. 2. Judah is king T. S. vii. 2; T. Jud. i. 6, xvii. 5; T. N. viii. 2 (corrupt?). T.R. vi. 7» and T. Jud. xxiv. 4-6 are additions.

5. then, I say unto you a only.

jealous against the sons of Levi. Cf. the charge against Simeon’s sons, T. S. v. 4, and Dan’s, T. D. v. 5. The purpose of this admonition is to establish the Maccabean hegemony.

6. and ye ... death. These words are omitted by A.

7. Levi is to be king. The bracketed words are a foolish interpolation. Why ‘to Dan’ is not clear. In Ps.-Jon. on Gen. xlix. 3 we have the non-Maccabean view: ‘because thou (Reuben) didst sin, my son, the primogeniture is given to Joseph, the kingdom to Judah, and the priesthood to Levi.’

8. shall know: ‘shall make known’ A.

give ordinances for judgement, d.acredci cis xpiow cB-bgS: diaredet eis kpiow hgA, ‘fulfil as regards judgement,’ perhaps corrupt for duareheoer kpiow. all Israel (> ‘all’ a). The Twelve Tribes are considered as in Palestine by our author. John. Hyrcanus, who is meant by our text, is to bless Israel and Judah, verse 11. The title ‘ Twelve Patriarchs’ points to the same view. Cf. the letter of Aristeas, which says that Eleazar the high-priest sent six men from each of the Twelve Tribes to Ptolemy. The pre-Maccabean view (1 En. Ixxxix. 72) was that the Northern tribes were still in captivity. The Maccabean view was due to the extensive sway of those native kings. With the failure of the Maccabees, the Messianic promises were again attached to Judah instead of Levi, and the idea of the Captivity of the Northern Tribes Ixxviil. I, 5, 7, Ixxxiv. 10. For the rejection of Dan see T. D. v. 6-7. consummation of the times, reheoocws ypdvov. Cf. T. L. x. 2 (T. B. xi. 3) ouvredeia trav aiovov; T. Z. ix. 8 Katpod ouvredeias. This means the closing years of the age present to the writer, and the opening of a new era, possibly with no catastrophe, as in Jub. i. 29, v. 12, xxiii. 26-30 (see notes). Cf. Daniel’s ‘ time of the end’ (Dan. viii. 19, xi. 35, 40, xii. 49), 7P"NY. The LXX gives Spay xaipod, Spay cuvredelas, karpod ourredelas. Cf. 1 En. x. 13 myepas Teegpod, XVI. I tpépa THs TeAEtdoews. Also Ass. Mos. i. 18 ‘in consummatione exitus dierum’; x. 13 ‘(tempora) consummentur’; 2 Bar. xxvii. 15, &c. ‘consummation of the times’; lvi. 2 ‘of the world’; Ixxxili. 7 ‘of the age’. Cf. 4 Ezra ix. 5 and T. Iss. vi. 1 (note); also Matt. cuvreAeta aldvos, xiii. 39, XXxIv. 3. as the anointed High Priest. So emended from dpytepeds ypiorov h: (times) ‘of the anointed High Priest’ Gioia. of whom the Lord spake. Ps. cx, originally written in honour of Simon, is here interpreted of John Hyrcanus. Cf. for reinterpretation Dan. vii. 7, 8 as explained in Dan. vii. 23-5, and interpreted anew in 4 Ezra xi. 1 ff. g. do truth hi®@S: ‘walk in truth’ A: ‘speak truth’ c, as also T. D. v. 2 (Zech. viii. 16 ; Gal. iv. 25). entertain love: | Gfils Maxx. 18 alsomlao Vanya ten viens. 10-11, Levi as priest and king. Cf. 1 Macc. xiv. 41 concerning Simon, 7yyovpevoy Kat dpxtepéa. receive a blessing. Cf. Jub. xxxi. 15; Sir. l. 20. 11. him hath the Lord chosen, i.e. Levi: ¢v air@ e&ehe~aro—a Hebraism. nation af A: ‘nations’ 8-fS}. 12. Achievements of the Maccabean prince-priests. Most ‘died in wars visible’, cf. T. S. v. 5. As spiritual leaders they spent themselves in warfare against spiritual opposition. Cf. Ps. Ixix. 9, cxix. 139. eternal king (‘kings’ A). Cf. iepeds eis al@va 1 Macc. xiv. 41; Ps. cx. 4. ‘ Seed’ and ‘ die’, however, may be corrupt. If so, read S957 for YM and spy for nD’, and render ‘ Bow down before his might, for he will stand forth . a king for ever’, of Hyrcanus. VII. 2. Joseph’s bones alone remained in Egypt till the Exodus. Cf, Acts vil. 16. TITLE a: +‘regarding envy’ B-adeA®fsS}, {. 1. The copy of the words h®-deS!: ‘testament’ c: ‘copy of the testament’? deA®?. before ... died >ad. hundred and twentieth year B-dg A*¢4, See T. R.i. 1. Joseph died. Jub. xxviii. 13, 24 makes Joseph ten years younger than Simeon.

THE TESTAMENT OF SIMEON 1. 1—4. 4

was sick, his sons came to visit him, and he strengthened himself and sat up and kissed them, and said :— 1 Hearken, my children, to Simeon your father, And I will declare unto you what things I have in my heart. 2 I was born of Jacob as my father’s second son; And my mother Leah called me Simeon, Because the Lord had heard her prayer. 3. Moreover, I became strong exceedingly ; I shrank from no achievement, Nor was I afraid of ought. 4 For my heart was hard, And my liver was immovable, And my bowels without compassion. 5,6 Because valour also has been given from the Most High to men in soul and body. For in the time of my youth I was jealous 'in many things' of Joseph, because my father loved him "beyond 7all’. And I set my mind against him to destroy him, because the prince of deceit sent forth the spirit of jealousy and blinded my mind, so that I regarded him not as a brother, nor did I spare even 8 Jacob my father. But his God and the God of his fathers sent forth His angel, and delivered him 9 out of my hands. For when I went to Shechem to bring ointment for the flocks, and Reuben to Dothan, where were our necessaries and all our stores, Judah my’brother sold him to the Ishmaelites. 1o And when Reuben heard these things he was grieved, for he wished to restore him to his father. 11 But on hearing this I was ‘exceedingly! wroth against Judah in that he let him go away alive, and 12 for five months I continued wrathful against him. But the Lord restrained me, and withheld ‘from 13 me! the power of my hands; for my right hand was half withered for seven days. And I knew, my children, that because of Joseph this had befallen me, and I repented and wept; and I besought the Lord God that my hand might be restored, and that I might hold aloof from all pollution and envy 14 land from all folly’. For I knew that I had devised an evil thing before the Lord and Jacob my father, on account of Joseph my brother, in that I envied him. 1,2 And now, my children, 'hearken unto me and! beware of the spirit of deceit and envy. For envy ruleth over the whole mind of a man, and suffereth him ‘neither to eat nor to drink', nor to do any 3 good thing. But it ever suggesteth (to him) to destroy him that he envieth ; and so long as he that 4 is envied flourisheth, he that envieth fadeth away. Two years 'therefore' I afflicted my soul with fasting in the fear of the Lord, and I learnt that deliverance from envy cometh by the fear of God. 5 For if a man flee to the Lord, the evil spirit runneth away from him, and his mind is lightened. 6 And henceforward he sympathiseth with him whom he envied and forgiveth those who are hostile to him, and so ceaseth from his envy. t And my father asked ‘concerning me’, because he saw that I was sad; and I said unto him, I am 2 pained in my liver. For I mourned more than they all, because I was guilty of the selling of Joseph. 3 And when we went down into Egypt, and he bound me as a spy, I knew that I was suffering justly, 4 and I grieved not. Now Joseph was a good man, and had the Spirit of God within him: being

II. 2, Simeon . . . heard her prayer. Cf. Gen. xxix. 33 for this play on the name. 4. liver. Here the spirit of war dwells, T. R. ii. 4. 6. jealous of Joseph. Cf. iv. 2, 3; and Targum Ps.-Jon. which attributes Gen, xxxvii. 19, 20 to Simeon and Levi. in many things a only. beyond all a only. prince of deceit. See T. R. ii. 1 (note). blinded my mind. Cf. T. R. iii. 8. 8. sent forth his angel and delivered. Dan. iii. 28; Acts xii. 11. Cf. Ps. xxxiv. 7, 8. g. Reuben to Dothan. Reuben’s absence explains Gen. xxxvii. 21. Judah ...sold him. Cf. Gen. xxxvii. 26-8. Io. heard these things, dkotoas c (cf. Gen. xxxvii. 21): ‘came’ BAS, i.e. DWI for WNwWI. Same corruption in BESO restore cA JU: ‘save’ B-afS' ywin.

Ill. 1. spirit of deceit and envy aAS?. Cf. ii. 7. ‘spirits’ BS‘.

3. and so long, &c. Perhaps render ‘ And he that is envied flourisheth, and’, &c. 4. afflicted my soul with fasting. Ps. xxxv.15. Cf. T. R. i. Io.

6. forgiveth, ovyywaoker aaefS*. od xaraywoonea bdg AP*°4®,

are hostile to. The text has ‘love’ = in the Hebrew original YANN corrupt for YIN.

IV. 4. Joseph is commended here and always in the Testaments except Naph. Cf. T. R. iv. 8-1o.

THE TESTAMENTS? OF? THES TWELVE. PATRIARCHS

compassionate and pitiful, he bore no malice against me; but loved me even as the rest of his

5 brethren. Beware, therefore, my children, of all jealousy and envy, and walk in singleness of BA.S! heart, soul and with good heart, keeping in mind Joseph your father’s brother,

that God may give 'you also! grace and glory, and blessing upon your heads, even as ye saw in 6 Joseph’s case. All his days he reproached us not concerning this thing, but loved us as his own 7 soul, and beyond his own sons glorified us, and gave us riches, and cattle and fruits. Do ye also,

my children, love each one his brother with a good heart, and the spirit of envy will withdraw from 8 you. For this maketh savage the soul and destroyeth the body; it causeth anger and war in the

mind, and stirreth up unto deeds of blood,

and leadeth the mind into frenzy, and leadeth the mind into frenzy, ‘and suffereth not prudence to act in men!; moreover, it taketh away sleep,

[and causeth tumult to the soul and trembling to the body].

g For even in sleep some malicious jealousy, deluding him, gnaweth, and with wicked spirits disturbeth his soul, and causeth the body to be troubled, and waketh the mind from sleep in confusion ; and as a wicked and poisonous spirit, so appeareth it to men.

1 Therefore was Joseph comely in appearance, and goodly to look upon, because no wickedness

2 dwelt in him; for some of the trouble of the spirit the face manifesteth. And now, my children,

Make your hearts good before the Lord, And your ways straight before men, And ye shall find grace before the Lord and men.

3 Beware, therefore, of fornication,

For fornication is mother of all evils, Separating from God, and bringing near to Beliar.

4 For I have seen it inscribed in the writing of Enoch that your sons shall be corrupted in fornication,

5 and shall do harm to the sons of Levi with the sword. But they shall not be able to withstand Levi ;

6 for he shall wage the war of the Lord, and shall conquer ‘all! your hosts. And they shall be few in number, divided in Levi and Judah, and there shall be none of you for sovereignty, even as also our father prophesied in his blessings.

1,2 Behold I have told you all things, that I may be acquitted of your sin. Now, if ye remove from

you your envy and all stiff-neckedness,

As a rose shall my bones flourish in Israel,

And as a lily my flesh in Jacob,

And my odour shall be as the odour of Libanus ;

And as cedars shall holy ones be multiplied from me for ever, And their branches shall stretch afar off.

5. singleness of heart. See T. Iss. iii. 2 (note). of heart a. 8AS!read ‘soul and (> A+) with good (‘pure’ A@hb* edeg > AP) heart, keeping in mind Joseph (> b) your father’s brother (‘brother’ A)’. d is corrupt. The twofold recension obviously goes back to the Hebrew original. 6. gave us riches, &c. Cf. Gen. xlvii. 11, 12. 7. love each one his brother. Cf. T. R. vi. 9. will withdraw a &c.: ‘put ye away’ B-eg S1. For ‘ withdraw’ cf. iii. 5, 6. 8. and suffereth ... men > A?*cdetg: ‘moreover ... sleep’ recurs T. Jud. xviii. 4 with a new verb. [and causeth tumult ... body], bracketed as a corrupt dittography of 8%. poisonous. Cf. T. R. v. 3; also ii. 2 (note).

V. 1. comely, &c. Gen. xxxix. 6.

2. grace before the Lord and men. Luke ii. 52; T. R. iv. 8.

3. Separating from God, &c. See T. R. iv. 6. :

4. in the writing of Enoch. Cf. T. L.x.5, &c. Not in our Enoch: 2 En. xxxiv. 2 says similar things of the Antediluvians. Possibly a reference to Num. xxv. 6, 7, 14.

the sons of Levi. See T. R. vi. 5. ;

5. wage the war of the Lord—refers to the Maccabees, T. R. vi, 12.

6. few in number, divided in Leviand Judah. Cf. Gen. xlix.7. ‘I will divide them (Simeon and Levi) in Jacob and disperse them in Israel.’ Levi is omitted from this curse here, yet Levi claims the credit of destroying Shechem in T. L. vi. 4, and is praised for it in Jub. xxx. 18-23. Cf.T.L.v. 3. Contrast the tone of Gen. xlix. 6-7 and later Rabbinic tradition.

VI. 1. acquitted of your sin. Cf. T. L. xiv. 2.

THE TESTAMENT OF SIMEON 4. 4-9. 2

- 3 Then shall perish the seed of Canaan, And a remnant shall not be unto Amalek, (And ali the Cappadocians shall perish’, And all the Hittites shall be utterly destroyed. 4 Then shall fail the land of Ham, And all the people shall perish. Then shall all the earth rest from trouble, And all the world under heaven from war.

Restored Text Agee 5 Then the Mighty One of Israel shall glorify Then shall Shem (MSS. ‘ Seth’) be glorified, Shem, For the Lord our God shall appear on earth For the Lord God shall appear on earth, [as man | And Himself save men. And Himself saves again.

6 Then shall all the spirits of deceit be given to be trodden under foot, And men shall rule over wicked spirits.

7 Then shall I arise in joy, And will bless the Most High because of his marvellous works, [Because God hath taken a body and eaten with men and saved men].

7x And now, my children, obey Levi and Judah, and be not lifted up against these two tribes, for 2 from them shall arise unto you the salvation 'of God'. For the Lord shall raise up from Levi as it were a High-priest,and from Judah as it were a King [God and man], He shall save all [the Gentiles 3. and] the race of Israel. Therefore I give you these commands that ye also may command your children, that they may observe them throughout their generations. 81 And when Simeon had made an end of commanding his sons, he slept with his fathers, being an 2 hundred and twenty years old. And they laid him in a wooden coffin, to take up his bones to 3 Hebron. And they took them up secretly during a war of the Egyptians. For the bones of Joseph 4 the Egyptians guarded in the tombs of the kings. For the sorcerers told them, that on the departure of the bones of Joseph there should be throughout all the land darkness and gloom, and an exceeding great plague to the Egyptians, so that even with a lamp a man should not recognize his brother. 91,2 And the sons of Simeon bewailed their father. And they were in Egypt until the day of their departure by the hand of Moses.

3. The destruction of Israel’s foes. And all... perish >A. The Cappadocians seem to mean here the Caphtorim or Philistines. Cf. Deut. ii. 23, and note on Jub. xxiv. 29. Hittites, either NN ‘ Hittites’ or ONS (i. e. Greeks, or Macedonians). 4. all the people. Which people? Aads generally refers to Israel, and so perhaps the Messianic odives are meant. 5-8. A Theophany. God Himself comes to save men, subdues the evil spirits, and raises the righteous. Beewomother Lheophanies see DL. i), 11, va 2) vill. 11s) Ds Jud. xxi. 25 DT. Z: ix 3:5) T. No vill. 3): TA. vin 3: the Mighty One of Israel. So 8S A >*¢4®s (in 2nd clause), while a reads Pas 7 lopayd (in Ist clause), shall glorify. Conjectured from évdo€acOncera, all MSS., i.e. TD) corrupt for 52D, Shem. SobdA »*¢deg; ‘Seth’ A®>bh: ‘thesign’ aB- b ads: Possibly onpeioy f°¥ misread for {¥¥ ‘Zjon’. [as man] a®-a S, a Christian addition. and Himself save men: lit. ‘and save in Himself the Adam’ a8S. ey aire (or éavr@) yoxy3, which the translator should have rendered by airés. Dp INN defied translation into Greek, hence roy Addu. This third clause is wanting in A>* ¢4¢8 and corrupt in A®? 4, For this primitive view of the Messianic kingdom as a visible Theocracy cf. 1 En. xxv. 3, Ixxvii. 1. It will be on this earth, and the righteous dead will rise to share in it. Guek Luke x. 19, 20 ‘to tread . . . on every power of the enemy’, ‘the spirits are subject unto you’. Cf. T. L. xvill. 12. Basedon Ps. xci. 13. 7. [Because God hath taken a body, &c.] Cf. alike Christian interpolation in T. A. vii. 3; also T. D. v. 139, vi. 9. VII. 1. and Judah c: ‘and in Judah shall ye (‘we’ A®*¢4¢@f8) be redeemed’ hBAS, be not lifted up. Cf. T. R. vi. 5. from them shall arise ... salvation. See T. R. vi. 5-12 (note). 2. Levi’s supremacy is here (with the text of N. viii. 2) alone in this work limited to the priesthood. all the Gentiles. See T. B. ix. 2 (note). VIII. 2. wooden coffin a Ab* ¢defg: ‘coffin of incorruptible wood’ B-g A#PhS, during a war of the Egyptians BAS. See T. B. xii. 3 (note). 3. tombs a: ‘treasure-houses’ @A®S. Ps.-Jon. on Gen. 1. 26 says, ‘they embalmed him and placed him in a coffin and sank him in the middle of the Nile of Egypt.’ Cf. Exod. rabba xx.17. R. Nathan says Joseph was buried in Pharaoh’s palace. 4. Reason for the guarding of Joseph’s bones. Why should the darkness be chosen for mention out of all the Plagues?

IX. 1. their father + ‘according to the law of mourning’ BS.

THE TESTAMENTS OF PH? TWELVE PAGTRIARCHS

THE TESTAMENT OF LEVI, THE THIRD SON OF JACOB AND LEAH.

The copy of the words of Levi, the things which he ordained unto his sons, according to all that 2 they should do, and what things should befall them until the day of judgement. He was sound in health when he called them to him; for it had been revealed to him that he should die. And when they were gathered together he said to them: 2 I, Levi, was born in Haran, and I came with my father to Shechem. And I was young, about 3 twenty years of age, when, with Simeon, I wrought vengeance on Hamor for our sister Dinah. And when I was feeding the flocks in Abel-Maul, the spirit of understanding of the Lord came upon me, and I saw all men corrupting their way, and that unrighteousness had built for itself walls, and law- 4 lessness sat upon towers. And I was grieving for the race of the sons of men, and I prayed to the 5 Lord that I might be saved. Then there fell upon me a sleep, and I beheld a high mountain, and 6 I was upon it. And behold the heavens were opened, and an angel of God said to me, Levi, enter.

And I entered from the first heaven, and I saw there a great sea hanging.

7. And when I had entered into the first heaven. tand he escorted raised met to the second. And I saw there a

BAS S}

And I entered from the first heaven into the second, and I saw there a sea hanging between the one and the other.

great sea hanging.

8 And further I saw a second heaven far brighter and more brilliant, for there was a bound- | less light also therein.

And further I saw a third 8 _heaven far brighter and more

| brilliant than these two; for there was also a_ boundless theight therein.

And I said unto the. angel: 9 Wherefore is it so? And the angel said unto me: Marvel not at these ; for thou shalt see four other heavens more brilliant and | incomparable,

9 And I said to the angel, Why is this so? And the angel said to me, Marvel not at this, for | thou shalt see another heaven | more brilliant and incomparable. |

g. And I said unto him: | What is this, Lord? And he |

said unto me: |

TITLE. Soa: ‘Testament of Levi concerning the priesthood’ B-ade AS: +‘and arrogance’ bdefA?*cedets, I. 1. until the day of judgement. This event is therefore conceived as near to the time of the writer. revealed to him. Levi has several revelations.

Il. 2. about twenty years; eighteen according to T. L. xii. 5. Jub. xxviii. 13, 14 makes Simeon two years older. 3. Abel-Maul = the Abel-meholah of the O.T. e.g. Judges vil. 22. corrupting their way. Cf. Gen. vi. 12. unrighteousness had built . . . towers 8 A®42°8S!: ‘sin was built upon a wall and unrighteousness sat upon towers’ a. Cf. 1 En, xci. 5 ‘ unrighteousness will come to an end, ... and its whole structure will be destroyed’. Cf. After 3 e makes a long addition, describing the call and purifying of Levi.

5. and I was upon it a. ‘ This is the mountain of the shield in Abelmaul’ g A?* 18. See T. L. vi. 1.

II. 7—III. The original passage described three heavens, but it has been worked up to include seven. The first heaven really has the great sea, as v. 8 in a shows, for the second heaven is further on. This second becomes the third in 8B Af S Again in 9, 10 a speaks of ‘another heaven’. §A8&S* makes ‘four other heavens’ of it. In 10 the word ‘thither’ and the general effect require no more than one heaven. In iii. 1-4 a once more gives us three heavens, and God dwelling in the highest. 8 AS S1 makes four of the first two, and then passes at a leap to the highest, which in verses 5-8 we find has two or three others between it and the fourth or third heaven. a also has undergone alteration in verses 5-8 and mentions three other heavens.

The doctrine of the seven heavens was prevalent in Judaism before and after the time of Christ. iii-xxi ; Talmud, Crag. 12°; 4 Ezra vii. 81-7.

Christian apocalypses like Asc. Isa. followed Hebrew teaching on this point. Thus the redaction originated in Hebrew, and has been betrayed by the testimony of the first and better of the two independent Greek Versions —a. That they are independent is shown by iii. 2 kpivews, a: mpoordyparos, B, 111. 6 Ovoiav, a: mpoodopay, 8; lil. 9 Tpépoper, a: cadevoueda, 3. ‘

7. a great sea, i.e. the waters above the firmament, Gen. 1. 7. perhaps read ‘in the firmament’ )°P03 for P*pyd.

8. The ‘second’ in a becomes the ‘third heaven’ in f. hosts in it. ; :

light. Text ‘height’ 72) corrupt for 123, ‘light’ or ‘ brightness ’.

9. Note that the one heaven in a becomes four in .

See evg.-2 En.

Cf. Jub. ii. 4 andi En. liv. 8. For ‘hanging’ Instead of the brightness iii. 3 mentions the avenging

So read 733 = féyyos or Pas instead of

ith TESTAMENT OP LEVirt,

And when thou hast ascended thither, Thou shalt stand near the Lord,

And shalt be His minister,

And shalt declare His mysteries to men,

And shalt proclaim tconcerning Him that shall redeem} Israel.

to. When thou hast ascended thither, Thou shalt stand before the Lord, And shalt be His minister, And his coming mysteries thou shalt declare unto men.

And by thee and Judah shall the Lord appear among men,

"Saving every race of men.!

And from the Lord’s portion shall be thy life, And He shall be thy field and vineyard,

And fruits, gold, and silver.

Hear, therefore, regarding the heavens which have been shown to thee. The lowest is for this cause gloomy unto thee, in that it beholds all the unrighteous deeds of men.

And it has fire, snow, and ice made ready for the day of judgement, in the _ righteous judgement of God ; for in it are all the spirits of the retributions for vengeance on fmen.

And in the second are the hosts of the armies which are ordained for the day of judgement, to work vengeance on the spirits of deceit and of Beliar. And above them are the holy ones.

10-12. Levi has not yet ascended into the third heaven ; anticipate in 10-12, and resumes his account in iii, 1. to. Levi is to be made priest on ascendinginto the third heaven. stand near the Lord, and shalt be His minister.

the redemption of Israel.

1. Hear, therefore, regarding the heavens which were shown to thee. The first heaven is for this cause gloomy unto thee, since it beholds the unrighteous deeds of men.

z. And the second hath fire and snow and ice made ready for the day of the ordinances.

Soar

11. by thee and Judah. See T. R. vi. 5-12 (note).

appear among men. That God Himself would appear and dwell with men was the older Jewish view in the

Saving every raceofmen >A. See T.S. vi. 5 (note).

12. from the Lord’s portion. portion.

III. 1. gloomy .

See viii. 16 (note).

. in that it beholds, &c.

Cf. Deut. xxxii.

Apoc. Esdrae ; Apoc. Pauli 4; and see James, Texts and Studies, V.1. Dx

2. The first (a) heaven contains the instruments of God’s retribution for sin. that the treasuries of the ice and snow, and the great sea, are in the first heaven. Cf, eis éxdiknow exrigrat, Sir. xxxix. 29. Cf. also Sir. xxxix. 28, 30 and xl, 9, 10.

Natural phenomena are the agents of punishment, but they are under the control

for the day of judgement. spirits of the retributions. of spirits or angels. Cf. 1 En. Ix. 12.

on the lawless, ‘ on men’ a, by textual corruption. 3. In the second heaven are the angelic armies in readiness to destroy Beliar.

Ch Sin’ xle ra;

but in the fourth heaven and for a different purpose.

+And those in the fourtht. by the redactor.

above them are the holy ones a.

These are the angels.

in fact he does not do so till v. 1. Otherwise 10-12 would follow naturally on iv. 2. AS alone preserves the original reading.

influence to ‘ Him that shall redeem Israel’.

‘the black waters’.

i.e. BYIANA for *YIAIAW.

BABS} When thou hast ascended t° thither. ‘Because! thou shalt

stand near the Lord,

And shalt be His minister,

And His mysteries shalt thou declare to men,

And shalt proclaim concerning the redemption of Israel.

BASS!

Hear, therefore, regarding the t

seven heavens. The lowest is

for this cause gloomier, since

it beholds all the unrighteous deeds of men.

The second has fire, snow, ice 2 ready for the day of the ordinanceof the Lord ~im , the righteous judgement of God. In it are all the spirits of the retributions for vengeance on the lawless.

In the third are the hosts of 3 the armies which are ordained for the day of judgement, to work vengeance on the spirits of deceit and of Beliar. fAnd those in the fourth} who are above these are holy.

The angel appears to

Jub. xxxi. 14. ags are all modified by Christian

g; Sir. xvil. 17, where Israel is the Lord’s

Cf. also 3 Baruch viii;

QE ily 3) vel Lealso bolas, like a,

2 En. xvii gives us an armed host,

The 8 recension here cannot be cleared up by a, as it was independently altered Verse 8 in 8 naturally refers to the fourth heaven, which therefore need not be mentioned here. Perhaps we should read ‘ and the four heavens above these are holy ’,

This gives a point

For the first passage in which the abode of the

4 And in the highest of all dwelleth the Great Glory, far above all holiness.

5 In [the heaven next to] it are the archangels, who minister and make propitiation to the Lord for all the sins of ignorance of the righteous ;

6 Offering to the Lord a sweetsmelling savour, a reasonable and a bloodless offering.

7 And [in the heaven below this] are the angels who bear fanswers to the angels of the presence of the Lord.

8 An fin the heaven next to thist are thrones and dominions, in which always they offer praise to God.

ap APS!

9 When, therefore, the’ Lord looketh upon us, all of us are shaken; yea, the heavens, and the earth, and the abysses are shaken at the presence of His majesty.

4. And tthe Holy One of the holy ones} is above all holiness.

5. And the hosts of the angels are ministering,

6. And praising the Lord,

7. Who also are messengers of the Godhead.

g. When, therefore, the Lord looketh upon all creation, the heavens and the earth and the abysses are shaken.

BABS!

For in the. Highest of all 4 dwelleth the Great Glory, in the holy of holies, far above all holiness.

And in [the heaven next to] 5 it are the angels of the presence of the Lord, who minister and make propitiation to the Lord for all the sins of ignorance of the righteous.

And they offer to the 6 Lord a sweet-smelling savour, a reasonable and_ bloodless offering.

And in [the heaven below] 7 are the angels who bear the answers to the angels of the presence of the Lord.

And in the heaven next to 8 this are thrones and dominions in which always praises are offered to God.

10 But the sons of men, having no perception of these things, sin and provoke the Most High.

Because when the rocks are being rent,

And the sun quenched, And the waters dried up,

Now, therefore, know that the Lord shall execute judgement upon the sons of men.

blessed even after judgement is heaven is in 1 En. civ. 2, ciii. 4, 6, xli. 2, li. 4, i.e. between 100 and 50 B.C. The

intermediate abode of souls—even of the righteous—is Sheol at this date, 1 En. xxii. 4-9, li. 1, c. 5 (cf. 4 Ezra iv. 41)

4. the Great Glory.

Delon XiVve 20; Clune

Chine peexavensyi 75) lls 3e

5-8. Even a here has been interpolated. The sixth, fifth, and fourth heavens are introduced, but there is still a gap

between v. 3 and wv. 8, as there is no third heaven mentioned in 3 (a). original text, which thus. enumerated the angels in the third heaven.

5. minister and make propitiation. spoken of in Exod. xxv. 9, 40; Num. viil. 4, and was already a familiar idea.

The descending order is a witness to the

A sacrificial service in heaven is suggested by the heavenly patterns

See my Commentary zz /oc. The

intercession of angels occurs in Zech. i. 12; Job v. 1, xxxiii. 23, and especially in 1 En. ix. 3, xv. 2, Ixxxix. 76. See

105 IDS Sly Bs sins of ignorance. 6. reasonable, Noyiny. behalf.

bloodless offering. Cf. Essenes’ objection to bloody sacrifices. These are a lower order of angels. angels of the presence’, or ‘of the angels’, &c. (as g). ‘prayers’ instead of NiJWN ‘answers’.

7. How ‘answers’?

8. thrones and dominions. they offer praise.

Io, no perception ... sin.

Cf too 1 En. socdx. 5, xvii. 2))x1) 6; civats Chi T. RM 6ce De udsexixe st aecanienes

Cf. Rom. xii. 1. Cf. Origen, De Oraz. xi Noyikiy tepoupyiay, of Raphael offering on Tobit’s

For Aecrovpyotyres cf. Heb. 1. 14.

Cf. Philo ii. 457. Perhaps we should render ‘bear the answers for the The analogy of Rev. v. 8, however, would suggest miban

Cf. 3 Bar. xi-xii; Apoc. Pauli vii-x; Origen, De Princ. i. 8. 1.

Ch Colfisi6s photon nee. Cf. 2 En. xvii, xviii.

g. This verse and Sir. xvi. 18, 19 are independent versions of a lost Hebrew original. Thus a has rpépoper, 8 cadevdpeba, Greek of Sir. cvvociovrat.

Cit Enelxvity 1s:

IV. 1. sun quenched. Cf. Matt. xxiv. 29; Mark xiii. 24. waters dried up. Cf. Pss. Sol. xvil. 21; Ass. Mos. x. 6; 4 Ezra vi. 24.

Moreover a and # differ.

For parallels cf. Judges v. 4; Isa. Ixiv.1; Judith xvi. 15 ;

THE TESTAMENT OF LEVI 38. 4—5. 7

And the fire cowering, And all creation troubled, And the invisible spirits melting away, And Hades taketh spoils through the visitations of the Most High, Men will be unbelieving and persist in their iniquity. On this aceount with punishment shall they be judged. 2 'Therefore! the Most High hath heard thy prayer, To separate thee from iniquity, and that thou shouldst become to Him a son, And a servant, and a minister of His presence. 3 The light of knowledge shalt thou light up in Jacob, And as the sun shalt thou be to all the seed of Israel. 4 And there shall be given to thee a blessing, and to all thy seed, Until the Lord shall visit all the Gentiles in His tender mercies for ever. 5 |'And!' therefore there have been given to thee counsel and understanding, That thou mightst instruct thy sons concerning this ; 6 Because they that bless + Him shall be blessed, And they that curse} Him shall perish. 1 And thereupon the angel opened to me the gates of heaven, and I saw the holy temple, and upon 2 a throne of glory the Most High. And He said to me: Levi, I have given thee the blessings of the 3 priesthood until I come and sajourn in the midst of Israel. Then the angel brought me down to the earth, and gave me a shield and a sword, and said to me: Execute vengeance on Shechem because 4 of Dinah, thy sister, and I will be with thee because the Lord hath sent me. And I destroyed at 5 that time the sons of Hamor, as it is written in the heavenly tables. And I said to him: I pray 6 thee, O Lord, tell me Thy name, that I may call upon Thee in a day of tribulation. And he said: I am the angel who intercedeth for the nation of Israel that they may not be smitten utterly, 7 for every evil spirit attacketh it. And after these things I awaked, and blessed the Most High, and the angel who intercedeth for the nation of Israel and for all the righteous.

And Hades taketh spoils. Cf. Isa. v.14. Or a Christian addition —‘and Hades is despoiled’, ckvAevopevou being taken in a passive not middle sense. visitations. A difficult but possible rendering of rae. If an interpolation,= ‘ passion’. unbelieving and persist. Cf. Rev. xvi. 9, 11, 21; 1 En. Ixvii. 12, 13. For dmorovyres B-d APS we have ametOotvres, ‘ disobedient’ a d. 2. become to Him a son. Already in the second century B.C. we find the individual Israelite viewed as a son of minister of His presence. Cf. Jub. xxxi. 14. 3. The light of knowledge. See xviii. 3 (note). 4. This ‘blessing’ is probably God’s blessing on Levi, as Jub. xxxi. 13, not that pronounced by the priests (T. k. vi. 10, note), or the priestly privileges, T. L. v. 2. Until the Lord shall visit. Cf. v. 2. in His tender mercies. a@A8S read ‘in His Son’s tender mercies’. A* reads in 4 ‘And it shall come to pass in the last days that God shall send [His Son] to save the created things {and thy sons shall lay hands on and crucify Him]’. af A8 S also have the last clause—an obvious Christian addition, 6. For ‘ Him’ read ‘ thee’, as in Isaac’s blessing of Levi in Jub. xxxi. 17.

V. 1. opened to me the gates. Cf. the opened door in Rev. iv. 1. Levi now enters the third heaven of ii. 9 (a). the holy temple. With xviii. 6 and perhaps iii. 4 (8 Af S}), the earliest reference to the heavenly temple. Cf. Rey. xi. 19, xvi. 17 and contrast Rev. xxi. 22. and upon .. . Most High 8AS: ‘the Holy Most High One sitting upon a throne’ «a. 2. untilI ... sojourn. For the visible theocracy cf. iv. 4; T.S. vi. 5. 3. ashield. See vi. 1. Execute vengeance. Yet Levi says ‘ we sinned’ in vi. 7. 4. This verse interrupts the narrative. heavenly tables BA®S!. See T. A. ii. 10, vii. 5 (8 AS*): ‘tables of the fathers’ a, perhaps better. Cf. Jub.

6. Bacal who intercedeth for the nation of Israel. See my Commentary zz /oc. mapartovpevos 74 yevos B-d: mpoiardpevos Tod yévous A: mapendpevos tod yévous a: Pvda€ Tod y. A: cHtwr 7d y. St. a seems a bad rendering of 35, asin D. vi.2a. dAS!=‘protector’. For B-d cf. Asc. Is. ix. 23 (Latin and Slavonic) ‘ Iste est magnus angelus Michael deprecans semper pro humanitate’. nA eb f

This angel then appears to be Michael. Cf. Dan. x. 13, 21, xii. 1. Also see 1 En. xx. 7, which limits his good offices to the righteous in Israel, cf. T. L. v. 7. He intercedes for Israel, 1 En. Ixxxix. 76, helps Israel, xc. 14 and opposes the angels of the heathen nations in Dan. x-xii. God Himself is Israel’s Patron in Deut. xxxil. 8-9 (LXX) ; Sir. xvii. 17; Jub. xv. 31, 32; Hebrew T. Naph. ix. 5, and only the other nations have angel-patrons. Or it may be the angel of peace that is referred to here. Cf. T. D. vi. 5: Dan. x. 5-6, 11%, 12-14, 19-21, xi-xii. See also T. A. vi.6; T. B. vi. 13 1 En. xl. 8, lii. 5, liii. 4, &c., for this angel as a guide. He is distinct from Michael, Dan. x. 13;

utterly ... attacketh it >a.

THE TESTAMENTS°OP HE: PWELVE*PATRIARCHS

6: And when I was going to my father, I found a brazen shield; wherefore also the name of the z mountain is Aspis, which is near Gebal, to the south of Abila. And I kept these words in my

3 heart. And after this I counselled my father, and Reuben my brother, to bid the sons of Hamor not to be circumcised ; for I was zealous because of the abomination which they had wrought on

4,5 my sister. And I slew Shechem first, and Simeon slew Hamor. And after this my brothers

6 came and smote ‘that’ city with the edge of the sword. And my father heard ‘these things’ and was wroth, and he was grieved in that they had received the circumcision, and after that had been

7 put to death, and in his blessings he }looked amiss upon us. For we sinned because we had done

g this thing against his will, and he was sick on that day. But I saw that the sentence of God was for evil upon Shechem ; for they sought to do to Sarah ‘and Rebecca! as they had done to Dinah our

g Sister, but the Lord prevented them. And they persecuted Abraham our father when he was a stranger, and they vexed his flocks when they were big with young ; and Eblaen, who was born in his

1o house, they most shamefully handled. And thus they did to all strangers, taking away their

11 wives by force, and they fbanished them. But the wrath,of the Lord came upon them to the uttermost.

71 And I said to my father Jacob: By thee will the Lord despoil the Canaanites, and will give

2 their land to thee and to thy seed after thee. For from this day forward shall Shechem be 3 called a city of imbeciles; for as a man mocketh a fool, so did we mock them. Because also 4 they had wrought folly in Israel by defiling my sister. And we departed and came to Bethel.

1,2 And there again I saw a vision as the former, after we had spent there seventy days. And I saw seven men in white raiment saying unto me: Arise, put on the robe of the priesthood, and the crown of righteousness, and the breastplate of understanding, and the garment of truth, and the plate of faith, and the

3 turban of the thead, and the ephod of prophecy. And they severally carried (these things) and put (them) on me, and said unto me: From henceforth become a priest of the Lord, thou and thy seed for

VI. 1. shield. Prof. Sayce suggests this = JW, ie. Mount Hermon (Deut. iii. 9) which is 10 miles SE, of Abilene, but 40 miles from Gebal. wherefore 66. €v 6 a. 2. [kept ... heart. Cf. Dan. iv. 25 LXX (contrast LXX in vii. 28); Luke ii. 19. 3. my brother > c. not c only. Jub. xxx. 1-4; Josephus, Av/. i. 21. 1 omit the circumcision of the Shechemites. Levi was opposed to their circumcision as he intended to avenge the insult done to his sister. on my sister a A*: ‘in Israel’ 8 A® St. 4-5. Cf. Gen. xxxiv. 25~7, where the other sons of Jacob ‘ came upon the slain and spoiled the city’. 6. Cf. Gen. xxxiv. 30; Jub. xxx. 25. Gen. says Jacob reproached Simeon and Levi. looked amiss. sapeidev a: ‘did inequitably’, G\X\@s eroincey B-d g ABS}. 7. he was sick cb: ‘I was sick’ h 8-b AS}. 8. upon Shechem >a. and Rebecca >a. The Shechemites had done nothing to Sarah and Rebecca—for the incidents at Gerar see Gen. Xx. 3, XXvi. 7. g. Also not in Genesis. lo. their wives B-afA S!: ras €évas aaf, i.e. wives of guests or strangers. banished, a mistranslation of /17"’ ‘seduced them’ (to idolatry), or ‘forced them’, as Prov. vil. 21. See Jub. XXX. 7-17, where intermarriage with heathen involves the death penalty, as in the case of the Shechemites, Marriage with a Gentile was considered equivalent to worship of the Gentile idols. 11. of the Lord 6 S!: ‘of God’ a. This verse, adopted by Si. Paul in 1 Thess. il. 16, seems to be based on Gen. xxxv. 5 and presupposes NOM Y3") instead of NAN WM. Jub. xxx. 26 reads the latter.

VII. 1. Jacob a: ‘be not angry my (afg: > A*) lord Jacob (> d)’ B-bASI". 2. a city of imbeciles. Cf. Sir. 1. 26—of Shechem. 3. wrought folly in Israel. Gen. xxxiv. 7; Jub. xxx. 5. 4. And we +‘ took our sister’ be g. came to Bethel. Cf. Jub. xxxi. 3; Gen. xxxv. 6.

VIII. 1. For this vision cf. Jub. xxxii. 1, where, however, Levi has already visited Isaac and returned to Bethel. See eye alow. z. Seven men. For the ‘seven angels’ cf. Ezek. ix. 2, and for their names see f En. xx. robe of the priesthood, &c. See my Commentary 77 /oc. Cf. Exod. xxviii. 4, 36-8, xxix. 5; Sir xiv. 6-12; Philo, de Vita JZos. il. 11-14; Josephus, Azz. ii. 7. 1-6. robe Nd or tunic of every priest. crown DY. breastplate of understanding. Cf. ‘breastplate of judgement’, Exod. xxviii. 15 5 cf. Sir, xlv. Lo, garment—the long outer robe or rodnpns. plate = réradoy or YS. See Lncye. Bib. iil. 3157- turban of the thead. ‘The pirpa should have some virtue or power associated with it. So for UN1 (keadys a), and MDW (onpetov bd eg A*, corrupted to arnéiov af S1), we must read WMD,‘ uprightness ’. ephod of prophecy. Cf. 1 Sam. xxill. 9, 10. an oY i 8 3. a priest...ever SAS‘. ‘A priest, thou and all thy sae ? a. Cf. Jub. xxxii. 1, which supports BA S*.

THE LES AMEN TOF LEVI: 6:57--9) 6

-. 4,5 ever. And the first anointed me with holy oil, and gave to me the staff of judgement. The second washed me with pure water, and fed me with bread and wine (even) the most holy things, and clad 6, 7 me with a holy and glorious robe. The third clothed me with a linen vestment like an ephod. The 8, 9 fourth put round me a girdle like unto purple. The fifth gave me a branch of rich olive. The sixth 1o placed a crown on my head. The seventh placed on.my head a diadem of priesthood, and filled my 11 hands with incense, that I might serve as priest to the Lord God. And they said to me: Levi, thy 12 seed shall be divided into three offices, for a sign of the glory of the Lord who is to come. And the 13 first portion shall be great; yea, greater than it shall none be. The second shall be in the priest- 14 hood. And the third shall be called by a new name, because a king shall arise in Judah, and shall 15 establish a new priesthood, after the }fashion of the Gentiles [to all the Gentiles]. And His presence is beloved, as a prophet of the Most High, of the seed of Abraham our father. 16 Therefore, every desirable thing in Israel shall be for thee and for thy seed, And ye shall eat everything fair to look upon, And the table of the Lord shall thy seed apportion. 17 And some of them shall be high priests, and judges, and scribes ; For by their mouth shall the holy place be guarded. 18,19 And when I awoke, I understood that this (dream) was like the first dream. And I hid this also in my heatt, and told it not to any man upon the earth. 91,2 And after two days I and Judah went up with our father Jacob to Isaac our father’s father. And my father’s father blessed me according to all the words of the visions which I had seen. And 3 he would not come with us to Bethel. ‘And when we came to Bethel', my father saw a vision 4concerning me, that I should be their priest unto God. And he rose up early in the morning, 5 and paid tithes of all ‘to the Lord! through me. And ‘so! we came to Hebron to dwell there. 6 And Isaac called me continually to put me in remembrance of the law of the Lord, even as the

4. of judgement > a.

5. bread and wine, (even) the most holy things cif S': ‘holy bread and wine’ hA. Cf. Gen. xiv. 18. Is Christian influence apparent here?

g-10o. SoafS!: ‘And the sixth filled my hands with incense that I might serve as priest before the Lord’ A“: ‘And the sixth placed a diadem of priesthood on my head and the seventh filled,’ &c. A®*: ‘And the sixth and the seventh gave me a diadem of priesthood and again filled,’ &c. Aedes,

filled my hands. This = ordination. Cf. Exod. xxviii. 41. Goda: >BAS.

11. These three offices filled by Moses (12), the Aaronitic priesthood (13), and the Maccabean princes (14, 15), are signs of the Messiah’s coming.

12. the first portion, kAnpos, is Moses. Text =a: +morevoas (before mpéros) bdeg: ‘And those who believe first shall have a great portion’ A.

14. the third, the Maccabees, and in particular John Hyrcanus.

a new name: ‘priests of the Most High God’. Cf. Gen. xiv. 18 (Melchizedek) ; also Ass. Mos. vi. 1; Josephus,

king. See 1 Macc. xiv. 41. Simon was dpxtepev’s, otparnyds, and €Ovapxns.

in Judah, ‘ out of Judah’ a8: ‘in Judah’ A, possibly.

new priesthood. Cf. xviii. 2.

after the fashion of the Gentiles, &c. a8-d Af S: ‘a new priesthood to all the Gentiles’, d. The bracketed words may go back to a dittography in the Hebrew. For ‘ after the fashion’ read perhaps as in the note in my Commentary ‘for a mediator’.

15. Verses 14-15 date this work in the time of the Maccabean dynasty. Verse 15 dates it under John Hyrcanus, who alone of the Maccabees is credited with the gift of prophecy, Josephus, Be//. Jud. i. 2.8. Cf. refs. in T. L. xviii. 6 (note). Moreover, it must be earlier than his struggle with the Pharisees.

beloved aafS?: ‘unutterable’ B-af A.

16. Cf. Isaac’s blessing of Levi in Jub. xxxi. 16; also T. Jud. xxi. 5; Sir. xlv. 21.

i7- Ct. Jub. Xxxi. U5.

guarded B-af A®: ‘taken’ af (ch imply).

by their mouth = ‘at their word’. 18-ix. 9. Cf. Aramaic Fragment, Appendix II in Commentary. 19. The first dream vision is also kept secret by Levi. Cf. vi. 2.

1X. 1. Here the visit to Isaac follows the dream vision of T. L. viii. In Jub. xxxi. 13-17 the visit and Isaac’s blessing precede the vision at Bethel in xxxii. 1. to Isaac. Isaac was living in Abraham’s house (Jub. xxxi. 5) in Hebron (v. 5, Gen. xxxv. 27). Cf. Aram. and he would not come. Cf. Jub. xxxi. 27. 3. and when... Bethel abeg. In Jub. xxxii. 1 Levi, not Jacob, has this vision. If ‘ Jacob’ be read there for ‘Levi’, the difference in order mentioned in ix. 1 (note) would be removed. unto God S!: ‘before the Lord’ A: >a. 5. At Hebron Isaac was living. 6-14. These instructions Abraham gives to Isaac in Jub. xxi. 1-23.

THE TESTAMENTS OF THE TWEEVME PATRIARGCHS

7 angel of the Lord showed unto me. And he taught me the law of the priesthood, of sacrifices,

s whole burnt-offerings, first-fruits, freewill-offerings, peace-offerings. And each day he was instructing

g me, and was busied on my behalf before the Lord, and said to me: Beware of the spirit of

10 fornication ; for this shall continue and shall by thy seed pollute the holy place. Take, therefore,

to thyself a wife without blemish or pollution, while yet thou art young, and not of the race of

11 Strange nations. And before entering into the holy place, bathe; and when thou offerest the

12 sacrifice, wash ; and again, when thou finishest the sacrifice, wash. Of twelve trees having leaves

13 offer to the Lord, as Abraham taught me also. And of every clean beast ‘and bird’ offer a

14 sacrifice to the Lord. And of all thy first-fruits and of wine offer the first, as a sacrifice to the Lord God; and every sacrifice thou shalt salt with salt.

10: Now, therefore, observe whatsoever I command you, children; for whatsoever things I have

2 heard from my fathers 'I have declared unto you. And behold'I am clear from your ungodliness

and transgression, which ye shall commit, in the end of the ages [against the Saviour of the

world, Christ, acting godlessly], deceiving Israel, and stirring up against it great evils from the

3 Lord. And ye shall deal lawlessly together with Israel, so He shall not bear with Jerusalem

because of your wickedness; but the veil of the temple shall be rent, so as not to cover your

4shame. And yc shall be scattered as captives among the Gentiles, and shall be for a reproach

5 and for a curse there. For the house which the Lord shall choose shall be called Jerusalem,

as is contained in the book of Enoch the righteous.

Al 1, 2 Therefore when I took a wife I was twenty-eight years old, and her name was Melcha. And

she conceived and bare a son, and I called his name Gersam, for we were sojourners in our land.

3,4 And I saw concerning him, that he would not be in the first rank. And Kohath was born in the

5 thirty-fifth year ‘of my life', towards sunrise. And I saw in a vision that he was standing on high

6 in the midst of all the congregation. Therefore I called his name Kohath [which is, beginning of

7 majesty and instruction]. And she bare me a third son, in the fortieth year of my life; and since

his mother bare him with difficulty, I called him Merari, that is, ‘my bitterness,’ because he also was

7. law of the priesthood, i.e. DBWD ‘ custom’ or ‘ prerogatives’ of the priests. Cf. Deut. xviii. 3. Cf. the peaceofferings and thank-offerings in Jub. xxi. 7-9. 8. before the Lord > a. holy place, or ‘holy things’. 10. Take... a wife. Cf. Aram. and Gk. Frag. 17. 11. For these ablutions cf. Jub. xxi. 16; Aram. and Gk. Frag. 19, 21, 53. wash, vinrov, i.e. the hands and the feet, whereas ‘ bathe’, Aovou, refers to the whole body. 12. trees having leaves ag; ‘evergreen trees’ B-g A. See Aram. and Gk. Frag. 23-4; Jub. xxi. 12. as a sacrifice to the Lord God a: ‘a sacrifice unto the Lord’ af: ‘unto the Lord’ deg A®S': > b. and every sacrifice thou shalt salt with salt >a. Cf. Jub. xxi. 11; Lev. ii. 13; Mark ix. 49, 50.

X. This chapter belongs to the first century B.C., and is an attack on the later Maccabean high-priests. See xiv-xv (note).

1. [have declared unto you > dA.

2. And behold > BA.

{against the Saviour .. . godlessly.] A Christian addition. ‘Christ’ c only: ‘acting godlessly’ BA S*. String up) evils. Cty isa, x7 20, Occ. 3. together with Israel 8 AS’: ‘in Israel’ c. f ; 4 the veil, caranéracpa c(h plur.) ; cf. Mark xv. 38. ¢vduza B-d A S suggests that rov vaov is an interpolation, and that the rending of garments is spoken of; cf. Isa. xxii. 8. A” inserts kécjov before tov vaov.

4. there + ‘and a trampling under foot’ BAS. Cf. Isa. xxviii. 18.

5. This verse seems to be an addition or at least an afterthought.

the house which the Lord shall choose. 1 En. Ixxxix. 54 calls Jerusalem ‘the house of the Lord’.

which the Lord shall choose. Deut. xii. 5, &c.

the book of Enoch. The references to Enoch in the Testaments are suspicious. See my Commentary, T. N.iv.1; T. B.ix.1 (> A). Four of these belong to the first century B.C., and only in two, T. S. v. 4, T. N. iv. 1, of the others do all our authorities agree. S? further refers to Enoch in T. A. 11. 10, vil. 1, 5.

Melcha. Gk. and Syr. Frag. 62 and Jub. xxxiv. 20.

. Gersam. Cf. Gen. xlvi. 11.

sojourners. Cf. Exod. ii, 22: ‘in a land of sojourning’ a.

. Cf. Gk. Frag. 64, 65. Gersam was born at sunset, and so was not to rise to honour.

. thirty-fifth: ‘ thirty-fourth’ Aram. (and Gk. ?) Frag. :

5-6. Cf. Aram. and Gk. Frag. 67, which also suggests a paronomasia of NAP and Sap ‘ congregation ’. The brackets indicate a gloss. The Gk. Frag. 67 adds ‘and his seed shall be apy} Baothéwy icparevpa.' Cf. here dpxy peyadelou kal ovpBiBac pds.

7. my bitterness >‘my’a. Cf. Aram. and Gk. Frag. 69.

See)

THE TESTAMENT OF LEVI 9. 7—13: 9

g like to die. And Jochebed was born in Egypt, in my sixty-fourth year, for I was renowned then in the midst of my brethren. » And Gersam took a wife,and she bare to him Lomni and Semei. And the sons of Kohath, 4 Ambram, Issachar, Hebron, and Ozeel. And the sons of Merari, Mooli, and Mouses. And ‘in the ninety-fourth year! Ambram took Jochebed my daughter to him to wife, for they were born in one 5 day, he and my daughter. Eight years old was I when I went intothe land of Canaan, and eighteen years when I slew Shechem, and at nineteen years I became priest, and at twenty-eight years I took 6 a wife, and at forty-eight I went into Egypt. And behold, my children, ye are a third generation. 7 In my hundred and eighteenth year Joseph died. ;, And now, my children, I command you: Fear the Lord your God ‘with your whole heart’, And walk in simplicity according to all His law. 2 And do ye also teach your children letters, That they may have understanding all their life, Reading unceasingly the law of God. 3 For every one that knoweth the law of the Lord shall be honoured, And shall not be a stranger whithersoever he goeth. 4 Yea, many friends shall he gain more than his parents, And many men shall desire to serve him, And to hear the law from his mouth. 5 Work righteousness, ‘therefore’, my children, upon the earth, That ye may have (it) as a treasure in heaven. 6 And sow good things in your souls, That ye may find them in your life. But if ye sow evil things, Ye shall reap every trouble and affliction. , Get wisdom in the fear of God with diligence ; For though there be a leading into captivity, And cities and lands be destroyed, And gold and silver and every possession perish, The wisdom of the wise nought can take away, Save the blindness of ungodliness, and the callousness (that comes) of sin. 3 |For if one keep oneself from these evil things’, Then even among his enemies shall wisdom be a glory to him, And in a strange country a fatherland, And in the midst of foes shall prove a friend. g Whosoever teaches noble things and does them, Shall be enthroned with kings, As was also Joseph my brother.

8. Jochebed . . . renowned, a play on the name in Hebrew. Cf. the Frag. 71.

5. Eight years. Cf. Syr. Frag. ‘eighteen’ Aram. Frag. 78: ‘nine’ Jub. xxviii. 14, xxix. 14. eighteen years. So Syr. Frag. and Aram. Frag., also Jub. xxx. 2 with xxvill. 14, 23. forty-eight: ‘forty’ text, ‘forty-eight’ Aram. Frag. 79. Cf. T. Jud. xii. 12 (note).

7. hundred and eighteenth. For a different calculation see Jub. xxviii. 14, 24.

XIII. 1. A poem in praise of the wise. Cf. Sir. xxxix. 9-11. . teach ... letters. Cf. T. R.iv.1. This verse > a. . desire to serve him. Cf. Sir. x. 25. righteousness = alms. Cf. LXX in Deut. vi. 25, xxiv. 13; Ps. xxiv. 5. have (it) as a treasure emended. ‘find’ 8 A®S: ‘be healed’ a. Both 38¥ON and 3851 corrupt for NNN. Cf. Matt. vi. 20; Tobit iv. 8-9; Pea 15>; B. Bathra 11; Pss.-Sol. ix. 6, 9; 1 En. xxxviii. 2, The treasure of good works occurs also in 4 Ezra vii. 77; 2 Bar. xiv. 12; Shabbath 31°; and is the measure of the righteous’ final reward, 6. sow evil. Cf. Prov. xxii. 8. 7. with diligence 8B A®S: >aA*. nought, ovdeis, text. the blindness of ungodliness. Cf. xiv. 4. 8. For if... things a: ‘ But if one keep these’ d: > 8-dAS. noble a: ‘these’ BA.

THE ‘TESTAMENTS OP THOT WEEVE tPATRIARCHS

scorn.

Therefore, my children, I have learnt that at the end of the ages ye will transgress against the Lord, stretching out hands to wickedness [against Him]; and to all the Gentiles shall ye become a

B, ABS}

And now, my children, I have learnt from the 1 writing of Enoch that in the end ye will transgress against the Lord, stretching out hands to all wickedness ; and your brethren shall be put

to shame because of you, and to all the Gentiles shall ye become a scorn.

2 For our father Israel is pure from the transgressions of the chief priests [who shall lay their hands upon the Saviour of the world].

3. For as the heaven is purer in the Lord’s sight than the earth, so also be ye, the lights of Israel, (purer) than all the Gentiles.

4 Butif ye be darkened through transgressions, what, therefore, will all the Gentiles do living in blindness? Yea, ye shall bring a curse upon our race, because the light of the law which was given for to lighten every man this ye desire to destroy by teaching commandments contrary to the ordinances

3. The heaven is purer than the earth, and ye, the lights of Israel, are tas sun and moon.

4. What will all the Gentiles do, if ye be darkened through transgressions? Yea, ye shall bring a curse upon our: race, because the light of the law which was given to lighten every man, this ye shall desire to destroy by teaching commandments contrary to the ordinances

My children, be ye pure as 3 the heaven is (purer) than the earth: and ye who are the lights of Israel, shall be as the sun and moon.

What will all the Gentiles do, 4 if ye be darkened through transgression? Yea, curses will come upon your race, and the light which was given through the law to lighten you and every man ye shall desire to destroy, and teach your commandments contrary to the ordinances of God.

5 The offerings of the Lord ye shall rob, and from His portion shall ye steal choice portions,

6 eating (them), contemptuously with harlots.

And out of covetousness ye shall teach the command-

XIV-XVI. The groundwork and indeed the main narrative of the Testaments is pro-Maccabean, and exalts Levi

and his posterity.

lewdness and baseness of the priests. God’s ordinances, profane the priesthood, and pollute the sacrifices.

and they shall go into captivity, a scorn to the Gentiles. The date is not after A.D. 70, as the Temple prediction might seem to suggest, for the Sadducees, who are in view in xiv. 4 and xvi. 2, disappear after that date as a party. The Pharisees, moreover, were not the subjects of persecution

after 63 B.C. when the Pharisaic Hyrcanus became a vassal king under the Romans.

Unquestioning obedience to them is required. But in x, xiv-xvi words fail to denounce the The chief priests transgress, are covetous, corrupt the law, teach contrary to For this reason the Temple shall be laid waste

Nor were the high-priests

immoral in the first century A.D. The sack of Jerusalem, if already enacted, would be more than a vague prophecy. The charges of gross immorality and profanation and of persecuting the righteous apply alike to the Hellenistic priests of 200-170 B.C., and the Sadducean priests of 100-60 B.C. But the eating of sacrifices with harlots in public

can refer only to Jannaeus.

See xiv. 5 (note).

As he died in 78 B.c., this passage cannot be much later.

In any

case it is later than Dan. ix. 24, which is the source of the interpretation of Jeremiah’s seventy years as weeks of years in xvi. I, and later too than 1 En. Ixxxix. 54, which cannot be dated before 164 B.C.

XIV. 1. learnt +‘from the writing of Enoch’ 8B AS.

transgress ...

wickedness +‘against Him’ a, a Christian addition: > ‘all’ a.

“stretching out hands against the Lord in all wickedness ’.

BeOULEH CCA Cl lle Savini,

[who shall lay, &c.], a Christian addition.

3. a gives the clearest version.

Yet B S' and A lead us to correct ‘ sun’ into ‘heaven’, and ‘on’ to ‘than’.

The following words do not occur in Enoch; yet cf. 1 En.

We might render 8 Af S?

The chief-priests are the Maccabean prince-priests, in particular Jannaeus.

Sun

and moon’ in 8 A8 S' also may be original, and ‘than all the Gentiles’ may be due to a’s drawing upon the next verse. 4. The author connects sin closely with darkness of mind. Cf. T. R. iii. 8; T. L. xiii. 7, xiv. 4, xix. 1; T. Jos. vii. 5 ; alsomlen| Ud eex ville 7s 5/0 sad) oL) 5011.4 cs tek ere Utees meses the light of the law. Cf. Wisd. xviii. 4; Prov. vi. 23; T. L. xvili. 3; Ps. cxix. 105. light... to lighten every man. Johni. 9. teaching commandments contrary. Cf. incident of Jannaeus, Josephus, Azz. xiii. 13.5; Bell. Lud. i. 4. 3,

together with Talmud, Sukka 48>, approach when unclean to the altar.

5. This verse and 6 up to ‘ defile and’ > A*.

the offerings. my Commentary, p. 57.

steal choice portions aaf. bdegA®,

..rob. Cf. Pss. Sol. viii. 12 ra dyva tod Geod Sunpragor.

See also Pss. Sol. viii. 12, 13 for the Maccabean robbery of temple gifts, and See also Jub. xv. 1.

For the case of Simon ben Shetach see

‘steal: and before sacrificing to the Lord ye shall take the choice portions,’

eating them contemptuously with harlots. Cf. Josephus, Avz/. xiii. 14. 2, of Jannaeus’ savage celebration of his victory over the Pharisees : “Eorimpevos ev adrémr@ peta tov Tmadhakidav.

6. out of covetousness. Cf. Mic. iii. 11, ‘the priests teach for hire.’

Cf 1 Peterv.12:

ments of the Lord, wedded women shall ye pollute, ‘and the virgins of Jerusalem shall ye defile’; and with harlots and adulteresses shall ye be joined, and the daughters of the Gentiles shall ye take to wife, purifying them with an unlawful purification ; and your union shall be like unto Sodom and 7 Gomorrah. And ye shall be puffed up because of your priesthood, lifting yourselves up against 8 men, and not only so, but also against the commands of God. For ye shall contemn the holy things with jests and laughter. 151 Therefore the temple, which the Lord shall choose, shall be laid waste through your uncleanness, 2 and ye shall be captives throughout all nations. And ye shall be an abomination unto them, and ye 3 shall receive reproach and everlasting shame from the righteous judgement of God. And all who hate 4 you shall rejoice at your destruction. And if you were not to receive mercy through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, our fathers, not one of our seed should be left upon the earth. 16: And now [ have learnt that for seventy weeks ye shall go astray, and profane the priesthood, and 2 pollute the sacrifices. And ye shall make void the law, and set at nought the words of the prophets by evil perverseness. And ye shall persecute righteous men, and hate the godly ; the words of the 3 faithful shall ye abhor. [And a man who reneweth the law in the power of the Most High, ye shall call a deceiver; and at last ye shall rush (upon him) to slay him, not knowing his dignity, taking 4 innocent blood through wickedness upon your heads.] And your holy places shall be laid waste 5 even to the ground because of thim. And ye shall have no place that is clean; but ye shall be among the Gentiles a curse and a dispersion until He shall again visit you, and in pity shall receive you [through faith and water]. 17: And whereas ye have heard concerning the seventy weeks, hear also concerning the priesthood. 2 For in each jubilee there shall be a priesthood. And in the first jubilee, the first who is anointed to the priesthood shall be great, and shall speak to God as to a father. And his priesthood shall be

wedded women, &c. Cf. Pss. Sol. iv. 5, 6, 11, 12, 15, 23, for like charges against the Sadducees.

and the virgins of Israel (Jerusalem bg) shall ye defile. only. Cf. Pss. Sol. ii, 14.

with harlots and adulteresses. Cf. Pss. Sol. iv. 23.

daughters of the Gentiles... wife. The prohibition of marriage with Canaanites in Deut. vii. 3 (cf. Gen. xxiv. 3, &c.) was suspended in the case of captives during war, Deut. xxi. 10-13. After Ezra (Ezra ix. 1-2, x. 10-11 ; Neh. x. 30) the prohibition was extended to all Gentiles. Contrast 1 Macc. i. 15 (the Hellenizing Jews), and the reaction again in Jub. xxx. 7, 10.

purifying ... purification 8A: >a. Lax observance of customary purifications may be meant, or it may be that any purification is unlawful, i.e. the prohibition is absolute.

like unto Sodom. Cf. Jude 7.

7. lifting. ..menaPA*: >AS&.

XV. 1-2. I take this to be a bona fide prediction.

1. shall be laid waste (cf. xvi. 4), as under Antiochus Epiphanes, 1 Macc. i. 39, iv. 38.

3.hateaaefS: ‘see’ bdgAS8.

shall rejoice at your destruction a: ‘shall flee from you’ 8 Af.

4. our seed c! A“: ‘your seed hc? d Af : ‘my seed’ B-d S.

XVI. 1. I have learnt + ‘in the book of Enoch’ BASS: ‘and...that’ >A*. The seventy weeks come from Dan. ix. 24. Cf. the seventy shepherd periods of 1 En. Ixxxix. 59.

profane the priesthood. Cf. Neh. xiii. 29. pollute the sacrifices, i.e. approach the altar when unclean. Cf. Pss. Sol. il. 3, vili, 13, 26; Ass. Mos, vi. I. sacrifices. ‘altars’ a, cf. 1 Macc. iv. 38. persecute righteous men. A charge against the Sadducees in 1 En. ciii. 14, 15.

3. Is this verse a Christian interpolation, or is it recast by Christian scribes? If the latter, the Onias of Josephus, Ant. xiv. 2. 1, 2 may be meant, who refused to pray for Hyrcanus II against Aristobulus IJ. Or possibly Onias III,

in the power of the Most High a8S!: ‘of the Most High’ Af : > A*.”

a deceiver. Cf. Matt. xxvii. 63, of our Lord.

rush (upon him) to slay him a. Cf. Acts vii. 57, 58. ‘slay as ye suppose’ 8 A®S: ‘ye shall slay him’ A‘. These variants seem to point to a dittography in the Hebrew.

dignity, dvaornua, aBS1: ‘resurrection ’, dvdcracw AP* © de,

taking innocent blood... heads. Cf. Matt. xxvii. 24, 25.

4. And B-bA: >bS!: ‘and I say unto you’ a.

laid waste a A‘: ‘polluted’ B ABS.

5. [through faith and water] aB8-e! AS: >e!A* Probably a Christian addition, But baptism was already in use among the Jews by the Christian era, while 4 Ezra ix. 7, xiii. 23, insist on the need and value of faith. See also

XVII. This chapter is unintelligible. Verses 1-9 seem to be an intrusion, or defective. Possibly they were added with x, xiv-xvi, or at a later time. Levi was apparently not the speaker.

1. There was no account of the seventy weeks in xvi: only a bare mention.

2. jubilee, should be forty-nine or fifty years. Where the seven begin or end is uncertain, also the duration of each.

the first who is anointed, Levi or Moses. For Levi cf. v. 2, vi. 2 ff. speak to God as to a father. Cf. xviii. 6. Moses spoke with God asa friend. Exod. xxxiil. II.

THE TESTAMENTS OR Pipe Wily arya TRARCHS

perfect with the Lord, [and in the day of his gladness shall he arise for the salvation of the world]. 3 In the second jubilee, he that is anointed shall be conceived in the sorrow of beloved ones; and his 4 priesthood shall be honoured and shall be glorified by all. And the third priest shall be taken hold 5 of by sorrow. And the fourth shall be in pain, because unrighteousness shall gather itself against 6 him exceedingly, and all Israel shall hate each one his neighbour. The fifth shall be taken hold of 7 by darkness. Likewise also the sixth and the seventh. And in the seventh shall be such pollution 8 as I cannot express before men, for they shall know it who do these things. Therefore shall they g be taken captive and become a prey, and their land and their substance shall be destroyed. 10 ~=6. And in the fifth week they shall return to their desolate country, and shall renew the house of the 11 Lord. And in the seventh week shall become priests, (who are) idolaters, adulterers, lovers of money, proud, lawless, lascivious, abusers of children and beasts. 181° And after their punishment shall have come from the Lord, the priesthood shall fail. 2 Then shall the Lord raise up a new priest. And to him all the words of the Lord shall be revealed ; And he shall execute a righteous judgement upon the earth for a multitude of days. 3 And his star shall arise in heaven as of a king. Lighting up the light of knowledge as the sun the day, And he shall be magnified in the world. 4 He shall shine forth as the sun on the earth, And shall remove all darkness from under heaven, And there shall be peace in all the earth. 5 The heavens shall exult in his days, And the earth shall be glad, And the fclouds shall rejoice ; [And the knowledge of the Lord shall be poured forth upon the earth, as the water of the seas ; | And the angels of the glory of the presence of the Lord shall be glad in him. 6 The heavens shall be opened, And from the temple of glory shall come upon him sanctification, With the Father's voice as from Abraham to Isaac. 7 And the glory of the Most High shall be uttered over him, And the spirit of understanding and sanctification shall rest upon him [in the water]. 8 For he shall give the majesty of the Lord to His sons in truth for evermore ;

perfect with the Lord. Cf.1 Kings viii. 61, &c. [and in the day ... arise, &c.] An intrusion. 3. Aaron apparently, born during the oppression in Egypt. 5. shall gather itself against him. Restored from ‘shall add to him’ text. Perhaps should be ‘ shall be added unto him’, The references are most obscure. ae iat E 10-11. Part of the original text, containing a division of some period into seven weeks. Their duration is uncertain, but the events referred to are clear. , 1o. Return of Ezra and Nehemiah, and re-dedication of the temple, about 516 B.c. Cf. 1 En. Ixxxix. 72. 11. The Hellenizing chief-priests who with Antiochus Epiphanes opposed Judaism. seventh B Af S: ‘seventieth’ a. adulterers a: ‘contentious’ B A&S'.

XVIII. The new priesthood, to follow the immoral Hellenizers of the Zadokite line. -15. A Messianic hymn. a new priest. Cf. vill. 14. . his star. Cf. T. Jud. xxiv. 1, also derived from Num, xxiv. 17.

in heaven. In T. Jud. xxiv. 1, same passage recurs with ‘in peace.’

lighting up the light of knowledge = Hos. x. 12 (LXX). Cf. Syr. and Targ. Jon. The Hebrew there reads ‘till ye the untilled ground’. For our text cf. iv. 3; T. B. xi. 2; also Jer. iv. 3.

as the sun the day. So emended from texts, all corrupt. Cf. iv. 3.

in the world +‘ until his ascension’ 8 Af S*. ,

5. And the +clouds, perhaps read ‘because of him’ and omit ‘shall be glad’, The bracketed words spoil the parallelism. Cf. 1 En. li. 4 (as emended). ; eee’

6. heavens shall be opened. Cf. ii. 6, v.13 T. Jud. xxiv. 2; also Ezek. i. 1. The voice from the opened heaven

With the Father’s voice. This seems to refer to Hyrcanus, whose receiving of a Bath Qol is mentioned by Josephus, Avz. xiii. 10. 3; Jer. Talmud, Sotah. 1x. 12. Probably Hyrcanus had some attestation, at least in popular belief, such as Simon had in Ps. cx.

as from Abraham to Isaac, i.e. as son, in a Messianic sense.

7. spirit of understanding. Cf. Isa. xi. 2; 1 En. xlix. 3.

[in the water] >e only. A Christian addition.

he, probably John Hyrcanus, and not God. Hence ‘of the Lord’ and not ‘His own majesty’. On the other hand in vv, 10-12 ‘ he’ seems to mean God.

sons in truth = true sons, T. Jud. xxiv. 3.

Oo N

THE TESTAMENT OF LEVI 17. 2—19. 5

And there shall none succeed -him for all generations for ever. 9 And in his priesthood the Gentiles shall be multiplied in knowledge upon the earth, And enlightened through the grace of the Lord: In his priesthood shall sin come to an end, And the lawless shall cease to do evil. [ And the just shall rest in him. | 10 ©6And he shall open the gates of paradise, And shall remove the threatening sword against Adam. 11 And he shall give to the saints to eat from the tree of life, And the spirit of holiness shall be on them. 12 And Beliar shall be bound by him, And he shall give power to His children to tread upon the evil spirits. 13. And the Lord shall rejoice in His children, And be well pleased in His beloved ones for ever. 14 Then shall Abraham and Isaac and Jacob exult, And I will be glad, And all the saints shall clothe themselves with joy.

19: And now, my children, ye have heard all; choose, therefore, for yourselves either the light or the 2 darkness, either the law of the Lord or the works of Beliar. And his sons answered him, saying, 3 Before the Lord we will walk according to His law. And their father said unto them, The Lord is

witness, and His angels are witnesses, and ye are witnesses, and I am witness, concerning the word 4 of your mouth. And his sons said unto him: We are witnesses. And thus Levi ceased commanding his sons ; and he stretched out his feet ‘on the bed', and was gathered to his fathers, after he had 5 lived a hundred and thirty-seven years. And they laid him in a coffin, and afterwards they buried him in Hebron, with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

THE TESTAMENT OF JUDAH, THE FOURTH SON OF JACOB AND LEAH.

11,2 The copy of the words of Judah, what things he spake to his sons before he died. They gathered

3 themselves together, therefore, and came to him, and he said to them: ‘Hearken, my children, to

Judah your father’. I was the fourth son born to my father Jacob; and Leah my mother named

4 me Judah, saying, I give thanks to the Lord, because He hath given me a fourth son ‘also', I was

5 5 swift in my youth, and obedient to my father in everything. And I honoured my mother and my

6 mother’s sister. And it came to pass, when I became a man, that my father blessed me, saying, Thou shalt be a king, prospering in all things.

none succeed him, 1.e. the office is secured to him and his descendants. Cf. Ps. cx; 1 Macc. xiv. 41 ‘a priest for ever’, of Simon. 9g. grace of the Lord +‘ But Israel shall be minished through ignorance, and darkened through grief’, all MSS. except be. A Christian addition. sin come to an end. For a gradual renewing of heaven and earth, ethically conditioned by Israel’s conduct xci. 8, 14, c. 5 for the disappearing of sin. [And the just ... him] >e. An interpolation. i0. Open ... paradise. If ‘he’ the Messiah, this passage alone in Jewish literature ascribes the act to him. Adam, or ‘man’. 11, tree of life, in Paradise, 4 Ezra vill. 52; eaten by the righteous, 1 En. xxvi. 5,6; 4 Ezra vii. 123. Cf. Rev. xxii. 2. 12. Beliar ... bound. In Isa. xxiv. 22, 23 God imprisons certain of the host of heaven. In Matt. xii. 29; Luke x. 19 Christ binds the strong man. In Rev. xx. 2, 3 an angel binds Satan. If the Messiah here binds Beliar, cf. his position in 1 En. lxii. 5 ff.; xix. 27. power . -. to tread upon the evil spirits, Cf. T. S. vi. 6, also Luke x. Ig, and T. Z. ix. 8 (bd g). His children the righteous. 14. joy beg A?: ‘righteousness’ aafS}.

XIX. 1. choose, &c. Cf. Deut. xxx. 19. the light ... Beliar. Cf. T. N. ii. 6, and especially 2 Cor. vi. 14, 15 tis kowovia port mpos okdros ; Tis O€ oupevnots Xpirrov mpos BeAlap ; 2. his sons. Several MSS. here and in v. 3 have the Ist person, ‘ we’, &c.

TITLE a +‘ concerning courage and love of money (> e S') and fornication’ (> f S') be f S’, also A generally. I. 3. hearken .. . fathera: >8-dA.

Judah ... give thanks tothe Lord. Cf. Gen. xxix. 35 for the play on words. 6. blessed, ewevéaro. Cf. xvii. 5.

Thou shalt be aking. Cf. xxi. 5, xxii. 3; Ber. rab. Ixxxiv. 16.

THE TESTAMENTS OF PHE TWELVE PATRIARCHS

2 And the Lord showed me favour in all my works both in the field and in the house. I know that 3 I raced a hind, and caught it, and prepared the meat for my father, and he did eat.. And the roes I used to master in the chase, and overtake all that was in the plains. A wild mare I overtook, and 4 caught it and tamed it. I slew a lion and plucked a kid out of its mouth. I took a bear by its paw 5 and hurled it down the cliff, and it was crushed. I outran the wild boar, and seizing it ‘as I ran’, 6 I tore it in sunder. A leopard in Hebron leaped upon my dog, and I caught it by the tail, and 7 hurled it on the rocks, and it was broken in twain. I found a wild ox feeding in the fields, and seizing it by the horns, and whirling it round and stunning it, I cast it from me and slew it. 1 And when the two kings of the Canaanites came sheathed in armour against our flocks, and much people with them, single-handed I rushed upon the king of Hazor, and smote him on the greaves 2 and dragged him down, and so I slew him. And the other, the king of Tappuah, as he sat upon his 3 horse, [I slew, and so I scattered all his people. Achor the king] a man of giant stature "I found’, hurling javelins before and behind as he sat on horseback, and I took up a stone of sixty pounds 4 weight, and hurled it and smote his horse, and killed it. And I fought with (this) other for two 5 hours; and I clave his shield in twain, and I chopped off his feet, and killed him. And as I was 6 stripping off his breastplate, behold nine men his companicns began to fight with me. And I wound my garment on my hand; and I slung stones at them, and killed four of them, and the rest fled. 7 And Jacob my father slew }Beelesath, king of all the kings, a giant in strength, twelve cubits high.

8, 9 And fear fell upon them, and they ceased warring against us. Therefore my father was free from

10 anxiety in the wars when I was with my brethren. For he saw in a vision ‘concerning me! that an

angel of might followed me everywhere, that I should not be overcome.

4, And in the south there came upon us a greater war than that in Shechem; and I joined in battle

array with my brethren, and pursued a thousand men, and slew of them two hundred men and

II. 2. and he did eat > 6-g S. 3. A wild mare . .. tamed it B-ae S!: > a (defective). 4. hurled g A: ‘let go’ aa: both ="nnbw: ‘rolled’ bdef. and it was crushed a: ‘and it was broken in pieces on them’ d: ‘and any beast that turned on me, I rent it like a dog’ BA S}. 6. on the rocks and it was broken in twain a: ‘and it was broken on the coasts of Gaza’ 8-d AS}. Gaza is 37 miles from Hebron. But cf. Judges xvi. 1-3. Was there a Hebron near Gaza? For the feat cf. T. G. i. 2.

III-VII. These chapters contain an ancient legend which tells of Jacob’s conquest of Shechem. Cf. Gen. xlvili, 22 ‘which I took out of the hand of the Amorite with my sword and with my bow’. See Jub. xxxiv. 2-8, which tells of an attack by seven Amorite kings. Cf. also Targ. Jon. on Gen. xlviii. 22, the Midrash Wajjissau (Jellinek, Bet ha- Midrasch, iii. 1-3), the Chronicles of Jerahmeel xxxvi, and especially the Book of Jashar (see French trans. Dict. des

III. Fighting near Shechem, according to Midr, Wajjis. and Book of Jashar. 1-5. Judah’s slaughter of two kings, those of Hazor and Tappuah. ‘ Achor’, v. 3, is corrupt. 1, > later accounts. Canaanites, in Jub., &c. ‘Amorites’: Jashar ‘ Canaanite and Amorite kings ’. against our flocks. Cf. Jub. Other authorities give as motive to exterminate Jacob's sons. of Hazor. ‘the other’ a. See iv. 2 (note). This Hazor is near Shechem. st 2-6. The Midr. Wajjis. gives ‘And he slew at the outset Jashub king of Tappuah who was. . . riding on a horse and could hurl his javelins . . . from horseback in front and behind. When Judah saw .. . he took upa stone... weighing sixty shekels and hurled it . . . he (Jashub) clave the shield in twain . . . (Judah) cut off his feet . . . And while he was stripping him of his armour there came against him nine of his companions.’ See my Commentary, pp. 79, 71 for full quotation. ih 7 2-5. There were seven kings in all (Jub. xxxiv. 2; Midr. Wajjis.) king of Hazor, ili, 1; of Tappuah, ili. 2-5; four kings, iv. 1; of Shilo, iv. 7. Thus Achor is one too many. Besides, iii. 1 mentions two kings, not three. The Midr. Wajjis. and Jashar (ii. 1174-75) give the details in vv. 3 and 4 and assign them to Jashub. 2. [I[slew ... people]. An addition, necessitated by the corrupt reading ‘ Achor the king’. 3. [Achor the king], i.e. ‘the other (18) king’ a dittography of v. 2. I founda: >8AS}. before and .. . horseback 8 A S!, Midr. Waijjis., Chron. Jer., Jashar: > a. smote A S!: ‘have given’ aafg. 4. > a, through hmt. other. Emended from ’Ayop B-e, Nayop AB. : , clave his shield. The Midr. Wajjis., Chron. Jer., and Jashar make Jashub cleave Judah’s shield. 5. nine A®fs; Midr. Wajjis., Chron. Jer., and Jashar: ‘eight’ a 8-g S': ‘seven’ A~®?8, — , 6. four of them; he killed the other eight, according to the Hebrew authorities, while Levi slew the king of Gaash. 7. Jacob... slew. The Midr. Wajjis. and Jashar say Jacob slew four other kings. +Beelesath e: corrupt for ‘lord of Shiloh’, given by Hebrew authorities. 9. I should not be overcome 8 A S!: ‘none shall touch me’ a Y3) differently pointed. IV. The fighting is now near Hazor, as Midr. Waijjis. explains.

1. and four kings BAS': >a. Cf. Jub. xxxiv. 2-8, They are the kings of Sartan, Gaash, Beth-horon, and Mahanaim. The Hebrew authorities ascribe the slaughter to Jacob, and give a different list.

2,3 four kings. And I went up upon the wall, and I slew four mighty men. And so we captured

Hazor, and took all the spoil.

51 On the next day we departed to Aretan, a city strong and walled and inaccessible, threatening us

2 with death. But I and Gad approached on the east side of the city, and Reuben and Levi on. the

3 west. And they that were upon the wall, thinking that we were alone, {were drawn down} against

4us. And so my brothers secretly climbed up the wall on both sides by stakes, and entered the city,

5 while the men knew it not. And we took it with the edge of the sword. And as for those who had taken refuge in the tower, we set fire to the tower and took both it and them.

6 And as we were departing the men of Tappuah And as we were departing the men of Tappuah seized our spoil, and seeing (this) we fought with | set upon our spoil, and delivering it up to our 7them. And we slew them all and recovered our | sons we fought with them as far as Tappuah. spoil. And we slew them and burnt their city, and took as spoil all that was in it.

61,2 And when I was at the waters of Kozeba, the men of }Jobel came against us to battle. And we

fought with them and routed them; ‘and their allies from Shiloh we slew', and we did not leave 3 them ‘power! to come in against us. And the men of }Makir came upon us the fifth day, to seize our spoil; and we attacked them and overcame them in fierce battle: for there was a host of mighty 4 men amongst them, and we slew them before they had gone up the ascent. And when we came to 5 their city their women rolled upon us stones from the brow of the hill on which the city stood. And I and Simeon hid ourselves behind the town, and seized upon the heights, and destroyed this city also.

7 And the next day it was told us that the king of the city of Gaash with a mighty host was coming

2against us. I, therefore, and Dan feigned ourselves to be Amorites, and as allies went into their 3 city. And in the depth of night our brethren came and we opened to them the gates; and we destroyed all the men and their substance, and we took for a prey all that was theirs, and their three

2. upon the wall. Midr. W. adds ‘ of Hazor’. four mighty men. Sol restore from the Hebrew authorities. ‘still other four kings’ A: ‘two other kings’ BS': ‘their king’ (i.e. of Hazor) a. These four mighty men are distinct from the ‘four kings’ of iv. 1. See Midr. W., Chron. Jer. xxxvi. 6; Jashar (ii. 1176). 3. captured Hazor Midr. W.: ‘freed Hebron’ text. ‘Hebron’ is out of the context, and ‘ freed’ WAN for WAN, all the spoil +‘ of the kings’ B-d AS'. V. The destruction of Sartan and Tappuah. 1. Aretan be: Aretad A: érépayaae*®£{S'. Hebrew authorities give Sartan, cf. Saregan, Jub. xxxiv. 4, 7. walled and inaccessible B-dg AS’. Cf. Midr. W. ‘mighty’ a. 2. land Gad... on the east, &c. The Midr. W., &c., give quite different dispositions. 3-4. Not in Hebrew authorities. 3. were drawn down a8S': ‘prolonged the war’ A. Perhaps emend to ‘set themselves in array’, i.e. 27 misread as 135N. 4. climbed >aA. by stakes >a. while the men knew it not >a. 5. we set fire... it and them 8: ‘we burnt (them) with fire and so we took them all and all their possessions’ a. Midr. W. makes Judah slay 200 on the tower. Cf. Chron. Jer. xxxvi. 7 ; Jashar gives two towers, il. 1177. 6-7. a is more accurate but less full than 8 AS'. Ina we have a successful raid, and a recovery of the spoil: in 8 AS! an attempted raid, and the destruction of the city. seized ae. Hebrew authorities. ‘set upon’ B-ae AS. VI. The rout of the men of Arbela, and the destruction of Shiloh and Shakir. 1-2. >a: while Af omits 1. Kozeba. Cf. 1 Chron. iv. 22, and Gen. xxxviii. 5. the men of +Jobel b: ‘ Arbelians’, Jashar ii. 1178. Cf. ‘ Arbael’, Midr. W. 2. their allies from Shiloh we slew 8-f. Midr. W. and Chron, Jer. xxxvi. 8. power o:éé0dov, a dittography, or a rendering of the 72 in Midr. W. and Chron. Jer. 3. tMakir. ‘Shabir’ Midr. W.: ‘Shakir’ Chron. Jer. xxxvi. 9: ‘camp of Shakir’ Jub. xxxiv. 4 (Maanisakir). to seize our spoil >a. battle B-df A S!: ‘sword’ af. for there was ... amongst them >a. 4. women. Midr. W. and Chron. Jer. mention only men. rolled, ‘hurled’ Midr. W. and Chron. Jer.

VII. 1. king of the city of Gaash with a mighty host ad: ‘Gaash the city of the kings with a great host’ aef: ‘the cities of the two kings with a great host’ b S': ‘Gaash a city with a powerful king’ A. 2. I therefore .. . allies 8-de S!: ‘and 1 and Gad also proceeded to the Amorites and feigning ourselves to be their allies’ a. 3. allthat was... . down >a. E three walls. Cf. Hebrew authorities.

THE TESTAMENTSIOP SHE SWEEVE PATRIARGHS

4 walls we cast down. And we drew near to Thamna, where was all the substance of the hostile kings. 5 Then being insulted by them, I was therefore wroth, and rushed against them to the summit; and 6 they kept slinging against me stones and darts. And had not Dan my brother aided me, they would 7 have slain me. We came upon them, therefore, with wrath, and they all fled; and passing by 8 another way, they besought my father, and he made peace with them. And we did to them no hurt, 9 and they became tributary to us, and we restored to them their spoil. And I built Thamna,and my 10 father built Pabael. I was twenty years old when this war befell. And the Canaanites feared me and my brethren. 2 And I had much cattle, and I had for chief herdsman Iram the Adullamite. And when I went to him I saw Parsaba, king of Adullam; ‘and he spake unto us!, and he made us a feast; 3 and when I was heated he gave me his daughter Bathshua to wife. She bare me Er, and Onan and Shelah ; and two of them the Lord smote: for Shelah lived, and his children are ye. 1 And eighteen years my father abode in peace with his brother Esau, and his sons with us, after 2 that we came from Mesopotamia, from Laban. And when eighteen years were fulfilled, in the fortieth year of my life, Esau, the brother of my father, came upon us with a mighty and strong 3 people. And Jacob smote Esau with an arrow, and he was taken up wounded on Mount Seir, and 4 as he went he died“at Anoniram. And we pursued after the sons of Esau. Now they had a city with walls of iron and gates of brass; and we could not enter ‘into it', and we encamped around, and 5 besieged it. And when they opened not to us in twenty days, I set up a ladder 'in the sight of all’ and with my shield upon my head I went up, sustaining the assault of stones, upwards of three 7 talents weight; and I slew four of their mighty men. And Reuben and Gad slew six others. Then they asked from us terms of peace; and having taken counsel with our father, we received them as 8 tributaries. And they gave us five hundred cors of wheat, five hundred baths of oil, five hundred measures of wine, ‘until the famine', when we went down into Egypt. 1 And after these things my son Er took to wife Tamar, from Mesopotamia, a daughter of Aram. 2 Now Er was wicked, and he twas in need concerning Tamar, because she was not of the land 3 of Canaan. And on the third night an angel of the Lord smote him. ‘And he had not known her 4 according to the evil craftiness of his mother, for he did not wish to have children by her. In the

4. Thamna, i.e. Timneh. Cf. 1 Macc. ix. 50.

substance: ‘refuge’ bg. 5-6. These incidents are told of Gaash, not Thamna, in the Hebrew authorities. 5. The Hebrew authorities give the occasion of the insult.

against them to the summit omby wed. Midr. W. ‘ upon the wall the first ’ mond we. kept slinging. Cf. Midr. W. 6. Jacob rescues Judah in Chron. Jer. xxxvi. 11. 7. he made peace with them 6-a fS! Midr. W.: ‘they made peace with him’ aaf. 8. they became tributary to usa. Cf. Midr. W.: ‘we made a truce with them’ BAS}. we restored. Midr. W. and Jashar make the Amorites restore the spoil to Jacob’s sons. Cf. Jub. xxxiv. 7-9. 9. BAS: ‘and we built also their city’ a. See Jub. xxxiv. 8 ‘Robel (i.e. Arbela, cf. 1 Macc. ix. 2) and Tamnatares’, also Midr. W. Io. twenty years. Cf. Jub. xxvill. 15, xxxiv. I. VIIlW.1. Tram. (Cf Gent xxxvilis 1 2. he spake unto us a only. when I was heated. Conjectured for mapaxadéoas. Cf. Isa. Ivii.5 (LXX). Cf. T. Jud. xi. 2, xiii. 5-7, xiv. 3. For the offence of this Canaanite marriage cf. Jub. xxxiv. 20. IX. 1. The war between Jacob and Esau. For fuller accounts see Jub. xxxvii-xxxviil. 1-14; Midr. W., and Chron. Jer. xxxvii, and a different one in Jashar, ii. 1235-6. 2. in the fortieth year of my life. Cf. Jub. xxviil. 15, xxxvi. 21, xxxvil. 14. >a. 3. Jacob smote Esau, &c., a. Jub. xxxviii. 2; Midr. W. and Chron. Jer.: ‘he fell by the bow of Jacob’ bg AS}. wounded. So I restore in accordance with Midr. W. for text = ‘dead’. But cf. Jub. xxxviil. 8 ‘slain’. and as he went... Anoniram >ch. Anoniram B-bd A: ‘Aduram’ Jub. xxxviii. 9g: ‘Arodin’ Midr.W. This is the Adora which Hyrcanus took and forced to accept circumcision, Josephus, Azz. xiii. 9. 1, xxii. 15. 4. 4. with walls of iron and gates of brass 8-d A: ‘strong’ a. Cf. v. I. 5. sustaining ... stones. Midr. W. and Chron. Jer. assign this feat to Naphtali and Gad as well. upwards .. . weight > a. 7. aS tributaries. Cf. vii. 8 and Midr. W. >a. 8. five hundred aafS!: ‘two hundred’ bdeA. baths, ‘ ephahs’ seem to be implied by aaf. the famine when a: > 8S). X. 1. daughter of Aram, i.e. a Semite. Cf. Jub. xli. 1, and Opus Imperfectum on Matt. 1. 3. z. he was ... night > a. ‘+was in need, or ‘ difficulty’, perhaps corrupt in Hebrew for ‘put to shame’. Cf. Jub. xli. 2. 3. > A through hmt. ? for...by her >a. The Ofus Jmperf. says: ‘Mater autem eius cum esset Chananaea hortaretur eum accipere ex genere suo: ille consilio matris usus non contigit eam. Propter quod percussit eum Deus malignantem.’

days! of the wedding-feast I gave Onan to her in marriage; and he also in wickedness knew her not, 5 though he spent with her a year. And when I threatened him he went in unto her, but he spilled the seed on the ground, according to the command of his mother, and he also died through wickedness. 6 And I wished to give Shelah also to her, but his mother did not permit it; ‘for she wrought evil against Tamar', because she was not of the daughters of Canaan, as she also herself was. 111 And I knew that the race of the Canaanites was wicked, but the impulse of youth blinded my 2mind. And when I saw her pouring out Wine, owing to the intoxication of wine I was deceived, and 3 took her although my father had not counselled (it). And while I was away she went and took for 4 Shelah a wife from Canaan. And when I knew what she had done, I cursed her in the anguish of 5 my soul. And she also died through her wickedness together with her sons. 12: And after these things, while Tamar was a widow, she heard after two years that I was going up 2 to shear my sheep, and adorned herself in bridal array, and sat in the city Enaim by the gate. 'For it was a law of the Amorites, that she who was about to marry should sit in fornication seven days 3 by the gate’. Therefore being drunk with wine, I did not recognize her; and her beauty deceived 4 me, through the fashion of her adorning. And I turned aside to her, and said: Let me go in unto thee. And she said: What wilt thou give me? And I gave her my staff, and my girdle, and the 5 diadem of my kingdom ‘in pledge’. And I went in unto her, and she conceived. And not knowing 6 what I had done, I wished to slay her ; but she privily sent my pledges, and put me to shame. And when I called her, I heard also the secret words which 'I spoke! when lying with her in my drunken- 7 ness; and I could not slay her, because it was from the Lord. For I said, Lest haply she did it in 8 subtlety, having received the pledge from another woman. But I came not again near her while 9 I lived, because I had done 'this! abomination in ‘all! Israel. Moreover, they who were in the city said there was no harlot in the gate, because she came from another place, and sat for a while in the 10, 11 gate. And I thought that no one knew that I had gone in to her. And after this we came into 12 Egypt 'to Joseph’, because of the famine. And I was forty and six years old, and seventy and three years lived I in Egypt. 131° And now I command you, my children, hearken ‘to Judah your father!, and keep my sayings to 2 perform all the ordinances of the Lord, and to obey the commands of God. And walk not after your lusts, nor in the imaginations of your thoughts in haughtiness of heart; and glory not in the deeds 3 and strength of your youth, for this also is evil in the eyes of the Lord. Since I also gloried that in wars no comely woman's face ever enticed me, and reproved Reuben my brother concerning

Bilhah, the wife of my father, the spirits of jealousy and of fornication arrayed themselves against

4. BAS?': ‘And I gave her to Aunan my second son, and behold the Lord slew him’ a. 6. his mother a: ‘my wife Bathshua’ BAS. Cf. Jub. xli. 7.

against Tamar bdeS.

XI. 2. pouring out wine > AS). owing to the intoxication > a. took her a: ‘ had intercourse with her’ 6 S}. not counselled. Cf. xiii. 3.

3. Jub. xli. 7 only says that Bathshua stopped Shelah’s marrying.

5. through her .. . sonsa: ‘through the wickedness of her sons’ 8 A S'.

1. adorned. Jub. xli.9; also LXX, Syr., Onkelos of Gen. xxxviii. 14. Mass. has ‘enwrapped’. Enaim ce. A proper name as in Gen. xxxviil. 14 (LXX, not Targums or Syriac). gate +‘of the inn’ a.

2. about to marry 8 S': ‘a widow’ a. Cf. the bride’s sacrifice to Mylitta, Herod. i. 199. seven days by the gate > a.

3. +‘at the waters of Kozeba’ B-df A #bb* cdefg S1 at the beginning of verse.

4. Staff... girdle ...diadem. Gen. xxxviii. 18 has also ‘ signet’ as a here. girdle > a, wrongly, see xv. 3. Cf. Jub. xlvi. 11. diadem, is not in Gen. in pledge > BAS?

5. wished to slay her >adg. but she ... shame. ‘I sent to receive the pledge’ a.

6-10. >a, but substitutes an abbreviation of Gen. xxxviii. 20, 24-30, LXX.

7. Explains 6%.

g. harlot, lit. ‘temple prostitute’. Cf. Gen. xxxviii. 21, 22; Deut. xxiii. 18.

12. forty-six. ‘forty-three’ in Jub. xxviii. 15, xlv. 1. Cf. T. L. xii. 5 (Aram. Frag.).

XIII. 1. Text =a. Other MSS. vary. 2. walk not 8A S!: ‘be not evil’ a.

nor in the imaginations of your thoughts >aag. Cf, 1 Chron, xxviii.9. See T. A. i. 3 (note). 3. enticed BA: ‘met’ aS}, i.e. imyyrnoe for Ardrnoe.

THE TESTAMENTS OF THE PWELVE PATRIARCHS

4 me, until I lay with Bathshua the Canaanite, and Tamar, who was espoused to my sons. For I said to my father-in-law : I will take counsel with my father, and so will I take thy daughter. And he was unwilling, but he showed me a boundless store of gold in his daughter’s behalf; for he was

5a king. And he adorned her with gold and pearls, and caused her to pour out wine for us at the

6 feast ¢with the beauty of women.f And the wine turned aside my eyes, and pleasure blinded my

7 heart. And I became enamoured of and I lay with her, and transgressed the commandment of the

8 Lord and the commandment of my fathers, and I took her to wife. And the Lord rewarded me according to the imagination of my heart, inasmuch as I had no joy in her children.

1 And now, my children, "I say unto you!, be not drunk with wine ; for wine turneth the mind away

2 from the truth, and inspires the passion of lust, and leadeth the eyes into error. For the spirit of fornication hath wine as a minister to give pleasure to the mind; for these two also take away the

3 mind of man. For if a man drink wine to drunkenness, it disturbeth the mind with filthy thoughts ‘leading to fornication', and heateth the body to carnal union; and if the occasion of the lust be

4 present, he worketh the sin, and is not ashamed. Such is the inebriated man, my children ; for he

5 who is drunken reverenceth no man. For, lo, it made me also to err, so that I was not ashamed of the multitude in the city, in that before the eyes of all I turned aside unto Tamar, and I wrought

6 a great sin, and I uncovered the covering of my sons’ shame. After I had drunk wine I reverenced

7 not the commandment of God, and I took a woman of Canaan to wife. For much discretion needeth the man who drinketh wine, my children ; and herein is discretion in drinking wine, a man

8 may drink so long as he preserveth modesty. But if he go beyond this limit the spirit of deceit attacketh his mind, and it maketh the drunkard to talk filthily, and to transgress and not to be ashamed, but even to glory in his shame, and to account himself honourable.

1 He that committeth fornication is not aware when he suffers loss, and is not ashamed when put

2 to dishonour. For even though a man be a king and commit fornication, he is stripped of his

3 kingship by becoming the slave of fornication, as I myself also suffered. For I gave my staff, that is, the stay of my tribe; and my girdle, that is, my power; and my diadem, that is, the glory of my

4 kingdom. And indeed I repented of these things; wine and flesh I eat not until my old age, nor

5 did I behold any joy. And the angel of God showed me that for ever do women bear rule over

6 king and beggar alike. And from the king they take away his glory, and from the valiant man his might, and from the beggar even that little which is the stay of his poverty.

1 Observe, therefore, my children, the (right) limit in wine; for there are in it four evil spirits—of

2 lust, of hot desire, of profligacy, of filthy lucre. If ye drink wine in gladness, be ye modest in the fear of God. For if in (your) gladness the fear of God departeth, then drunkenness ariseth and

3 shamelessness stealeth in. But if ye would live soberly do not touch wine at all, lest ye sia in words of outrage, and in fightings and slanders, and transgressions of the commandments of God,

4 and ye perish before your time. Moreover, wine revealeth the mysteries of God and men, even as

I lay with, ouvereca eis, BAS‘: cuverédeca eis, a. 4. he was unwilling, but > 6-d A S14. 5. twith the beauty of woment > cA. Read ‘with the ornaments of women’, or the words may be corrupt for ‘in the women’s apartment’. 7. lay with, ovvémeca cis. See xi. 2, xili. 3 (notes). fathers. ‘father’ a. XIV. 1. Isay unto you h: ‘I say’c: >8AS’. be not drunk with wine. Cf. xvi. 1 and Eph. v. 18. 2. mind of man a A*}; ‘might of man’ B AP b*edegs. 3. The translation follows 8 AS. a has ‘ thou drinkest . . . thy mind . . . and to fornication heateth, &c.’ carnal union, ‘ pleasure’ a. andif ... present > a. 4. the inebriated man, mapowos, emended from rovnpds, aaf: ropvos, e: owos, bAS. aman may, ‘that a man should’ 8-dg A S'. 8. glory in his shame. Cf. Phil. ili. 19. Ve 2a Oth. Re iv. 7 2. stripped of +‘ and goes forth from’ 6 A. 3. girdle aadf: omit next seven words through hmt. 4. joy, ‘folly’ c. 5. for ever > a, alike +‘and in them there is no advance of life’ a. XVI. 1. For this verse and xix. 1 cf. Col. iii. 5 ‘ covetousness is idolatry’; Eph.v.5; also Eph. v. 5 for ‘ profligacy’ or ‘excess’. See xiv. I, xxi. I. 2. For if... departeth ef A S!: ‘for if ye drink without modesty and the fear of God departeth’ b: >a. 3. if ye would live soberly a: ‘what say 1?’ aef: ‘I tell you, if it is possible for you’ d: ‘it is a good thing (not to)’ A. before your time. Cf. T. RK. iv. 6. 4. God and men +‘to aliens’ b A#>>*4,

I also revealed the commandments of God and the mysteries of Jacob my father to the Canaanitish 5 woman Bathshua, which God bade me not to reveal. And wine is a cause both of war and confusion.

17: And now, I command you, my children, not to love money, nor to gaze upon the beauty. of

women; because for the sake of money and beauty I was led astray to Bathshua the Canaanite.

2,3 [For I know that because of these two things shall my race fall into wickedness. For even wise

men among my sons shall they mar, and shall cause the kingdom of Judah to be diminished, which

4 the Lord gave me because of my obedience to my father. For I never caused grief to Jacob, my

5 father ; for all things whatsoever he commanded I did. And Isaac, the father of my father, blessed

6 me to be king in Israel, and Jacob further blessed me in like manner. And I know that from me shall the kingdom be established.

181 And I know what evils ye will do in the last For I have also read in the books of Enoch days. | the righteous what evils ye will do in the last days. |

2 Beware, therefore, my children, of fornication, and the love of money, and hearken to Judah your father. — 3 For these things withdraw you from the law of God, And blind the inclination of the soul, And teach arrogance, j And suffer not a man to have compassion upon his neighbour. 4 They rob his soul of all goodness, And oppress him with toils and troubles, ‘And drive away sleep from him’, And devour his flesh. 5 And he hindereth the sacrifices of God ; TAnd he remembereth not the blessing of God,' He hearkeneth not to a prophet when he speaketh, And resenteth the words of godliness. 6 ‘For he is a slave to two contrary passions, And cannot obey God, Because they have blinded his soul, And he walketh in the day as in the night’. 19: My children, the love of money leadeth to idolatry ; because, when led astray through money, men name as gods those who are not gods, and it causeth him who hath it to fall into madness. 2 For the sake of money I lost my children, and had not my repentance, ‘and my humiliation’, and 3 the prayers of my father been accepted, I should have died childless. But the God of my fathers

XVII. 1. nor to gaze upon. Cf. T. R. iv. 1.

XVII. 2—XVIII. 1. Bracketed as a later addition. xviii. 2 resumes xvil. I.

2. wickedness £8 S!: ‘ perdition of fornication’ a: ‘ fornication’ A.

3. because of my obedience. See Jewish Encyc. vii. 328 for various reasons for Judah’s headship.

4. caused grief to Jacob aaA?: ‘caused grief to the word of Jacob’ B-agS!. Perhaps the Hebrew original

was ‘I disobeyed the word of J.’

5-6. For Judah’s kingship cf. T. S. vii. 2; T. Jud. xxi. 5, xxii. 3.

5. Isaac dA: ‘ Abraham’ a B-d S (and therefore c reads ‘ great-grandfather ’). blessed me to be king. Supply Aéyov after ‘blessed me’ and render ‘saying I should be king.’ Cf. i. 6. Jacob ad: ‘Isaac’ B-d AS).

XVIII. 1. the books of Enoch, an interpolation. See T. L. x. 5 (note), and cf. T. A. vii. 2 for ‘I know’.

: 2. Resumes xvii. I.

4. drive away sleep from him a: ‘put away his sleep’ B-dgS*. Sir. xlii.9. Cf. T.S. iv. 8. For ... obey Godaf: ‘for being a slave to the passions contrary to the commandments of God’ ae S},

walketh in the day. Cf. Rom. xiii. 13. XIX. 1. love of money ... idolatry. Cf. Col. iii. 5; Eph. v. 5; Shem. rab. 121 ‘qui opes suas multiplicat per

foenus, ille est idolatra’; cf. Philo, De JZon. i. 2 and Matt. vi. 24 for Mammon as a god. 2. my repentance a: ‘the repentance of my flesh’ B-fAS. my humiliation a: ‘the humiliation of my soul’ 8S’. prayers of my father. Cf. Ti Rii17)1v. 3; T. Gav. been accepted, tovrédpapov,a: >BS1: éowfov, A». Probably Heb. was WY ‘helped’, or 1913 ‘ were acceptable’.

THE TESTAMENTS*OF* TH WEEW Pepa oRTARCHS

4 had mercy on me, because I did it in ignorance. And the prince of deceit blinded me, and I sinned as a man and as flesh, being corrupted through sins; ‘and i learnt my own weakness while thinking myself invincible’.

1 Know, therefore, my children, that two spirits wait upon man—the spirit of truth and the spirit

2 of deceit. And in the midst is the spirit of understanding of the mind, to which it belongeth to turn whithersoever it will.

3. And the works of truth and the works of deceit are written upon the hearts of men, and each one of them the Lord knoweth.

4 And there is no time at which the works of men can be hid; for on the heart itself have they been

5 written down ‘before the Lord’. And the spirit of truth testifieth all things, and accuseth all; and the sinner is burnt up 'by his own heart!, and cannot raise his face 'to the judge.

1 And now, my children, I command you, love Levi, that ye may abide, and ‘exalt not yourselves

2 against him!', lest ye be utterly destroyed. ‘For to me the Lord gave the kingdom, and to him the

3 priesthood, and He set the kingdom beneath the priesthood. To me He gave the things upon the

4 earth; to him the things in the heavens. As the heaven is higher than the earth, so is the priesthood of God higher than the earthly kingdom, unless it falls away through sin from the Lord and is

5 dominated by the earthly kingdom’. For 'the angel of the Lord said unto me!: The Lord chose him rather than thee, to draw near to Him, and to eat of His table ‘and to offer Him the first-fruits! of the choice things of the sons of Israel; but thou shalt be king of Jacob.

6 And thou shalt be amongst them as the sea. For as, on the sea, just and unjust are tossed about, ‘some taken into captivity while some are enriched!, so also shall every race of men be in thee: some shall be impoverished, being taken captive, ‘and others grow rich by plundering the possessions of others!

7 For the kings shall be as sea-monsters.

They shall swallow men like fishes : The sons and daughters 'of freemen! shall they enslave ; Houses, lands, flocks, money shall they plunder : gs And with the flesh of many shall they ‘wrongfully! feed the ravens and the cranes ; "And they shall ¢advance in evil, in covetousness uplifted,f' 9 And there shall be false prophets ‘like! tempests, And they shall persecute all righteous men.

22: And the Lord shall bring upon them divisions ‘one against another,

3. had mercy on mea: ‘the compassionate and merciful pardoned me’ BS. Cf. Jub. xli. 25, and 1 Tim, i. 13 nrenOnv Ore ayvoav émoinca. Cf. Pss. Sol. iii. 9, xvii. 6. Avas iesh.. Cf LeZ, 1x70 XX. 1-3. Here a is without v. 1, has four words in 2, and last clause of 3. 1. the spirit of truth. Cf. John xv. 26; also T. A.i. 4. 2-5. A striking description of man’s attitude to good and evil. He can will either (v. 2), and the results are written on his heart or character, ever open to the eyes of God (3-4). 2. The ‘understanding’ seems to mean the will: a reads ‘ conscience’. 3. written upon the hearts. God (Jer. xxxi. 33) and man (Prov. iii. 3) can write thus on the heart. 4. Text as B-ag A8 S}, on the heart itself = év ornOec doréwy avrod, a Hebraism. on >a. 5. testifieth all things and >a. Cf. John xv. 26. testifieth . . . accuseth. Cf. Rom. ii. 15, where the conscience is still the judge of past actions, and not the deciding power as to present policy. birt ap... heart. Ch diniG. v.13: XXI. Levi’s pre-eminence is enforced as in T. R. vi. 5-12, &c. Texalty. . 4 him. Cf 1 R.vis(mote): 4. As the heaven is higher than the earth >a. Cf. T. L. xiv. 3. 5. the angel... unto me >BAS!. to eat of His table. Cf. T. L. vii. 16 (note). to offer Him >BAS'. king of Jacob. Cf. xvii. 5-6. XXI. 6—XXIII. An alien section, possibly a polemic against the kings (xxi. 6-8) Aristobulus II and Hyrcanus II (70-40 B.C.). Cf. xxii. 1-2. But the visitations of xxiii. 3-5 suit the Babylonian or Syrian conquests of 588 and 168 B.C.

XXI. 6. amongst aefg: ‘to’ ab.

and unjust >aaf.

impoverished. Text reads ‘in danger’, owing to wrong punctuation in the original Hebrew.

the possessions of others >A S}'. 7. Ck it Sam: ville Li—-17. 8. tadvance in evil. Cf. 2 Tim. ii. 16, iii. 13. XXII. 1. divisions one against another, i.e. the civil wars of Aristobulus II and Hyrcanus II, 70-40 B.C,

Chileans

“And there shall be ‘continual! wars in Israel ; 2 And among men of another race shall my kingdom be brought to an end, Until the salvation of Israel shall come, "Until the appearing of the God of righteousness’, That Jacob [and all the Gentiles] may rest in peace. 3. And He shall guard the might of my kingdom for ever ; For the Lord sware to me with an oath that He would not destroy the kingdom from my seed for ever. 23: Now I have much gricf, my children, because of your lewdness and witchcrafts, and idolatries which ye shall practise ‘against the kingdom|, following them that have familiar spirits, diviners, and 2 demons of error. Ye shall make your daughters singing girls and harlots, and ye shall mingle in 3 the abominations of the Gentiles. For which things’ sake the Lord shall bring upon you famine and pestilence, death and the sword, beleaguering by enemies, and revilings of friends, the slaughter of children, the rape of wives, the plundering of possessions, [the burning of the temple of God,] the 4 laying waste of the land, the enslavement of yourselves among the Gentiles. And they shall make some of you eunuchs for their wives. 5 Until the Lord visit you, when with perfect Until ye turn unto the Lord with perfect heart 5

heart ye repent and walk in all His command- | repenting and walking in all the commandments ments, and He bring you up from captivity | of God, and the Lord visit you with mercy and

among the Gentiles. bring you up from captivity among the Gentiles. apS? A 94., And after these things shall a star arise to you And after these things shall arise the star of 1 from Jacob in peace, peace,

And a man shall arise [from my seed], like the sun of righteousness,

Walking with the sons of men in meekness and And he shall walk with men in meekness and righteousness ; righteousness.

And no sin shall be found in him.

continual wars. From Alexander’s death to Herod’s accession this holds good.

2. my kingdom .. . end, i.e. in 40 B.C., with Herod’s accession.

[and all the Gentiles] >A. An interpolation, as this section is not universalistic.

3. He would not ... for ever aA (>‘from my seed’ c). The other MSS. vary much. For the idea cf. xvii. 5-6, and Gen. xliv. Io.

XXIII. A general denunciation of Israel as a whole and its future judgements, if ‘against the kingdom’ is an interpolation.

1. them that have familiar spirits, e¢yyaorpipvdor, cf. Lev. xix. 31, xx. 6, 27; Isa. xix. 3.

2, your daughters... harlots. Cf. Pss. Sol. 11. 14, 15.

the abominations of the Gentiles. Cf. Pss. Sol. i. 8, ii. 13, 14, vill. 14.

Betamine, &c. Cf. Jer. xiv. 12, xv. 2.

sword A + ‘avenging’ a8.

beleaguering by enemies. Cf. Jer. xix.9. + kal kivas eis Siaomacpdv, a B—a before ¢xOpav, added from Jer. xv.

friends + ‘destruction and blighting of the eyes’ text: >hiA: emend to ‘destruction of bribes’, or possibly to ‘ destruction of children’ (dittography of next phrase). Or, like kivas, &c., regard it as an intrusion.

the rape of wives > a.

[the burning of the temple of God], not realized in Maccabean times (cf. Ps. Ixxiv. 7 (gates only consumed) ; 1 Macc. iv. 38) or in the first century B.C.

enslavement ... Gentiles. Cf. the captivities of Apollonius, 1 Macc. i. 29-40; 2 Macc. v. 23-6: and of Pompey, Philo, De leg. ad Caium,23; Pss. Sol. ii. 6, xvii. 14; T. Z. ix. 6: of Cassius Longinus in 49 and 43 B.C., Josephus, Azz. xiv. 11. 2.

4. eunuchs. Cf. 2 Kings xx. 18. Herod also had some, but we are not told that the Seleucids had any.

5. the Lord visit you, when ... ye repent. National repentance is the condition of Israel’s restoration. Cf.

XXIV. Two Messianic fragments. Verses 1-3 speak of a Messiah, probably from Levi, as ‘from my seed’ is an interpolation. Cf. both for diction and matter, T. L. xviii, the hymn in honour of John Hyrcanus. Thus cf. 1* here with 3% there, 2 with 6, 1 with 4, 1° with 9, 3° with 8®. Verses 5,6 start afresh and refer directly to a Messiah from Judah. Verse 4 is a marginal gloss.

1.astar...from Jacob. Cf. Num. xxiv. 17; T. L. xviii. 3.

in peace. Cf. T. L. xviii. 3 ‘in heaven’.

aman shall arise. Cf. LXX of Num. xxiv. 17 (‘a sceptre shall arise’ Hebrew).

sun of righteousness. Mal. iv.2. Cf. T. L. xviii. 4; T. Z. ix. 8.

Walking with the sons of men. See T. Iss. vii. 7; T. D. v. 13; and especially 1 En. xii. 14.

meekness and righteousness. Ps. xlv. 4, interpreted of the Messiah by Targum and LXX. Cf. too Zech. ix. 9

THE TESTAMENTSOOPR TNE TWELVE va tRIinARCHS

a BS! And the heavens shall be opened unto him, To pour out the spirit, (even) the blessing of

And the heavens shal] be opened unto him, And the blessings of the Holy Father shall be

the Holy Father ;

And He shall pour out the spirit of grace upon you ;

And ye shall be unto Him sons in truth,

And ye shall walk in His commandments first and last.

poured down upon him.

And He will pour down upon us the spirit of 3 grace.

And ye shall be His true children by adoption,

And ye shall walk in His commandments first and last.

4 [This Branch of God Most High, [Then a branch shall go forth from me.] 4 And this Fountain giving life unto all.] 5 Then shall the sceptre of my kingdom shine And the sceptre of my kingdom shall shine 5

forth ; And from your root shall arise a stem ;

And from it shall grow a rod of righteousness to the Gentiles,

forth ;

And from your root shall arise a stem ;

And from it shall grow up the rod of righteous- 6 ness unto the Gentiles,

To judge and to save all that call upon the To judge and to save all that call upon the Lord. Lord.

251 And after these things shall Abraham and Isaac and Jacob arise unto life, and I and my brethren shall be chiefs of the tribes ‘of Israel': Levi first, I the second, Joseph third, Benjamin fourth, 2 Simeon fifth, Issachar sixth, and so all in order. And the Lord blessed Levi, and the Angel of the Presence, me; the powers of glory, Simeon; the heaven, Reuben; the earth, Issachar; the sea, Zebulun ; the mountains, Joseph ; the tabernacle, Benjamin ; the luminaries, Dan; Eden, Naphtali ; the sun, Gad ; the moon, Asher. And ye shall be the people of the Lord, and have one tongue ; And there shall be there no spirit of deceit of ‘Beliar', For he shall be cast into the fire for ever. And they who have died in grief shall arise ‘in joy’, ‘And they who were poor for the Lord’s sake shall be made rich’, And they who are put to death for the Lord’s sake shall awake “to life’. And the harts of Jacob shall run ‘in joyfulness', And the eagles of Israel shall fly ‘in gladness'; And all the people shall glorify the Lord for ever. 261 Observe, therefore, my children, all the law of the Lord, for there is hope for all them who hold 2 fast unto His ways. And ‘he said to them: Behold’, I die before your eyes this day, a hundred and

‘ Thy king cometh to thee, righteous and lowly’, and Zeph. ii. 3. Jewish literature 200 B.C.—A.D. 100. See T. D. vi. 9. And the heavens. Cf. 1 En. xi. 1. Br POUL.) is) STAC CLL SusiVee 2: And ye shall be . . . walk. ‘in truth’ a. sons in truth. Cf. T. L. xvii. 8. first and last. Cf. e.g. 1 Chron. xxix. 29, 4. A marginal gloss. This Branch. Cf. Isa. xi. 1; Jer. xxill. 5, xxxill, 15. this Fountain, &c. a (8S): S A. Cf. John iv. 14. Cf. Prov. xiii. 14, &c. 5-6. A new Messianic PR added by the inserter of xxi. 6-xxiii. 5. astem. ‘a fountain’ a, corruptly. Cf. Isa. xi. I. 6. rod of righteousness. Cf. Ps. xlv. 6.

XXV. A Resurrection to a renewed life on the present earth. 1. tribes, cxymTpor, i.e. DOAY. Cf. Matt. xix. 28 ‘In the regeneration . . 2. Eden. Text 7 rpvfy = JI. Cf. Gen. ii. 15 (LXX). 3. one tongue, ines Hebrew. Ber. rabba 18 ; Shabb. 12>; Jub. ili. 28 (note), be there a: ‘be no more’ BS}; ‘be among you’ A. 4. rich +‘and they who have been in want shall be filled, and they who have been weak shall be strong’ abafS*. 5. JacobabgAS}!: ‘Joseph’ adef. And the eagles... gladness af S': lament and the sinners shall weep’ a8 S’.

XXVI. 1. hold fast unto a: ‘direct’ 6S}, i.e. DW") for DWI’. 2. Behold > BAS?* before your eyes > a.

Meekness is not an attribute of the Messiah in

. Judging the twelve tribes of Israel’.

‘And the heifers of Israel shall leap’ A +‘ But the ungodly shall

THES EBSTAMENT OF ISSACHAR by 1-=2.55

3 nineteen years old. Let no one bury me ‘in costly apparel', nor tear open my bowels, ‘for this

4 shall they who are kings do'; and carry me up to Hebron with you. And Judah, when he had said these things, fell asleep ; and his sons did according to all whatsoever he commanded them, and they buried him in Hebron, with his fathers.

THE TESTAMENT OF. ISSACHAR, THE FIFTH SON OF JACOB AND LEAH.

1: The copy ofthe words of Issachar. For he called his sons and said to them: Hearken, my children, to Issachar your father ; Give ear to the words of him who is beloved of the Lord. 2,3 Iwas born the 'fifth son to Jacob', by way of hire for the mandrakes. For Reuben ‘my brother! 4 brought in mandrakes from the field, and Rachel met him and took them. And Reuben wept, and 5 at his voice Leah my mother came forth. Now these (mandrakes) were ‘sweet-smelling! apples 6 which were produced in the land of Haran below a ravine of water. And Rachel said: I will not give them to thee, but they shall be to me instead of children. ‘For the Lord hath despised me, 7 and I have not borne children to Jacob'. Now there were two apples ; and Leah said ‘to Rachel’: 8 Let it suffice thee that thou hast taken my husband: wilt thou take these also? And Rachel said g'to her': Thou shalt have Jacob this night for the mandrakes ‘of thy son’. And Leah said to her: 10 Jacob is mine, for I am the wife of his youth. But Rachel said: Boast not, and vaunt not thyself; for he espoused me before thée, and for my sake he served our father fourteen years.

a BENS ir And had not craft increased on the earth and What shall I do to thee? for the craft and the wickedness of men prospered, thou wouldst | the subtlety of men are increased, and craft prosnot now see the face of Jacob. pereth on the earth—if it were not so, thou wouldst not now see the face of Jacob.

12,13 For thou art not his wife, but in craft wert taken to him in my stead. And my father deceived me,.'and removed me on that night', and did not suffer ‘Jacob to see me; for' had I been 14 there, this had not happened ‘to him’. Nevertheless, for the mandrakes I am hiring Jacob to thee 15 for one night. And Jacob knew Leah, and she ‘conceived and! bare me, and on account of the hire I was called Issachar. 1 Then appeared to Jacob an angel of the Lord, saying: Two children shall Rachel bear, inasmuch 2 as she hath refused company with her husband, and hath chosen continency. And had not Leah my mother paid the two apples for the sake of his company, she would have borne eight sons ; for this reason she bare six, and Rachel bare the two: for on account of the mandrakes the Lord 3 visited her. For He knew that for the sake of children she wished to company with Jacob, and 4 not for lust of pleasure. For on the morrow also she again gave up Jacob. Because of the man- 5 drakes, therefore, the Lord hearkened to Rachel. For though she desired them, she eat them not,

but offered them in the house of the Lord, presenting them to the priest of the Most High who was at that time.

nineteen 8 AS}; ‘ eighteen’ a, wrongly. 3. nor tear open... . kings do >a. with you. ‘where are my fathers also’ a.

I. 1. TITLE a: +‘concerning simplicity’ bf S!: ‘ concerning goodness’ e.

the words of him who is beloved ciaef A: ‘the words beloved’ hd S?: ‘(my) words, ye beloved’ bg. 3. my brother > BA S}.

5. which were ... Haran a (‘Canaan’hi): ‘which the land of Aram produced on a height’ 8 S?: ‘and they were produced in the wood in Aram’ A. 6. For the Lord ... to Jacob a> BASS.

7. to Rachel > BAS}.

8. toher > BAS}.

g. Jacob is mine, for I a: ‘ Boast not nor vaunt thyself ; for Jacob is mine, and 1’ BAS’.

10. Boast ... thyself: ‘How so?’ BAS}.

11. BAS version is due to dittography.

13. Jacobaonly. to hima only.

14. Nevertheless .. . mandrakes a: ‘And Rachel said: Take one mandrake and for the other’ 8-dg S}; BAS}? mention the second mandrake in ii. 4; d after i. 15: Leah gave Rachel both, ii. 2.

Il. 1. Two bA®»*¢4S!; >aaef: d omits the clause: g omits the entire chapter. 4. Jacob + ‘in order that she might receive the other (‘still another’ A*>*¢4t) mandrake’ Bdg A*»* edt S}. 5. priest of the Most High 8 A#>*¢4fS! +‘God’ AP: ‘priest’ a.

When, therefore, I grew up, my children, I walked in uprightness of heart, and I became a husbandman for my father and my brethren, and I brought in fruits from the field according to their season. ‘And my father blessed me, for he saw that I walked in rectitude before him’. And I was not a busybody in my doings, ‘nor envious and malicious against my neighbour. I never slandered any one, nor did I censure the life of any man, walking as I did in singleness of eye’. Therefore, when I was thirty-'five' years old, I took to myself a wife, for my labour wore away my strength, and I never thought upon pleasure with women ; ‘but owing to my toil, sleep overcame me! And my father ‘always! rejoiced in my rectitude, because I offered through the priest to the Lord all first-fruits ; then to my father also. And the Lord increased ten thousandfold His benefits in my hands; and also Jacob, my father, knew that God aided my singleness. For on all the poor and oppressed I bestowed the good things of the earth in the singleness of my heart'.

And now, hearken to me, my children,

And walk in singleness ‘of your heart’,

For I have seen in it ‘all' that is well-pleasing to the Lord.

'The single-(minded) man coveteth not gold,

He overreacheth not his neighbour,

He longeth not after manifold dainties,

He delighteth not in varied apparel.

He doth not desire to live a long life,

But only waiteth for the will of God’.

And the spirits of deceit have no power against him,

For he looketh not on the beauty of women,

"Lest he should pollute his mind with corruption".

There is no envy in his thoughts,

[No malicious person maketh his soul to pine away, |

Nor worry with insatiable desire in his mind.

For he walketh in singleness 'of soul’,

And beholdeth all things in uprightness 'of heart’,

Shunning eyes (made) evil through the error of the world,

Lest he should see the perversion of any of the commandments of the Lord.

Keep, therefore, my children, the law of God,

And get singleness,

_ II-VI. Issachar is here held up as the single-hearted husbandman (iii. 1, v. 3, 5) who scorns luxuries and wealth (iv. 2), is free from envy, malice, and greed (iii. 3, iv. 5), shuns lust (iv. 4), offers freely to God and his father (iii. 6), and to the poor (iii. 8). Cf. LXX of Gen. xlix. 15 éyevn@n dvnp yewpyds, ‘he bowed his shoulder to bear, and became a servant under taskwork’ (Heb.). The Targums interpret this labour as in the law; cf. 1 Chron. xii. 32.

III. 1. uprightness, «@irnt:, Jw’. As this work was translated into Greek between the completion of the LXX and A.D. 50 it employs more frequently than the LXX the late Greek word dmddryns = DM +The MSS. waver between the two at times, probably because dmAdrys was not yet so popular a term as it later became. See my Commentary,

according to their season >aaf. rectitude, dw\dérys = wholeness, integrity. Cf. Eph. vi. 5; Col. iii. 32.

4. singleness of eye. Cf. Matt. vi. 22; T. Iss. iv. 6 (note).

5. five >bdgA.

sleep. Perhaps read ‘old age’. Cf. T. Z. x. 6. 6. because, ‘for on whatsoever I laboured’ 8B S!. all first-fruits + ‘all the choicest fruit and all the firstfruits ’ B S1.

7. ten thousandfold a: ‘twofold’ BS.

8. bestowed ... singleness of heart. Cf. Rom. xii. 8. Hence the meaning ‘disinterested generosity’ in 2 Cor. ix. 13, dwAdrnte Tis Kowewrvias eis adTovs.

IV. 1. heart cg: ‘soul’ hiaef. init bdgA: ‘in you’aaefS'. 2. coveteth not .. . neighbour bdeg S!: ‘gaineth not gold wrongfully’ aaf. 3. doth not desire to live S!: ov« éemypade rod Civ a B S*, i.e. APN, perhaps corrupt for WAND, 4. looketh not on the beauty, od yap «idev émidéEac bar (émidéEaoOa fg A: > S1) «éddos. Perhaps there was a dittography in the original Hebrew jn2 1nd emréEaoOat Kdddos. Cf. T. R. iv. I. 5. pls ei th decane invade 6S. [No malicious person, &c.] An interpolation >A: ‘malice... not’ bdgS. Nor worry... his mind, emended from o008¢ repeamacpor ev dmAnoreia evvoei a BS! to .. . weptomacpos .. . eV VOL. 6. singleness of soula: > ‘of soul’ A: 8S read ‘uprightness of soul’ and so ‘singleness of heart’ below. eyes... evil. Cf. Matt. vi.22, 23 ‘eye... single; eye... evil’, i.e. ethically unsound. In Matt. xx, 15 ‘envious.’ _

THE TESTAMENT OF ISSACHAR 3. 1—7. 5

‘And walk in guilelessness,

Not playing the busybody with the business of your neighbour,

But love the Lord and your neighbour,

Have compassion on the poor and weak.

Bow down your back unto husbandry,

And toil in labours ‘in all manner of husbandry,

Offering gifts to the Lord with thanksgiving!

For with the first-fruits of the earth will the Lord bless you, ‘even as He blessed all the saints from Abel even until now'. For no other portion is given to you ‘than of the fatness of the earth, whose fruits are raised by toil’. For our father Jacob blessed me with blessings of the earth and of first-fruits. And Levi and Judah were glorified by the Lord even among the sons of Jacob; for the Lord gave them an inheritance, and to Levi He gave the priesthood, and to Judah the kingdom. And do ye therefore obey them, and walk in the singleness of your father; [for unto Gad hath it been given to destroy the troops that are coming upon Israel].

Know ye therefore, my children, that in the last times

Your sons will forsake singleness,

fAnd will cleave unto insatiable desire ;

And! leaving 'guilelessness, will draw near to malice ;

And forsaking the commandments of the Lord,

They will cleave unto Beliar.

And leaving’ husbandry,

They will follow after their own ‘wicked! devices,

And they shall be dispersed among the Gentiles,

And shall serve their enemies.

And do you therefore give these commands to your children, that, if they sin, they may the more quickly return to the Lord; For He is merciful, and will deliver them, even to bring them back into their land.

Behold, therefore, as ye see, I am a hundred I am a hundred and twenty-two years old, and 1 and twenty-six years old and am not conscious of | I am not conscious of having committed any sin committing any sin. unto death.

Except my wife I have not known any woman'. I never committed fornication by the uplifting of my ‘eyes’.

I drank not wine, to be led astray thereby ;

I coveted not any desirable thing that was my neighbour’s.

Guile arose not in my heart ;

A lie passed not through my lips.

If any man were in distress I joined my sighs with his,

V. 1. busybody with +‘ the commands of God and’ BS? 3. Bow ... husbandry. Gen. xlix. 15 (Heb.). labours a + ‘of the earth’ BAS}. 5. to you gA: ‘tothee’ B-agS: ‘tous’ a: >a. whose fruits are raised by toil bg S!': ‘through the toils of fruits’ aaef: >d. 6-7. A is defective and confused. 7. to Levi ...to Judah c: ‘tothe one... to the other’ h8. 8. [for (BA S': ‘and’ a) unto Gad ... Israel.] Probably out of place, and belonged to T. Gad originally, preceded by a phrase like ‘and she called his name Gad’. Cf. Gen. xlix. 19.

Miraicinetheslastatines. suGt, Dela cio) xivt sb. G. vill 2 (8A See daZodxasuibde): T: Dovi4: 1. Jos. xix. 10 (CBS); also T. Z. vill. 2, ix. 9. The phrase = the close of the present age—present, that is, from the writer’s standpoint.

pecispersed. | Cforlo ba xvie bs DerAcnvile2, Or De, OS, XIX. 2.

serve their enemies. Cf. T. Jud. xxiii. 3: T. N. iv. 2.

VII. hundred and twenty-two BAS = Midrash Tadshe. See T. R. i. 1 (note). am not conscious, &c: Cf 1 Cor ix. 45 TZ. 1. 4. sin unto death BAS. Cf. Num. xviii. 22; Jub. xxi. 22, xxxviil. 18; 1 John vy. 16. . a omits ovk éyvwy through hmt. It reads ‘woman except my wife’. the uplifting, perewpeopds Cf. T. B. vi. 33 Sir. xxili. 4, xxvi. 9; Prov. vi. 25. . Ahas ‘And guile arose not through my lips, and I lied not to my neighbour’, Reet roir. vil. 545 Rom, xii. 15.

THE. TESTAMENTS OF @2 Hh OWE EerAT RA RChS

And I shared my bread with the poor. I wrought godliness, all my days I kept truth.

a B Si 6 I loved the Lord ; ‘The Lord I loved with all my strength : 6 Likewise also every man with all my heart. Likewise also every man I loved more than my

own children,

7 So do you also these things, my children,

And every spirit of Beliar shall flee from you,

And no deed of wicked men shall rule over you ;

And every wild beast shall ye subdue,

Since you have with you the God of heaven and earth

(And) walk with men in singleness of heart!. | 8 And having said these things, he commanded his sons that they should carry him up to Hebron, 9 and bury him there in the cave ‘with his fathers'. And he stretched out his feet and died, at a good

old age; with every limb sound, and with strength unabated, he slept the eternal sleep.

THE TESTAMENT OF ZEBULUN, THE SIXTH SON OF JACOB AND LEAH:

x The copy of the words of Zebulun, which he enjoined on his sons ‘before he died! in the 2 hundred and fourteenth year of his life, two years after the death of Joseph. And he said to them: 3 Hearken to me, ye sons of Zebulun, attend to the words of your father. I, Zebulun, was born a good gift to my parents. For when I was born my father was increased very exceedingly, both in flocks 4 and herds, when with the straked rods he had his portion. I am not conscious that I have sinned 5 all my days, ‘save in thought'. Nor yet do I remember that I have done any iniquity, except the sin of ignorance which I committed against Joseph; for I covenanted with my brethren not to tell 6 my father what had been done. But I wept ‘in secret’ many days on account of Joseph, for I feared my brethren, ‘because they had all agreed that if any one should declare the secret, he should be slain’. 7 But when they wished to kill him, I adjured them much 'with tears! not to be guilty of this sin. 2 For Simeon and Gad came against Joseph 'to kill him', and he said unto them with tears: Pity me, my brethren, have mercy upon the bowels of Jacob our father: lay not upon me your hands 3 ‘to shed innocent blood', for I have not sinned against you. And if indeed I have sinned, with " chastening chastise me, ‘my brethren’, but lay not upon me your hand, for the sake of Jacob our 4 father. And as he spoke these words, ‘wailing as he did so', I was unable to bear his lamentations, and 'began to weep', and my liver was poured out, and all the substance of my bowels was floosened.

shared my bread. Cf. Prov. xxii. 9. with the poor + ‘I never eat alone, I moved no landmark’ B S!. kept truth a: ‘did truth’ B—-beS?: ‘and I walked in holiness’ A + ‘I loved godliness’ c. 7. shall flee. Cf. T. N. viii. 4. waik with men... heart hief (‘his heart’ hi): ‘walking with men in the singleness of His heart’ c (= Messiah, cf. T. Jud. xxiv. 1): ‘walking with men of (or ‘in’) singleness of heart’? B-ef. 8. in the cave >uag. g. and died ... sleep. ‘and slept at a good old age the eternal sleep’ a. the eternal sleep. This does not preclude Resurrection. T. Jud. xxv.1; T. B. x. 6 ff.

TITLE a +‘ compassion and mercy’ (‘ almsgiving ’ dg) B-a S}. . I. before he died c d. fourteenth h i B-a S', cf. Jashar ii. 1248: ‘fourth’ c: ‘fiftieth’ a: ‘twenty-fourth’ A. two years. See Jub. xxviii. 11-24 (notes). 3. Zebulun, a good gift. Gen. xxx. 20. straked rods. Cf. Gen. xxx. 37 ff. he had: ‘I had’ ad. am not conscious, &c. Cf. T. Iss. vii. 1. sin ofignorance. Cf T. R16; Del iis; Po Jud: xix 13: which I committed > a. covenanted with = 'n45 emended from ‘mp5 ‘ concealed for’ bg A: ‘confirmed to’ a 8-b g S*. 7. Tadjured: ‘I summoned’ hi: c omits rest of verse and ii. 1% to ‘ kill him’ through hmt. :

II. 1. Simeon +‘and Dan’h. Cf. iii. 2. against Joseph: ‘with anger’ g. +‘with anger’ deS!. and he said . . . tears: ‘and falling on his face Joseph said to them’ @-a f S}. . upon me > a. upon me: ‘to slay your brother’ a. . wailing as he did so > BAS}. Iwas ... lamentations a: ‘I pitied him’ BS. poured outdg. Cf. Lam. ii. 11: ‘melted’ a8-dg S}. : was tloosened a +‘within my soul’8 AS. Perhaps emend to ‘was troubled’, as Lam. i. 20, ii. 11,

rE eS pAb NT OF ZEBULUN Iy-1—4\"9

5 And I wept with Joseph, and my heart sounded, ‘and the joints of my body trembled', and I was

6 not able to stand. And when ‘Joseph! saw me weeping with him, and them coming against him to

7 slay him, he fled behind me, beseeching them. But meanwhile Reuben arose and said: 'Come!, my

brethren, let us not slay him, but let us cast him into one of these dry pits, which our fathers digged

g and found no water. For for this cause the Lord forbade that water should rise up in them, in order

that Joseph should be preserved. And they did so, until they sold him to the Ishmaelites.

31,2 For in his price I had no share, my children. But Simeon and Gad and six other of our brethren

took the price of Joseph, and bought sandals for themselves, and their wives, ‘and their children’,

3 saying: We will not eat of it, for it is the price of our brother’s blood, but we will assuredly tread

it under foot, because he said that he would be king over us, ‘and so let us see what will become of

4his dreams'. Therefore it is written in the writing of the law of Moses, that whosoever will not raise

5 up seed to his brother, his sandal should be unloosed, and they should spit in his face. And the

brethren of Joseph wished not that their brother should live, and the Lord loosed from them the

6 sandal which they wore against ‘Joseph their brother'. For when they came into Egypt ‘they were

unloosed by the servants of Joseph outside the gate, and so they made obeisance to Joseph after the

7 fashion of King Pharaoh. And! not only did they make obeisance to him, but ‘were spit upon also,

8 falling down before him forthwith, and so! they were put to shame before the Egyptians. For after

this the Egyptians heard all the evils that they had done to Joseph. a DSU ©

4: And after he was tsold my brothers sat down And after they had cast him into the pit ‘my 1 2 to eat and drink. But I, through pity for Joseph, | brethren! sat down to eat. ‘For I through two 2

did not eat, but watched the pit, since Judah | days and two nights eat nothing, through pity

feared lest Simeon, Dan, and Gad should rush | for Joseph’. And Judah eat not with them, but

3 off and slay him. But when they saw that I did | watched 'the pit'; for he feared lest Simeon and not eat, they set me to watch him, till he was | Gad should run off and slay him. And when 3

5 sold to the Ishmaelites. And when Reuben came | they saw that I also eat not, they set me to and heard that while he was away (Joseph) had | watch him until he was sold. And he spent in 4

been sold, he rent his garments, (and) mourning, | the pit three days and three nights, and so was said: How shall I look on the face of my father | sold famishing. And when Reuben heard that 5

6 Jacob? And he took the money and ran after | while he was away (Joseph) had been sold, he

the merchants, but as he failed to find them he | rent his clothes, and mourned, saying : How shall returned grieving. But the merchants had left | I look in the face of Jacob my father? And he 6

the broad road and marched through the Tro- | took the money and ran after the merchants, and

glodytes by a short cut. found no one; for they had left the main road, and journeyed through the Troglodytes by a short cut.

7 ‘But Reuben was grieved', and eat no food that day. Dan therefore came to him and said: 8, 9 Weep not, neither grieve; for we have found what we can say to our father Jacob. Let us slay

5. my heart sounded. Cf. Jer. iv. 19. joints of my body, &c. Cf. Dan. v. 6. '6. beseeching them: ‘beseeching (me) to help him’ a. found no water. See Jub. xxiv. 25 (note). g. they did soadg A: ‘the Lord did so’ B-dg S}.

Ill. 2. Gad... brethren: ‘ Dan and Gad and their children’ a bought sandals. Cf. Ps.-Jon. on Gen. xxxvii. 28; Pirke R. El. xxxviii; also Amos ii. 6. 3. the price of ... blood. Cf. Matt. xxvii. 6. let us see, &c. Gen. xxxvii. 20. 4-7. An attempt to explain certain customs of the Levirate Law. 4. law of Moses a: ‘ law of Enoch’ 8S}. whosoever will not, &c. Cf. Deut. xxxv. 10; Ruth iv. 4. 7. forthwith, Tmapaxpya, bdfS: mapa cxjpa, a ae g. before pd AS!: “by” ad! BS: ‘for they heard the evils that they had done unto him’ a.

1V. 1. 'sold a: mpaOjva corrupt for BAnOjvac.

sat down ad only. Cf. Gen. xxxvii. 25.

to the Ishmaelites (a). Cf. T. S. ii.g; T. Z. ii. 9.

> a, possibly through hmt.

How shall I look ... Jacob? So Ps.-Jon. and Targ. Jer. on Gen. xxxvii. 30. Troglodytes: ‘Indokolpitae’ in T. Jos. xi. 2, See LXX of 2 Chron. xii. 3. slay bd A +‘with the sword’ «8-bdS}.

Carb Yy

THE TESTAMENTS OR GUE TAVE EVES RAD RR Cis

10 a kid of the goats, and dip in it the coat of Joseph; and let us send it to Jacob, saying: Know, is

11 this the coat of thy son? And they did so. ‘For they stripped off from Joseph his coat when they were selling him, and put upon him the garment of a slave’. Now Simeon took the coat, and would not give it up, ‘for he wished to rend. it with his sword’, as he was angry that Joseph lived and that

12 he had not slain him. Then we ‘all! rose up and said unto him: If thou givest not up the coat, we

13 will say ‘to our father! that thou alone didst this evil thing in Israel. And so he gave it unto them, and they did even as Dan had said.

Sr And now, my children, I bid you to keep the commands of the Lord, ‘and to show mercy to your

neighbours, and to have compassion towards all, not towards men only, but also towards beasts. 2 For all this thing’s sake the Lord blessed me’, and when all my brethren were sick, I escaped with- 3 out sickness, for the Lord knoweth the purposes of each. ‘ Have, therefore, compassion in your hearts, my children, because even as a man doeth to his neighbour, even so also will the Lord do to him. 4 For the sons of my brethren were sickening and were dying on account of Joseph, "because they 5 showed not mercy in their hearts'; but my sons were preserved without sickness, as ye know. And when I was in the land of Canaan, by the sea-coast, I made a catch of fish for Jacob my father; and when many were choked in the sea, I continued unhurt.

6: I was the first to make a boat to sail upon the sea, for the Lord gave me understanding ‘and 2 wisdom therein’. And I let down a rudder behind it, and I stretched a sail upon another upright 3 piece of wood in the midst. And I sailed therein along the shores, catching fish for the house of my

father until we came to Egypt. Verses 4—6 found only in bdg.

4,5 [And through compassion I shared my catch with every stranger. And if a man were a stranger, or sick, or aged, I boiled the fish, and dressed them well, and offered them to all men, as every man 6 had need, grieving with and having compassion upon them. Wherefore also the Lord satisfied me with abundance of fish when catching fish; for he that shareth with his neighbour receiveth manifold 7 more from the Lord.| For five years I caught fish [and gave thereof to every man whom I saw, 8 and sufficed for all the house of my father]. And in the summer I caught fish, and in the winter I kept sheep with my brethren. vii—viii. 3 found only in bdg. 7, _ [Now I will declare unto you what I did. I saw a man in distress through nakedness in wintertime, and had compassion upon him, and stole away a garment secretly from my father’s house, and 2 gave it to him who was in distress. Do you, therefore, my children, from that which God bestoweth upon you, show compassion and mercy without hesitation to all men, and give to every man with 3a good heart. And if ye have not the wherewithal to give to him that needeth, have compassion for 4 him in bowels of mercy. I know that my hand found not the wherewithal to give to him that needed, and I walked with him weeping for seven furlongs, and my bowels yearned towards him in compassion. 8, Have, therefore, yourselves also, my children, compassion towards every man with mercy, that the 2 Lord also may have compassion and mercy upon you. Because also in the last days God will send 3 His compassion on the earth, and wheresoever He findeth bowels of mercy He dwelleth in him. For in the degree in which a man hath compassion upon his neighbours, in the same degree hath the

let us send . . . saying a: ‘and we will say’ BAS}.

Io. his coat a: ‘the coat of our father’ B-d g S!.

11. Joseph lived and > a.

12. to our father ag.

in Israel. a only.

V. 3. even asaman, &c. Cf. vill. 3; Judges i. 7; Matt. vil. 2.

4. in their hearts 8 S!: ‘to them’ c.

VI. 1. the first to make a boat. Cf. Gen. xlix. 13.

2. rudder, lit. ‘a piece of wood’.

3. catching fish g: ‘and I caught fish’ bd A: ‘in’ af: >a. fe a

4-6. The sections peculiar to bdg, i.e. vi. 4-6, 7”, vii-viii, go back probably to a Hebrew original. viii. 3, though a saying attributed to Gamaliel II or Gamaliel of Jabneh (80-105 A.D.), is virtually the same as v. 3. 6. satisfied, évérAnoe, d: eroinae, bg, wrongly.

neighbour +‘ with all willingness’ d. 7. [and gave... father] bd g only.

whom I saw bg: ‘what sufficed’ d. VII. 1. my father’s house d: ‘my house’ b g. 2, show . .. mercy without hesitation. Cf. Jude 22, if pj is restored before diaxpirdpevor there. 3. needeth, or ‘asketh’, xpy¢ovrt. Cf. Matt. v. 42. VIII. 2. last days. See T. Iss. vi. 1 (note).

cee)

THE TESTAMENT OF ZEBULUN 4. 9—9. 8

4, 5 Lord also upon him.] And when we went down into Egypt, Joseph bore no malice against us. To

whom taking heed, do ye also, my children, ‘approve yourselves without malice, and! love one

6 another ; and do not set down in account, each one of you, evil against his brother. For this breaketh unity and divideth ‘all kindred, and troubleth the soul', and weareth away the countenance.

2 earth, and other things.

Observe, ‘therefore’, the waters, and know when they flow together, they sweep along stones, trees, But if they are divided into many streams, the earth swalloweth them up,

3,4 and they vanish away. So shall ye also be if ye be divided. Be not ye, therefore, divided into two heads, for everything which the Lord made hath but one head, and two shoulders, two 5 hands, two feet, and all the remaining members. For I have learnt in the writing of my fathers, that

Ye shall be divided in Israel, And ye shall follow two kings, And shall work every abomination. 6 And your enemies shall lead you captive,

And ye shall be evil entreated among the Gentiles,

With many infirmities and tribulations.

7 And after these things ye shall remember the

Lord and repent,

And He shall have mercy’upon you, for He is merciful and compassionate.

And He setteth not down in account evil against the sons of men,

Because they are flesh, and are deceived through their own wicked deeds.

aaefAS!

8 And after these things shall there arise ‘unto you' the Lord Himself, the light of righteousness,

4. Resumes vi. 3.

[eeess,

And after these things ye shall remember the Lord, and repent,

[And He shall cause you to return]; for He is merciful and compassionate.

And He setteth not down in account evil to the sons of men, because they are flesh,

And the spirits of deceit deceive them in all their deeds.

And after these things there shall arise unto you the Lord Himself, the light of righteousness,

[And healing and compassion shall be in His wings.

He shall redeem all the captivity of the sons of men from Beliar ;

And every spirit of deceit shall be trodden down];

And he shall bring back all the Gentiles into zeal for Him.

And when. bd¢g read ‘for when’, which supports the originality of vii—viii. 2. against us +‘ but when he saw me he had compassion’ b g.

5. approve ... malice and >aaefA. set not down in account, &c. Cf. 1 Cor. xiii. 5. evil against c A: ‘the evil of’ 8S‘.

6. and weareth away the countenance (‘possessions’ aefA(?)S*) a: ‘for he who beareth malice hath no

bowels of mercy’ bd g.

IX. Written at a time of national divisions, e.g. Hyrcanus II’s struggles with Aristobulus IT.

1. and other things a: ‘sand’ B-bdA.

2. vanish away. So I emend with Perles; the'text has ‘become of no account’, i.e, }ON19) corrupt for 3015).

4, 5. two heads = Hyrcanus II and Aristobulus II. 5. writing of my fathers. See T. L.x. 5 (note). kings: ‘kingdoms’ aaefS”. abomination + ‘and worship every idol’ hi§S'. 6. be evil entreated: ‘dwell’ cbd. tribulations + ‘and anguish of soul’ bdg.

+ ‘that in the last days ye will depart from the Lord and’ bdg.

7. repent : émuorpéWere a: peravoncere BA S*: both = DWN.

cause ... to return BAS}. setteth not down in account. Cf. Ps. xxxii. 2. Because ... flesh. Cf. Gen. vi. 3; T. Jud. xix. 4.

Or émorpéyer may be rendered ‘return’ if we omit tpas.

Che SD venGes

8. bdg appear to be a Jewish expansion of aaefAS'. Thus 8” comes from Mal. iv. 2, suggested by ‘light of

(oe)

THE TESTAMENTS7@OP WHE WEY PATRIARCH s

oaerAr: bdg And ye shall return unto your land. And ye shall see [God in the fashion of a man] And ye shall see Him in Jerusalem, ‘for His | (the place) which the Lord shall choose, Jerusalem name’s sake! is its name.

g And again ‘through the wickedness of your works' shall ye provoke Him to anger, And ye shall be cast away ‘by Him!' unto the time of consummation. 1 And now, my children, grieve not that Iam dying, nor be cast down in that I am coming to my 2end. For I shall rise again in the midst of you, 'as a ruler in the midst of his sons'; and I shall rejoice in the midst of my tribe, as many as shall keep the law of the Lord, 'and the commandments 3 of Zebulun their father'. But upon the ungodly shall the Lord bring eternal fire, and destroy them 5 throughout all generations. But I am now hastening away to my rest, as did also my fathers. But 6 do ye fear the Lord 'our God with all your strength all the days of your life'!. And when he had 7 said these things he fell asleep, ‘at a good old age!. And his sons laid him in a ‘wooden! coffin. And afterwards they carried him up and buried him in Hebron, with his fathers.

THE TESTAMENT OF DAN, THE SEVENTH SON OF JACOB AND BILHAH.

1 The copy of the words of Dan, which he spake to his sons in his last days, in the hundred and 2 twenty-fifth year of his life. For he called together his family, and said: Hearken to my words, ye 3 sons of Dan; and give heed to the words ‘of your father'. I have proved in my heart, and in my

whole life, that truth with just dealing is good and well pleasing to God, and that lying and anger 4 are evil, because they teach man all wickedness. I confess, therefore, this day to you, my children, 5 that in my heart I resolved on the death of Joseph 'my brother’, the true and good man. [And 6 I rejoiced that he was sold, because his father loved him more than us.| For the spirit of jealousy 7 and vainglory said to me: Thou thyself also art his son. And one of the spirits of Beliar stirred me

up, saying: Take this sword, and ‘with it'slay Joseph: so shall thy father love thee when he is dead. 8 Now this is the spirit of anger that persuaded me to crush Joseph as a leopard crusheth a kid.

a oa Wile 9 But the God of my fathers did not suffer him But the God of Jacob our father did not deliver 9 to fall into my hands, so that I should find him | him into my hands that I should find him alone, alone and slay him, and cause a second tribe to | nor suffer me to work this iniquity, lest two tribes be destroyed in Israel. should be destroyed in Israel.

1 And now, my children, behold I am dying, and I tell you ofa truth, that unless ye keep yourselves from the spirit of lying and of anger, and love truth and longsuffering, ye shall perish.

c (alee. 2 For anger is blindness, and does not suffer one There is blindness in anger, my children, and 2 to see the face of any man with truth. | no angry man seeth the face with truth.

3 For though it be a father or a mother, ‘he behaveth towards them as enemies!'; though it be

a brother, he knoweth him not; though it be a prophet of the Lord, he disobeyeth him; though

see Him a: ‘see the Lord’ aefAS’. (the place) . . . its name b: ‘whom the Lord shall choose in Jerusalem for His name’s sake’ ¢: ‘and His name shall be called the angel of great counsel’ d. 9. by Him a: >8S!: ‘among the Gentiles’ A. X. I. be cast down, oupminrere. Cf. T. Jos. vii. I. ox, (Ce Ae AUG Ssqia MS 10s Ba Se, 7s Behe Lsasd0: throughout all generations: ‘from the children of Israel’ A. 6. good old age: ‘good sleep’ text. 3° was misread for 22’. Cf. T. Iss. vii. 9g; T. D. vii. 1, &c. woodena: >B8AS!. Cf. T. S. vii. 2. TITLE a: + ‘concerning anger (‘ wrath’ dg) and lying’ bdefgS': + ‘concerning arrogancy and hatred’ A. I. 3. just dealing. We expect longsuffering here, as in ii. i, vi. 8. 4. resolved a: rejoiced 8(A)S!: i.e. NNOY for NMwW. For Dan’s design, see T. Z. ii. 1. 5. Bracketed, as it breaks the connexion of 4 and 6. Pi Oh is 1a oe Fils a Te) stirred me up VY’. Text ‘helped me’ 11)’. 8. to crush ... a kid B-adfA: a has the order different. crush $1: emended from ‘suck’ =/'¥1. 9. Why ‘a second tribe’? AS} seems to have the better reading.

I]. 2. angry man: >‘angry’ aefAS}.

THE TESTAMENT OF DAN JT. 1=—-6.'2

4a righteous man, he regardeth him not; ‘though a friend, he doth not acknowledge him'. For the spirit of anger encompasseth him with the net of deceit, and blindeth his eyes, and through lying

5 darkeneth his mind, and giveth him its own peculiar vision. And wherewith encompasseth it his eyes? With hatred of heart, so as to be envious of his brother.

a B-a AS! 31 For anger is an evil thing, my children, for it For anger is an evil thing, my children, for it troubleth even the soul itself. becomes a soul to the soul itself.

2 And the body of the angry man it maketh its own, and over his soul it getteth the mastery, and 3 it bestoweth upon the body ‘power that it may work all! iniquity. And when the body does all 4 these things, the soul justifieth what is done, since it seeth not aright. Therefore he that is wrathful, if he be a mighty man, hath a threefold power in his anger: one by the help of his servants; and a second by his wealth, whereby he persuadeth and overcometh wrongfully ; and thirdly, having his 5 own natural power he worketh thereby the evil. And though the wrathful man be weak, yet hath 6 he a power twofold of that which is by nature; for wrath ever aideth such in lawlessness. This spirit goeth always with lying ‘at the right hand of Satan, that with cruelty and lying’ his works may be wrought. 41,2 Understand ye, therefore, the power of wrath, that it is tvain. For it first of all giveth provocation by word ; then by deeds it tstrengtheneth him who is angry, and with sharp losses disturbeth his 3 mind, and so stirreth up with great wrath his soul. Therefore, when any one speaketh against you, be not ye moved to anger, [and if any man praiseth you as holy men, be not uplifted: be not moved 4 either to delight or to disgust]. For first tit pleaseth the hearing}, and so maketh the mind keen to perceive the grounds for provocation ; and then being enraged, he thinketh that he is justly angry. 5 If ye fall into any loss or ruin, my children, ‘be not afflicted’; for this very spirit maketh (a man) 6 desire that which is perishable, in order that he may be enraged through the affliction. And if ye suffet loss voluntarily, or involuntarily, be not vexed ; for from vexation ariseth wrath ‘with lying’. 7 Moreover, a twofold mischief is wrath with lying ; and they assist one another in order to disturb the heart ; and when the soul is continually disturbed, the Lord departeth from it, and Beliar ruleth over it. 1 Observe, therefore, my children, the commandments of the Lord, And keep His law ; Depart from wrath, And hate lying, That the Lord may dwell among you, And Beliar may flee from you. 2 Speak truth each one with his neighbour. So shall ye not fall into wrath and confusion ; But ye shall be in peace, having the God of peace, So shall no war prevail over you.

4. spirit of anger .. . deceit: ‘spirit of deceit . . . nets of luxury’ A. 5- And... his eyes. A reads ‘And then it encompasses (him) with its own eye, and surrounds . with hatred ... brother a: ‘with hatred of heart and it giveth him its own heart (‘a heart hostile’ A: ‘a heart’ S*) so as to be envious of his brother’ be AS. Cf. df.

Ill. 1. it troubleth even a: ‘it becometh a soul to’ B-ag S', perhaps better. 2, power ag: ‘its own power’ B-gS!. 3. when the body ... aright a: ‘ when it doeth aught, the soul justifieth . . . seeth not’ BAS'. 4. a mighty man + ‘in body’ a. having . . . evil: ‘having the natural power of his body and of his own agency working’ 8A S'. 5. yet hath he... by nature 8AS': ‘the passion of anger springeth up in him with twofold power’ a. 6. Bracketed words >aA. 1V. 1. tvain. Read ‘a destroyer’. 2. giveth provocation : ‘is provoked’ waef. tstrengtheneth. Read ‘ embittereth’ or ‘ inciteth’. 3. The bracketed words are out of the context. 4. tit pleaseth the hearingt. Read ‘the thing said giveth provocation’, the grounds for provocation, reading 70 épeOicay for ré épebic bev a B-d g S'. 5. This spirit deceives in order to irritate. But A reads, ‘the spirit of error desired to do this thing, and to accomplish the ruin.’ affliction, rdfovs, a. ‘longing’, mdov, B S!. 7. Moreover .. . lying: >afg through hmt. God of peace. Cf. 1 Thess. v.23; Rom. xv. 33; Phil. iv. 9. war. Perles suggests ‘enemy’ modéptos for rédkeuos. Cf. Jer. i. 193 xv- 20.

THE ‘TESTAMENTS OF HE sIWELVE) PAPRIARCHS

Love the Lord through all your life,

And one another with a true heart.

I know that in the last days ye shall depart from the Lord, And ye shall provoke Levi unto anger,

And fight against Judah ;

But ye shall not prevail against them,

For an angel of the Lord shall guide them both;

For by them shall Israel stand.

And whensoever ye depart from the Lord, ye shall walk in all evil and work the abominations of the Gentiles, going a-whoring after women of the lawless ones, while with all wickedness the spirits of wickedness work ‘in you!. [For I have read in the book of Enoch, the righteous, that your prince is Satan, and that all the spirits of wickedness and pride will conspire to attend constantly on the sons of Levi, to cause them to sin before the Lord.

And my sons will draw near to Levi,

And sin with them in all things ;

And the sons of Judah will be covetous,

Plundering other men’s goods like lions. ]

Therefore shall ye be led away [with them] into captivity,

And there shall ye receive all the plagues of Egypt,

And all the evils of the Gentiles.

And so when ye return to the Lord ye shall obtain mercy, And He shall bring you into His sanctuary, And He shall give you peace.

And there shall arise unto you from the tribe of [Judah and of] Levi the salvation of the Lord ; And he shall make war against Beliar.

And execute an everlasting vengeance on our enemies ;

And the captivity shall he take from Beliar [the souls of the saints], And turn disobedient hearts unto the Lord,

And give to them that call upon him eternal peace.

And the saints shall rest in Eden,

And in the New Jerusalem shall the righteous rejoice,

3. Earliest literary authority for conjoining love to God and love to one’s neighbour. Cf. Matt. xxii. 37, 39. through all your life : ‘with all your soul’ hd. Cf. T. Iss. vii. 6; Sir. vii. 29, 30.

5. spirits of wickedness af: ‘spirits of fornication’ be A S}, i.e. mopveias for movnpias. Cf. v. 6.

6-7. Contradict v. 4, where Dan opposes Levi and Judah, who are led of God. These two verses refer to the demoralization under the later Maccabees, like T. L. x, xiv-xvi; T. Jud. xxi. 6—xxxiii; T- Z. ix.

6. The earliest authority we have for the connexion of Dan and the Antichrist. Dan in the O.T. was idolatrous, Judges xviii. 30; 1 Kings xii. 29; according to Ps.-Jon. on Deut. xxv. 18 Dan was the ‘hindmost’ and ‘feeblest’,

referred to in that verse ; while Jer. viii. 16 is interpreted by Irenaeus v. 30. 2 of the Antichrist (and so Dan is omitted Rev. vii. 5-8). Cf. Ber. rab. xlili on Jer. viii. 16.

book of Enoch. See T. L. x. 5 (note). righteous +‘ and I have known’ (‘found’ hi) chi. isaB: ‘will be’ AS}. all > af. conspire \qwp’, emended from \2°wp) ‘ obey’ in the text. . Sin with them. Levi was to lead Israel astray, T. L. x. 2. sons of Judah, &c. Cf. T. Jud. xxi. 6, 7. wlediaway. Cf TL) x4 sl exo: [with them], added by interpolator of 6-7. evils of the Gentiles. Cf. T. Z. ix.6; T.N. iv. 2. On whentye Tetiirn) .).. Mercy melee wx 7. He shall bring you, &c. Cf. T. Jud. xxiii. 5; T. Iss. vi. 3; T. A. vii. 7. give you peace. Cf. Haggai ii. g; 1 En. Ixxi. 17. 10; arise... salvation of the Lord. Cf TL. xviil..3-sewudsxxiv. 05. Zo 1X.15, S&C. the tribe of [Judah and of] Levi: The singular, ‘tribe,’ necessitates one name only. Only T. G. viii. I

(corrupt) puts Judah before Levi, and only T. Jud. xxiv. 5-6 (first century B.C.) and T. N. viii. 2 (corrupt) derive the Messiah from Judah.

war against Beliar. Cf. T. L. xviii. 12. ° everlasting. So I emend text ‘of victory’, which is due to a wrong rendering of ny) in Hebrew. our enemies }))3.)\N. So I emend from text ‘our fathers’ }3)n\IN.

11. the captivity = ‘ disobedient hearts’ enslaved through sin. Brackets show a Christian addition. turn disobedient, &c. Cf. Luke i. 17; and T. Z. ix. 8 (bdg). 12), Eden. (Chto xvillero.

the New Jerusalem bg A S!: ‘the kingdom of J.’,c; ‘the new Holy J.’, hi. This is the earliest occurrence of

o mw

THE TESTAMENT OF DAN 5. 3—7.

And it shall be unto the glory of God for ever. 13. And no longer shall Jerusalem endure desolation, Nor Israel be led captive ; For the Lord shall be in the midst of it [living amongst men], And the Holy One of Israel shall reign over it [in humility and in poverty ; and he who believeth on Him shall reign amongst men in truth]. 61,2 And now, fear the Lord, my children, and beware of Satan and his spirits. Draw near unto God and unto the angel that intercedeth for you, for he is a mediator between God and man, and for the 3 peace of Israel he shall stand up against the kingdom of the enemy. Therefore is the enemy eager 4 to destroy all that call upon the Lord. For he knoweth that upon the day on which Israel shall 5 repent, the kingdom of the enemy shall be brought to an end. For the very angel of peace shall 6 strengthen Israel, that it fall not into the extremity of evil. And it shall be in the time of the lawlessness of Israel, that the Lord will not depart from them, but will transform them into a nation 7 that doeth His will, for none of the angels will be equal unto him. And His name shall be in every place in Israel, 'and among the Gentiles'. 8 Keep, therefore, yourselves, my children, from every evil work, And cast away wrath and all lying, And love truth and long-suffering. And the things which ye have heard from your father, do ye ‘also' impart to your children [that the Saviour of the Gentiles may receive you; for he is true and long-suffering, meek and lowly, and 10 teacheth by his works the law of God]. Depart, therefore, from all unrighteousness, and cleave unto the righteousness of God, and your race will be saved for ever. And bury me near my fathers. 71,2 And when he had said these things he kissed them, and fell asleep at a good old age. And his sons buried him, And after that they carried up ‘his bones’, and placed them near Abraham, and 3 Isaac, and Jacob. [Nevertheless,'Dan' prophesied unto them that they should forget their God, and should be alienated from the land of their inheritance 'and from the race of Israel" and from the family of '}their seed.}"]

THE TESTAMENT OF NAPHTALI, THE EIGHTH SON OF JACOB AND BILHAH.

1: The copy of the testament of Naphtali, which he ordained at the time of his death in the hundred 2and thirtieth year of his life. When his sons were gathered together in the seventh month, on the 3 first day of the month, while still in good health, he made them a feast of food and wine. And after

the expression in Jewish literature. Cf. 1 En. xc. 29; also Ezek. xl, xlviii; Isa. liv. 11, 12, lx. 1; Rev. iii. 12, xxi. 2 Here it is Jerusalem rebuilt, v. 13. and it shall be unto: ‘which is’ «. 13. Brackets indicate Christian additions, though for the Messiah’s humility cf. T. Jud. xxiv. 1 (note).

VI. 1-7. A section complete in itself. Israel is between the opposing spiritual forces of God and of Satan. The reign of evil will end when Israel repents, therefore Satan seeks to destroy those who call upon God. Even in Israel’s lawlessness, the angel of peace is with them, to transform them into a nation doing the will of God.

2. intercedeth for you: ‘followeth with you’ c: ‘followeth us’ hi. Cf. T. L. v. 6 (note).

mediator between God and man. Cf. 1 Tim. ii. 5. Here of Michael cf. Jub. i. 29; Apoc. Mos. (ed. Tischendorf, p. 1); Jellinek, et ha-Midrasch, vi. 75; Jalk. Chad., f. 120. Later, about the time of Christ, Moses was regarded as mediator, Ass. Mos. i. 14, iil. 12. stand up. Cf. Dan. xii. I. against the kingdom of the enemy bg (A) S': ‘ before the kingdom of God’ adef. 4. repent a: ‘believe’ 8(A)S‘. If all Israel repent, redemption will come, Pesikt. 163, &c. See my Comm., p. 132. strengthen: ‘convert and strengthen’ c. that it fall not, &c. Cf. T. L.v. 6.

6. Two corrections have been made: 1. ‘not’ restored before ‘depart’; ii. ‘ will go over to’ (= 75h) intransitive)

emended to ‘ will transform them into’ = 75m) (transitive). doeth: ‘seeketh’ c.

7. Gentiles + ‘Saviour’ 8 S!.

Seals > a.

g. that the Saviour . . . receive you. A Christian addition. The rest may be Jewish. Cf. T. Jud. xxiv. 1.

io. the righteousness of + ‘the law of’ 8S’.

and your race >b. VII. 1. old age: ‘sleep’ c. See T. Z.x.6. For ‘eternal sleep’ 8 AS}, cf. T. Iss. vii. 9. 3. A later addition.

their God aS!: ‘the law of their God’ bd A.

ttheir seedt «a: ‘and so it came to pass’ f.

TITLE a: + ‘concerning natural goodness’ bde f A® f,

I. 1. hundred and thirtieth haefAS': ‘hundredth’ cg; ‘hundred and thirty-second’ bd. Cf. T. R. i. 1 Jub. xxviii. 11-24 (note in large edition).

2. while .. . health >a.

and wine >a.

THE TESTAMENTS OF | THE TWHEEVEr A CRIARCHS

4 he was awake in the morning, he said to them, I am dying; and they believed him not. And as he 5 glorified the Lord, he grew strong and said that after yesterday’s feast he should die. And he began 6 then to say: Hear, my children, ye sons of Naphtali, hear the words of your father. I was born from Bilhah, ‘and' because Rachel dealt craftily, and gave Bilhah in place of herself to Jacob, and she 7 conceived and bare me upon Rachel’s knees, ‘therefore she called my name Naphtali. For Rachel loved me very much because I was born upon her lap'; and when I was still young she was wont 8 to kiss me, and say: May I have a brother of thine from mine own womb, like unto thee. Whence 9 also Joseph was like unto me ‘in all things', according to the prayers of Rachel. Now my mother was Bilhah, daughter of Rotheus the brother of Deborah, Rebecca’s nurse, who was born on one and 10 the self-same day with Rachel. And Rotheus was of the family of Abraham, a Chaldean, God- 11 fearing, free-born, and noble. And he was taken captive and was bought by Laban; and he gave him Euna his handmaid to wife, and she bore a daughter, and called her name Zilpah, after the name 12 of the village in which he had been taken captive. And next she bore Bilhah, saying: My daughter hastens after what is new, for immediately that she was born she seized the breast and hastened to suck it. 2,; And I was swift ‘on my feet! like the deer, and my father Jacob appointed me for all messages, 2 and as a deer did he give me his blessing. For as the potter knoweth the vessel, how much it is to contain, and bringeth clay accordingly, so also doth the Lord make the body after the likeness of 3 the spirit, and according to the capacity of the body doth He implant the spirit. And the one does not fall short of the other bya third part of a hair; for by weight, and measure, and rule was all the 4 creation made. And as the potter knoweth the use of each vessel, what it is meet for, so also doth the Lord know the body, how far it will persist in goodness, and when it beginneth in evil. For 5 there is no inclination or thought which the Lord knoweth not, for He created every man after His own image. a B-agA 6 For as a man’s strength, so also is his work; As a man’s strength, so also is his work; and 6 as his teye, so also is his sleep; as his soul, so | as his mind, so also is his skill; ‘and as his also is his word either in the law of the Lord or | purpose, so also is his achievement; and as his in the law of Beliar. heart, so also is his mouth ;' as his feye, so also is his sleep ; as his soul, so also is his word, either in the law of the Lord or in the works of Beliar.

7 And as there is a division between light and darkness, between seeing and hearing, so also is there a division between man and man, and between woman and woman ; and it is not to be said that the 8 one is like the other either in face or in mind. 'For'God made all things good in their order, the five senses in the head, and He joined on the neck to the head, adding to it the hair also for comeliness and glory, then the heart for understanding, the belly for excrement, and the stomach for

4. grew strong a: ‘ affirmed’ 8 S!. that ... he should die 8 S!: ‘after . . . my body died’ a. > She a For the play on the words cf. Gen, xxx. 8. conceived and >£8S'. 7. May Ihave A: ‘ may I see’ B-g S!: a is corrupt. prayers bdA: ‘blessings’ aaefS'. 9-11. The aim is to show that Bilhah was of Semitic descent. Cf. e.g. Ps.-Jon. on Gen. xxix. 24, 29. 11. Zilpah, here a sister of Bilhah, as in Jub. xxviii. 9, and Ps.-Jon., &c.

12. Bilhah .. . hastens, i.e. baa nabs. for... tosuck it >aadg.

Il. 1. asadeer ... blessing. See Gen. xlix. 21.

2. accordingly haef: ‘unto it’ cd.

3. was all the creation made a: ‘was every creature of the Most High’ b A: ‘was every creature exalted’ def. For the weighing and measuring of all, cf. Job xxviii. 25; Isa. xl. 12; 1 En. xliii. 2; 4 Ezra iv. 36; also Wisd. xi. 20;

4. beginneth bd A: ‘cometh’ aef.

5. inclination, mAdopa = TN). See T. A. i. 3 (note).

created ... after His ownimage. Cf. Sir. xvii. 3. Earliest quotation (with Sirach) of Gen. i. 26, 27. 6. as his teye, so also is his sleep. Something is wrong. Perhaps for ‘ eye’ read ‘maw’, as in Berach, 61°. 8. the five senses. See T. R. ii. 3—iii. 1 (note). and He joined .. . head >aS'. Compare the lists of man’s powers and faculties in (1) Berach. 61>, (2) and (3) Othioth of ‘R. Akiba’ (ed. Jellinek, Bet ha-Medrasch, iii. 42, 43), (4) Hebrew T. Naph. x. 6, least akin to our text. heart for understanding, in (1) (2) (3) and practically (4). J belly for excrement, in (2). I read d:axopyow for dudkpiow. Perles neatly suggests that the Heb. was wp? =

‘for excrement ’, which the translator took for vnED els Stakpurir.

PHT rESTAMENT OF (NAPHTAER ll 4—5, 1

(grinding), the windpipe for taking in (the breath), the liver for wrath, the gall for bitterness, the spleen for laughter, the reins ‘for prudence, the muscles of the loins! for power, the lungs for drawing 9 in, the loins for strength, and so forth. So 'then', my children, let all your works be done in order 10 with good intent in the fear of God, and do nothing disorderly in scorn or out of its due season. For if thou bid the eye to hear, it cannot; so neither while ye are in darkness can ye do the works of light. 1 Be ye, therefore, not eager to corrupt your doings through covetousness or with vain words to beguile your souls; because if ye keep silence in purity of heart, ye shall understand how to hold 2 fast the will of God, and to cast away the will of Beliar. Sun and moon and stars change not their 3 order ; so do ye also change not the law of God in the disorderliness of your doings. The Gentiles went astray, and forsook the Lord, and changed their order, and obeyed stocks and stones, spirits of 4 deceit. But ye shall not be so, my children, recognizing in the firmament, in the earth, and in the sea, and in all created things, the Lord who made all things, that ye become not as Sodom, which 5 changed the order of nature. In like manner the Watchers also changed the order of their nature, whom the Lord cursed at the flood, on whose account He made the earth without inhabitants and fruitless. 1 These things I say unto you, my children, for I have read in the writing of Enoch that ye yourselves also shall depart from the Lord, walking according to all the lawlessness of the Gentiles, and 2 ye shall do according to all the wickedness of Sodom. And the Lord shall bring captivity upon you, and ‘there! shall ye serve your enemies, and ye shall be bowed down with every affliction and 3 tribulation, until the Lord have consumed you all. And after ye have become minished and made few, ye shall return and acknowledge the Lord your God ; and He shall bring you back into your 4 land, according to His abundant mercy. And it shall be, that after that they come into the land of 5 their fathers, they shall again forget the Lord and become ungodly. And the Lord shall scatter them upon the face of all the earth, until the compassion of the Lord shall come, a man working righteousness and working mercy unto all them that are afar off, and to them that are near. 1 For in the fortieth year of my life, I saw a vision on the Mount of Olives, on the east of Jerusalem,

stomach for (grinding) (‘ grinding’ supplied from (2)) = (1) (2) (3).

windpipe for taking in (text, ‘ reed for health’, corrupt) (2) (3). Cf. (1) (4), ‘sending out.’

gall for bitterness > (2) (4): (1) (3) ‘the gall sprinkles on it a drop and quiets it.’

reins for prudence (mavoupyia, as Prov. i. 4, viii. 5, LXX): ‘reins for counsel’ (2). Cf. (1) (3) (4), (1) and (2) tell us that the reins give both good and bad counsel. Cf. Eccles. x. 2.

muscles of the loins for power. No parallel; a dittography.

lungs for drawing in (2). Cf. (1) (3) (4). But our text is corrupt. mevpdy «is rd kabevdew as mAevpay eis

Onenv B-gS'. Read mArcbpova, WNWD AN. loins for strength. Cf. Deut. xxxili. 11. g. while in darkness ... light. Cf. John iii. 9. works of light. Cf. Eph. v. 9, ‘fruits of light.’

III. 1. with vain words to beguile. Cf. Eph. v. 6.

Beliar ad: ‘the devil’ B-d A2».

change 6 S!: ‘hide’ a: ‘hinder’ A. ih 3. stones a + ‘having followed after’ @AS'. a regards the stocks and stones as spirits of deceit. Lye 4.as Sodom. Cf. iv.1; T. B. ix. 1; Jude 7; 2 Pet. ii. 6. Jude 6 speaks of the angels who kept not rj éavrev apxny. 5. the Watchers. Cf. 1 En. vi ff.

without inhabitants. 1 En. ix. 2 (not Gk.), Ixvii. 2, Ixxxiv. 5.

IV. A first-century B.C. passage like Zeb. ix. The reference to Enoch and v. 4 support this view. 1. I have read bdg AS!: ‘I have known’ aaef. Soa did not at first mention Enoch. See T, L. x. 5 (note), be bowed down A: ‘be covered’ bgS: ‘dwell’ aadef. affliction and tribulation. Cf. T. Z. ix.6; T. D. v. 8; Ps. cvii. 39. 3. become minished and >a. bring you back. Cf. 2 Chron. vi. 25; T. Z. ix. 7. 4. again forget. Cf. T.Z.ix.9. Renewed apostasy under Seleucids or later Maccabees. 5. the compassion of the Lord: ‘the Lord’ A> (+‘ with compassion’ AP*¢4), Cf. T. Z. ix. 7. a man working righteousness, the Messiah, not a Maccabee. afar off. Isa. lvii. 19. V-VII. The hatred of Joseph here reflects Jewish hatred of Samaria. V. 1-5. This vision is hardly intelligible. Cf. Heb, T. Naph, ii. I. a vision >B8 AS).

THE TESTAMENTS cOF fhe (Welty Par hiakChs

2 that the sun and the moon were standing still. And behold Isaac, the father of my father, said to us; Run and lay hold of them, each one according to his strength; ‘and to him that seizeth them 3 will the sun and moon belong.’ And we all of us ran together, and Levi laid hold of the sun, and Judah outstripped the others and seized the moon, and they were both of them lifted up with them. 4 And when Levi became as a sun, ‘lo', a certain young man gave to him twelve branches of palm; 5 and Judah was bright as the moon, and under their feet were twelve rays. [And the two, Levi and 6 Judah, ran, and laid hold of them.] And lo, a bull upon the earth, with two great horns, and an 7 eagle’s wings upon its back; and we wished to seize him, but could not. But Joseph came, and g seized him, and ascended up with him on high. And I saw, for I was there, and behold a holy writing appeared to us, saying: Assyrians, Medes, Persians, [Chaldeans,] Syrians, shall possess in captivity the twelve tribes of Israel. 6: And again, after seven days, I saw our father Jacob standing by the sea of Jamnia, and we were 2 with him. And behold, there came a ship sailing by, without sailors or pilot; and there was written 3 upon the ship, The Ship of Jacob. And our father said to us: Come, let us embark on our ship. 4 And when he had gone on board, there arose a vehement storm, and a mighty tempest of wind; and 5 our father, who was holding the helm, departed from us. And we, being tost with the tempest, were borne along over the sea; and the ship was filled with water, (and was) pounded by mighty waves, 6 until it was broken up. And Joseph fled away upon a little boat, "and we were all divided upon nine 7 planks', and Levi and Judah were together. And we were all scattered unto the ends of the earth. 8, 9 Then Levi, girt about with sackcloth, prayed for us all unto the Lord. And when the storm ceased, the ship reached the land ‘as it were! in peace. And, lo, our father came, and we all rejoiced with one accord. 71 These two dreams I told to my father; and he said to me: These things must be fulfilled in their season, after that Israel hath endured many things. 2 Then my father saith unto me: I believe God that Joseph liveth, for I see ‘always! that the Lord numbereth him with you. And he said, weeping: Ah me, my son Joseph, thou livest, though I behold thee not, and thou seest not Jacob that begat thee. He caused me also, therefore, to weep by these words, and I burned in my heart to declare that "Joseph! had been sold, but I feared my brethren. 81 And lo! my children, I have shown unto you the last times, how everything shall come to pass in z Israel. Do ye also, 'therefore', charge your children that they be united to Levi and to Judah; For through them shall salvation arise unto Israel, And in them shall Jacob be blessed.

2~3. Cf. Heb. T. Naph. ii. 2-4, which adds ‘ nine stars’. Cf. Gen. xxxvii. 9. 4. This obscure verse is given differently in Heb. T. Naph. ii. 4-6. 5. Dittography of 32° @A S' read ‘ran to each other and laid hold of each other’. 6-8. In the Heb. T. Naph. Joseph holds aloof (ii), but finally (iii) mounts a great bull and rides for four hours (the 400 years until the division of the kingdoms). In the end a storm disperses the tribes (the captivity). Our text in v. 8 goes on to the Syrian (Seleucid) rule. 6. a bull, &c. Cf. Deut. xxxili. 17. eagle’s wings: like a stork’s, according to Heb. T. Naph. iii. 1.

7. came and seized a: ‘ got ahead and took’ £.

8. for I was there a8-dS!: ‘ for we were (‘that he was’ A) in paradise’ d A. Persians + ‘Elamites, Gelachians’ (‘ Chelkaeans’ ae f) 8. [Chaldeans]. In the wrong order. It should be before ‘ Medes’.

2. sailing by + ‘full of salt fish’ BA omdy dn, a corrupt dittography in Heb. of ond xba ‘without sailors’. : 4. departed a 8-b gS!: ‘ flew away’ bg A: ‘was hidden’ Heb. T. Naph. vi. 1. 5. pounded . .. waves 8-dfAS!: ‘borne along’ a: ‘and the waves of the sea smote it to the rock’ Heb. T. until: text has ‘so that’, 6. Joseph = Samaria. nine a: ‘ten’ BS 8. for us all >a: ‘for us’ A.

VII. 1. The repeated dream showed the matter was established, Gen. xli. 32; Heb. T. Naph. vii. 1-5. 3. Ahme > BAS.

Joseph > 8 AS}.

VIII. 2. united to Levi and to Judah. Cf. Heb. T. Naph.i. 8. Cf. T. D. v. 10 (note). ' through them... in them: text = ‘through Judah... in him’. But salvation comes through Levi and Judah jointly. See T. R. vi. 512 (note).

THE TESTAMENT OF NAPHTALI 5. 2—9. 3

3 For through their tribes shall God appear [dwelling among men] on earth, To save the race of Israel, And to gather together the righteous from amongst the Gentiles. 4 If ye work that which is good, my children, ‘Both! men and angels shall bless you; And God shall be glorified among the Gentiles through you, And the devil shall flee from you, "And the wild beasts shall fear you’, And the Lord shall love you, [And the angels shall cleave to you]. 5 Asa man who has trained a child well is kept in kindly remembrance ; So also for a good work there is a good remembrance before God. 6 But him that doeth not that which is good, ‘Both! angels and men shall curse, And God shall be dishonoured among the Gentiles through him, And the devil shall make him as his own peculiar instrument, And every wild beast shall master him, And the Lord shall hate him. 7 For the commandments of the law are twofold, ‘And! through prudence must they be fulfilled. 8 For there is a season for a man to embrace his wife, And a season to abstain therefrom for his prayer. 9 So, then, there are two commandments; and, unless they be done in due order, they bring ‘very to great'sin ‘upon men’. So also is it with the other commandments. Be ye therefore wise in God, ‘my children', and prudent, understanding the order of His commandments, and the laws of every word, that the Lord may love you.

9:1 And when he had charged them with many such words, he exhorted them that they should 2 remove his bones to Hebron, and that they should bury him with his fathers. And when he had 3 eaten and drunken with a merry heart, he covered his face and died. And his sons did according to

all that Naphtali their father had commanded them.

THE TESTAMENT OF GAD, THE NINTH SON OF JACOB AND ZILPAH.

1: The copy of the testament of Gad, what things he spake unto his sons, in the hundred and twenty- 2 fifth year of his life, saying unto them: '‘Hearken, my children’, I was the ninth son born to Jacob,

3 and I was valiant in keeping the flocks. Accordingly I guarded ‘at night! the flock; and whenever the lion came, ‘or the wolf’, or any wild beast against the fold, I pursued it, and ‘overtaking (it)’

4 I seized its foot with my hand and hurled it about a stone’s throw, and so killed it. Now Joseph ‘my brother’ was feeding the flock with us for upwards of thirty days, and being young, he fell sick

3. their tribes: text = ‘his tribe’, a Christian alteration. [dwelling among men]: a Christian interpolation ? the righteous from amongst the Gentiles, or ‘ the righteous of the Gentiles’, i.e. conversion of the Gentiles. 4-6. Verses 4 and 6 are antithetic, so bracket 48, 4. Both >aA. devil . .. flee: James iv. 7. And the Lord shall love you: eg A**edefS: >aabdf. But cf. 6', while 48 looks like a dittography in the Hebrew. 6. And God... . through him > a. 8. Cf. Eccles. iii. 5 and 1 Cor. vii. 5—‘a season . . . unto prayer’. g. there are two commandments: ‘the two (commandments) of God are’ aef. very ...mena: ‘sin’ BAS}

TITLE a: +‘ concerning hatred’ B-ad(A)S. I. 1. hundred and twenty-fifth. So Midrash Tadshe; Shemoth rab. i. 5 ; Jashar (ii. 1246). 3. Cf. Judah’s feats, T. Jud. ii.

Accordingly a: >8S.

came +‘ or leopard or bear’ be g A S}. aa

or any wild beast > a.

overtaking ... seized a: ‘seizing’ BA S4.

hurled .. . throw a: ‘whirling it round I stunned it, and having hurled it over two furlongs’ 3-dS'. For

Gad’s strength cf. Ber. rabba xcv, 4.

4. young aS?: ‘delicate’ BA.

5 by reason of the heat. And he returned to Hebron to our father, who made him lie down near him, 6 because he loved him greatly. And Joseph told our father that the sons of 'Zilpah and! Bilhah were slaying the best ‘of the flock' and eating them against the judgement of Reuben and Judah. 7 For he saw that I had delivered a lamb out of the mouth of a bear, and put the bear to death; but 8 had slain the lamb, being grieved concerning it that it could not live, and that we had eatenit. And 9 regarding this matter I was wroth with Joseph ‘until the day that he was sold. And the spirit of hatred was in me’, and I wished not either to hear of Joseph with the ears, or see him with the eyes, because he rebuked us to our faces ‘saying’ that we were eating of the flock without Judah. For whatsoever things he told our father, he believed him. t I confess now my sin, my children, that oftentimes I wished to kill him, because I hated him from 2 my heart. Moreover, I hated him yet more for his dreams ; and I wished to lick him out of the land of the living, even as an ox licketh up the grass of the field.

3 And Judah sold him secretly to the Ishmael- Therefore I and Simeon sold him to the Ish- 3 ites. | maelites [for thirty pieces of gold, and ten of them

we hid, and showed the twenty to our brethren]. And thus through covetousness we were bent 4

on slaying him.

5 Thus the God of our fathers delivered him And the God of my fathers delivered him from 5 from our hands, that we should not work great | my hands, that I should not work lawlessness in lawlessness in Israel. Israel.

, And now, my children, hearken to the words of truth to work righteousness, and all the law of the Most High, and go not astray through the spirit of hatred, for it is evil in all the doings of 2men. Whatsoever a man doeth the hater abominateth him: and thougha man worketh the law of the Lord, he praiseth him not; though a man feareth the Lord, and taketh pleasure in that which is 3 righteous, he loveth him not. He dispraiseth the truth, he envieth him that prospereth, he weicometh evil-speaking, he loveth arrogance, for hatred blindeth his soul ; as I falso 'then* looked} on Joseph. 1 Beware, therefore, my children of hatred; for it worketh lawlessness ‘even’ against the Lord Him- 2 self. For it will not hear 'the words of! His commandments concerning the loving of one’s neigh- 3 bour, ‘and! it sinneth against God. ‘For if a brother stumble’, it delighteth immediately to proclaim it to all men, and is urgent that he should be judged for it, and be punished and be put to death. 4 And if it be a servant it stirreth him up against his master, and with every affliction it deviseth against 5 him, if possibly he can be put to death. For hatred worketh with envy also against them that prosper: so long as it heareth of or seeth their success, it always languisheth. 6 For as love would quicken ‘even! the dead, and would call back them that are condemned to die, so hatred would slay the living, and those that had sinned venially it would not suffer to live. 7 For the spirit of hatred worketh together with Satan, through hastiness of spirit, in all things to men’s death ; but the spirit of love worketh together with the law of God in long-suffering unto the salvation of men.

6. Ps.-Jon. on Gen. xxxvii. 2 says Joseph reported that Zilpah and Bilhah’s sons were eating flesh cut from the living animal. ?

7. eaten it + ‘and he told our (‘his’ A?) father’ b AP.

g. to hear. A only.

Il. 1. from my heart aA: gas Wuyis B-g S\. 2; Oe Ma OR ee to lick. Cf. Num. xxii. 4 and T. D.i. 8: ‘to blot out’ dA (?ag). 3-5. BAS! show Christian influence, e.g. the thirty pieces. Gen. xxxviil. 28 gives ‘ twenty pieces of silver’. 2. Simeon B-bAS*. \ Cf. 1. Z, ii2 and De S.iv. zeae udah abou Cl alan a lnOn Gen. XXKVilezos of gold: LXX of Gen. alone. 4. we were B-bgS!: ‘I was’ bg A. 5. delivered. Cf. T. S. ii. 8.

lll. 2. Whatsoever a man doeth ... him 6-fgS: ‘Whatsoever the hater doeth is abominable’ a A. 3. envieth. Contrast 1 Cor. xiii. 4.

prospereth, or ‘ doeth right ’. ;

I talso looked ont. Read perhaps ‘it blinded me also in regard to’.

IV.3. For... stumble’@is) Cf Galvvira. aA; delighteth 6 A S': ‘hasteneth’ a. 4. stirreth ... up against a8S!: ‘slandereth’ A. it deviseth against b S!: ‘it rejoiceth over’ a B-b. Perhaps omit ‘ with’ before ‘ every affliction’. 5. also against, or ‘and with regard to’; connecting with following words. 7. hastiness of spirit. Cf. LXX on Exod. vi. 9; Pss. Sol. xvi. 11.

THE TESTAMENT OF GAD 1.-5—6. 4

51 ‘Hatred, therefore, is evil’, for it constantly mateth with lying, speaking against the truth; and it maketh small things to be great, and causeth the light to be darkness, and calleth the sweet bitter, and teacheth slander, and 'kindleth’ wrath, and ‘stirreth! up war, and violence and all covet-

2 ousness ; it filleth the heart with evils and devilish poison. These things, 'therefore', 1 say to you from experience, my children, that ye may drive forth hatred, which is of the devil, and cleave to 3 the love of God. Righteousness casteth out hatred, humility destroyeth envy. For he that is just and humble is ashamed to do what is unjust, being reproved not of another', but of his own heart, 4 because the Lord looketh on pe inliaton He speaketh not against a holy man, because the fear 5 of God overcometh hatred. \A*or fearing lest he should offend the Lord, he will not do wrong to any 6, 7 man, even in thought. These things I learnt at last, after I had repented concerning Joseph. For true repentance after a godly sort [destroyeth ignorance, and] driveth away the darkness, and g enlighteneth the eyes, and giveth knowledge to the soul, and leadeth the mind to, salvation. And g those things which it hath not learnt from man, it knoweth through repentance. [Por God brought upon me a disease of the liver; and had not the prayers of Jacob my father succoured me, it had to hardly failed but my spirit had departed.) For by what things a man transgresseth, by the same also 11 is he punished, \Since, ‘therefore’, my liver was set mercilessly against Joseph, in my liver too I suffered mercilessly, and was judged for eleven months, for so long a time as I had been angry against Joseph. 1 And now, my children, 'I exhort you', love ye each one his, brother, and put away hatred from 2 your hearts, love one another-in deed, and in word, and in the inclination of the soul. For in the presence of my father I spake peaceably to Joseph ; and when I had gone out, the spirit of hatred darkened my mind, and stirred up my soul to slay him.

a Dire.

3 Love ye one another from the heart; and if Love ye, therefore, one another from the heart ; aman sin against thee, speak peaceably to him, | and if a man sin against thee, cast forth the and in thy soul hold not guile; and if he repent | poison of hate and speak peaceably to him, and and confess, forgive him. in thy soul hold not guile ; and if he confess and

’ repent, forgive him.

4 But if he deny it, do not get into a passion with him, lest catching the poison from thee he take

V. 1. mateth with lying. Cf. Sir. xx. 25. causeth ... darkness. Cf. Isa. v. 20. kindleth: ‘disturbeth’ a: > BAS). stirreth up > BAS). 2. God cid A: ‘the Lord’ h#-dS. 3. envy agA>*: ‘hatred’ abeA®Pedefs, the Lord looketh on. Cf. 1 Sam. xvi. 7. his inclination 8-dA S!: ‘his soul’ a. 4. God c8-be: ‘ Most High’ bAS}. overcometh hatred 8 AS}: ‘dwelleth in him’ a, by corruption in the Hebrew original. pamrons. .. even in thought. (Cf Ti Jos; ix, 2; Matt. v. 21, 27. 7. repentance after a godly sort... salvation. Cf. 2 Cor. vii. 10; Sir. iv. 22. Bracketed words are a

8. So B-afS'. ‘ and it hath not learnt this from man, but it knoweth how to receive those who return through repentance’ a. For ‘it . . . repentance’ A reads ‘repentance knoweth’.

of Jacob >a. succoured me, ¢Bo7Onody po, aA: >B-aS: épOacav a. Cf. T. Jud. xix. 2 (note). to. Cf. Jub. iv. 31, 32. For the popularity of the doctrine of retaliation in the second century B.C. cf. 2 Macc. v. Lo, also >a. 11. eleven months 8 AS: ‘ten periods’ a. Joseph + ‘until he was sold’ BAS.

VI. 1. in the inclination of the soul. Cf. 1 Chron. xxix. 18.

3-7. A unique passage in ancient literature on the subject of forgiveness. It shows remarkable insight, and the diction and thought are closely parallel to Luke xvii. 3; Matt. xviii. 15. Forgiveness is perfect when we gain our offending brother, and restore him to communion with ourselves. But we can at least cast out our own anger, even if he is not reconciled.

3. ifamansin. Cf. Matt. xviii. 15; Luke xvii. 3. On the duty of rebuke, cf. Lev. xix. 17.

the poison BAS*. Cf. v. 4. peaceably ... not guile. Contrast Jer. ix. 7. 5 ifhe ... repent, forgive. Cf. Luke xvii. 3.

4. catching the poison from thee, in text follows ‘intent’ in v. 5, i.e. was separated from its context by the

interpolation, v. 5.

5 to swearing and so thou sin doubly. [Let not another man hear thy secrets when engaged in legal

strife, lest he come to hate thee and become thy enemy, and commit a great sin against thee; for

6 ofttimes he addresseth thee guilefully or busieth himself about thee with wicked intent.] And

though he deny it and yet have a sense of shame when reproved, give over reproving him. For he

who denieth may repent so as not again to wrong thee; yea, he may also honour thee, and [fear

7 and] be at peace with thee. And if he be shameless and persist in his wrong-doing, even so forgive him from the heart, and leave 'to God the avenging.

71 Ifaman prospereth more than you, do not be vexed, but pray also for him', that he may have

2 perfect prosperity. For so it is expedient for you. And if he be further exalted, be not envious ‘of

him’, remembering that all flesh shall die; and offer praise to God, who giveth things good and ~

3 profitable to all men. Seek out the judgements of the Lord, and thy mind will rest and be at peace. 4 And though a man become rich by evil means, even as Esau, the brother of my father, be not jeal- 5 ous; ‘but! wait for the end of the Lord. For if he taketh away (from a man) wealth gotten by evil 6 means He forgiveth him if he repent, but the unrepentant is reserved for eternal punishment. For the poor man, if free from envy he pleaseth the Lord in all things, is blessed beyond all men, because 7 he hath not the travail of vain men. Put away, therefore, jealousy from your souls, and love one another with uprightness of heart. 8 1 Do ye also therefore tell these things to your children, that they honour +Judah and Levit, for from 2 them shall the Lord raise up salvation to Israel. [For I know that at the last your children shall depart from Him, and shall walk in all wickedness, and affliction and corruption before the Lord.] 3 And when he had rested for a little while, he said again; My children, obey your father, and bury 4,5 me near to my fathers. And he drew up his feet, and fell asleep in peace. And after five years they carried him up to Hebron, and laid him with his fathers.

THE TESTAMENT OF ASHER, THE TENTH SON OF JACOB AND ZILPAH.

11 The copy of the Testament of Asher, what things he spake to his sons in the hundred and 2 twenty-fifth year of his life. ‘For! while he was still in health, he said to them: Hearken, ye children of Asher, to your father, and I will declare to you all that is upright in the sight of the Lord.

addresseth abfg: ‘slayeth’deAS. 6. reproving a: ‘bringing forth’ 8 (S'). repeat Ct, labs var: so as not ... wrong: ‘of having wronged’ a. yea ... at peace: ‘and he may [fear and] be at peace’ a. [fear and]. ‘fear’ 35M a corrupt dittograph of 170 ‘honour ’. 7. leave to God the avenging. Cf. Rom. xii. 19. A is here defective. leave, lit. ‘give’.

VII. 1-7. High ethical teaching like vi. 3-7. We must banish envy, when a rival prospers. 1. have perfect prosperity : ‘be perfected’ af. 3. rest, emended: ‘shine’ a: ‘not (>bf) leave’ B-a. 5. wealth A: ‘them’ other texts, corruptly. wealth gotten by evilmeans. Cf. Prov. xiii. 11 (Peshitto, Targum, and LXX). is reserved a(A): ‘he reserveth’ bdefgS'. ; : : for eternal punishment dA: ‘for ever the punishment’ abefg, which requires ‘for the unrepentant as in bdefgS!. 6. the poor man if free a: ‘the man who is poor and free’ B-a A S'. pleaseth a: ‘giveth thanks to’ B-aAS'. blessed WN: texts have ‘rich’ WY. Cf. Pirge Aboth iv. 3. _ travail of vain men, a: ‘evil travail of men’ BAS". Cf. Eccles. i. 13, iv. 8, v. 13. 7. jealousy: ‘hatred’ text. uprightness. See T. Iss. ili. 1 (note).

VIII. 1. tJudah and Levit. Read ‘Levi and Judah’. See T. R. vi. 5-12 (note); T. D. v. 10 ; TAB: xi. 2. k Lord raise up salvation (+ ‘unto you’ hi) hig A: ‘Lord the Saviour arise unto you’ adef: ‘Lord raise up a Saviour’ bS: ‘Lord, salvation, arise unto us’ c. 2. First century B.C. addition. : at the last >a. before: ‘from’ a. 4. drew up his feet a: ‘kissed his sons’ A. " ee 5. five years. If Gad lived 125 years (i. 1), and was born 2131 A.M. (Jub. xxviil. 20), he died in 2256, and was buried 2261 a.m. But Benjamin was buried in the gist year after Israel went down into Egypt (T. B. xii. 3) in 2172 A.M. (Jub. xly. 1), i.e. in 2263, which is also the date of the war between Egypt and Canaan (Jub. xlvi.9; T. S. viii. 2;

T. B. xii. 3). Is b then right, in T. G. i. 1, in reading 127 years? TITLE a: + ‘concerning the two faces of vice (‘duplicity’ A) and virtue’ bdefA Sim I. 2. upright, a play in Hebrew on 1 and TWN.

THE TESTAMENT OF ASHER 1. 1—2. 8

3 Two ways hath God given to the sons of men, and two inclinations, ‘and two kinds of action, and

4 two modes (of action)', and ‘two! issues. Therefore all things are by twos, one over against the

5 other. ‘For! there are two ways of good and evil, and +with these are the two inclinations in our

6 breasts discriminating them}. Therefore if the soul take pleasure in the good (inclination), all its

7 actions are in righteousness ; and if it sin it straightway repenteth. For, having its thoughts set upon righteousness, and casting away wickedness, it straightway overthroweth the evil, and uprooteth

8the sin. But if it incline to the evil inclination, all its actions are in wickedness, and it driveth away the good, and cleaveth to the evil, and is ruled by Beliar; even though it work what is good,

9 he perverteth it to evil. For whenever it beginneth to do good, he forceth the issue of the action into evil for him, seeing that the treasure of the inclination is filled with an evil spirit.

1 A person then may with words help the good for the sake of the evil, yet the issue of the action

2 leadeth to mischief. There is a man who showeth no compassion upon him who serveth his turn in

3 evil ; and this thing hath two aspects, but the whole is evil. And there is a man that loveth him that worketh evil, because he would prefer ‘even! to die in evil for his sake ; and concerning this it is clear that it hath two aspects, but the whole is an evil work.

a BS!

4 7}Though indeed he have love, yet is he wicked Though indeed there is love, yet it is wicked 4 who concealeth what is evil for the sake of the | as it concealeth what is evil; now this thing good name}, but the end of.the action tendeth | seemeth good in name, but the end of the action unto evil. tendeth unto evil.

5 Another stealeth, doeth unjustly, plundereth, defraudeth, and withal pitieth the poor: this ‘too! 6 hath a twofold aspect, but the whole is evil. He who defraudeth his neighbour provoketh God, and sweareth falsely against the Most High, and yet pitieth the poor: the Lord who commandeth the 7 law he setteth at nought and provoketh, and yet he refresheth the poor. He 'defileth the soul, and’ maketh gay the body; he killeth many, and pitieth a few: this, too, hath a twofold aspect, but the 8 whole is evil. Another committeth adultery and fornication, and abstaineth from meats, and when he fasteth he doeth evil, and by the power of his wealth overwhelmeth many ; and notwithstanding

3. Two ways. Earliest occurrence of this phrase in Jewish literature. Cf. Jer. xxi. 8 and 2 En. xxx. 15 (my note). two inclinations. The oldest reference to the good yeser. See my Commentary zz J/oc., also my ed. 2 Bar. 92-93. For the evil yeser cf. Hebrew Sir. xv. 14, Sir. xxi. 11, xxvii. 5-6. The good impulse is free from Beliar’s power (T. B. vi. 1), admits no evil desire (T. R. iv. 9), receives no glory from men (T. B. vi. 4). God knows (T. N. ii. 5) and tries it (T. Jos. ii. 6), rewards according to it (T. Jud. xiii. 8). The yeser is blinded by fornication (T. Jud. xviii. 3), and the evil yeser blinds the mind (T. Jud. xi. 1). 4. all things are by twos. Cf. v.13; Sir. xxxvi. 15, xlii. 24; Eccles. vii. 14. 5. twith these are ... discriminating themt, perhaps a Hebraism for ‘and these . . . discriminate.’ 6. The right of choice belongs to the soul, as to the ‘ spirit of the understanding of the mind’ in T. Jud. xx. r. in the good 8 AS': ‘to walk in goodness’ a, all its actions are: ‘it does all its actions’ a. 7. The modes of the good yeser’s action. 8. if it incline to the evil inclination: ‘if the inclination incline to evil’ text. But the subject here should be ‘the soul’ as in v. 6. So ‘its’ (actions) = adras, not avrod. cleaveth to ch: ‘receiveth’ BAS}. - ruled by Beliar. The evil tendency is identified with Satan in Baba Bathra 16%, and is a strange god, Shabg. to do: ‘as though to do’ BAS1. into evil for him a: ‘ into evil doing’ B-bA S'. treasure of the inclination, a play on words, i.e. V8 TIN. Cf. Matt. xii. 35 ‘evil man .. . evil treasure’, is filled with: ‘is born from’ g. an evil spirit : ‘the poison of the evil spirit’ 8-dg: ‘evil poison of the wickedness of the spirit’ A.

II. 1. help. So I emend for various corrupt readings, e.g. dgicraca, a. the issue . . . leadeth, or ‘ it (the soul) leadeth the issue’. 2. him . . . evil: ‘those who serve his turn’ a. 3. worketh evil: + ‘which thing is wickedness’ a: +‘since he also (‘likewise he’ beg) is in wickedness’ bdefgASi. for his sake >a A. 4. A has ‘ Though they love, yet are they evil’, &c. concealeth : read ‘ loveth’, unless a sentence has been lost before 4. 6. the law >a. 7. but the whole is evilc8-bA: >hb. 8. adultery ... abstaineth from meats. Contrast T. Jos. ix. 2. and fornication > hi. the power of his wealth: ‘his power and his wealth’ bdg A. notwithstanding : texts read ‘after’.

THE TESTAMENTS O@) Titiic DWN er Ad RIA CHS

his excessive wickedness he doeth ‘the! commandments: this, too, hath a twofold aspect, but the 9 whole is evil. Such men are hares; clean,—like those that divide the hoof, but in very deed are 10 unclean. For God in the tables of the commandments hath thus declared. 31 But do not ye, my children, wear two faces like unto them, of goodness and of wickedness; but 2 cleave unto goodness only, for God hath his habitation therein, and men desire it. But from wickedness flee away, destroying the (evil) inclination by your good works ; for they that are double-faced serve not God, but their own lusts, so that they may please Beliar and men like unto themselves. 1 For good men, even they that are of single face, though they be thought by them that are double- 2 faced to sin, are just before God. For many in killing the wicked do two works, of good and evil ; 3 but the whole is good, because he hath uprooted and destroyed that which is evil. One man hateth the merciful and unjust man, and the man who committeth adultery and fasteth : this, too, hath a twofold aspect, but the ‘whole! work is good, because he followeth the Lord’s example, in that he 4 accepteth not the seeming good as the genuine good. Another desireth not to see a good day with them that riot, lest he defile his body and pollute his soul : this, too, is double-faced, but the whole is 5 good. For such men are like to stags and to hinds, because in the manner of wild animals they seem to be unclean, but they are altogether clean ; because 'they walk! in zeal for the Lord and abstain from what God also hateth and forbiddeth by His commandments, warding off the evil from the good. Br Ye see, my children, how that there are two ‘in all things', one against the other, and the one is hidden by the other: ‘in wealth (is hidden) covetousness, in conviviality drunkenness, in laughter 2 grief, in wedlock profligacy'. Death succeedeth to life, 'dishonour to glory', night to day, and darkness to light ; [and all things are under the day, just things under life, ‘unjust things under 3 death';] wherefore also eternal life tawaiteth death. Nor may it be said that truth is a lie, nor 4 right wrong ; for all truth is under the light, ‘even as all things are under God'. All these things, therefore, I proved in my life, and I wandered not from the truth of the Lord, and I searched out the commandments of the Most High, walking according to all my strength with singleness of face unto that which is good. 61 Take heed, therefore, ye also, my children, to the commandments of the Lord, following the truth 2 with singleness of face. For they that are double-faced are guilty of a twofold sin ; ‘for they both do the evil thing and they have pleasure in them that do it’, following the example of. the spirits of 3 deceit, and striving against mankind. Do ye, ‘therefore, my children,' keep the law of the Lord, and give not heed unto evil as unto good ; but look unto the thing that is really good, and keep it in all

g. are haresaS'. Cf. Lev. xi.6; Deut. xiv. 7. ‘are like swine’ bdgA (+‘hares’ bdg). clean like those that divide the hoof. Texts read dru é& ijpuceias kaOapoi. Here dre && tpuoeias = DIED 93 corrupt for D'}D MD. Cf. Ber. rab. xxii. 13. Cf. Perles, who, however, wrongly rejects ka@apoi. 10. tables of the commandments: ‘ heavenly tablets’ BAS}. Cf. T. L.v. 43; T. A. vii. 5 (@AS?).

III. 1. God: ‘Lord God’ a,

2. destroying . . . by your good works. Master the evil tendency by obedience to the law. Cf. Sir. xxi. 11. the (evil) inclination. See notes on i. 3-9, and cf. T. Jud. xi. 1. ‘the devil? 8AS*. See Sir. xxi. 27. serve not God, but: ‘are not Gods, but serve’ a.

M/S SEB SOTO TIS Uys Fok, this, too, hath a twofold aspect: ‘he also is double-faced’ adg. accepteth : ‘ expecteth’ a. as the genuine good, emended from ‘with the genuine good’ (‘ evil’ 8) aA*». 4. Asceticism is bad in itself. a good day. Cf. Esther viii. 17: ‘good days’ c: Pss. xxxiv. 12 (LXX). 5. Seems corrupt. Lord a: ‘God’ BAS}. what God . . . commandments h #-g S!: ‘what God hateth’ c: ‘what God also ordereth them through His commandments to hate’ A. warding ef: ‘and they ward’ bd S!: ‘and to ward’ A: ca omit this and the following words: h g defective.

in wealth . . . covetousness > a. profligacy a: ‘intemperance’aeS?!: >f. 2. Brackets indicate intrusions. eternal life. Cf. Dan. xii. 1; 1 En, xxxvii. 4, xl. 9, &c. tawaiteth, we expect ‘followeth on’. 4. with singleness ... good >a.

VI. 2. are guilty of a twofold sin: ‘are chastened doubly’ text. Cf. 1 En. v. 9. following .. . striving: ‘evil spirits hate ye which (‘because they’ d) strive’ bdgA. of deceit and striving a: ‘of evil which strive’ aefS?.

THE TESTAMENT OF ASHER 2. 9—8. 2

4 commandments of the Lord, having your conversation therein, and resting therein. For the latter ends of men do show their righteousness (or unrighteousness), when they meet the angels of the

5 Lord and of Satan. For when the soul departs troubled, it is tormented by the evil spirit which also it served in fusts and evil works. ;

6 But if he is peaceful with joy he meeteth the But if peacefully ‘with joy', he hath met the 6 angel of peace, and he leadeth him into eternal | angel of peace, he tcomforteth him with life. life.

a 1 Become not, my children, as Sodom, which sinned against the angels of the Lord, and perished for 2ever. For I know that ye shall sin, and be delivered into the hands of your enemies ; ‘and! your land shall be made desolate, and your holy places destroyed, and ye shall be scattered unto the four 3 corners of the earth. And ye shall be set at nought in the dispersion vanishing away as water. Until the Most High shall visit the earth, coming Himself [as man, with men eating and drinking], and breaking the head of the dragon in the water. He shall save Israel and all the Gentiles [God speaking in 4 the person of man]. [Therefore do ‘ye also, my children', tell these things to your children, that they 5 disobey Him not. For I have known that ye shall assuredly be disobedient, and assuredly act ungodly, not giving heed to the law of God, but to the commandments of men, being corrupted 6 through wickedness. And therefore shall ye be scattered as Gad and Dan my brethren, and ye shall 7 know not your lands, tribe, and tongue. But the Lord will gather you together in faith through His tender mercy, ‘and! for the sake of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.’ 8: And when he had said these things unto them, he commanded them, saying: Bury me in Hebron. 2 And he fell asleep and died at a good old age. And his sons did as he had commanded them, and they carried him up to Hebron, and buried him with his fathers.

4-6. A man’s latter end reveals his true character. The idea that good or evil angels meet the soul at death as it leaves the body occurs here first in Jewish literature. Cf. Kethuboth 104%, and see my Comm. 168, 169. 4. when they meet 11))": text corrupt. ‘and are known to’ ? IY)" a (cf. T. A. vii. 1): ‘and they know’ = 7° EL AGE TSISS the angels: ‘the law’ A. Satan: ‘ Beliar’ a. .5. troubled BA S!: ‘evil’ a. 6. with joy > AS‘. Possibly a corruption for ‘departs’, or else read with following words. meeteth: ‘shall know’ a: ‘knew’ BAS? angel of peace. Cf. T. D. vi. 5. feadeth a) (Cf. 2. Bo vi. i tcomforteth A, corrupt for ‘leadeth’. Cf. 1 Sam. xxii. 4; Isa. lvil. 18.

VII. 1. sinned against. The LXX uses dyvoety to translate DWN, YW, Taw. (Perles.) Babor like) predictions see T.S. v. 3 ite; Df. L. x, xiv-xvi; T.. Jud. xxiii; T. Iss. vi..1,,23 1. Z,ix.6; T. D: v. 8; delivered ... enemies. Cf. T. Iss. vi. 2; T. Z. ix. 6, holy places destroyed. Cf. T. L. x. 3, &c. vanishing away as water. Text is as vdwp dxpnoroy = D'DND] O'D3 corrupt for DDD} OW. Cf. T. Z. ix. 2. So Perles. 3. A Theophany followed by the destruction of the primeval foe, the dragon. Cf. Ps. Ixxiv. 13. breaking c: ‘in peace breaking’ h6A S'. in gA¢?fs: ‘through’ a B-g. all the Gentiles. For this universalism cf. T. B. ix. 2 (note); Jer. iv. 2, &c.; Isa. ii, 2-4, &c.; Ps.. xxii. 27-31 ; 4-7. First century B.C. addition. Cf. T. G, viii. 2. 5. known: ‘read’ bd g A+ ‘in the heavenly tablets’ BAS’. Cf. ii. Io. disobedient c + ‘unto him’ hi8SAS}. ungodly + ‘towards him’ BAS}. being . . . wickedness >ab: ‘being carried away by sheer wickedness’ deg. and ye a: ‘who’ 8. 7. the Lord B-eA S!: ‘He’ ae. through + ‘the hope of’? BAS'.

VIII. 1. good old age: ‘good sleep’ text. See T. Z. x. 6 (note), 2. to Hebron >8AS!'. At end + ‘Asher the tenth son of Jacob, the second son of Zilpah, and he lived 126 years’ fS} (g).

I

pont

THE TESTAMENTS) OF SHE DWECVEPPATRIARCHS

THE TESTAMENT OF JOSEPH, THE ELEVENTH SON OF JACOB AND RACHEL.

The copy of the Testament of Joseph. When he was about to die he called his sons and his brethren together, and said to them :—

My brethren and my children,

Hearken to Joseph the beloved of Israel ;

Give ear, my sons, unto your father.

I have seen in my life envy and death,

Yet I went not astray, "but persevered! in the truth of the Lord.

These my brethren hated me, but the Lord loved me:

They wished to slay me, but the God of my fathers guarded me:

They let me down into a pit, and the Most High brought me up again.

I was sold into slavery, and the Lord of all made me free:

I was taken into captivity, and His strong hand succoured me.

I was beset with hunger, and the Lord Himself nourished me.

I was alone, and God comforted me:

I was sick, and the Lord visited me:

I was in prison, and my God showed favour unto me;

In bonds, and He released me ;

Slandered, and He pleaded my cause ;

Bitterly spoken against by the Egyptians, and He delivered me;

Envied by my fellow-slaves, and He exalted me.

And this chief captain of Pharaoh entrusted to me his house. And I struggled against a shameless woman, urging me to transgress with her; but the God of Israel my father delivered me from the burning flame. I was cast into prison, I was beaten, "I was mocked'; but the Lord granted me to find mercy in the sight of the keeper of the prison.

For the Lord doth not forsake them that fear Him,

Neither in darkness, nor in bonds, nor in tribulations, nor in necessities.

For God is not put to shame as a man,

Nor as the son of man is he afraid,

Nor as one that is earth-born is He [weak or] affrighted.

But in all those things doth He give protection, | But in all places He is at hand,

And in divers ways doth He comfort, (Though) for a little space He departeth to try the inclination of the soul.

TITLE a: + ‘concerning sobriety’ be fS!: + ‘concerning envy’ APhefs,

I—X. 4. In this Testament there appear to be two independent writings, i—x. 4 and x. 5— xviii. Yet in historical sequence x. 5—xvi should be read after i. In i—x. 4 the theme is chastity ; in x. 5—xvili it is brotherly love. In i—x. 4 Potiphar is called ‘the Egyptian man’ (iv. 5), but Pentephri(s) in x. 5—xviii (e.g. xii, 1; xiii. 1; xv. 6). In i—x. 4 his wife is called the Egyptian woman (and 8-d wrongly in xvi. 1), while in x. 5—xviii she is known as the Memphian woman (so, too, the conflate reading in ili.6). We find also recurring phrases like ‘Joseph the son of a mighty man’ (x. 6) and ‘I held my peace lest I should put to shame’ (x. 6, &c.) in the later section. Joseph also transgresses the Testament’s rule of truthfulness in it.

I. 2. my sons .. . father: ‘the words of my mouth’ a.

3. but persevered >bgA.

5. into slavery aA: ‘to bea slave’ BS.

captivity, hunger. Cf. Matt. xxv. 35, 36 for this and the next verse. The resemblance to our Lord’s words is very striking.

6. and God ... prison >ch.

Lord aef: ‘Most High’? bdgS: ‘God’ A.

my God A*cdfg;: ‘Lord’ S?: ‘the Saviour’ aBS*.

In bonds and He released me >d. Without it stanzas 4-7 are Smtaciicall Yoma 35 says Joseph used the words to Potiphar’s wife.

7. by the Egyptians : ‘for (my) dreams’ a.

Envied ... slaves: ‘a slave’a: >Acdefs, II. 1. this chief captain of Pharaoh: ‘the eunuch of Pharaoh’ B-b: ‘so Petaphres’ (‘ Photiphar’ Ab¢@fs) A. 2. Israel my father befg: ‘my father’ h A>*¢4fs; ‘my father Jacob’ ad: ‘my fathers’ c. 3. granted me... mercy, &c. Cf. Dan. i. 9. 4. doth ad A: ‘will’ B-dS. [weak or]. An addition. affrighted a: ‘rejected’ 6 AS’, corruptly.

6. doth He give protection, rpoiorata, a: ‘He is at hand’, mapiorara, 3S!: ‘is’ A. departeth a: ‘departing’ 8 A. Isa. liv. 7.

ThE rRSTAMEN TOF JOSEPH £1 1-—-b./2

, In ten temptations He showed me approved, And in all of them I endured; For endurance is a mighty charm, And patience giveth many good things. $81 How often did the Egyptian woman threaten me with death! How often did she give me over to punishment, and then call me back and threaten me, and when I was unwilling to company with 2 her, she said to me: Thou shalt be lord of me, and all that is in my house, if thou wilt give thyself 3 unto me, and thou shalt be as our master. But I remembered the words of my father, and going 4 into my chamber, I ‘wept and! prayed unto the Lord. And I fasted in those seven years, and I appeared to the Egyptians as one living delicately, for they that fast’for God’s sake receive beauty of face. 5 And if my lord were away ffonrhome, I drank no wine; nor for three days did I take my food, but 6 I gave it to the poor and sick. And I sought the Lord early, and I wept for the Egyptian woman of Memphis, fOr very unceasingly did she trouble me, for also at night shétame to me under pretence of visiting me.

7 And because she had no male child she pre- And because she had no male child she pretended to regard me as a son. tended to regard me as a son, and so I prayed to

the Lord, and she bare a male child.

8 And for a time she embraced me as a son, and I knew it not; +but later, she sought to draw me g into fornication. And when I perceived it I sorrowed unto death; and when she had gone out, I came to myself, and lamented for her many days, because I recognized her guile and her deceit.

10 And [I declared unto her the words of the Most High, if haply she would turn from her evil lust. 4, Often, therefore, did she flatter me with words as a holy man, and guilefully in her talk praise my 2 Chastity before her husband, while desiring to ensnare me when we were alone. ‘For! she lauded me openly as chaste, and in secret she said unto me: Fear not my husband; for he is persuaded con- 3 cerning thy chastity: for even should one tell him concerning us, he would not believe. Owing to all these things I lay upon the ground, and besought God that the Lord would deliver me from her 4 deceit. And when she had prevailed nothing ‘thereby’, she came ‘again' to me under the plea of 5 instruction, that she might learn the word of God. And she said unto me: If thou willest that I should leave my idols, lie with me, and I will persuade my husband to depart from his idols, and 6 we will walk in the law of thy Lord. And I said unto her: The Lord willeth not that those who reverence Him should be in uncleanness, nor doth He take pleasure in them that commit adultery, 7 ‘but in those that approach Him with a pure heart and undefiled lips'. But she held her peace, 8 longing to accomplish her evil desire. And I gave myself yet more to fasting and prayer, that the

Lord might deliver me from her.

51 ‘And again, at another time she said unto me: If thou wilt not commit adultery, I will kill my 2 husband by poison; and take thee to be my husband. I therefore, when I heard this, rent my

eaten BA: ‘eleven’a. See Jub. xvii. 17; xix. 8. patience: ‘to those who endure’ A.

Ill. 1. and when... her, she a: ‘when... her! And she’ B-a A?S'. 2. in my house a: ‘mine’BAS). 3. father c (+ ‘Jacob’ dgA). Cf. Jub. xxxix. 6: ‘fathers’ haefS': ‘fathers of my father Jacob’ b. 4, seven: ‘ten’ in Jub. xlvi. 3. :

Egyptians c: ‘ Egyptian’ rest of MSS.

fast . . . beauty of face. Dan.i. 15.

lord a(A?): >BS1 6. Egyptian woman of Memphis, conflate text. 7. and so ... child 8 AS}, disturbs the context, 8. knew it not. Cf. xiv. 4.

tbut later a: ‘that’ a: ‘finally’ beS!: ‘later’ f: ‘and after this’ A. g. came to myself. Cf. Luke xv. 17.

IV. 1. Often therefore a: ‘ how often’ B-a AS". 3. ground + ‘in sackcloth (+ ‘and ashes’ A) BA S'. her deceit a: ‘the Egyptian woman’ 6-a AS}. 4. God a; ‘the Lord’ BAS* 5. my husband a A: ‘the Egyptian’ 8S! (+ ‘Potiphar’ S'), in the law of 8 AS}: ‘before’ c: ‘in the name of’ h. 6. but in those a only. 7. held her peace bg A: ‘was angry’ af-bg. V.1. my husband a: ‘the Egyptian’ BAS" Cf. iv. 5. by poison and a: ‘and so lawfully’ 8 A S!, by corruption in Hebrew.

THE TESTAMENTS*OPR TEE TI WEEVEMPATRIARCHS

garments, and said unto her: Woman, reverence God, and do not this evil deed, lest thou be 3 destroyed ; for know indeed that I will declare this thy device unto all men. She therefore, being 4 afraid, besought that I would not declare this device. And she departed soothing me with gifts, and sending to me every delight of the sons of men.

,.2 And ‘afterwards! she sent me food mingled with enchantments. And when the eunuch who

brought it came, I looked up and beheld a terrible m iving me with the dish a sword, and 3 I perceived that (her) scheme was to beguile me. And ‘when he had gone out! I wept, nor did 4 I taste that or any other of her food. So then after one day she came to me and observed the food, 5 and said unto me: Why is it that thou hast not eaten of the food? And I said unto her: It is because thou hast filled it with ‘deadly! enchantments; and how saidst thou: I come not near to 6 idols, but to the Lord ‘alone’. Now therefore know that the God of my father hath revealed unto me by His angel thy wickedness, and I have kept it to convict thee, if haply thou mayst see and repent.

7 But that thou mayst learn that the wickedness But that thou mayst learn that the wickedness 7

of the ungodly hath no power over them that | of the ungodly hath no power over them that worship God with chastity, behold I will take of | worship God in chastity, I took of it and ate it and eat before thee. And having so said, I | before her, saying: The God of my fathers and prayed thus: The God of my fathers and the | the angel of Abraham shall be with me.

angel of Abraham, be with me; and ate.

8 And ‘when she saw this! she fell upon her face at my feet, weeping; and I raised her up and admonished her. And she promised to do this iniquity no more.

;, But her heart was still set upon evil, and she But (d A ‘nevertheless’) her heart was still set looked around how to ensnare me, and sighing | upon me with a view to lewdness, and sighing

deeply she became downcast, though she was | she became downcast. not sick.

2 And when her husband saw her, he said unto her: Why is thy countenance fallen? And she said ‘unto him': I havea pain at my heart, and the groanings of my spirit oppress me; and so 3 he comforted her who was not sick. Then, accordingly seizing an opportunity, she rushed ‘unto me while her husband was yet without, and said unto me: I will hang myself, or cast myself over a cliff, 4 if thou wilt not lie with me. And when I saw the spirit of Beliar was troubling her, I prayed unto 5 the Lord, and said unto her: Why, ‘wretched woman’, art thou troubled and disturbed, blinded through sins? Remember that if thou kill thyself, Asteho, the concubine of thy husband, thy rival, 6 will beat thy children, and thou wilt destroy thy memorial from off the earth. And she said unto me: Lo, then thou lovest me ; let this suffice me: only strive for my life "and my children', and 7 I expect that I shall enjoy my desire 'also'. But she knew not that because of my lord I spake

God af: ‘the Lord’ B-f AS}.

know ... device a: ‘1 will declare thy ungodly device’ 8 AS, i. e. 99 ‘ wicked’ for )5 ‘know’, 3. this device a: ‘ to any one her wickedness’ B-g AS 4. sending .. . men B-d A S!: ‘every delight’ a. VI. 2. (her) scheme .. . beguile mea: ‘this (‘her’ b) scheme . . . beguile (+‘the soul’ b)’ B-d A#>" S?: ‘it

was ascheme of Satan and to beguile (my) soul’ d 5. deadly enchantments a: ‘death’ BAS}. 6. His angel aA: ‘an angel’ B-dg 7. angel of Abraham. Is this Michael or the angel of peace?

VII. 1. deeply, currépes, a, corrupt for cuvTdves. became downcast, ovvémmre, cf. T. Z. x1: + in countenance ’ d (cf. v. le + ‘in spirit’ A. set upon me. . lewdness b d GAs <set upon lewdness’ ae f S? (cf. a) 2. her husband a Ate: ‘the Egyptian man’ 6 APfg S}. who was not sick: ‘ in words’ a, corruptly. 3: Then . . . Opportunity a: ‘then’ B-dS?: ‘one day’ d: ‘and when I was passing’ A®: ‘and on the second day Ab™ Cag: over a cliff aaefS?: ‘into a well’ A» (+‘or over a cliff’ b (d) g AP* fe: 5. Asteho a: ‘Asitho’ ef AP* 8; ‘Setho’ b. thou wilt a B-b gS!: ‘she will? bg (A). 6. let this suffice me: only strive for a: ‘this (> 8-d S!) alone (> A) suffices me that (> af) thou strivest for’ BAS} and La: > B-adoSh it Laacnal therefore’ dgA. 7. my lord: ‘God’ bdS', against context.

THE TESTAMENT OF JOSEPH 5. 2—10. 2

8 thus, and not because of her.

For if a man hath fallen before the passion of a wicked desire and

become enslaved by it, even as she, whatever good thing he may hear with regard to that passion,

he receiveth it with a view to his wicked desire.

I declare, therefore, unto you, my children, that it was about the sixth hour when she departed

from me ; and I knelt before the Lord all day, and all the night ; and about dawn I rose up, weeping

2 the while and praying for a release from her. dragging me to have connexion with her.

3 When, ‘therefore’, I saw that in her madness she was holding fast to my garment, I left it behind, and fled away “naked.

4 And holding fast to the garment she falsely accused me, and when her husband came he cast me into prison in his house; and on the morrow he scourged me and sent me into Pharaoh’s prison.

5 And when I was in bonds, the Egyptian woman was oppressed with grief, and she came and heard how I gave thanks unto the Lord and sang praises in the abode of darkness, and with glad voice rejoiced, glorifying my God that I was delivered from the lustful desire of the Egyptian woman.

At last, then, she laid hold of my garments, forcibly

When, therefore, I saw that in her madness she was holding fast by force to my garment, I fled away naked. :

B-d AS!

And she falsely accused me to her husband, 4 and the Egyptian cast me into prison in his house, and on the morrow he scourged me and sent me into Pharaoh’s prison.

B-d A S'

And when I was in fetters, the Egyptian was 5 sick with grief, and she heard how I sang praises unto the Lord in the house of darkness, and with glad voice rejoicing, glorified God only that I was delivered from the lustful desire of the Egyptian woman.

And often hath she sent unto me saying: Consent to ‘fulfil my desire', and I will release thee

2 from thy bonds, ‘and I will free thee from the darkness. And not even in thought did I incline unto her. For God loveth cra a den of wickedness combines fasting with chastity, rather than

3 the man who in kings’ Chambers combines luxury with licence.

And if a man liveth in chastity,

and desireth also glory, and the Most High knoweth that it is expedient for him, He bestoweth this

4 also upon me. 5 and listened to my voice as I prayed!

How often’, though she were sick, did she come down 'to me! at unlooked for times, And when I heard her groanings I held my peace.

"For!

when I was in her house she was wont to bare her arms, and breasts, and legs, ‘that I might lie with her; for she was! very beautiful, "splendidly adorned! in order to beguile me. And the Lord guarded

me from her devices.

Ye see, therefore, my children, how great things patience -worketh, and prayer with fasting. So

8. that passion a: ‘the passion by which (> ‘by which’ A) he is vanquished’ B-a g A S},

to his aA: ‘tothe’ BS.

VIII. 1. and all a: ‘together with all’ BAS}. her a: ‘the Egyptian woman’ B-dA S},

3. garment, yiréva, a: iparia, B. left it behind +‘ and shook it off’ a: by force B-aefgS.

> Afg,

5. was Sick, jodéver, B-d A S?: ‘was oppressed’, cuveiyero, a. from the lustful desire 7}NND. So I emend ‘through a pretext’ 7AINNS «8S: ‘from the pretexts’ A. For

a like corruption cf. Prov. xviii. 1.

1X. A omits much in ix.

2. fasting with chastity. Contrast T. A. ii. 8. fasting B-afS': ‘believing’ af: ‘ faithfulness’ a. the man .

Sed. and if a man (‘but he’ cbS?)...

5. and breasts > a. lie with = ovpréow. See T. Jud. xiii, 3 (note). adorned. Cf. Yoma 35°.

X. A new section begins. I, prayer with fasting. Cf. ili. 4, iv. 8.

chastity ae f(g):

. Chambers 8-b d S?: ‘the king (‘ man’ b) who in chambers’ bcd.

= Ns

THE TESTAMENTS®%OFR PoE WWELVE VPA PRIARCHS

ye too, 'if ye follow after chastity and purity with patience and prayer, with fasting in humility of 3 heart, the Lord will dwell among you, because He loveth chastity. And wheresoever the Most High dwelleth, even though envy, or slavery, or slander befalleth (a man), the Lord who dwelleth in him, for the sake of his chastity not only' delivereth him from evil, "but also exalteth him even as me. 5 For in every way the man’ is lifted up, whether in deed, or in word, or in thought. My brethren knew how my father loved me, and yet I did not exalt myself ‘in my mind!': although I was a child, 6 "I had the fear of God in my heart'; for I knew that all things would pass away. And I did not raise myself (against them) with evil intent, but I honoured my brethren; and out of respect for them, even when I was being sold, I refrained from telling the Ishmaelites that I was a son of Jacob, a great man and a mighty. 1 Do ye also, my children, "have the fear of God in all your works before your eyes, and! honour 2 your brethren. For every one who doeth the law of the Lord shall be loved by Him. And when I came to the Indocolpitae with the Ishmaelites, they asked me, saying: Art thou a slave? And 3 I said that I was a home-born slave, that I might not put my brethren to shame. And the eldest of them said unto mé: Thou art not a Rie Tor event ly dap pearance ana it manifest. But 4 [ said that I was 'their' slave. Now when we came into Egypt they strove concerning me, which of 5 them should buy me and take me. Therefore it seemed good to all that I should remain in Egypt 6 with the merchant of their trade, until they should return bringing merchandise. And the Lord 7 gave me favour in the eyes of the merchant, and he entrusted unto me his house. And God blessed 8 him by my means, and increased him in gold and silver ‘and in household servants'. And I was with him three months and five days. 1 And about that time the Memphian woman, the wife of Pentephri, came down ‘in a chariot’, ‘with 2 great pomp, because she had heard from her eunuchs concerning me'. And she told her husband that the merchant had become rich by means of a young Hebrew, and they say that he had assuredly 3 been stolen out of the land of Canaan. Now, therefore, render justice unto him, and take away the youth to thy house; so shall the God of the Hebrews bless thee, for grace from heaven is upon him. 1 And Pentephris was persuaded by her words, and commanded the merchant to be brought, and said unto him: What is this that I hear ‘concerning thee’, that thou stealest persons out of the land 2 of Canaan, and sellest them for slaves? But the merchant fell at his feet, and besought him, saying: 3 I beseech thee, my lord, I know not what thou sayest. And Pentephris said unto him: Whence, then,

2, prayer with fasting > 8S).

3. envy .. . befalleth (a man) a: ‘a man fall into envy . . . slander or darkness’ 8S’. For ver. cf. 1. 7.

4. Text = B-b g S?: with cuveraipera (d) for cvvépxerar, aef: cuvéxetat, b gS!: (ravras yap dvOpmrovs) cuvépxerat, a. But d transposes v. 4 after ‘mind’ in v. 5.

Heinad wee Nearer meChexiat.

6. I did not .. . intent c (? ‘ not’): ‘I measured myself’? 8AS'. Perhaps read ‘I did not exalt myself’ =v 5. If the ‘not’ is omitted we may conjecture the original Hebrew word was ‘M207 as in Ps. cxxxi. 2 ‘I kept myself quiet’, which LXX reads as ‘N!0107.

even > BAS}.

telling +‘my race’ BAS},

Jacob > cA@b*edg,

mighty 8 A S?: ‘just’ a. Cf. 373, Prov. xvii. 7 = dikatos LXX.

XI. 1. before your eyes > hb.

2. came ... Ishmaelites 8-d S': ‘was coming with the Ish.’ a: ‘came with them to the Indocolpitae’ A. : saying ...slavea: +‘or a freeman’ A: >8S1. Jashar (ii. 1187) says his brethren sold Joseph as being their slave.

a home-born aaf: ‘their home-born’ bdeA St. I might not put ... shame. Cf. x. 6, &c. 3. manifest +‘concerning thee. And he threatened me ‘unto death!.’ 8AS%. 4. which of them, &c. a BS}. 6. gave me favour. Gen. xxxix. 21. 7. God aaf: ‘the Lord’ B-afA S}. and in household servants: ‘and in work’a: >8AS!. épyov is a mistranslation of TIA). five days >a.

XII. 1. came down a: ‘passed’ BAS}. in a chariot > bgAS!. with ... me: ‘she looked and saw me’ A. she ... eunuchs a: ‘her eunuchs had told her’ 8S}. 2. that the merchant a: ‘concerning the merchant that he’ 8 AS}. 3. to thy house aefS?: ‘to our house’ a: ‘to be thy steward’ bd g (A).

XIII. 1. to be brought bdgS!: ‘to come’ aaef: ‘to bring’ A?. 2. But... at his feet ag: ‘therefore (‘and’ A)... on his face’ B-dg AS". 3. And... hima: ‘but he said’ (>‘said’ aef) BAS}

THE TESTAMENT OF JOSEPH 10. 2—16. 3

is the Hebrew slave? And he said: The Ishmaelites entrusted him unto me until they should return. 4 But he believed him not, but commanded him to be stripped and beaten. And when he persisted 5 in this statement, Pentephris said: Let the youth be brought. And when I was brought in, I did 6 obeisance to Pentephris (for he was third in rank of the officers of Pharaoh). And he took me apart 7 from him, and said unto me: Art thou a slave or free? And I said: A slave. And he said: 8 Whose? And I said: The Ishmaelites’. And he said: How didst thou become their slave? And 91 said: They bought me out of the land of Canaan. And he said unto me: 'Truly'thou liest ; and "straightway | he commanded me to be stripped and beaten. t Now the Memphian woman was looking through a window ‘at me while I was being beaten, for her house was near, and she sent unto him saying': Thy judgement is unjust; for thou dost punish 2a'free' man who hath been stolen, as though he were a transgressor. And when I made no change in my statement, ‘though I was beaten’, he ordered me to be imprisoned, until, he said, the owners 3 of the boy should come. And the woman said unto her husband: Wherefore dost thou detain the 4 captive and well-born lad in bonds, who ought rather to be set at liberty,and be waited upon? For 5 she wished to see me out of a desire ‘of sin', but I was ignorant concerning all these things. And he said to her: It is not the custom of the Egyptians to take that which belongeth to others before 6 proof is given. This, therefore, he said concerning the merchant; but as for the lad, he must be imprisoned. I Now after four and twenty days came the Ishmaelites ; for they had heard that Jacob ‘my father! 2 was mourning 'much' concerning me. And they came and said unto me: How is it that thou saidst that thou wast a slave? and lo, we have learnt that thou art the son of a mighty man in the land of 3 Canaan, and thy father ‘still’ mourneth for thee in sackcloth ‘and ashes’. ‘When I heard this my bowels were dissolved and my heart melted’, and I desired greatly to weep, but I restrained myself, that I should not put my brethren to shame. ‘And I said unto them, I know not, I am a slave’. 5 Then, ‘therefore', they took counsel to sell me, that I should not be found in their hands. For they feared my father, lest he [should come and] execute upon them a grievous vengeance. For they had 6 heard that he was mighty with God and with men. Then said the merchant unto them: Release 7 me from the judgement of Pentiphri. And they came and requested me, saying: ‘Say! that thou wast bought by us with money, and he will set us free. I Now the Memphian woman said to her husband: Buy the youth; for I hear, said she, that they are selling him.

Cc BEAGS: 2 And straightway she sent a eunuch to the And she sent a eunuch to the Ishmaelites and 2 3 Ishmaelites, and asked them to sell me. But | asked them tosell me. The chief captain, there-

is a: ‘hast thou’ B-fAS'. 4. be brought abd¢g: ‘answer’ aefS', 5. Pentephris a: ‘the chief of the eunuchs’ 8S’: ‘him’ A. third ... Pharaoha. Cf. Dan.v.7. ‘his rank was second to P.’ A: ‘third in rank with P., (as) officer of all the eunuchs, having wives and concubines and children’ 8. 6. AndI said >a to ‘and I said’ in v. 8. g. Truly a only. straightway ag.

XIV. 1. at me > bef.

for... near >BAS'.

him a: ‘her husband’ 6 S}.

Thy: ‘the’ B—b Aabtcdtg,

thou dost punish ... as... transgressor: ‘to punish unjustly’ a, corruptly. . me: ‘us’ defg.

owners of the boy: ‘his (‘my’ dA®f8) owners’ dg A. . her husband a: ‘him’ BAS}.

in bonds > BAS}.

be waited upon a: ‘wait upon thee’ BAS’. 5. her c: ‘the Memphite woman’ B-ad A>.

XV. 1. for ... heard a: ‘and having heard’ 8AS?: + ‘ when they were in the land of Canaan’ d A. 3. When . . . melted a only. 5. my father a: ‘Jacob’ BAS}. grievous = kwdvvov. God ag: ‘the Lord’ B-g AS}. 7. and he will set us: ‘and he set us’ bdg: ‘and the merchant set’ (+ ‘us’ A®P4) A,

XVI. 1. said .. . youth a: ‘instructed (‘sent to’ A) her husband to buy me’ 6-d AS?: h omits from ‘buy’ to the end of the Testament of Benjamin. 2. The chief... sell me >cbdg.

THE TESTAMENTS OPR Te Wei ee CRIA Ris c BAS

since the eunuch would not agree to buy me (at | fore, called the Ishmaelites and asked them to their price) he returned, having made trial of | sell me. ‘And since he did not agree (to their them, and he made known to his mistress that | price) he departed’. But the eunuch, ‘when he they asked a large price for their slave. had made trial of them', made known to his mistress that they asked a large price ‘for their slave!

4 ‘And she sent another eunuch’, saying: Even though they demand two minas, ‘give them', do not spare ‘the gold'; only buy the boy, and bring him to me.

c B-d AS!

5 The eunuch therefore went and gave them And he gave them eighty pieces of gold for eighty pieces of gold, andt he received met; | me, and told the Egyptian woman that a but to the Egyptian woman he said: I have | hundred pieces had been given. given a hundred.

6 And though I knew (this) I held my peace, lest the eunuch should be put to shame.

17.1 Yesee, therefore, my children, what great things I endured that I should not put my brethren to

2 shame. Do ye also, 'therefore', love one another, ‘and with long-suffering hide ye one another's 3 faults’. For God delighteth ‘in the unity of brethren, and’ in the purpose of a heart that takes 4 pleasure in love. And when my brethren came into Egypt they learnt that I had returned their 5 money unto them, and upbraided them not, and comforted them. And after the death of Jacob my father I loved them ‘more abundantly’, and all things whatsoever he commanded I did ‘very 6 abundantly! for them. And I suffered them not to be afflicted in the smallest matter; and all that 7 was in my hand I gave unto them. ‘And! their children were my children, and my children as their servants ; and their life was my life, and all their suffering was my suffering, ‘and all their sickness 8 was my infirmity'. My land was their land, and their counsel my counsel. And I exalted not myself among them ‘in arrogance! because of my ‘worldly! glory, ‘but I was among them as one of the least'. 1 If ye also, therefore, walk in the commandments of the Lord, my children, He will exalt you there, 2 and will bless you with good things for ever and ever. ‘And if any one seeketh to do evil unto you, 3 do well unto him, and pray for him, and ye shall be redeemed of the Lord from all evil’. [For], behold, ye see that Tout of my humility and long-suffering’ I took unto wife the daughter of the priest of Heliopolis. Anda hundred talents of gold were given me with her, and the Lord made 4 them to serve me. And He gave me also beauty as a flower beyond the beautiful ones of Israel ; and He preserved me ‘unto old age in strength and' in beauty, because I was like in all things to Jacob.

3. since he .. . But the eunuch ... made known begS': ‘since the eunuch . . . and made known’ af. 4. minas c + ‘of gold’ BAS". give them cad: ‘take care’ befg. to mec: >BAS1 5. treceived met, corrupt for ‘ for me’. 6. put to shame c: ‘be tortured’ aefAS’. XVII. 3. a heart 8A S': ‘a good heart’ c. love B-a: ‘the good’caAbb*¢dg, Read perhaps ‘ brotherliness ’. 4. Egypt + ‘when’ BAS}. 5. my father >8-dgAPfs, he (‘they’ A) commanded B-ad AS; ‘they wished’ ca. 7etneite. .. My GS 5 <ily? sin nunelh gers My... land >caef. their... my c’d'g:) “my 3. - theme tS Sl wasus.). deast.. Ciluke xsi 27. XVIII. 1. A has ‘walk ye also, therefore, in the same path, my children (+ ‘with me’ A”) and God (‘israel Shaddai’ Ab* ¢4@f8) will glorify you and exalt you for ever.’

He .. . bless you: ‘ God (>a f) will exalt you’ caf. 2. Cf. T. G. vi-vii; Ahikar.. Syr. Frag. I. 20 ‘if thy enemy meet thee with evil, meet thou him with good’, Bavily |S ls

my humility andc: >£S'. priest of Heliopolis c. Cf. Jub. xl. 10 (note). ‘of my masters (8-a A S'). talents. Cf. Jashar (ii. 1211).

4. A has ‘And (+‘Asenath my wife’ A) was beautiful as a flower, and (+ ‘I was’ A») beautiful beyond (‘all’ A>) the chosen ones of Israel (+ ‘and temperate and humble’ A»), beyond Levi and Judah and Naphtali. He preserved me in beauty (‘I was more beautiful than they’ A>) because I was like Jacob in all things.’

as a flower >c. like ... to Jacob. See Gen. rabba Ixxxiv. 6 ; Num. r. xiv. 16.

THE TESTAMENT OF JOSEPH 16. 3—19. 10

Cpa A 19: And hear ye, my children, also the vision Hear ye, therefore, the vision which I saw. 2 which I saw. There were twelve harts feeding: | I saw twelve harts feeding. And nine of them and the nine were (first) dispersed over all the | were dispersed. Now the three were preserved, earth, and likewise also the three. but on the following day they also were dis-

persed. And I saw that the three harts became 3

three lambs, and they cried to the Lord, and He

brought them forth into a flourishing and wellwatered place, yea He brought them out of darkness into light.

And there they cried unto the Lord until 4 there gathered together unto them the nine harts, and they became as twelve sheep, and after a little time they increased and became many flocks. And after these things I saw and behold, 5 twelve bulls were sucking one cow, which produced a sea of milk, and there drank thereof the twelve flocks and innumerable herds.

And the horns of the }fourth bull went up 6 unto heaven and became as a wall for the flocks, and in the midst of the ‘two' horns there grew another horn. And I saw a bull calf which 7 surrounded them twelve times, and it became a help to the bulls wholly.

8 And I saw that [from Judah was born] a And I saw in the midst of the horns a {virgin 8 tvirgin [wearing a linen garment, and from her] | [wearing a many-coloured garment, and from was born a lamb, [without spot]; and on his | her] went forth a lamb; and on his right (was left hand there was as it were a lion; and all the | as it were a lion; and) all the beasts and all the beasts rushed against him, and the lamb over- | reptiles rushed (against him), and the lamb overcame them, and destroyed them and trod them | came them and destroyed them. And the bulls 9

g under foot. And because of him the angels and | rejoiced because of him, and the cow [and the

ro men rejoiced, and all the land. And these things | harts] exulted together with them. And these 10 shall come to pass in their season, in the last | things must come to pass in their season. And It

XIX. Here the Armenian version comes to our aid. It alone has 3-7, and 8 and I1 in it are fairly pure.

2-4. A vision concerning the nine tribes and the three, their captivity and return. The nine are regarded as back in Palestine.

2. harts. See note in Commentary, p. 191. Used of the princes of Judah, Lam. i. 6.

feeding + ‘in a place’ c. all >bS'. were preserved A®>*cdfg: ‘fed with each other’ AP.

3. three harts. Cf. ‘three sheep’, 1 En. Ixxxix. 72. For their change into lambs, cf. 1 En. xc. 38, where the

sheep become oxen. and He: ‘and the Lord’ A>}, out of darkness into light. Cf. Ps. cvii. 14; Isa. ix. 2, xlii. 16, Iviiil. 10. Cf. 1 Pet. ii. 9, Io.

4. the nine. Cf. ‘nine tribes’, Ethiopic version, 4 Ezra xiii. 40. For nine and a half tribes cf. 2 Bar. Ixii. 5 (note).

5-9. This second vision introduces the person of the Messiah. The date is the second century B. C.,as the Twelve Tribes are regarded as in Palestine. So ‘in the midst of the horns’ implies that the Messiah is to arise from the Maccabees (cf. vy. 11 Levi and Judah). Judah was to help—the lion on the left hand in z. 8.

6. tfourth, i.e. tribe Judah. Is this a Christian alteration of ‘ third’ Levi?

two > A°efs, another horn. Perhaps Mattathias.

7-9. Is the bull-calf the same as the lamb of v. 8? Ifso, Judas would be both; if not, the lamb is Hyrcanus.

7. a bull... times: ‘twelve oxen which surrounded them’ A>*4, For ‘ surrounded’ read perhaps ‘ protected ’.

ahelp. Cf. Dan. xi. 34, ‘little help.’

8. [from Judah was born]. A Christian addition. A omits it, and a definite name is here out of place. A ‘virgin’ also clashes with the animal symbolism. So read ‘ And I saw that in the midst of the horns a bull-calf became a lamb’. For ‘ wearing’ cf. Rev. xii. 1.

a lion Judah. all the beasts, i.e. the Gentiles. Cf. 1 En. xc. 12, 16. g. The Greek text interprets ‘cow’ aright as Palestine ; but the ‘bulls’ are the tribes, not ‘angels and men’. [and the harts] > the Greek texts. They have no place in this vision. the cow .. . harts Ab*¢4dg; ‘the descendants of the three harts’ A®»: ‘two of the three harts’ A».

Cio, A

11 days. Do ye therefore, my children, observe | do ye, my children, honour Levi and Judah, for the commandments of the Lord, and honour | from them shall arise the salvation of Israel. Levi and Judah ; for from them shall arise unto

ou! [the Lamb_of God, who taketh away the an of in world] one who saveth [all the Gentiles and | Israel.

12 For His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, which shall not pass away; but my kingdom among you shall come to an end as a watcher’s hammock, which after the summer disappeareth.

20: ‘For’ I know that after my death the Egyptians will afflict you, but God will avenge you, and will 2 bring you into that which He promised to your fathers. But ye shall carry up my bones with you ; for when my bones are being taken up thither, the Lord shall be with youin light, and Beliar shall be in darkness with the Egyptians". Cc jn b*edg B S}

3 And carry ye up Asenath your mother ‘to the And carry ye up Zilpah your mother, and 3

Hippodrome', and near Rachel your mother | nigh to Bilhah by the Hippodrome lay her near bury her. = Rachel.

4,5 And when he had said these things he stretched out his feet, and died at a good old age. And all Israel mourned for him, and.all Egypt, with a great mourning.

c sist 6 And when the children of Israel went out of For he felt even for the Egyptians as though 6 Egypt, they took with them the bones of Joseph, | a member (of their nation), and showed them and they buried him in Hebron with his fathers, | kindness, aiding them in every work, and counsel, and the years of his life were one hundred and | and matter. ten years.

For my kingdom which is among you shall 12 come to an end as a watcher’s hammock, which will not appear after the summer.

THE TESTAMENT OF BENJAMIN, THE TWELFTH SON OF JACOB AND RACHEL.

1: The copy of the words of Benjamin, which he commanded his sons to observe, after he had lived 2 a hundred and twenty-five years. And he kissed them, and said: As Isaac was born to Abraham 3 in his old age, so also was I to Jacob. And since Rachel my mother died in giving me birth, I had 4no milk ; therefore I was suckled by Bilhah her handmaid. For Rachel remained barren for twelve years ‘after she had borne Joseph'; and she prayed the Lord ‘with fasting twelve days, and she 5 conceived and bare me'. For ‘my father! loved Rachel dearly, ‘and prayed that he might see two

6 sons born from her'. Therefore was I called Benjamin, that is, a son of days.

11. Leviand JudahcA. See T.R. vi. 5-12 (note). ‘Judah and Levi’ BS. from them 8 A S!: ‘from their seed’ c. unto you BS!; ‘untous’c: >A. [the Lamb, &c.] Christian additions. who taketh ... world c: ‘by grace’ BS. pass away c B-ab: ‘be shaken’ ab S?. watcher’s hammock. Isa. i. 8, xxiv. 20. XOX 2.) Chey Genel. 25s) exodexilllos 3. Asenath your mother cd: ‘ Zilpah your mother’ be fA»*¢4gS!: ‘your brother’? A#>h; ‘brothers’ A’, [to the Hippodrome] > A. Cf. LXX in Gen. xlviii. 7 (? Ephrath). Rachel was buried near Ephrath, Gen. xxxv. 16 ff., xlviii. 7. nigh to Bilhah BS'. Jub. xxxiv. 16 says she was buried near Rachel. 4. good old age. SoIemend ‘good sleep ’c (cf. T. Z. x. 6): ‘eternal sleep’ @S?: cf. Jer. li. 39; T. Iss. vii.g: >A. 6. as though . .. nation aef: ‘as for his own members’ bg: +‘ Joseph the eleventh son of Jacob and first son of Rachel lived one hundred and ten years’ f S}. TITLE c: +‘ concerning a pure mind’ B-agS!: +°‘to love one’s neighbour’ g. I. 1. words: ‘ Testament’ d A. 2. old age cd: ‘hundredth year’ B-dA. Cf. Gen. xxi. 2, 5. birth. See, however, Jub. xix. 13. 4. twelve years: ‘eleven’ in Jub. xxviii. 24, xxxil. 33. twelve days >c. For the prayer and fasting cf. Num. rabba xiv. 8. 6. Benjamin, a son of days. Cf. Gen. xliv. 20 ‘a son of old age’; Philo, De Mut. Nom.15. A» reads ‘son of aright hand’, Cf. Gen. xxxv. 17, 18. Jashar explains Benjamin as ‘ son of the south’ (ii. 1172).

Jashar (ii. 1172) gives the same date for Benjamin’s

THE TESTAMENT OF BENJAMIN lI. 1—3. 6

And when I went into Egypt, to {Joseph, and my brother recognized me, he said} unto me: 2 What did they tell my father when they sold me?

And I said ‘unto him', They dabbled thy coat

with blood and sent it, and said: Know whether this be thy son’s coat. c BS} A

3 And he said unto me: Even so, brother, when they had stripped me of my coat they gave me to the Ishmaelites, and they gave me a loin cloth, and scourged me, and bade me run.

4 And as for one of them that had beaten me with a rod, a lion met

5 him and slew him. And so his associates were affrighted.

him.

3. And he said unto me: Even so, brother ; for when the Ishmaelites took me, one of them stripped off my coat, and gave me a loin cloth, and scourged me,and bade merun. 4. Andas he went away to hide my garment, a lion met him, and slew 5. And so his associates were affrighted, and sold me to their companions.

And Joseph said unto me: 3 Even so, brother, the Canaanite merchants stole me by force. And it came to pass that as 4 they went on their way they concealed my garment, as though a wild beast had met me and slain me. And so his 5 associates sold me to the Ishmaelites. And they did not lie 6 in saying this. For he wished to conceal from me the deeds of my brethren. And he called to him his brethren and said: Do not tell my father what ye 7 have done unto me, but tell him as I have told Benjamin. And 8 let the thoughts among you be such, and let not these things come to the heart of my father.

Do ye also, therefore, my children, ‘love the Lord God of heaven and earth, and keep His

commandments’, following the example of the good and holy man 'Joseph'.

2 And let your mind be unto good, even as ye know me; for he that hath his mind right seeth 3 all things rightly. Fear ye the Lord, and love your neighbour; and even though the spirits of Beliar claim you to afflict you with every evil, yet shall they not have dominion over you, even 4 as they had not over Joseph my brother. How many men wished to slay him, and God shielded him! For he that feareth God and loveth his neighbour cannot be smitten by the spirit of 5 Beliar, being shielded by the fear of God. Nor can he be ruled over by the device of men or beasts, for he is helped by the Lord through the love which he hath towards his neighbour.

A For until his death he was not willing to tell 2-5 regarding himself; but Jacob, having learnt it from the Lord, told it to him. Nevertheless he kept denying it. And then with difficulty he was persuaded by the adjurations of Israel.

6 For Joseph also besought our father ‘that he would pray for his brethren’, that ‘the Lord’ would

II. 1-2. Jashar (ii. 1222) makes Benjamin the first to recognize Joseph.

1. to tJoseph and c: ‘and Joseph’ 8-dAS. emend here to ‘and I recognized Joseph’.

3-5. The text of c alone agrees with the context, but T. Z. iv. 1o makes his brothers give him the loin-cloth.

and A differ from the context and the biblical account.

If x. 1 belongs to this context, we might read it before ii. 1, and

5. to their companions £8 S!: ‘to the Ishmaelites’ A. Cf. Jashar (ii. 1187-90).

III. 1. and earth cd: > B-dS. holy e 8 S?: ‘true’ A.

3. spirits of Beliar claim. Cf. Luke xxii. 31. claim 8 S?:; ‘dement’ c.

to afflict with every evil: text = ‘ unto every evil of affliction’.

they not c: ‘no evil of tribulation’ BS}, 4. spirit c +‘of the air’ 8S" Cf. Eph. ii. 2.

5. by the Lord . . . love g(cf. c): ‘by the love’ (+‘ of the Lord’ 8-d gS?) B-g St.

~father +‘ Jacob’ bS}. his brethren c: ‘his sons’ 8-b: ‘ our brethren’ b.

7 not impute to them as sin ‘whatever evil they had done unto him’. And thus Jacob cried out: My good child, thou hast prevailed over the bowels of thy father Jacob. And he embraced him, and kissed him for two hours, saying:

cpist A

8 Inthee shall be fulfilled the prophecy of heaven In thee shall be fulfilled the prophecy of 8 [concerning the Lamb of God, and Saviour of the | heaven, which says that the blameless one shall world], and that a blameless one shall be | be defiled for lawless men, the sinless one shall delivered up for lawless men,and a sinlessone shall | die for ungodly men. die for ungodly men [in the blood of the covenant, for the salvation of the Gentiles and of Israel, and shall destroy Beliar and his servants].

4: See ye, therefore, my children, the end of the good man? Be followers of his “compassion, there- 2 fore, with a good mind!', that ‘ye also' may wear crowns of glory. For the good man hath not 3 a tdark eye ; for he showeth mercy to all men, even though they be sinners. ‘And though they

devise with evil intent concerning him, by doing good he overcometh evil, being shielded by God!;

4 and he loveth the righteous as his own soul. If any one is glorified, he envieth him not ; if any one is enriched, he is not jealous; if any one is valiant, he-praiseth him ; the virtuous man he laudeth; ‘on the poor man he hath mercy ; on the weak he hath compassion; unto God he singeth praises.

oat B=ars! 5 And him that hath the grace of a good spirit As for him who hath the fear of God, he pro- 5 he loveth as his own soul. tecteth him as with a shield; him that loveth .-

God he helpeth ; him that rejecteth the Most High he admonisheth and turneth back; and him that hath the grace of a good spirit he loveth as his own soul.

5x If, ‘therefore, ye also' have a ‘good mind’, then will both wicked men be at peace with you, and the profligate will reverence you ‘and turn unto good; and the covetous will not only cease from

2 their inordinate desire, but even give the objects of their covetousness to them that are afflicted. If

3 ye do well, even the unclean spirits will flee from you'; and the beasts will dread you. ‘For where there is reverence for good works and light in the mind, even darkness fleeth away from him.!

4'For!' if any one does violence to a holy man, he repenteth; for 'the holy man! is merciful to his reviler, and holdeth his peace.

c B-aS}

5 And if any one betrayeth a righteous man, the And if any one betrayeth a righteous soul, and 5 righteous man prayeth : though for a little he be | the righteous man, though he prayeth, be humhumbled, yet not long after he appeareth far | bled for a little, yet not long after he appeareth more glorious, as was Joseph my brother. more glorious, even as was Joseph my brother.

as sincgA: >f8-gSi. done unto c: ‘devised regarding’ 8S’. 7. And thus Jacob c@-d: ‘then Joseph’ A. child +‘ Joseph’ bgA. 8. For vicarious suffering, cf. 2 Macc. vil. 38 in pre-Christian times. a sinless 8 S!: ‘the sinless’ cA. in the blood of the covenant. Heb. xiii. 20. crowns of glory: earliest reference. Cf. Rev. ii. 10; Jas. i. 12; Asc. Is. vii. 22. 2. hath not at darkeye. Cf. Matt. vi. 22,23. But read perhaps ‘ hath a compassionate eye’: cf. T. Iss. iv. 6. 3. devise with evil intent 8S: ‘wish not well’ c. by doing good he cadef: ‘he that doeth good’ BS. overcometh evil. Cf. Rom. xii. 21; T. Jos. xviii. 2; T. G. vi, vii. righteous 8A S!: ‘unrighteous’ c. 4. laudeth A: ‘loveth’ c: ‘trusteth and laudeth’ B-af. singeth praises 8: ‘feareth’ c. 5. helpeth b: defg read ‘runneth with’ corrupt for ‘ hath pleasure in’, cf. Ps. xlix. 18 (LXX). V. 1. have... mind cS: ‘are good’ A. covetousness +‘ which they had’ c. 2.Gf. Ls ss) Valen7e cs Van 5 Len Nenvallerds 3. reverence... light c: ‘light of (‘reverence for’ b) good works’ abefS': ‘light, a good work’ d: ‘a pure light’ g. 4. holy ? “true VA.

repenteth. Cf. T. G. vi. 6. : if 5. A has ‘and if a man insult a righteous soul, he is sorry, because he hath seen him humiliated, and hath repented,

as was Joseph my brother’.

THE TESTAMENT OF BENJAMIN 8. 6—7. 4

~ 61 The inclination of the good man is not in the power of the deceit of the spirit of Beliar, for the 2 angel of peace guideth his soul. ‘And! he gazeth not ‘passionately! upon corruptible things, nor 3 gathereth together riches ‘through a desire of pleasure’. He delighteth not in pleasure, [he grieveth not his neighbour], he sateth not himself with luxuries, he erreth not in the uplifting of the eyes’; for 4 the Lord is his portion. The good inclination receiveth not glory ‘nor dishonour' from men, and it knoweth not any guile, or lie, or fighting or reviling ; for the Lord dwelleth in him and lighteth up his 5 soul, and he rejoiceth towards all men alway. The good mind hath not two tongues, of blessing and of cursing, of contumely and ‘of honour’, of sorrow and of joy, of quietness and of confusion, of hypocrisy and of truth, [of poverty and of wealth]; but it hath one ‘disposition’, uncorrupt and pure, concerning all 6men. It hath no double sight, nor double hearing ; for in everything which he doeth, ‘or speaketh, or 7 seeth, he knoweth that the Lord looketh on his soul. And he cleanseth his mind that he may not be condemned by men as well as' by God. And in like manner the works of Beliar are twofold, and there is no singleness in them.

CEASE JAN Therefore, my children, I tell you, flee the Flee, my children, malice [and fornication] ;

malice of Beliar; for he giveth a sword to them | for it giveth a sword to them that obey it. that obey him.

2 And the sword is the mother of seven evils. First the mind conceiveth through Beliar,t and first there is bloodshed; secondly ruin; thirdly, tribulation ; fourthly, exile; fifthly, dearth ;

B-b gS!

2. And the sword is the mother of seven evils. First the mind conceiveth through Beliar: and sometimes it brings forth first, bloodshed ; secondly, ruin ; thirdly, tribulation ; fourthly, capti-

And the sword is the mother of seven evils, and it receiveth (them) through Beliar. And first there is bloodshed (&c. as in cB S}),

sixthly, panic; seventhly, destruction.

vity; fifthly, dearth; sixthly, panic ; seventhly, destruction.

3 Therefore was Cain also delivered over to seven vengeances by God, for in every hundred years the Lord brought one plague upon him.

Cc BA 4 And when he was two hundred years old he When he was two hundred years old he began began to suffer, and in the nine-hundredth year ! to suffer, and in his nine-hundredth year he was

VI. 1. inclination. See T. A. i. 3 (note). angel of peace. See T. D. vi. 5 (note); T. A. vi. 6. Perhaps A is right in the omissions. uplifting, &c. See T. Iss. vii. 2 (note). Lord is his portion. Cf. T. Lev. ii. 12. 4. receiveth not glory ... from men. knoweth not >c. lighteth up his soul. Cf. T. G. v. 7. rejoiceth . . . alway. Cf. Phil. iv. 4. . tongues of blessing and of cursing. Cf. James iii. 10. of sorrow and of joy >c. [of poverty ... wealth] >A. in like manner. ‘and whoso doeth’ A. works + ‘of God and’ A. in them >f-a AS}.

VII. 1-2. See my Commentary zz Joc., p. 206. Read either (1) ‘Flee the malice of Beliar; for the mind conceiveth through Beliar, and is the mother of seven evils; and first,’ &c., or (2) ‘ Flee the malice of Beliar; for he giveth a sword to those who obey him. And the sword’ (&c. as A).

For the seven compare the eight plagues of Sir. xl. 9; and seven of Pirke Aboth, v. 11.

1. giveth a sword to: ‘is a sword in the hands of’ A@.

Biacse 168 Ss, 2. the mind . . . Beliar c8—dg S': ‘the mind conceiveth wickedness through the malice of Beliar’ d. sometimes afS!: ‘what... is’de. bloodshed. Read dvos for PAdvos. Cain’s first evil was murder. ruin... We expect ‘panic’ here. See notes in Commentary, p. 207. destruction: text reads ‘ desolation ’.

3-4. Gen. iv. 15, 24 tells of a sevenfold vengeance on Cain’s slayer. Here the sevenfold penalty is transferred to Cain himself. Contrast Jub. iv. 1. 31, which puts his death in his 860th year. Is Lamech here regarded as Cain’s slayer? Cf. Book of Adam and Eve ii. 13; Jalkut i. 38, &c.

4. two hundred years. Cain was thirty to thirty-five when he slew Abel, according to Jub. iv. 2.

I

Leal

4a tree.

he was destroyed. For on account of Abel, his brother, with all the evils was he judged, but Lamech with seventy times seven.

destroyed [at the Flood], on account of Abel, his righteous brother. With the seven evils, therefore, was Cain judged, but Lamech with seventy times ‘seven’,

Because for ever those who are like Cain ‘in envy and hatred of brethren’, shall be punished “with

the same judgement! cis:

And do ye, my children, flee evil-doing, envy, and hatred of brethren, and cleave to goodness and love. He that hath a pure mind in love, looketh not after a woman with a view to fornication; for he hath no defilement in his heart, because the Spirit of God resteth upon him.

Do ye, therefore, my children, flee evil-doing and cleave to goodness. For he that hath it looketh not on a woman with a view to fornication, and he beholdeth no defilement ; for there resteth upon him a holy spirit.

For ‘as! the sun is not defiled by shining on dung and mire, ‘but rather drieth up both and driveth away the evil smell’; so also the pure mind, though encompassed by the defilements of earth,

rather cleanseth (them) and is not itself defiled.

And I believe that there will be also evil-doings among you, from the words of Enoch the righteous : that ye shall commit fornication with the fornication of Sodom, and shall perish, all save a few, and shall renew wanton deeds with women; and the kingdom of the Lord shall not be among you,

for straightway He shall take it away. cpst

Nevertheless the temple of God shall be in your portion, and the last (temple) shall be more glorious than the first. And the twelve tribes shall be gathered together there, and all the Gentiles, until the Most High shall send forth His salvation in the visitation of an tonlybegotten prophet. [And He shall enter into the [first] temple, and there shall the Lord be treated with outrage, and He shall be lifted up upon And the veil of the temple shall be rent, and the Spirit of God shall pass on to the Gen-

But in your portion shall be His inheritance. And on account of the temple of the Lord, Jacob exalted me that I should be glorified through it. And the twelve tribes shall be gathered there and all the Gentiles. with outrage and set at nought. depart from earth to heaven: for I knew how He is on earth and how in heaven, or what is His measure and place and way. |

[at the Flood], impossible on any chronology ; even the Samaritan (1307 A. M.). With the seven evils adgA: ‘in the 700 years’ bef. Onkelos and Ps. Jon. on Gen. iv. 15 (contrast on

Uv. 24) say he was punished for seven generations.

VIII. 1-2. A seems more original, though shorter. hath... 3. by shining on f: mpooéxwr cB-fA S?. cleanseth: text corruptly reads ‘ buildeth up’. UDF LER By, ood

from... the words of our fathers’ A.

See my Commentary, p. 208.

in his heart c8S: ‘ beholdeth’ A, not so good.

among you: ‘also doings’ c, defective. righteous c®-dS!: ‘for I have learnt from the book of the words,’ &c. d: ‘for I have heard from

shall renew wanton deeds: ‘ and again ye ( > A) shall be renewed unto... deeds’ ( ‘unto... deeds’ >c)c A. straightway He BS!: ‘the upright’ (edeis) A®>bh: ‘an upright man’ Ab>*¢d (i.e. David shall take the

kingdom from Saul) : >c. 2. The text of cB S? is better. twelve tribes met there in worship. the temple... all the Gentiles. second century B.C. Cf. T. S. vii. 2. universalism.

The second temple is more glorious (cf. Haggai ii. 9), and under John Hyrcanus the

in your portion. See Onkelos and Ps. Jon. on Gen. xlix. 27.

The Maccabean triumphs lead to the hope of a general conversion of the Gentiles in the See my Commentary, pp. 210, 211. God understands all men, T. N. ii. 5 (cf. Sir. xvii. 3).

The Testaments are strongly tinged with The Law is given to lighten every man,

T. L. xiv. 4. Michael guards all the righteous, T. L. v. 7 (8 A8S?). ; fi Apart from Christian interpolations like T. Jos. xix. 11, the salvation of the Gentiles is taught in T. L. iv. 4, Vili 14, lis 10 3 dO. i055) De No Vill, 35) pe Viler Seeder len ae eles Cl sy xX Van pedo tapi en 25 ENS

an tonly-begotten prophet 6—b: ‘His only begotten Son’ c.

T. L. viii. 15, ‘ beloved as a prophet of the Most High.’ 3-5. Christian additions. 4. veil of the temple, &c. Cf. Matt. xxvii. 51.

pass on to c B-bd: ‘ascend’ bS!: ‘descend’ d.

Read ‘beloved’ fo “only begotten’, as

Cf. Luke xviii. 32; Mark ix. 12.

[And the Lord shall be treated 3 And He will 5

THE TESTAMENT OF BENJAMIN 7. 4—10. 10

slo uey A 5 tiles as fire poured forth. And He shall ascend from Hades and shall pass from earth into heaven. And I know how lowly He shall be upon earth, and how glorious in heaven. |

10: Now when Joseph was in Egypt, I longed to see his figure ‘and the form of his countenance'; and through the prayers of Jacob my father I saw him, while awake in the daytime, even his entire figure exactly as he was.

2 ‘And when he had said these things, he said unto them': Know ye, therefore, my children, that I am dying.

c BeASt 3 Do ye, therefore, truth each one to his neigh- Do ye, therefore, truth and righteousness ‘each 3 bour, and keep the law of the Lord and His | one to his neighbour', and judgement unto concommandments. firmation, and keep the law of the Lord and his commandments.

4 For these things do I leave you instead of inheritance. Do ye also, ‘therefore', give them to your 5 children for an everlasting possession ; for so did both Abraham, and Isaac,and Jacob. For all these things they gave us for an inheritance, saying: Keep the commandments of God, until the Lord 6 shall reveal His salvation to all Gentiles. '‘And!'then shall yesee Enoch, Noah, and Shem,and Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, rising on the right hand in gladness. cB Si A 7 Thenshall we also rise,each one over our tribe, Then shall we also rise, each over our own 7 worshipping the King of heaven, [who appeared | tribe, and we shall worship the heavenly King. upon earth in the form of a man in humility. And as many as believe on Him on the earth ; 8 shall rejoice with Him]. Then also all men shall Then shall we all be changed, some into glory rise, some unto glory and some unto shame. and some into shame ; for the Lord judges Israel And the Lord shall judge Israel first, for their | first for the unrighteousness which they have unrighteousness ; [for when He appeared as God | committed. in the flesh to deliver them they believed Him ; g not]. And then shall He judge all the Gentiles, And then so (shall He judge) all the Gentiles. 9 [as many as believed Him not when He appeared f 10 upon earth]. And He shall convict Israel through And He shall convict Israel through the ro the chosen ones of the Gentiles, even as He | chosen Gentiles, as He convicted Esau through reproved Esau through the Midianites, who | the Midianites who loved their brethren. Be ye deceived their brethren, [so that they fell into | therefore, my children, in the portion of them fornication, and idolatry ; and they were alienated | that fear the Lord. from God], becoming therefore children in the portion of them that fear the Lord.

5. Hades cbdg: ‘people’ efS’.

And I know ... heaven >c AP*edeg,

X.1. >c. Restore to beginning of ii. 1. AStn waik

3. and judgement unto confirmation >a A®»»; ‘and judgement unto faith in the Lord’ AD*e4.

4. leave cc: ‘give’ A: ‘teach’ 8S}.

RXceD 1.0L God : “Sodo ye.” A. to all Gentiles: ‘in all the earth’ A. ; : : a

6-7. The Testaments give a primitive view of the resurrection to this present earth (cf. 1 En. vi-xxxvi, Ixxxiii-xc),

transformed gradually to sinlessness (T. L. xviii. 9), of the righteous. Note the order of resurrection. Cf. v. 8; cf. also T. Jud. xxv. 4; Dan.xii.1,2. The risen enter Eden, and eat of the tree of life, T. L. xviii. 10, 11, and dwell in the New Jerusalem, T. D. v. 12.

Owshem 6-d So Seth c. Cf U.S. vi. 5 on the right hand 8A S?!: ‘on His right hand’ c. Cf. Matt. xxv. 33, 34.

7. over our tribe >c.

8. shall rise c8S: ‘shall be changed’ A. heh ' L some unto shame. Cf. Dan. xii.2. Contrast 1 En. lxxxiii-xc; 2 Macc. vi-vii where the righteous alone are to rise. their unrighteousness c: ‘the unrighteousness (done) unto Him’ 8-dS!.

God in the flesh c + ‘a deliverer’ B. 10. Israel is judged by Gentile standards. c omits this verse. And... Gentiles > A>, as He convicted ... loved. A has the better text. The corruption and addition n @S! refers to Num, xxv. therefore aA: ‘not’ B-a, corruptly.

um Ifye® therefore, my children’, walk in holiness ‘according to the commandments of the Lord!, ye shall again dwell securely with me, and all Israel shall be gathered unto the Lord.

And I shall no longer be called a ravening wolf on account of your ravages, but [a worker of the Lord distributing food to them that work what is good. 2 And there shall arise in the latter days] one beloved of the Lord, [of the tribe of Judah and Levi],a doer of His good

r. And I shall no longer be called a ravening wolf on account of your ravages, but [a worker of the Lord, distributing food to them that work what is good. 2. And there shall rise up from my seed in the latter times] one beloved of the Lord, [hearing upon the earth His voice] and

And I shall no longer ber called a fcaptain of robbers, and at wolf, on account of your ravages. But one beloved of 2 the Lord, and a doer of the good pleasure of His mouth.

pleasure in his mouth, [with new knowledge enlightening the Gentiles].

a doer of the good pleasure of His will, [enlightening with new knowledge all the Gentiles, even the light of knowledge, bursting in upon Israel for salvation and tearing away from them like a wolf, and giving to the synagogue of the Gentiles.

3 Until the consummation of the age shall he be in the synagogues of the Gentiles, and among their 4 rulers, as a strain of music in the mouth of all. And he shall be inscribed in the holy books, both 5 his work and his word, and he shall be a chosen one of God for ever. And through them he shall go to and fro as Jacob my father, saying: He shall fill up that which lacketh of thy tribe]. c BAS” 121 And when he had said these things he stretched And when he finished his words, he said: ; 2 out his feet. And died tin [a beautiful] and | I command you, my children, carry up my bones 3 good sleep}. And his sons did as he had enjoined | out of Egypt, and bury me at Hebron, near my them, and they took up his body and buried it | fathers. So Benjamin died a hundred and 2 4 in Hebron with his fathers. And the number (of | twenty-five years old, at a good old age, and they the days) of his life were a hundred and twenty- | placed him ina coffin. And in the ninety-first 3 five years. year from the entrance of the children of Israel into Egypt, they and their brethren brought up the bones of their fathers secretly during the Canaanitish war; and they buried them in Hebron, by the feet of their fathers. And they returned 4 from the land of Canaan and dwelt in Egypt until the day of their departure from the land of Egypt.

Il. according ... ofc: ‘before the face of’ 8S}. securely: ‘in hope’ text, wrongly as LXX in Ezek. xxviii. 26, &c. XI. A is original and refers only to Benjamin. c adds a prophecy of the Messiah descended from Judah and Levi. 8S" transfers it to Paul. Cf. Tert. Adv. Marc. v. 1 (on Gen. xlix. 27). is LER akeee Vek a worker .. . what is good >A. distributing food. Cf. LXX of Gen. xlix. 27, and ‘dabit escam’, Tertullian 2. ¢. the spoil’. 2. one beloved of the Lord. Deut. xxxiii. 12, of Benjamin. For ‘the Beloved’ = Christ. See my ed. Asc. Isa. i. 4 (note). of His mouth: ‘in his mouth’ c: ‘ of His will’ 8B A®»S}, bursting in b eg (df): ‘shining’ a. 5. through them . . . my father f: ‘because of him’, &c., e: ‘ because of him Jacob my father instructed me’ b: >ad: ‘because of this he puffed me up’ g. fill up that which lacketh. A phrase of St. Paul. tribe bg: ‘belly’ def.

XII. Here 8 AS? is the better text.

There the Mass. has ‘divide Here c twists it into a reference to the Messiah.

2. ata good old age 8 AS!: ‘in a beautiful and good sleep’ c. See T. Z. x. 6. entrance ... into: The text absurdly reads ‘exodus . . . from’. Es

Canaanitish war BAS". See T. S. viii. 2; T. G. viii. 5. 4. £ S' add at the close: ‘ Benjamin, the twelfth son of Jacob, the second son of Rachel, lived 125 years.’

APPENDIX I

TRANSLATION OF A LATE HEBREW TESTAMENT OF NAPHTALI, WHICH CONTAINS FRAGMENTS OF THE ORIGINAL TESTAMENT

These fragments are in italics, and their parallels in the original Testament given in the margin.

THIS IS THE TESTAMENT OF NAPHTALI, SON OF JACOB.

11 The Testament of Naphtali, Naphtali the son of Jacob, *whom Bilhah, the handmaid of Rachel, had borne him ! [the wrestlings of God].2_ When Naphtali had grown old, and had come toa good T. Naph. old age, and had completed his years of strength, and fulfilled the duty of the earth-born man, he i. 6 began to command his children, and he said unto them, ‘My children, come and draw near and 2 receive the commands of your father... And they answered and said unto him, ‘Lo, we hearken to 3 fulfil all that thou commandest us.’ And he said unto them, ‘I do not command you concerning T, Jos. my silver, nor concerning my gold, *nor all my substance® that 1 leave unto you here under the sun, xi. 6 nor do I command you any difficult thing which you may not be able to accomplish, but I speak to 4 you about an easy matter, which you can fulfil.” And his sons answered and replied a second time, 5 and said, ‘Speak, O father, for we listen.’ He said unto them, ‘I give you no command save in 6 regard to the fear of the Lord: Him shall ye serve, and to Him shall ye cleave.’ They said unto him, ‘ What need hath He of our service?’ He said unto them, ‘It is not that He hath need of any creature, but that all creatures of the world have need of Him. But He hath not created the world for nought, but that His creatures should fear Him, and that none should do to his neighbour 7 what he doth not like for himself’ They said unto him, ‘Our father! hast thou forsooth seen us 8 departing from thy ways, or from the ways of our fathers, either to the right or to the left?’ He said unto them, ‘ The Lord and I are witnesses that it is even as ye say; but I dread that which is T, Levi to come, lest ye go astray after the gods of strange nations, and walk according to the ordinances of xix. 3 the peoples of the lands, and lest ye jozz the children of Joseph instead of che children of Levi and T. Naph. 9 the children of Fudah. They said unto him, ‘ What dost thou see that thou commandest us in this vil. 2 10 wise?’ He said unto them, ‘ Because I know that one day the children of Joseph will depart from the Lord, the God of their fathers, and cause the children of Israel to sin, and to be banished from the good land into another that is not ours, as we have been exiled through his being a bond-servant in Egypt. 1,2 ‘Further, I will tell you ze viszon I saw, when I was pasturing the flock. I saw, and lo, my T, Naph. twelve brothers were pasturing with me in the field ; and lo, our father came and said to us, “ My vy. 1-3 3 children, ran and seize ye, each *before me,* what comes to his portion.” We answered and said unto 4 him, “ What shall we seize? lo, we see nothing but the sun, moon, and the stars.” *He said unto them, “(Take hold) of them.” ®° When Levi heard it he seized a staff in his hand, and jumped upon 5 the sum and sat and rode thereon. And when Judah saw it, he did likewise ; and he sezzed a staff, 6 and sprang upon Zhe moon, and rode thereon. So did *al]l the ® tribes ; each rode upon his star and 7 his planet in the heavens ; and Joseph only remained alone upon the earth. Jacob our father said unto him, “ My son, why hast thou not done as thy brothers?” He said unto him, “ My father, what have they‘ that are born of woman to do in the heavens, as in the end they must needs stand upon the earth?” 31 ‘Whilst Joseph was speaking, /o, there stood near hima huge dud] with great wings like the wings T. Naph. 2 of a stork, and his horus were huge \ike the horns of the Reém. And Jacob said to him, “ Get up, v. 6 3 my son Joseph, and ride upon him.’ And Joseph got up and mounted upon the bull. And Jacob 4 our father departed from us. For about four hours Joseph gloried in the bull—at times he walked and ran, at times Ze flew up with him, till he came near to Judah, and Joseph stretched out the v. 7 5 standard he had in his hands and began to smite Judah his brother. Judah said to him, “My

1 only in P. 2 A gloss from Gen. xxx. 8. 3 J; also in A in a corrupt form. 4 For 28) read with T. Naph. v. 2, xara Sévaywv, M2°DD. The n> could fall out before the following InN 53.

THE TESTAMENTS OF Hee iwetvr PALRIARCHS

6 brother, why dost thou smite me?” He said unto him, “ Because thou holdest in thy hands twelve 7 staves, and I have only one ; *give me ten,' and there shall be peace.” But Judah refused to give them to him, and Joseph beat him till he had taken from him ten against his will, and only two were 8 left with Judah. Joseph then said to his ten brothers, “‘ Wherefore run ye after Judah and Levi? 9 Depart from them and follow after me.” When his brothers heard Joseph’s words, they departed from Levi and Judah as one man, to follow Joseph, and there remained with Judah only Benjamin ro, rr and Levi. When Levi beheld this, he descended from the sun full of trouble of spirit. Joseph said 12 to Benjamin his brother, ‘‘ Benjamin, my brother! Art thou not my brother? Come thou also with me.” But Benjamin refused to go with Joseph his brother. And it came to pass when the day drew to an end, lo, there arose a mighty storm, which separated Joseph from his brothers, so that 13 no two were left together. When I beheld this vision, I related it to Jacob my father, and he said unto me, “ My son, it is only a dream, which will neither ascend nor descend, for it hath not been repeated.” 41,2 ‘But no long time elapsed, when I saw another vision. Whilst we stood all together with Facob yp. Naph our father on the shore of the Great Sea, behold a ship came sailing in the middle of the sea yj. I-3. ; 3 without a sailor and a man (pilot). Our father said to us,“ Do ye see what I am seeing?” We 4 said unto him, “ We see it.’ He said unto us, “ Do what ye see me doing.” Thereupon Jacob our 5 father took off his clothes, and threw himself into the sea, and we all followed him. And the first 6 were Levi and Judah, and they jumped in(to the ship), and Jacob with them. And behold in that 7 ship there was all the goodness of the world. Jacob our father said unto them, “ Look at what is written on the mast; for there is no ship on which the name of the master is not written 8 on the mast.’ Then Levi and Judah looked, and saw, and behold there was written, “ This ship g belongs to the son of Berachel, and all the good therein.” When Jacob our father heard that, he rejoiced very much, and bowed down, and thanked God. He said, “ Not enough that He has 10 blessed me on earth, He has blessed me on the sea too!” Then he said unto us, ‘“‘ My children, 11 quit yourselves like men, and whatever each one of you seizes, that shall be his share.” Thereupon 12 Levi sprang to the big mast therein and sat upon it. The second after him, Judah, also leapt 13 to the second mast, which was next to Levi's mast, and he also sat thereon. And the rest of my other brothers took each his oar, and Jacob our father grasped the two rudders to steer the vi. 4. 14 ship by them. And Joseph was left alone. Our father said unto him, ‘ My son Joseph, take 15 thou also thine oar.” But Joseph refused. When my father saw that Joseph refused to take his oar, he said unto him, “Come here, my son, and take one of the rudders which I hold in t6 my hands, and steer the ship, whilst thy brothers row with the oars until you reach land.” And he taught each one of us, and said unto us, “Thus ye shall steer the ship, and ye will not be afraid of the waves of the sea, nor of stormy winds when they shall arise against you.” 51,2 ‘And when he had made an end of commanding us, he disappeared from us. And Joseph took both the rudders, one with the right hand and one with the left, and the rest of my brothers were, 3 rowing, and the ship sailed on and floated over the waters. And Levi and Judah sat upon the two 4 masts to look out which way the ship was to take. As long as Joseph and Judah were of one mind, and Judah showed to Joseph which was the right way, Joseph directed thither the ship, and? the 5 ship sailed on peaceably without hindrance. And after a while a quarrel arose between Joseph and Judah, and Joseph no longer steered the ship according to the words of his father and the teaching of Judah ; and the ship went a wrong course, and ¢he waves of the sea dashed it on a rock, so that T. Naph. the ship was broken up. vi. 5. 1 ‘Then Levi and Judah descended from the masts to escape for their lives, and as for the rest of 2 the brothers, we escaped for our lives to the shore. And behold there came Jacob our father, and 3 found us dispersed, one here, and another there. He said unto us, ‘“‘ What is the matter with you, 4 my sons? Perhaps you have not steered the ship as it ought, (even) as I commanded you?” And we said unto him, “ By the life of thy servants, we have not departed from anything that thou hast commanded us; but Joseph transgressed against the command; for he did not steer the ship according to thy command, and as he was instructed by Levi and Judah, for he was jealous of them.” 5 And he said unto us, “ Show me the place (of the ship).”’. And he saw, and behold the tops of the 6 masts were visible, and behold it was floating upon the surface of the water. And my father 7 whistled, and we all gathered round him. And he cast himself into the sea as before, and he 8 repaired the ship. And he reproved Joseph, and said unto him, “My son, thou shalt not again deceive (nor) be jealous of thy brothers, for they were nearly lost through thee.” rt ‘And when I recounted this vision to my father, he smote his hands together and sighed, and his 2, 3 eyes shed tears. And I waited till I was ashamed, but he spake no word to me. So I took the

1 Pj. ‘Come now, give them to me’, A. aA tS ARI.

APPENDIX I

hand of my father to embrace it and to kiss it, and I said to him, “ Oh servant of the Lord! why do 4 thine eyes shed tears?” He said unto me, “ My son, because of the repetition of thy vision my heart has sunk within me, and my body is confounded by reason of Joseph my son, for I loved him above you all; and for the wickedness of my son Joseph you will be sent into captivity, and you will 5 be scattered among the nations. For thy first and second visions are both one and the same vision. 6 Therefore I command you not to unite with the sons of Joseph, but only with Levi and Fudah.” vill, 2 81 ‘Further, I tell you my lot shall be in the best of the middle of the earth, and ye shall eat and be 2 satisfied with its delights. I warn you not to kick in your fatness, and not to rebel, and not to (Deut. 3 oppose the command of the Lord, who satisfies you with the good things of His earth. And do not xxxii. forget the Lord your God, the God of your fathers; Who was chosen by our father Abraham when 15.) 4 the nations were divided in the time of Phaleg. For at that time the Lord, blessed be He, came down from His highest heavens, and brought down with Him seventy ministering angels, Michael at their 5 head. He commanded them to teach the seventy families which sprang from the loins of Noah 6 seventy languages. Forthwith the angels descended and did according to the command of their Creator. But the holy language, the Hebrew language, remained only in the house of Shem and Eber, and in the house of Abraham our father, who is one of their descendants. 9: ‘And on that day Michael took a message from the Lord, and said to the seventy nations, to each 2 nation separately: “ You know the rebellion you undertook, and the treacherous confederacy into which you entered against the Lord of heaven and earth, and,now choose to-day whom you will 3 worship, and who shall be your intercessor in the height of heaven.” Nimrod the wicked answered and said, “For me there is none greater than he who taught me and my people in one hour the 4 language of Kush.” In like manner also answered Put, and Migraim, and Tubal, and Javan, and Mesech, and Tiras; and every nation chose its own angel, and none of them mentioned the name of 5 the Lord, blessed be He. But when Michael said unto Abraham our father, ‘“ Abram, whom dost thou choose, and whom wilt thou worship?” Abram answered, “I choose and select only Him who said, and the world was created; Who formed me in the womb of my mother, body within body ; Who placed in me spirit and soul; Him I choose, and to Him I will cleave, I and my seed, all the days of the world.” 10: ‘Then the Most High dispersed the nations, and apportioned and allotted to every nation its share 2 and lot. And from that time all the nations of the earth separated themselves from the Lord, blessed be He; only the house of Abraham remained with his Creator to worship Him; and after him Isaac 3 and Jacob. Therefore, my sons, I conjure you not to go astray and worship any other god than 4 Him whom your fathers have chosen. For know assuredly that there is none like unto Him, and no other who can do as He or like His works in heaven and on earth, and there is none who can do 5 wonders like unto His mighty deeds. A portion only of His power you can see in the creation of 6 man; how many notable wonders are there not in him? MHecreated him from head to foot; with his ears he hears, and with his eyes he sees, and with his brain he understands, and with his nose he smells, and wzth his wind-pipe he brings forth his voice, and with his gullet he absorbs food and T. Naph. drink, and with his tongue he speaks, and with his mouth he completes (7); with his hands he does ii. 8 his work, and w7th his heart he reckons, and with his spleen he laughs, and with his liver he is angry ; and his maw grinds, and with his feet he walks, and zs lungs are for breathing, and by his reins he 7 7s counselled. And none of his members changes its function, but every one keeps to its own. It is 8 therefore proper for man to lay to heart all these things, Who hath created him, and Who it is that hath wrought him out of an ill-smelling drop? in the womb of the woman, and Who it is that bringeth him out into the light of the world, and Who hath given him the sight of eyes and the walking of the feet, and Who causeth him to stand upright, and bringeth him nigh to his Creator and to His place, and hath prepared good deeds for him in the place of insight, and hath poured into him a 9 living soul and a pure spirit from Himself. Blessed is the man who does not defile the holy spirit of God which hath been put and breathed into him, and blessed is he who returns it to its Creator ct, as pure as it was on the day when He entrusted it (to him).’ 1o © Thus far are the words of Naphtali, the son of Israel, with which he admonished his sons, *with words sweeter than honey.?

1 The phrase is found also in the Pirke Aboth, iii. 1. 2 Emended. See my Text.

APPENDIX Ii

TRANSLATION OF ARAMAIC AND GREEK FRAGMENTS OF AN ORIGINAL SOURCE OF THE TESTAMENT OF LEVI AND THE BOOK OF JUBILEES

CAMBRIDGE ARAMAIC FRAGMENT.

Colwa:

1 ...from...daughter... that all... to do according to right in... Jacob my father, and saw ...and we said to them... they desire our daughter, and we will be all br(ethren) and companions.

2 Circumcise the foreskin of your flesh and appear (like us), and be sealed like us in the circumcision of... and we will be to y(ou) b(rethren).

3 _...my brother at every time, ... that were in Shechem ... my brother and Dan showed. . . in Shechem and what... (doers) of violence, and Judah showed them... that I and Simeon my brother went to him . . . to Reuben our brother, who . . . Judah (?) before (that he le)ft the sheep... .

BODLEIAN ARAMAIC FRAGMENT.

4 [Col. a]... peace, and all the desirableness of the first-fruits of the earth, all of it for food and for dominion ; the sword, fighting and battle and slaughter and trouble and rage and murder and famine. 5 Sometimes thou shalt eat, and sometimes thou shalt be hungry; sometimes thou shalt labour, and sometimes thou shalt rest ; sometimes thou shalt sleep, and sometimes the sleep of the eye shall 6 depart. Now behold how he has made thee greater than all, and how I give thee the greatness of » everlasting peace. And two weeks passed from me, and I awoke from my sleep. Then I said: The T. Levi one vision 1s even as the other. 1 wondered that all the vision should be (given) to him. Azd TJ hid viii. 18 8 this also in my heart and revealed it to no man. And I went to my father Isaac, and he also in like viii. 19 g manner (blessed) me. Then when Jacob saw (in regard to the twelve) all that should happen to him according to his vow, (and how that) I was first at the head of (the priesthood), and to me of all his sons he had granted the offering, (he gave thanks) to God, and clothed me with the garment of the priesthood, and (fil)led my hands, and I became a priest to God ... , and I offered all his offerings, viii. 10 1o and blessed my father in my life, and blessed all my brethren. Then they all blessed me, and father 11 also blessed me, and I finished [Col. 4] offering his offerings in Bethel. And we went from Bethel, 12 and dodged in the castle of Abraham our father, wth Isaac our father. And Isaac our father saw us ix. 1, 5 13 all, and he blessed us and rejoiced. And when he knew that I was priest of the Most High God, the Lord of heaven, he began to charge me, and to teach me the rights of the priesthood, and said to ix. 7 14 me, ‘ Levi, take heed to thyself, my son, my son, against all defilement and all sin. Thy rights are 15 greater than those ofall flesh. And now, my son, I will show thee the rule of the truth, and will not hide 16 from thee any matter to inform thee in the rights of the priesthood. First, take heed to thyself, myix.g 17 son, against all lust and uncleanness, and against all fornication. And do thou take to thyself a wife ix. 10 of my family, and defile not thy seed with harlots; for thou art a holy seed, and holy is thy seed 18 like the holy place, for a holy priest art thou called among all the seed of Abraham. 7 how art nigh ii. 10 to (God) and nigh to all His holy ones. Now be thou pure in thy flesh from every defilement of all (Jub. xxi. 19 [Col. c] And when thou risest up to enter the *house of God, wash thyself with water, and then ix. 11 20 Clothe thyself with the garment of the priesthood. And when thou art clothed, again wash thy 21 hands and thy feet, before thou offer anything on the altar. And when thou takest to offer all that 22 is fitting to offer on the altar, again wash thy hands and thy feet. And offer the split logs, and prove them first (free) from worms, and then offer them; for thus I saw Abraham my father taking 23 heed. Of allthe twelve kinds of wood, he told me that those of them are fitting to burn on the ix. 12 24 altar whose smoke goes up with a sweet savour. And these are their names :—cedar, and bay, and almond, and fir, and pine,® and mountain ash, and cypress, and fig, and olive, and laurel, and myrtle, (Jub. xxi. 1 So Jub. xxxii. 3, ‘ His father clothed him in the garments of the priesthood, and filled his hands.’ 2 Gk. Frag. and T. Lev. ix. 11 give ‘ the sanctuary’. * Text reads ‘ thorns’ (xm) corrupt for 8” = ‘pine’.

APPENDIX II

25 and aspalathus.!. These are they which he told me it was right to offer under the sacrifice on the altar. And when (thou hast placed) of the wood of these (trees) on the altar, and the fire begins to 26 kindle [Col. d] them, then begin to sprinkle the blood on the sides of the altar. And again wash 2 thy hands and thy feet from the blood, and begin to offer up the limbs, salted. Offer the head first, 28 and upon it spread the fat, and let there not be seen on it the blood of the offering of the bull. And after it the neck, and after the neck its forelegs, and after its forelegs the breast with the side, and after the legs the thigh with the spine of the loin, and after the thigh the hind-legs washed together 29, 30 with the entrails. And let all be salted with salt as is fitting for them according to their need. And after this the meal mingled with oil, and after it all, wine of the drink-offering; and burn on them frankincense ; and let all thy works be in order, and all thy offerings be pleasing (?), for a sweet 31 savour before the Most High God. And whatsoever thou doest, do it in order by measure and weight ; add nothing which is not fitting, and fall not short of the account of what is fitting (?) con- 32 cerning (?) the logs that are fitting to offer for all that goes up upon the altar. For the great bullock a talent of wood by weight; and if the fat alone is offered, six minas ; and if it is a bull-calf? which is offered... . Verses 32-66 (found only in the Greek).

33 And for the second bull fifty minas ; and for the fat alone, five minas. And for a great bullock 34 (¥doxov) forty minas. And if it be a ram or a he-goat that is offered, for such thirty minas, and for 35 the fat three minas. And if it be a lamb or a kid twenty minas; and for the fat two minas. 36 And if it be a lamb without blemish of the first year, or a kid of the goats, fifteen minas ; 37 and for the fat half a mina. And sprinkle® salt upon the great bull to salt its flesh, and offer it on the altar. One measure is fitting for the bull. And where there is a superfluity of salt, 38 salt therewith the hide. And for the second bull five-sixths of the measure. And for the 39 bullock (ydcxov) the half of the measure. And for the ram half a measure, and for the he-goat the 4o like measure. And for the lamb and the kid the third of the measure. And the meal that is fitting 41, 42 for them. For the great * bull and for the second bull and the bullock a measure of meal. And for the ram and the he-goat two-thirds of a measure, and for the lamb and for the kid a third part of 43, 44 2 measure, and the oil. And the fourth of the measure for the bull mingled with this meal. And for the ram the sixth of the measure, and for the lamb the eighth of the measure tand of the lambf. And as for the wine, pour a libation according to the measure of the oil on the bull and the ram and 45 the kid. Of frankincense six shekels for the bull, and the half thereof for the ram, and the third 46 thereof for the kid, and (let) all the meal (be) mingled. If you offer this not upon (?) the fat, let there be offered upon it a weight of two shekels of frankincense. And the third of the measure is the 47 third of the ephah. And the two parts of the bath and the weight of the mina are of fifty shekels. And of the shekel the fourth part is a weight.° The shekel comes to be about sixteen thermoi 48 (Aeppot) and of one (and the same) weight. And now, my son, hear my words and give ear to my commands, and let not these my words depart from your heart throughout all thy days, because thou 49 art a holy priest of the Lord. And all thy seed shall be priests. And to thy sons so give com- 50 mandment that they do according to this use ® as I have shown thee. For so my father Abraham 51 commanded me to do and to give commandment to my sons. And now, my son, I rejoice that thou hast been chosen to the holy priesthood, and to offer sacrifice to the Lord Most High, as it is 52 befitting to do according to that which is ordained for Him. When thou takest a sacrifice to offer before the Lord of any flesh, according to the reckoning of the wood so receive (it) as I command thee, and the salt and the meal and the wine and the frankincense receive at their hands for all the 53 animals. And always wash’ thy hands and thy feet when thou goest to the altar, and when thou Jub. xxi goest forth from the sanctuary let no blood touch thy garments. Thou shalt not }kindle it the same {6_,3 — 54, 59 dayt. And thy hands and thy feet wash continually from all flesh. And let no blood be seen upon verges 56 thee, tand every soul,t for the blood is the life (soul) in the flesh. And if thou preparest for thyself ® .3 26 any flesh at home to eat, cover its blood first in the earth before thou eatest of the flesh, and thou 57 Shalt not eat of the blood. For so my father Abraham commanded me; for so he found it in the Jub. xxi. 58 writing of the Book of Noah concerning the blood. And now, as I tell thee, my beloved son, thou art beloved of thy father and holy unto the Lord Most High, and thou shalt be loved beyond all thy

I

' The list in the Aramaic practically agrees with that in Jub. xxi.12. The Greek fragment diverges in omitting the almond and the olive, and adding the oyivos. See my text of the Testaments, 249.

The Greek has ‘the second bull’ here and in verses 38, 41.

Emended. See my Text.

4 See verse 32.

° Here follows in the text depydv & corrupt for depuay 6’ = ‘ of four thermoi.’

7 Verses 53-6 agree almost verbally with Jub. xxi. 16-18.

5 MS. reads ovans ceavrov, which may possibly be emended into roujs weavra.

THE TESTAMENTSTOPM HE tv LV EerATRIARCH.S

59 brethren. By thy seed shall be blessed in the earth,t and thy seed shall be enrolled in the book of

60 the memorial of life unto all ages. And thy name and the name of thy seed shall not be blotted

61 out unto all the ages. And now, my son Levi, thy seed shall be blessed upon the earth unto all the

62 generations of the ages.’ And when four weeks were fulfilled in the years of my life, i.e. 2% my T. Levi twenty-eighth year, I took unto myself a wife of the lineage of my father, even Mz/cah, the daughter of xi. 1

63 Bethuel, the son of Laban, my mother’s brother. And she conceived and bare me a first son, and Xi. 2 I called his name Gershom ; for I said that my seed would be sojourners in the land where I was

64 born. We are sojourners as...in the land... And in the case of the lad I saw in my vision that xi. 3

65 he would be cast out, he and his seed from the chief priesthood.... Thirty years old was I in my

66 life when he was born, and in the tenth month he was born towards sunset. And again she conceived and bare me about the time that is fitting with women, and J called his name Kohath. xi. 6

CAMBRIDGE ARAMAIC FRAGMENT.

66 [Col.¢] (And it happen)ed about the ti(me of women that I was with her, and she concei)ved 67 again (and bare me another son, and) I (call)ed his name (Kohath. And I saw) that to him xi. 5 (would b)e che gathering of all (the people, for) his would be the high-(priest)hood (over all Is)rael. 68 Ln the four and thirt)ieth year of my life was he born, in the fir(st) month, (on the fir)st day of the xi. 69 mo(nth), at sunrise. And again I was wi(th her), and she bare me a third son and I called his name xi. Merari, for tt was bitter to me concerning him exceedingly, for as soon as he was born he died ; and it was very bitter to me concerning him, decause he was like to die,and I besought and prayed for

71 him, and it was in all bitterness. x the fortieth year of my life she bare, in the third month. And 72 again I was with her, and she conceived and bare me a daughter, and I made her name Fochebed, xi. (for) I sai(d), as she hath borne to me honour, she hath borne for me glory to Israel. Jn the sixtyfourth year of my life she bare, in the first day of the seventh month, after that [Col. d.] we entered

73 Egypt. Inthe sixte(enth) year we entered the land of Egypt, and to my sons (were given) the 74 daughters of my brothers at the time... to them sons. The names of the sons of Gershon (Libnai xii. 1 and) Shimei ; and the names of the sons of Ko(hath, Amra)m and Izhar and Hebron and Uaziel; xii. 3 75 (and the names of) the sons of Merari, Mahli and Mushai. (And) Amram (took) to him as wife xii. 4 76 Fochebed my daughter, while I was yet living in the 9(4)™ year of my life. And I called the name of Amram, when he was born, Amram, for I said when he was born, this (child) (shall br)ing out the 77 people from the (land of Eg)ypt. Therefore his name was called the exalted people. Ox one day xii. 78 (were they born he) and Jochebed my daughter. Eighteen years old was I when I went in(to the lyand xii. of Canaan, and (nine)teen years old when I slew She(chem) and destroyed the workers of violence. 79 And I was nineteen years old when I became priest, and twenty-eight years old when I took to me Soa wife. And eight and forty years old was I when we went into the land of Egypt, and eighty and nine years | lived in Egypt. 81 [Col. e] And all the days of my life were 1(3)7 years, and I saw my sovs of the third generation) xix. 4 82 before I died. And zx the (hundred and eigh)teenth (year) of my life, that is, the y(ear) in which xii. 6, 7 Foseph my brother died, 1 called (my) so(ns) and their sons, and began to charge them with all that was in my heart. 83 And I answered and said to (my) sons: (Hear) the word of Levi your father, And hearken to the commands of God’s beloved ; 84 IL give you a charge, my sons, And I show you the truth, my beloved. 85 Let the sum of your works be truth, And (let) righteousness abide with you for ever. 160) 86 And thetr(uth)... And to them the harvest is blessed. 87 He that soweth good, reapeth good ; xiii. 6 And he that soweth evil, his seed returneth upon him. 88 And now, my sons, a book of instruction in wisdom feach your sons,

And let wisdom be with you an everlasting honour. 89 He that learneth wisdom, she 7s an honour to him, xiii, 3 And whoso despiseth wisdom is given over to contempt. 90 My sons, behold ¥oseph my brother, xiii. 9 Who gave instruction in the writings and discipline of wisdom. xiii. 2

1 This verse is indeed found in the Aramaic, but I have given the translation of the Greek, as the Aramaic is for the most part wanting.

APPENDIX ‘Ti

[Col. f]... man... and increased (?)... to every co(untry) and city ...to him brother . in it, he zs (not like) a stranger in it,* and not li(ke to) a stranger (in it),) and not like an alien in it ; for they all give him honour in it, for all desire to learn of his wisdom.

fTis friends are many,

And they that salute him are great ones, And on a seat of honour they place him,

To hear the words of his wisdom.

Great wealth of honour is wisdom.

And a goodly treasure to all that gez her.

If there come mighty kings and much people,

And an host and many horsemen and chariots with them,

And take... country and city,

And spoil all that is in them,

The treasures of wisdom they shall not spoil Nor find out her hidden things

1 The form in the Aramaic varies. We have here duplicate renderings of the same Hebrew original.

xiii, 4

xii. 7

THE: SIBY ELINE *OGRAGEES

§ 1. SIBYLLINE ORACLES IN GENERAL.

THE collection of verses known as the Sibylline Oracles was originally comprised in fifteen books and various fragments. Three books (ix, x and xv) are entirely missing, and there are gaps in some of those that remain, but with a total of some 4,240 lines their bulk is still very considerable. The greater part of this collection, however, is late and of comparatively little intrinsic worth, and the present study deals only with those of the fragments which are preserved in Theophilus ad Autolycum, and together form a kind of prelude or Proem, and with the earlier books iii, iv and v. But it will be necessary to give some preliminary sketch of the problem presented by the Sibylline literature in general.

It is a common feature of early peoples to look for oracular utterances of divine or quasi-divine inspiration from the mouth of old women, such as are represented by the witch of Endor in the Old Testament, the Pythian priestess among the Greeks, and, possibly, the nymph Egeria among the Romans; and it added immensely to the prestige of such utterances if they were ambiguous or difficult to understand. It was from a common feeling such as this that the Sibylline Oracles took their rise, but they are pre-eminent among all similar literature in the authority which they wielded and the fascination which they exercised over the minds of men. Their power they owed chiefly to their claim to remote antiquity, and to the obscurity in which they were always wrapped. Of Greek origin, and written principally, if not exclusively, in Greek, it was at Rome where they were chiefly venerated and had the most direct influence. In times of special difficulty they were frequently consulted, apparently with satisfactory result. There can be little doubt that the ingenuity of the custodians of the Sibylline rolls supplied sometimes a suitable response to the question under discussion.

A brief account of these oracles among the Romans is given below, but it is not with them that we have to deal. They have nearly all perished, and have left little more than a name and a history behind. But their great interest lies in the fact that the success which they achieved in their day led Jews and, later, Christians, seeking to defend or propagate their faith, to compose or adapt verses which they put forth under the name and authority of the ancient mysterious prophetesses known as the Sibyls,and in which lessons of monotheism and the like were put forth as the real teaching of the inspired teachers of the most hoar antiquity. With the morality of such a proceeding we have not here to deal: it is closely bound up with the question of the ancient idea of copyright, which was, as is obvious, radically different from ours. But of the success of this method of proselytising there can be little doubt, and indeed most Christian writers down to the time of Augustine accept without question the genuineness of these verses.

The Sibylline Oracles, therefore, which we possess are a compilation of old and new oracles worked up by Jewish or Christian authors who lived at various times between c. 160 B.C. and the fifth century, or even later, A.D. Their chief interest for us lies in (i) their date and interpretation, (ii) their relation to other apocalyptic literature, (iii) the side-lights thrown on history.

The above brief sketch must now be somewhat amplified, in order to explain the peculiar authority exercised by this form of oracle over Pagan, Jewish and Christian thought alike. And it will be necessary to go into a little more detail as to the Sibyl herself and the history of the Sibylline literature.

§2. THE SIBYL

The name ‘ Sibyl’ first attracts attention. It has been maintained by some scholars (especially by R. H. Klausen in Aeneas und die Penaten) that the word is not a proper name but implies a sound issuing from a subterranean oracle, conveyed either by the rustling of the wind, as in the case of the oaks of Dodona, or by the splash of water. But there seems to be little justification for this, and it is better to follow the universal testimony of antiquity in regarding 2(SvAAa as a proper name. Nor

is there any inherent improbability in deriving the name from eds and Bova, for there is sufficient evidence to show that among the Aeolians and Dorians @eds appeared as Suds, and in an inscription from Cumae Boddq is found for Bovdy. iSvddra, therefore, means the counsel of God (cf. Lact.

Early writers know of only one Sibyl. So Heraclitus (ap. Plutarch), Aristophanes, Plato, and Aristotle. But in course of time many more were recognized, though the exact number differs widely among various writers. The earliest mention of a plurality of Sibyls seems to emanate from a certain sophist named Sopater, who is quoted by Photius as the author of a work on Prophetic women ‘which include the so-called Sibyls’. Other writers, e. g. Solinus and Ausonius, recognize at least three: Pausanias and Aelian speak of four: Clement of Alexandria mentions nine, and Varro’s list (cf. Lact. Zc.) includes ten. The names given to the various Sibyls vary considerably, but there is convincing testimony that the earliest and most famous was the Erythraean, of whom Clement preserves a detailed but somewhat confused account. He gives her date as prior to Orpheus, whereas others, including Augustine, make her contemporary with the siege of Troy, and Suidas puts her nearly five centuries later. The Erythraeans believed her to be the offspring of a shepherd anda nymph. According to an early and widespread tradition she was connected with Apollo. This is referred to in ‘Constantine’s’ Oratio ad Sanctos, preserved in Eusebius, where it is said that she was at an early age consecrated by her parent against her will to the temple of that god. At his hands she is said to have met her death after surviving nine generations of men, and her grave-stone was for long shown on the Erythraean shore, while her image or token is regularly found on the coins of that town.

Before long the claims of Erythrae to be the birthplace of the Sibyl were challenged by Marpessus, a town said by Pausanias to lie in Trojan Ida. Erythrae based her claims on the testimony of the Sibyl herself as contained in the lines (Orac. in Pausanias x. 12. 3):

elu 8 éy@ yeyavia wécov Ovnrijs te Ocas te viupns T abavarns, matpos 8 ad kntopayoro pntpdbev Ldoyerijs, marpls 5€ pol earw Epvdpn. But Marpessus alleged that "Epv6p7 was merely an adjective, and that the next line, Maprnoods, pntpos tepy, woTapds 3 ’Aidwveds, had been suppressed by the Erythraeans.

Connected alike with Erythrae and Marpessus is the Sibyl of Cumae, whose fame early rivalled that of Erythrae. Justin Martyr paid a visit to Cumae, and relates how he saw there the cave made out of the single massive rock from which the oracles were given, and the three cisterns in which the Sibyl was said to wash. It was this Sibyl who, in the famous story told by Varro and Livy, came to Rome and offered the nine fateful books to Tarquin, and on being refused her price came back with six books and then with three. Various notices of her are preserved by Virgil and Ovid. The former represents her as having lived 700 years and having 300 yet to run, while Ovid relates that being offered by Apollo any boon she chose, she took up a handful of sand and asked that she might live as many years as there were grains in it.

_ These are the more famous Sibyls. It will not be necessary to do more than enumerate the various others connected with Tibur, Samos, Colophon, Rhodes, Ephesus, Babylonia, Egypt, Libya, and Sicily. °

§ 3. THE EARLIEST SIBYLLINE VERSES.

The first reference to the oracles of Sibyls is found in a quotation from Heraclitus, preserved in Plutarch (De Pyth. Or. 709 C): he says that the poems contained many gloomy matters, and specifies ‘many revolutions and upheavals of Greek cities, many appearances of barbarous hordes and murders of rulers’. Aristophanes mentions the Sibyl more than once and always with some tinge of respect (Pax 1095, 1116), and Plato speaks of her with reverence: Aristotle lays stress on her melancholy character and dismisses her more summarily. More details are given by Suidas, who summarizes the writings of the various Sibyls which he knows. Servius in his commentary on Virgil, ZcZ. iv, mentions that the Cumaean Sibyl divided up the ages under the names of metals and showed which god was ruler in each (gus guo imperaret). But there is nothing to show exactly when collections of such verses came to be made. If we may believe the story of the Sibyl who appeared to Tarquin there was already a collection of nine books, but they must have been small in compass if a woman could carry them in the cumbrous form of rolls. It is probable that there were a great number of detached oracles, sometimes consisting of a line or two, current in the Greek-speaking world, and there may have been many private collections. After the destruction of the official Sibylline books in the burning of the Capitol in 82 B.C.,a commission was dispatched to collect

THE, SIBYEGINTFORACEES

oracles from Sicily, Greece, and Asia Minor, and a large number were brought back (including 1,000 lines from Erythrae), from which a collection was made. After this the numbers increased so rapidly that Augustus commanded 2,000 spurious volumes to be destroyed. But with their increase in bulk their credit began to diminish, and the Emperor found it necessary to carry out a similar process of weeding.

§ 4. THE JEWISH SIBYLLINE VERSES.

The beginning of the Maccabean revolt revived the enthusiasm of the Jews in every department of life. Among other things the missionary side of their faith aroused greater interest, and a serious attempt was made to place its claim on intellectual grounds more clearly before the world. At the same time eschatology began to exercise more and more influence on men’s minds, and the conception of a final setting aright of all apparent injustice by the direct judgement of God appealed with increasing force to the more thoughtful of the Jews. The former tendency may be illustrated by the attempt of Aristobulus, a Jew living at the court of Ptolemy VII about 160 B.c., to prove that the best literature of Greece was in reality indebted to a large extent to Jewish inspiration: the latter point by the composition of the books of Danieland Enoch. Both these tendencies combined to suggest to a cultivated Jew living in Egypt about the middle of the second century B.C., that, if he could use the authority of the ancient and revered Sibyl, he might by means of verses written in the Sibylline style gain a very much wider audience for the propagation of his faith. The example of the book of Daniel was in all probability before him, and he would recognize no moral fault in the use of such means, especially if collections of Sibylline Oracles were from time to time receiving large additions. His method was not pure invention: he took ancient oracles and pieced them together, adding passages of his own which breathed strong monotheism and the glorification of the Jewish people. It is probably to this’ unknown author that we owe the greater part of the third book. His example could hardly fail to inspire imitators both among Jews and later among Christians. Nor did the feeling of the day see anything incongruous in the ancient Sibyl denouncing idolatry and singing the praises of the happy land of Judaea. Indeed the new collection of oracles achieved very considerable success.

§ 5. THE SIBYLLINES IN LATER HISTORY.

The burning of the Capitol in 82 B.C. resulted in the complete destruction of the official collection of Sibylline Oracles. Seven years later the Senate dispatched three commissioners to Erythrae to fetch from thence any that could be discovered, and as a result of their efforts some 1000 verses were collected from that place while a considerable number were added from elsewhere. It is not improbable that the interest aroused by this search inspired the manufacture of many spurious oracles, some of which may have been of Jewish origin. From the materials thus collected a selection was made by the Quindecemviri, and the accepted verses were kept in greater secrecy. Nevertheless some knowledge of them was public property. Cicero (de Div. ii. 54) remarks on the art displayed in them as exemplified by their? acrostic form and throws some suspicion on their genuineness. Virgil in his famous description of the Golden Age in £clogue iv quotes from Sib. iii. 785 ff. But the publication of oracles took away the main point of their sanctity, and we find the Emperors diligent in preserving them, as far as possible, inviolate. So Augustus instituted a searching inquiry into them and destroyed all except a small collection which was stored under the base of the Palatine Apollo. A further investigation was carried out on similar lines by Tiberius.

In view of these facts, it is obvious that the wide knowledge of Sibylline verses among early Christian writers points to there having been many collections over and above the official collection of Rome. It is possible that the oracles rejected by the scrutiny of the Quindecemviri instead of being destroyed merely found a wider audience, being incorporated with various subsequent additions. Inasmuch as the official collection, which was finally burned by order of Stilicho in the reign of Theodosius, was, as far as we know, never published, it would appear that the verses which we possess were all preserved in private hands.

There is no evidence that the Sibylline Oracles enjoyed any great popularity with later Jewish writers. Josephus (Azz. i, § 4) indeed alludes to Sib. iii. 97 ff, but the early appropriation of the Sibyl by Christian writers seems to have militated against extensive Jewish use. Among the early Fathers allusions and quotations are very frequent. Hermas alludes to the Sibyl in Pastor 2, § 4. Clement of Rome (cf. Justin, Resp. ad Quaest. 74) speaks of the Sibyl’s prophecy that the world should

‘ The suggestion that the writer was Aristobulus himself isa tempting one and was put forward by Alexandre » The only Sibylline acrostic which we possess is the Christian one in Sib. viii. 217-50, which is of considerably later date.

perish by fire. Justin refers without reserve to Books iii and iv, Athenagoras and Theophilus to the Proem and Book iii. Clement of Alexandria quotes freely from all the Jewish books and even represents St. Paul as appealing to the Sibyl (Strom. vi), and Celsus (ap. Orig. v, § 4) is moved to ridicule by their frequent use in Christian writers. Origen himself only once mentions the Sibyl (c. Cels. v, § 61), while Tertullian, though speaking of the Sibyl as anterior to all literature (ad Naz. 2), never makes use of the testimony of the Sibyl in his apologetics. Lactantius uses less reserve :1 he quotes freely from all the Jewish books and his writings are a perfect mine of Sibylline verses. His view of the Sibyls was that, though in themselves they were prophetesses of false gods, yet from time to time filled with Divine inspiration they poured forth precious truths. Ambrose has but one quotation from the Sibyllines : Augustine is aware of a prejudice against them, but in discussing their claims he finds nothing in them pertaining to the worship of false gods and he gravely admits the Sibyl to the number of those who belong to the City of God (de Czv. Dez xviii. 23).

§ 6. INTRODUCTION TO THE JEWISH BOOKS.

The two considerable fragments which are usually printed at the end of the book, together with the three lines of Fragment ii, are preserved to us in the treatise of Theophilus ad Aztolycum (end of first century A.D.) in which the writer attempts to justify to an educated heathen the Christian idea of God and the doctrine of the Resurrection. From Fr. i. 30, Alexander has deduced a Christian origin for them, but their tone is rather Jewish than Christian and their main purport is to vindicate the unique sovereignty of the Holy Invisible God as against the undignified stories of polytheism on the one hand, and the worship of animals and idols on the other. In character they are closely similar to iii. 1-45 and all seem to originate from Egypt. There is no distinctive mark of date, but the Fragments are most probably prae-Christian. They are ascribed to the Erythraean Sibyl by Lactantius and Clement of Alexandria. From the way in which Theophilus introduces these lines (ad Aut. ii. 36 SiBvddAa dé, ev “EAAnow Kal év Tots AorTots EOveow yevouevn TpopHtis, ev apxH THs Tpopytetas abrijs dvedie 70 Ov avOpdmav yévos A€yovoa .. .) the inference has been drawn that they stood originally at the beginning of the third book.

Book III has been variously divided. Friedlieb divides into three main sections 1-294: 295-488 : 489-828, but these sections are not entirely homogeneous,

The following is an analysis :

1—7 is an introduction expressing the pain of the Sibyl under the Divine compulsion.

8—45 express the Jewish hatred of idolatry and give a description of the true God the Creator of the World.

46-62 an eschatological passage describing the reign of the Holy King and the destruction of the wicked. Lines 46, 47 and 52 give an indication of date, which, however, is not easy to fix. It may be as early as c. 168 B.C., at which time Rome first interfered decisively in the affairs of Egypt by the embassy of Popilius Laenas. Then the three men of |. 52 who are to afflict Rome would be, perhaps, the Gracchi. Or the date may bec. 96 B.C. when Ptolemy Apion bequeathed by will his kingdom of Cyrene to the Roman people. In this case the three men would be Marius, Sulla, and Cinna.

Or it may be as late asc. 51 B.C. when Ptolemy Auletes bequeathed his kingdom to his Roman creditors, Then the three men would be the Triumvirs, whether the First (so Volz, id. Eschat., p. 47), or the Second (so Friedlieb, Intr. p. xxvii). The middle date is, on the whole, to be preferred. Alexandre would refer the ‘ holy king’ of 1. 49 to Vespasian and the ‘three men’ to Galba, Otho, and Vitellius, but this is quite improbable.

62-92. The destruction of Beliar: a late passage probably from the latter part of the first century A.D. Bousset, Antichrist, pp. 87, 100, considers the passage to be Jewish, but Jiilicher, reviewing him in 7heol. Litt.-Zeitung, 1896, maintains its Christian origin, and Geffcken is of the same opinion. The question largely turns on the meaning given to Y<Baorjvewy in 63. The idea that the whole world should come under the dominion of a woman recurs in viii. 200. The most probable explanation is that the woman is Rome.

93-6. Four lines of transition usually regarded as Christian, but not necessarily so.

97-294. A section derived primarily from the Erythraean Sibyl relating to the building of Babylon, the story of the Titans and the birth of Zeus, with a short summary of history dealing specially with the history of the Jews. The antiquity of the section is attested by the references to

1 Detailed references are given in Struve (Pragmenta librorum Sibyllinorum quae apud Lactantium reperiuntur, 1817) and Alexandre (Excursus ad Sibyllina, 254 ff.). Also in Vervorst (De Carminibus Sibyllinis apud Sanctos Patres disceptatio, Paris, 1844) and Besancon (De Vemplot que les Peres de PEglise ont fait des oracles sibyllins,

Montauban, 1851). Birla Bb 2

THE SIBYELINE "ORACELES

it in Alexander Polyhistor (80-40 B.C.) and Abydenus (first or second century B.C.) and by the frequent quotations in Christian writers. There are two main marks of date: (1) the reference to the seventh king of Egypt in 192, 193 (cf. 318, 608) who is, in all probability, Ptolemy Philometor 182-146 B.C.; (2) the description of Rome in 175 ff., which would suit the years immediately following the battle of Pydna 168 A.D. A date circ. 160 A.D. would seem to be the most probable. The working up of old heathen oracles by a Jew would then be closely parallel to the attempt of Aristobulus about the same date to prove that the Old Testament was the primary source of the best works of ancient Greek literature. The Sibyllist takes not only the Erythraean Sibyl, but also extracts from the Babylonian (97-104), and perhaps the Chaldaean (218-30). But the latter section is also ascribed by Lactantius to the Erythraean Sibyl.

295-488 contain for the most part a collection of various oracles of different dates. Many of them are of a general character and cannot be historically identified. But the following passages contain some note of time.

314-18 seems to refer to the internal struggles in Egypt between Ptolemy Philometor and Ptolemy Euergetes which ended with the capture of Euergetes in Cyprus in 154 B.C.

323-33 may refer to the desecration of the Temple by Antiochus Epiphanes in 168 B.C.

350-5 probably refers to the Mithradatic war of 88-84 B.C.

388-400 is best explained as depicting the events of 162-142 B.C.

464-9 appears to have reference to the Social war of 89~88 B.C.

483-8 mentions the capture of Carthage and Corinth in 146 B.C.

The séction contains some ancient oracles, e.g. 364-6; 401-30.

The passage about Alexander 381-7 is referred to by Varro as coming from the Persian Sibyl; while the Scholion on Plato, Phaedr. 244 ascribes it to the Chaldaean Sibyl.

Lines 414-33 are ascribed on the authority of Pausanias and Varro to the Erythraean Sibyl.

489-829. This long section begins with woes on various lands, and especially on Greece, which is to be subjugated by a barbarian power. Then follows praise of the Jews and a reference to the attack of Antiochus Epiphanes on Egypt in 170 B.c. (611-15). An eschatological passage comes next, leading up to the description of the coming of the Messiah, to be followed by a time of ideal peace and prosperity for the Jews. This is interrupted by a short passage (732-40), which appears to celebrate the capture of the Acra of Jerusalem from the Seleucid troops. Another Messianic passage (767-95) is followed bya short description of the signs that are to precede the end (796-808) and the book ends with an Epilogue, which in itself seems to be composite, 819-29 being apparently a later addition.

The marks of date then in this last section are as follows :—

508-11. Refers to the Gaulish invasion of Asia Minor in 280 B.c.

520-61. Subjugation of Greece especially after the capture of Corinth in 146 B.C.

573-85. Prosperity of the Jews in Maccabean times ¢. 140 B.C.

608-15 refer particularly to 180-179 B.C.

732-40 represent the feeling of ¢c. 140 B.C.

It should be noticed that 1, 776 bears marks of having been at least worked over by a Christian hand.

Taking the book asa whole there is no adequate reason for doubting that lines 97-819 are, with the exception of a few passages (e. g. 350-5, 464-9, 776) either composed or incorporated by a Jew, probably living in Egypt about 140 B.c. The Egyptian colouring is marked e.g. by the interest in Egyptian history, 159, 161, 314-18, 348, 608-15; but the writer has frequent references to Rome and Greece, and, to a lesser degree, to Asia Minor.

An attempt has been made (by Friedlieb) to show that lines 97-808, together with the Proem, comprised the poem that went under the name of the Erythraean Sibyl], and is said by Lactantius? to comprise about one thousand lines. It is a further suggestion of Bleek that lines 1-45, 819-29 may be ascribed to the author of Books Iand II. These suggestions have the merit of providing a comprehensive framework for the first three Sibylline bocks, but they cannot be regarded as more than tentative. It is probable, for instance, that iii. 97-104 comes from the Chaldaean Sibyl, or possibly a Hebrew Sibyl (Josephus, Azz. i. § 4) and the frequent notice of Egypt to which reference has been made would suggest that parts at least of the poem are from another source. At the same time, it is obvious that the Erythraean Sibyl became by far the most noted, and it is quite possible that other ancient oracles which bore no special mark of authorship were collected under her name.

The fourth book does not present any such difficult problems. Its plan is fairly simple. After

a description of God as the source of inspiration (1-23) the writer proceeds to draw a picture of the joy of the righteous and the fate of the ungodly (24-46). He then proposes a sketch of the history of the ten generations of the world, but after two generations he breaks off into a series of oracles against various countries and towns in the dismal Sibylline style (47-151). Then follows an eschatological passage (152-92) interrupted by an exhortation to. repentance (162-78).

The book is, therefore, in all probability a unity, and its date can be fixed with considerable certainty.

107-8 speak of the restoration of Laodicea after the earthquake of 60 A.D.

115-18 speak of the interna] struggles in Jerusalem during the siege in 69 A.D.

125-6 speak of the destruction of the Temple.

119-24 speak of the disappearance of Nero, the expectation of his return, and the struggles of 6g A.D., and a similar expectation recurs in 138 f.

128, 129, 143, 144 speak of a great earthquake in Cyprus, which is fixed by a notice of Eusebius

; The date then is after 76 A.D., but not long after, and at a time when the stirring events of the years 69~70 were fresh in men’s minds, and the expectation of the return of Nero was real and vivid. So by general consent the book is ascribed to about the year 80 A.D.

There is some uncertainty as to whether the writer is a Jew ora Christian. In favour of the latter supposition is adduced the outlook on temples (28) and sacrifices (29), the mention of the folly of the Jews (117), and the stress laid on repentance (168). But none of these ideas would be unnatural in a thoughtful Jew of 80 a.D., and as there is nothing specifically Christian in the book, so it ends with an eschatological outlook which seems distinctly Jewish in character.

The fifth book presents problems of its own. It is obvious at once that lines 1-51 stand by themselves. They give a brief sketch of history up to the time of Hadrian, or, if 1. 51 be genuine, up till the time of Marcus Aurelius.

The rest of the book consists, in the main, of the proclamation of troubles in various lands; in Egypt (52-114), Asia (115-36), Greece, Italy, and other lands (137-78), Egypt, India, Corinth, &c. up the main bulk of the book, but, interspersed among these conventional Sibylline outpourings, there are sections on other subjects which merit attention. Such are an ode to #Spis (228-46), which seems Eastern in character, and in which Hildebrandt claims to have discovered a direct quotation from the Avesta; an ideal description of Judaea (247-55, 260-85); a Christian fragment (256-9) ; an eschatological passage (344-85); a denunciation of evil livers (386-402); a hint of an attack on the Holy Land and of a Divine vengeance (403-33) ; and a description of a coming battle of the

Passages which bear upon the question of the date are as follows. In the first section the extravagant praise of Hadrian (48, 49) would be inexplicable in a Jewish writing except in the earlier years of his reign, or at any rate before the revolt of Bar Cochba and the erection of A¢lia Capitolina on the site of Jerusalem. But 1. 51 speaks of three successors of Hadrian, one of whom (by which Marcus Aurelius is probably meant) should reign late in life. There is good reason to suspect this line to be a later interpolation.

In the main section, 52 to end, the chief indication of date lies in lines 411-13, which seem to speak of Titus as doomed to death as soon as he reached Italy on his return from the capture of Jerusalem. The expectation, which appears to have been somewhat widely held, was, of course, falsified by history, and so this section at any rate, if the emendation proposed be accepted, is fixed for the year 70 A.D. For the rest the expectation of the return of Nero appears in 34 f., 104 ff, 139 ff., 215 ff., 363 ff., as a conviction deeply held, although he is by this time half identified with the Antichrist.

The general conclusion leaves the date more or less uncertain. But there is no real reason to separate I-51 from the rest of the book, and if we except lines 51 and 411-13 we may fix the date as somewhere in the reign of Hadrian before 130 a.D.!

The author seems undoubtedly to be living in Egypt. So the Sibyl calls herself (if the text be not corrupt) sister of Isis (53), and has much to say about Egypt and its towns (60-114, 179-99,

Opinions are much divided as to whether the author is a Jew or a Christian. The adjective

1 The minute dissection of a ‘Higher Criticism’ may be illustrated by the following table taken from Zahn’s Afpokalyptische Studien :—

THE SIBYLEIMNETORACLES

Oeoxptcrovs in 1. 68 seems to stamp the section to which it belongs as Christian, and 256-9 are unmistakably the same. But for the rest of the book the outlook is more Jewish than Christian. There is no reference to a New Testament writing, with the possible exception of 1. 158 (cf. Apoc.

§ 7. MANUSCRIPTS.

Special service in the collation of MSS. has been rendered by A. Mai, Keil, and Rzach. The results are given at length in the introduction to Geffcken’s edition. The MSS. fall into three main classes, to which the terms Q, ®, and ¥ are conventionally given. The following are the only MSS. which contain the Jewish portions :—

In class Q: V. Codd. Vaticani 1120, 743, both fourteenth century, contain iv. Cod. Monacensis 1541 contains iv.

In class ®: A. Cod. Vindobonensis hist. gr. xcvi. 6, fifteenth century, contains all our sections. P. Cod. Monacensis 351, fifteenth century, contains all our sections except the first part of the Prologue. S. Cod. Scorialensis 11 = 7 contains all our sections. B. Cod. Bodleianus Baroccianus 109, end of fifteenth century, contains all our sections except the Prologue and iii. 1-106.

In class ¥:

F. Cod. Florentinus Laurentianus plut. xi. 17, fifteenth century, contains iii with the subscription orfxou! add (1,034 lines), iv with subscription pra? (181 lines), v with subscription orixou

R. Cod. Parisinus 2851, end of fifteenth century, contains iii (with similar remark orixou add),

L. Cod. Parisinus 2850: 1475 A.D. contains the same three books with the same remarks ; only Book iii is called Adyos rérapros and Book iv Adyos Euros. .

T. Cod. Toletanus, a MS. recently discovered in the Library of Toledo Cathedral, written about 1500, containing all our sections except v. 482—end. It has Latin notes both in the margin and between the lines, but Geffcken regards it as of no particular value.

Besides the MSS. the following extracts have been found :—-

The citations in the early Fathers are also of great service in restoring the text.

Geffcken calls attention to the extreme difficulty of arriving at a satisfactory text. It is not infrequent to find lines in which no MS. gives a metrically possible text, and then it becomes necessary to have recourse toconjecture. In other instances a composite text has to be formed out of several different versions. But Geffcken arrives at two conclusions that are of definite value. First, the Q text is on the whole preferable to ® and ¥; and secondly, ® and & seem to have branched off from an earlier and better text, and of the two ® is to be preferred, though not by any means in every instance.

As regards the date of the different classes of MSS., Geffcken would put the Q in the third or fourth century, and would find a kind of & before the end of the fifth century.

The main object of the Jewish Sibyllists is to maintain the unity and sovereignty of God. God is one Being, invisible, self-sprung, without beginning or end. Idolatry is condemned in terms of unmeasured scorn ; the heathen gods are nothing, lifeless and powerless ; the sacred animals of Egypt are merely deceptions; Isis and Sarapis will be found ineffective to help their worshippers in the

Our present third book contains only 829 lines. But there is good reason to suppose that originally it contained considerably more than this.

§ Our book has only 531.

time of bitter distress. Phoebus himself, the inspirer of the heathen Sibyl, is a mere delusion. All idolaters, of whatever class, are people who have mistaken the true highway of life and wandered off into tortuous by-ways. They have failed to recognize the true God, Who although so lofty and majestic, has yet revealed Himself to men, and Who keeps a constant watch over all that goes on on earth. The ignorance and wilful transgressions of purblind man are inevitably storing up for the world volumes of wrath that will burst forth in terrible destruction.

The doctrine of God, then, is a fairly full one: again and again stress is laid on His unique position as existing from all time and owning no Creator. The terms which express this idea (adropurs, adroyévntos, a’roAdxevros) are themselves open to misconstruction, but they seem to imply nothing more than God's eternal existence, as contrasted with the idols that are the works of men’s hands and the gods of mythology concerning whose birth so many tales were rife. In three respects His intimate connexion with the visible world is vindicated: He is the Creator and Sustainer of all, sending rain and fruitful seasons, and manifesting His wrath in hailstorms and earthquakes. He has also revealed Himself to man, and although the means of His self revelation are not actually stated they are probably regarded as lying in the visible phenomena of nature. And again God is finally to judge the world, sending the just either to a fresh life of happiness-on earth or to the abode of bliss, while the wicked are condemned to the woes of Tartarus. It may be noted that stress is laid on the conception of God Himself being the Judge (cf. iv. 41, 183) as though in protest against the Christian idea of Christ as the Judge of all, whereas the work of Creation is carried out through the medium of the Word (iii. 20, cf. Ps. xxxiii. 6).

With regard to worship there are varying conceptions. The older passages speak freely of the offering of sacrifices (e.g. Frag. i. 21: Bk. iii. 576 ff.), but in the fourth book we find a repudiation of all animal sacrifices (28 ff.) and even of a visible temple (8 and 28). This book seems to be tinged with Essene thought which manifests itself also in the stress laid on Grace before meals (25 f.) and lustrations (165).

The middle of the second century B.C. was a time when men’s minds were very full of the thought of the coming judgement of God, and the literature of that age influenced deeply the thought of successive generations. So although the main eschatological portions of the Sibyllines occur in the third book, echoes of them are not lacking in other parts. The wrath of God as it culminates in judgement on the earth is depicted in scenes of bewildering complexity. A principal element is fire, which is to burn up the world. Sometimes it is in the form of a rushing stream (ii. 54), sometimes as an essence (iii. 72), sometimes it comes in form of a sword (iii. 672, 798, iv.174). A mighty darkness is to envelop the earth (v. 349) ; the sun, moon, and stars are to fail (iii. 801, v. 346); the very heavenly bodies are to come crashing down (iii. 80 ff.) ; a star is to be one of the agents of the destruction (v. 158 ff.). God himself is to appear in the clouds (v.65 f.). The destruction of the earth is sometimes represented as complete (e.g. iii. 84 ff.). More generally it is only the , ungodly who are to be destroyed, the righteous being reserved for a blessed life (v. 375-85). The © signs of the end are manifold. There is to be a great increase of wickedness and presumption ; in the later books this is usually connected with the return of Nero. A comet is to herald the end (iii. 334). Various portraits are to be seen, e. g. a battle among the clouds (iii. 805, v. 212). There is to be great distress among nations (ii. 556 ff., v. 225). Beliar is to appear and lead men astray with various lying wonders (ii. 63 ff.). Nero is to return in pride and arrogance, the world is to fall under the dominion of a woman (iii. 75 ff.).

It is noticeable that the destruction of the world is not strongly distinguished from judgements that are to affect merely certain localities. The universal and the particular shade off very easily into one another. Similarly in some passages the judgement is merely a prelude to the establishment of a blessed kingdom among the godly on earth (e.g. iii. 767 ff.). The Messiah himself is to come from heaven to assume the kingdom (v. 414 ff.). Under his rule the godly are to enjoy great peace (ili. 702 ff.) ; the earth is to bring forth her fruits in extraordinary abundance (iii. 741 ff.); the rough places of nature are to be made smooth (iii. 777 ff.), and even the animal world is to share in the universal peace and goodwill (iii. 785 ff.). Jerusalem is to become the fairest spot on earth (v. 420 ff.) ; the temple is to be resplendent once more with the gifts of varied peoples (iii. 657, 772).

It will be seen that the greater part of these idyllic conceptions are not in themselves unique or peculiar, but their fullness and variety make the Sibylline workings conspicuous among similar literature. They testify to the deep-rooted dissatisfaction with the present conditions among the most loyal spirits of the Jews, and the confident hope that the apparent injustice of God’s dealings in the world as shown in the triumph of His enemies, would be righted within no very long time by the vindication of His Divine purpose for men.

THE SIBYLLINE ORACLES

§ g. BIBLIOGRAPHY. (a) CHIEF EDITIONS OF THE TEXT.

Betuleius, Xystus, Szbyliinorum Oraculorum Libri Octo, Basel, 1545. Opsopoeus, Joh., Sy8uAdtaxol Xpnopot, Paris, 1599.

Gallaeus Servatius, 2¢8vAAcakol Xpnopoi, Amsterdam, 1687-9.

Mai, Angelo, S:8vAAns Adyor 164, Milan, 1817.

Alexandre, C., Xpnopot S.BvAX\akol, Paris, 1841, 1853.

Friedlieb, J. H., Xpnopot SiBvdAdcakol, Leipzig, 1852.

Rzach, Aloisius, Xpyopot S.BvAd\akoi, Vienna, 1891.

Geffcken, J., Dze Oracula Sibyllina, Leipzig, 1902.

(6) CHIEF CRITICAL ENQUIRIES AND EDITIONS.

Schwally, ‘ Sibyllae’ in Real-Encyklopadie der klass. Altertumswissenschayt.

Thorlacius, B., L2brz Stbyllistarum veteris ecclesiae crisi subiectt, Havniae, 1815.

Bleek, F., ‘ Ueber die Entstehung und den Zusammenhang der uns in acht Biichern erhaltenen Sammlung sibyllinischer Orakel,’ Theol. Zettschr., 1819, 1820.

Gefrorer, Kvit¢sche Geschichte, Stuttgart, 1831.

Volkmann, De Oraculis Sibyllinis, Leipzig, 1853.

Alexandre, Excursus ad Sibyllina, Paris, 1858.

Ewald, H., Abhandlung tiber Entstehung, Inhalt und Werth der sibyliinischen Biicher, Gottingen, 1858.

Klausen, R. H., Aneas und die Penaten, Gottingen, 1858.

Reuss, ‘ Les Sibylles chrétiennes,’ Vouvelle Revue, 1861.

Badt, B., Ursprung... und Text des 4. Buches der stbyllinischen Orakel, Breslau, 1878.

Hilgenfeld, /tidische A pokalyptik, Jena, 1857. . ‘Die jiidische Apokalyptik und die neuesten Forschungen,’ Zeztschr. der wiss. Theologie, 1860. o ‘ Die jiidischen Sibyllen und der Essenismus,’ Z.W.7., 1871.

Larocque, J., ‘Sur la date du troisi¢me livre des oracles sibyllins,’ Revue Archéologigue, 1869.

Hildebrandt, ‘ Das rémische Antichristentum zur Zeit der Offenbarung Johannis und des V. sibyllinischen Buches,’

Zahn, T., ‘ Ueber Ursprung und religidsen Character der sibyllinischen Biicher iv, v,’ Zeztschr. fir kirchl. Wiss. und kirchl, Leben, 1886.

Diels, K., Szbyllinische Blatter, Berlin, 1890.

Fehr, E., Studia in Oracula Sibyllina, Upsala, 1893.

Geffcken, J., ‘ Komposition und Entstehungszeit der Oracula Sibyllina,’ Zeate wu. Untersuchungen, 1602.

The literature which touches on the Sibylline Books is a very large one, and only a selection has been given above. A fuller Bibliography (up to 1900) will be found in Terry’s translation. Of the works mentioned Alexandre’s Excursus ad Sibyllina is a mine of information upon which the present writer has drawn freely. Friedlieb’s edition, with its spirited translation into German hexameters, contains many useful suggestions. Rzach’s text is furnished with a good apparatus criticus, but it is on the whole inferior to Geffcken’s which forms the basis of the present translation. Schiirer has some serviceable remarks in his Hzstory of the Jewish People (English translation, Edinburgh, 1886), and sidelights may be gleaned from various books on Jewish History and Eschatology, notably R. H. Charles, Eschatology ; Bousset, Religion der Juden im N.T. Zeitalter; and Volz, J/iidische Apokalyptik.

The following are noted in the very full Bibliography in 7%e Szbylline Oracles translated from the Greek into

English Blank Verse of M. S. Terry. (a) English.

J. Floyer, Z%e Sibylline Oracles, translated from the best Greek copies and compared with the sacred prophecies, especially with David and the Revelation, and with as much history as plainly shows that many of the Sibyl’s predictions are exactly fulfilled. With answers to objections made against them, London, 1731.

(6) French. Champier, S., Oracles de la Sibylle, tracduits par Simphorien Champier et Jean Robertet, 1702, 1703. Bouché-Leclerq, in Revue de l’ histoire des religions, vols. vil, vill, ix.

Nahrung, J. C., Weun Biicher sibyllinischer Prophezeiumgen aus der griechischen in die deutsche Sprache ubersetzt, Halle, 1819.

Friedlieb, J. H., Dze scbyllinischen Weissagungen volistindig gesammelt, nach neuer Handschriften-Vergleichung, mit kritischem Commentare und metrischer deutscher Uebersetzung, Leipzig, 1852.

Blass, F., ‘ Die sibyllinischen Orakel’ (in Apokr, u. Pseudep. des Alten Testaments), Tubingen, 1900.

(Z) Italian. Antolini, V., Oraculd Sibilini tradotti dal Greco in verst Italiani, Viterbo, 1775. (e) Latin. Castalio, S., Scbyllina Oracula de Graeco in Latinum conversa et in eadem annotationes, Basel, 1546. Mai, Angelo, as above, Milan, 1817, 1828. (f) Spanish. Poreno, Baltasar, Ordcilos de las doze Sibilas. Profetisas de Christo nuestro Senor entre los Gentiles, Cuenca, 1621.

Tae Ste ei eUNT. ORACTES FRAGMENTS

(1) O ye mortal men of flesh who are nought, (2) why do ye so quickly exalt yourselves, having no eye unto life’s end? (3) Do ye not tremble at nor fear God, who overlooks you? (4) the Most High who knows, who looks on all, who witnesses all, (5) who nourishes all? the Creator who has planted his sweet Spirit in all, (6) and made him a guide to all mortals? (7) There is one God, sole Sovereign, excellent in power, unbegotten, (8) almighty, invisible, yet seeing all himself. (g) Yet he himself is beheld by no mortal flesh. (10) For what flesh can see visibly the heavenly and true (11) God, the Immortal, whose abode is the heaven? (12) Nay not even face to face with the sun’s rays (13) are men able to stand, being mortals, (14) mere veins and flesh wedded to bones. (15) Worship him, who is alone Prince of the World, (16) who alone exists from age to age, (17) self sprung, unbegotten, holding all in sway through all time, (18) giving to all men their testing time in the common light. (19) But of your evil counsel ye shall have the fitting reward, (20) for that forsaking the honouring of the true and eternal God, (21) and the offering to him of sacred hecatombs, (22) ye have made your sacrifices to the deities in Hades. (23) In insolence and madness ye walked, and, forsaking the straight high-road, (24) ye turned aside and were wandering through thorns (25) and stakes. Cease, vain mortals, (26) roaming in darkness and in black murky night, (27) and leave the darkness of night and take hold of the light. (28) Behold he is plain unto all and such as cannot be missed. (29) Come, pursue not ever darkness and murkiness! (30) Behold, the sweet-eyed light of the sun shines brightly forth. (31) Conceive wisdom in your hearts and have knowledge. (32) There is one God who sends rain and winds and earthquakes, (33) lightnings, famines, pestilence and sad cares, (34) and snow and hail: why should I detail them one by one? (35) He is Lord of heaven, Sovereign of earth, the one Existence.

(1) But if the gods have offspring and yet remain immortal, (2) there would have been more gods born than men, (3) nor would room have been found for mortals to stand.

(1) But if any thing brought into being wholly perishes, God could not have been fashioned (2) from the loins of a man and from the womb. (3) But God is one, most exalted of all, who has

made (4) the heaven, the sun, the stars, and the moon, (5) the fertile earth too, and the swellings of the sea-water, (6) and the lofty mountains, and perennial founts of springs. (7) Again he brings into

i. The whole Fragment is preserved in Theoph. ad Av/ol. ii. 36. The first line is quoted by Clem. Al. Strom. ili. 3.14. The strong monotheism of the passage is probably Jewish rather than Christian, but Fehr (Stud. iz Or. Sio., p- 16 ff.) points out its close similarity with Orphic writings.

5,6. Cf. Wisdom xii. 1. The lines are quoted in Lact. Div. Just. iv. 6.5 as coming from the beginning of the Erythraean Sibyl. In 6 Lact. has dedv for Bpordv, but this is probably a Christian alteration.

7-9. Quoted by Justin, Cok. ad Graec. 16.

hom Gi iiet7 >; Deut. vs 26:

12. Geffcken quotes a similar thought ascribed to Socrates in Clem. Al. Protref?. vi. 71.

14. The rendering follows the restoration of Nauck.

18. testing time, xpirypiov, is of doubtful meaning. Geffcken quotes Philo, De Opfif. Mund. 20, p. 14, in which it appears to mean ‘discrimination’. The phrase ‘common light’ is probably of Stoic origin. It recurs in ili. 494.

22. For the idea that the heathen gods are dead cf. iii. 545 ff., viil. 393.

28-35. Quoted in Clem. Al. Protrefz. viii. 37. Line 28 is also quoted in Strom. v. 14. 116.

30. Alexandre supposes the ‘sweet-eyed light’ to refer to Christ. But the thought.is more of the actual sun declaring the glory of God.

ii. The second Fragment is also found in Theophilus (ad Awz. ii. 3.2), and is alluded to specifically in [Constantine’s] Ov. ad sanct. coet. 4. It appears to be closely connected with the following Fragment.

iii. The Fragment is preserved in Theoph. ad Awt. ii. 36.29. The first and the second lines are quoted in Hipp. Philos. v. 16, and in Lact. Div. Just. i. 8. 3, and alluded to in Justin, Cohort. ad Graec. 23. 6.

THE SIBYLLINE, BOOKSS) Fracment tll Lines 8=49

being the multitudes countless in number of the creatures of the water, (8) and He keeps alive the reptiles that move on the earth, (9) and the manifold species of winged things, twittering with clear voice, (10) brown birds with liquid trill, beating the air with outstretched wings ; (11) and in the mountain glades he has set the wild race of beasts, (12) and to us mortals he has subjected all domestic creatures. (13) He has constituted man as the Divinely appointed ruler of all, and (14) to him he has subjected every variety of things, and things that cannot be understood. (15) For what mortal flesh can know all these things? (16) Nay, none knows them save He who from the beginning has made them, (17) the incorruptible Creator, the Eternal, dwelling in the sky (18), putting before the good much greater reward of good (19) but for the evil and unjust raising up wrath and anger, (20) and war and pestilence and tearful woes. (21) Ye men, why do ye vainly exalt yourselves—to be rooted out? (22) Be ashamed of making gods of cats and beasts. (23) Does not madness and frenzy take away the sense of the mind, (24) if gods purloin dishes and carry off pots: (25) and in place of dwelling in the golden limitless sky (26) they look moth-eaten and are woven with thick spiders’ webs. (27) Ye witless folk, worshipping serpents, dogs and cats, (28) ye reverence winged creatures and animals that creep on the earth, (29) and images of stone and statues made with hands, (30) and stones piled together by the roads. These things ye reverence (31) and many other vain things which it is a shame even to mention. (32) These are gods who lead on weak-willed men by guile, (33) from whose very mouth deadly poison is poured. (34) But to Him Who is both life and deathless, endless light, (35) and who pours forth upon men gladness sweeter than (luscious) honey, (36) to Him alone bend thy neck, (37) and tincline} thy path among the blessed lives. (38) All these things ye left and quaffed the full goblet of justice, (39) unadulterated, strong, fortified, in no wise tempered, (40) yea all of you with spirit frenzied by folly. (41) And ye will not wake to soberness and come to atemperate mind, (42) and know the King, the God Who oversees all things. (43) Therefore the gleam of blazing fire is coming upon you. (44) Yeshall be burned with torches the livelong day throughout the age, (45) being ashamed of your lying futile idols. (46) But they who honour the true and everlasting God (47) inherit life, throughout the aeonian time (48) dwelling in the fertile garden of Paradise, (49) feasting on sweet bread from the starry heaven.

BOOK RTH

(x) O thou who thunderest from on high, blessed heavenly one, who hast the Cherubim (2) as thy throne, I pray thee give me a short respite from mine unerring oracle, (3) for my soul within me is weary. (4) Nay, why did my heart again flutter, and why is my soul, (5) lashed with a spur from within, compelled to announce my message (6) to all? So again I will proclaim all (7) that God bids me proclaim unto men.

8. keeps alive. The verb Wvyorpodeira: is apparently found nowhere else. The middle is a little awkward, and Opsopoeus’ reading, Wvyorpodei te (from M), is not reliable.

12. Cf. Ps. viii. 7,8. Philo, De Opif. Mund 28 (the whole chapter should be read).

17-19. Quoted by Lact. De /ra Dei xxii. 7, as from Erythraean Sibyl.

21. The question is a highly compressed one. For the thought cf. iii. 57 ff.

22. The mention of cats as objects of worship points to an Egyptian source cf. ili. 30.

25. limitless, dveipova, an emendation of Wilamowitz.

26. look moth-eaten. The phrase onrdéSpwra dédopxe is scornfully modelled on the heroic idiom wip . . . dedopxas (Odyss. xix. 446, &c.). The sarcasm is very effective. The deified cats pilfer savoury morsels, and the images are covered with spiders’ webs.

32. who lead on . . . by guile, ddA 7ynripes is Wilamowitz’s suggestion for doAonropes.

35. This line and the next are deficient. There is nothing to show how they should be filled up.

37. tinclinet. The verb is uncertain. MS. reading is dvakA\wot. Rz. alters to dvakXivors, but the optative is awkward after the imperative. Perhaps read dvaxaivov, ‘ renew.’ i

38. The metaphor of the cup is probably derived from Isa. li. 17.

45. MS. ‘being ashamed of lies in the futile idols’.

47. The phrase inherit life recalls Matt. xix. 29, but is not exclusively a Christian conception. tae

49. sweet bread. This is probably manna, which is to be the food of the blessed. Cf. Sib. iil. 746 and 2 Baruch xxix. 8.

Ill. 1-7. Introduction. The Divine compulsion. F

1. The line needs emendation to make it scan. Read tWiBpopue, waxap, ovpavie Os éxeis Ta XepovBin. The scansion goes more by accent than by strict rules, and indeed in all this section there are metrical abnormalities.

3. The Sibyl regularly represents herself as speaking under Divine compulsion, cf. infr. 1. 295.. The Fathers distinguished her inspiration from that of the Hebrew prophets by its unwilling character.

THE SIBYLEINE BOOKS: Boox: I1!, Lines 1-62

(8) Ye men that bear the form that God did mould in his image, (9) why do ye wander at random and walk not in the straight path, (10) being ever mindful of the eternal Creator ? (11) There is one sovereign God, ineffable, whose dwelling is in heaven, (12) self sprung, unseen yet seeing all himself alone. (13) No mason’s hand did make him, nor does some model formed from gold (14) or ivory by the varied skill of man represent him. (15) But he, himself Eternal, hath revealed himself (16) as One who is and was before, yea and shall be hereafter. (17) For who, being mortal, can gaze on God with hiseyes? (18) Or who could bear even to hear the mere name (19) of the mighty, heavenly God, the World-Ruler? (20) Who by his word created all, both heaven and sea (21) and tireless sun and moon at full (22) and twinkling stars, mighty mother Ocean, (23) springs and rivers, fire immortal, days:and nights. (24) Yea it is God Himself who fashioned four-lettered Adam, (25) the first man fashioned, who completes in his name (26) morn and dusk, antarctic and arctic. (27) He too both established the fashion of the form of mortal men (28) and made the beasts and things that creep and fly. (29) Ye do not worship nor fear God, but wander at haphazard, (30) bowing down to serpents and doing sacrifice to cats, (31) and to dumb idols and stone statues of mortal wights, (32) and sitting down before the doors of godless temples (33) ye weary the God who ever is, who guards all (34), taking your delight in miserable stones, forgetting the judgement (35) of the Eternal.Saviour Who created heaven and earth. (36) O race that delights in blood, crafty, wicked race of godless men, (37) liars and double-tongued, immoral, (38) adulterous, idolatrous, of wily devices, (39) within whose heart is evil, a frenzied spur, (40) snatching for yourselves, having a shameless mind! (41) For no man of wealth endowed with goods will give any part to another, (42) but miserable meanness shall be among all mortals, (43) and faith they shall never keep at all, (44) but many widowed women shall have other secret lovers for lucre’s sake, (45) and gaining husbands shall not keep hold of the rope of life.

(46) But when Rome shall rule over Egypt as well, (47) tas she still hesitates to do,f then the mightiest kingdom (48) of the immortal king over men shall appear. (49) And a holy prince shall come to wield the sceptre over all the world (50) unto all ages of hurrying time. (51) And then there shall be inexorable wrath on Latin men. (52) Three with piteous fate shall bring ruin on Rome, (53) and all its people shall perish in their own dwellings, (54) whensoever a cataract of fire shall flow from heaven. (55) O wretched me! when shall that day arrive, (56) even the judgement of the eternal God, the mighty King? (57) Yet for the present be ye founded, O ye cities, and adorned all of you (58) with temples and race-courses, with markets and statues (59) of gold and silver and stone, that ye may come to the day of bitterness. (60) For come it will, whenever the odour of brimstone pervades (61) all mankind. But I will tell out in particular (62) all those cities in which men are to suffer woe.

8-45. Praise of God and denunciation of idolatry. The passage is similar to Fr. i. and iii. Cf. also Isa. xl. 18 ff. ; Wisdom of Solomon xiii. 1o ff.

12. seeing ...alone. There is no need to alter dpav pdvos (fh, pf) into dpauevos. For the thought cf. Orph. frag. iv. 9 f. ov8€ ris abrov eioopder Oyntay adros Oé te mavTas dparat.

14. by the varied skill. réyvyo’ is a conjecture of Wilamowitz. It is possible to translate the MSS. reywijs, ‘no model of the art of man.. ”’

20. For God’s word as the agent of Creation cf. Ps. xxxiii. 6. It is not yet personified as in Philo.

24. The letters of Adam are represented as giving the initials of East, West, South, and North. In 2 En. xxx, 13 an acrostic is formed on this name. The same idea recurs in an anonymous writing, De MJontibus Sina et Sion 4, and in Aug. Zract. in Loh. Evang. ix. 14.

25. in his name. For kai ovvoya it is necessary to read Kat ovvopa.

30. The objects of worship are specially Egyptian. Cf. /vag. iii. 27.

31. dumb. addddos. So Alexandre emends from a\\os.

33. ye weary. The MSS. reading rypeire can hardly be translated. Read Teper” act Gly lsaeexliit, 24:

34. forgetting. éx\aGéovres does not occur elsewhere in the active with this meaning. Mein. suggests exheAadovres, but this is usually causative in meaning.

37. The restoration of the text is due to Castalio.

4o. for yourselves. For avrois it seems necessary to read avrois.

42. meanness, xaxin in the special sense of stinginess. Cf. Rom. 1, 29.

44-5. In 1 Tim. v. 11, 12 regularly constituted church widows are forbidden to marry again. Here the objection seems to be against second marriages in general.

45. rope of life. This is probably a nautical metaphor.

46-62. The reign of the Holy King and the destruction of the wicked. For the question of the date see Introduction, p. 371.

46. A Rabbinic guess as to the time of the coming of the Messiah was nine months after the empire of Rome had extended over the whole world. Cf. Edersheim, Life and Times, i. 169 (with notes).

47. tas she still hesitates to dot. The text is uncertain, and various emendations are possible. In Geffcken’s text eloére (for MSS. cis év) SnOtvvovea *rdre 5)* it seems necessary to omit 67. Buresch and Fehr suggest «is év 0 (@vver.

49. aholy prince. He must be the Messiah, and not as Alexandre suggests, Vespasian.

54. Possibly a reference to the burning of the Capitoline Juppiter in 84 B.c., in which the Sibylline Books perished, or to the destruction by lightning of the statue of Juppiter on the Alban Mount in 57 B.C.

60. For brimstone as a feature of the Judgement cf. infr. 462 ; 1 Enoch cxvii. 6.

THE SIBYLLINE BOOKS. Beox III; ‘Lines’ 63-102

(63) From the stock of Sebaste Beliar shall come in later time (64) and shall traiset the mountain heights and raise the sea, (65) the great fiery sun and the bright moon, (66) and he shall raise up the dead and shall perform many signs (67) for men: but they shall not be effective in him. (68) Nay, but he deceives mortals, and many shall he deceive, (69) Hebrews faithful and elect and lawless too, and other (70) men who have never yet listened to the word of God. (71) But at whatsoever time the threatened vengeance of the Almighty God draws near, (72) and fiery energy comes through the swelling surge to earth, (73) and burns up Beliar and the overweening men, (74) even all who have put their trust in him, (75) then the world shall be under the dominion of a woman’s hands (76) obeying her every behest. (77) Then when a widow shall reign over the whole world (78) and cast both gold and silver into the godlike deep, (79) andthe brass and iron of shortlived man (80) cast into the sea, then the elements of the world one and all (81) shall be widowed, what time God Whose dwelling is in the sky (82) shall roll up the heaven as a book is rolled. (83) And the whole firmament in its varied forms shall fall on the divine earth (84) and on the sea: and then shall flow a ceaseless cataract of raging fire, (85) and shall burn land and sea, (86) and the firmament of heaven and the stars and creation itself (87) it shall cast into one molten mass and clean dissolve. (88) Then no more shall there be the luminaries’ twinkling orbs, (89) no night, no dawn, no constant days of care, (90) no spring, no summer, no winter nor autumn. (91) And then the judgement of the Mighty God shall come into the midst (g2) of the mighty aeon, when all these things shall come to pass.

(93) O for the watery tracks and all the dry land, (94) when the sun arises which never sets again. (95) All shall obey him as he ascends again upon the world, (96) for as much as he first fashioned them, and his might.

(97) But whensoever the threatened vengeance of the Mighty God is brought to pass, (98) that vengeance with which once he threatened mortals when they made a tower (gg) in the Assyrian land—Now all were of one tongue (100) and they desired to ascend into the starry heaven. (101) But straightway the Eternal laid great stress (102) upon the blasts: then the winds dashed down the great

63-92. The coming and destruction of Beliar. In P. this section is introduced with the following words: ‘ After this she proceeds in her discourse about the deceiving devil, the Antichrist, and speaks as follows.’

63. Sebaste is Samaria, and the reference is probably to Simon Magus regarded as Belial or the Antichrist. But ‘the stock of Sebaste’ may refer to the Emperors (Augusti), and, if so, Beliar is Nero represented as returning. So R. H. Charles (Asc. /sa. p. Ixviii).

64. raise. The use of the verb ornoe: is difficult. Possibly it alters its meaning from ‘bring down’ in this line to ‘raise up’ in 1. 66. Or in ]. 64 we might read orpwoe.

67. In Acts of Peter with Simon xxviii ff. Simon Magus resuscitates a dead body, but only in appearance. When he departs the charm vanishes, and it is St. Peter who actually performs the miracle. The unreality of the miracles is alluded to in Ps. Hippol. xxiii. 106. 14.

70. The reading of f ovr Ocod Adyory need not necessarily be altered.

71. The idea that the world would be destroyed by fire appears among the Romans as a Stoic doctrine. Probably it was derived from Heraclitus. Among the Jews it was possibly suggested by Oriental influences.

75. For the idea of the dominion of a woman cf. vili. 200. It has been suggested that Cleopatra is intended, transformed into a demoniacal personage. Bousset sees a recollection of the mythical Sea Monster, originally regarded as feminine.

79. the brass too and iron. Kai yadkdy re oidnpov. Emend with Wilamowitz into ody yadk@ re oidnpov.

81. be widowed. Probably, as Blass suggests, ‘ bereft of living things’.

82. Cf. Isa. xxxiv 4; Ps. cii. 26; Apoc. vi. 14, and frequently in later literature, e.g. Armenian Apoc. of Daniel, 240. 13 (cf. Bousset-Keane in Antichrist Legend, p. 242).

84. cataract of ... fire. Cf. Secrets of Enoch x. 3.

86. stars, onara, a conjectural emendation for jpara.

89. The cessation of seasons is paralleled in Secrets of Enoch xxxiii. 2; cf. also 4 Ezra vii and Sib. ii. 325.

go. winter. There is no need to alter the MS. reading yemmav to year’.

92. the mighty aeon (aidy péyas) was originally a Stoic conception.

93-6. The lines are usually regarded as Christian, but there is nothing distinctively Christian in them. The reference to the sun probably goes back to Malachi iv. 1, 2. It is possible, indeed, that Justin is referring to these lines in Cohort. ad Graec. 38, and if so he understood them to be Christian in interpretation. But that does not prove that they are of Christian origin.

96. fashioned (émjyvve) for MSS. ‘knew’ (éréyvo).

97-294. A long section from the Erythraean Sibyl beginning with twelve lines adapted from the Babylonian Sibyl. The passage is widely quoted or alluded to: cf. Euseb. i. 23, 24, who quotes from Alexander Polyhistor (fl. 80-40 B.C.) ; Josephus, Azz. i. 4. 3. Eusebius preserves also notices in Abydenus and Eupolemus (cf. Praep. Ev. ix. 14, xvil). Lact. Dzv. Just. i. 6 explicitly refers the section to the Erythraean Sibyl, but a notice in the Scholza on Plato, Phaedr. 244 B ascribes the account of the tower and the giants to the Hebrew Sibyl. ;

100. There appears to be some confusion of the story in Genesis with the legend of the giants piling Pelion on

102. The wind is not mentioned in Genesis, but the allusion occurs in Jubilees x. 26; Josephus, Av/. 1. 4. 33 Epiph. Adv. Haer. i. 1. 5.

tower from on high, (103) and incited mortal men to mutual strife. (104) Therefore men named the city Babylon.

(105) But when the tower was fallen and men’s tongues (106) divided off with divers kinds of sounds, then the whole (107) earth began to be filled with separate kingdoms. (108) Then came the tenth generation of articulate men, (109) since the flood came upon the men of yore. (10) And Cronos, Titan, and Iapetus were kings, (11) the goodliest children of Gaia and Ouranos, whom men called (12) Earth and Heaven,dubbingthem so (13) because they were the first of all articulate men. (14) Threefold were the divisions of earth in the portion of each, (15) and each was king in his own sphere, nor did they fight, (16) for oaths had been made to their father, and the shares were just. (17) Then their father’s full time of age arrived (18) and so he died. And his sons in monstrous transgression of their oaths (19) stirred up strife against one another (20) as to who should reign over mortals in possession of royal honour. (21) And Cronos and Titan fought against each other. (22) But them Rhea and Gaia and garland-loving Aphrodite, (23) Demeter and Hestia and fair-tressed Dione (24) brought to friendship, reconciling the kings (25) all brethren as they were and of one kin, and the other (26) men who were of like blood and parentage. (27) And they resolved that Cronos should reign as king of all, (28) because he was eldest and fairest of form. (29) But Titan for his part imposed mighty oaths on Cronos (30) that he should not rear a family of male children, so that he himself might be king (31) when old age and death overtook Cronos. (32) So whensoever Rhea was in travail, the Titans would sit beside her (33) and tear in pieces every male child, (34) but the women children they would leave alive to be reared.with their mother. (35) But our lady Rhea when she brought forth her third child (36) brought forth Hera first: and when they saw evidently (37) that the child was female they went away to their homes, those rough (38) Titans. And then Rhea brought forth a man child, (39) whom she quickly sent away, to be reared secretly and privily, (40) to Phrygia, taking three Cretan men under oath into her counsel. (41) Therefore they gave him the name of Zeus because he was sent away unsuspected. (42) In like manner too she sent away Poseidon stealthily. (43) Then at the third time Rhea, goddess among women, gave birth to Pluto (44) as she was passing Dodona, whence ran the watery courses (45) of the river Europus, and the water flowed to the sea (46) blended with the Peneius, and they call it the Stygian stream. (47) But when the Titans heard that there were sons (48) born privily to the union of Cronos and Rhea, (49) then Titan mustered his seventy sons, (50) and held in bonds Cronos and Rhea his consort. (51) And he hid them in the earth and kept them in fetters. (52) Then indeed the sons of mighty Cronos heard of it, (53) and they raised up for him a great war and battle din. (54) And this is the beginning of war to all mortals (55) [yea this is the first beginning of war to mortals].

(56) And then God inflicted evil on the Titans. (57) And all the families of the Titans and of Cronos (58) died. Then in the circling course of time (59) the Egyptian empire arose, then that of the Persians, (60) of the Medes and Ethiopians and of Assyrian Babylon, (61) then that of the Macedonians, again that of Egypt and then of Rome.

(62) And then the message of the Great God fluttered in my breast (63) and bade me prophesy

104. The derivation is taken from Genesis where the name is connected with bb3. Babel is probably dab z/z ‘ gate of god’, and Babylon dad z/ani ‘gate of the gods’.

110 ff. The account of the Titans is parallel to Hesiod, 7/eog. 421 ff., but differs in several details. See Friedl., Eiinl., p. Xxvii.

114 ff. Compare the account in Epiph. Azcoratus cxiv, in which Noah is represented as dividing the world among his three sons and exacting from them an oath that none should invade his brother’s portion. It is from Ham’s violation of this compact by robbing Shem of Canaan that Epiphanius deduces the justice and morality of the command to Israel to exterminate the Canaanites. A similar story is told in an Ethiopian work (Kedra Nagast, ed. Bezold, 1905).

119. For the wars of the gods cf. Hes. Zheog. 629 ff.

122. Geffcken quotes a similar story from Moses of Khoren (fzstory of Armenia i. 6) in which Kronos is represented by Zrwan.

132. The account is curiously parallel to Apoc. xii. 4.

140. The ordinary account as alluded to in Callimachus, Hy to Zeus, 46 ff.; Lucr. il. 629 ff.; Virg. Georg. iv. 150 represents Zeus as reared in Crete when the Curetes drown his infant cries by beating cymbals.

141. The derivation of Zeus, from the preposition of dieméupbn, ‘he was sent away’, is singularly weak, and may be not original, but Geffck. compares a similar derivation in Cornutus 2.

144. Dodona was celebrated for its whispering oaks, the most ancient oracle of Zeus.

145. the river Europus, i.e. Homer’s Titaresius, a tributary of the Peneius. In //. il. 753 f. it is said to flow with the Peneius, but not to mingle its waters. Homer also mentions its connexion with Styx.

156-61. A concise summary which is, perhaps, not original here. Friedlieb suggests that 156 is picked up by 199, the intervening lines being an interpolation.

159. The prominence given to Egypt is to be noticed. It is the first of empires and the only name that recurs.

162-294. The Babylonian Sibyl standing in the remote past reviews the history of the world as far as the time of Cyrus (167-210 an interpolation).

162. fluttered, irraro, so MSS, Rz. and Geffck. ‘ stood’, foraro.

severally about each (64) land and to their kings, and to put them in mind of things that are tobe. (65) And this was the first thing that God vouchsafed to my understanding, (66) namely how many kingdoms of men are being mustered. (67) First of all the house of Solomon shall hold sway, (68) and the Phoenician invaders of Asia and of the islands as well (69), and the race of the Pamphylians, Persians, and Phrygians, (70) and that too of the Carians and Mysians and Lydians rich in gold.

(71) Then shall come the Greeks overweening and unholy: (72) then a very motley race of Macedonia shall hold sway, (73) who shall come as a dread war cloud upon mortals. (74) But the God of heaven shall smite them utterly.

(75) Next there shall be the sway of another empire, (76) an empire of many hoary heads from the western sea, (77) which shall hold sway over much land, and shall convulse many men, (78) and shall cause fear to many kings in time to come; (79) much gold too and silver it shall ravish (80) from many cities: and again there shall be in the godlike earth (81) gold, yes, and silver, and raiment too.

(82) And they shall afflict mortals. But those men shall have a great (83) fall, whensoever they enter on a course of unjust insolence. (84) And straightway a stress of ungodliness shall fall on them, (85) and male shall draw near to male, and they shall set their children (86) in ill-famed houses, and there shall be in those days (87) great tribulation among men, and it shall set all things wrong, (88) and cut everything short, and fill everything with evils, (89) through covetousness the corrupter of life, and ill-gotten wealth, (90) in many lands and especially in Macedonia. (91) And it shall stir up hatred, and they shall show all manner of guile, (92) until the seventh reign when there shall reign (93) over Egypt a king, who shall be of Greek origin.

(94) And then the nation of the Mighty God shall be again powerful, (95) that nation which shall be to all mortals the guide of life. (96) But why has God put this too into my mind to say (97) what shall be the first evil and the next one and the last which is to fall (98) on all men, and what shall be the beginning of these? (9g) First of all God shall inflict evil on the Titans, (200) for they shall suffer vengeance at the hands of the sons of the mighty Cronos, (201) because they bound Cronos and the honoured mother. (202) Then, secondly, the Greeks shall have tyrannies and haughty (203) kings, overweening and unchaste, (204) adulterous and evil in every way, and no longer shall mortals have (205) rest from war. And the terrible Phrygians shall perish, (206) all of them, and evil shall be upon Troy on that day. (207) Then to the Persians and Assyrians evil shall come, (208) and to the whole of Egypt, and to Libya and the Ethiopians, (209) and the Carians and Pamphylians an evil hard to remove, (10) and to all men. Why, then, do I detail each severally ?

(11) But when the first have reached their end, straightway then shall (12) be a second series upon men. But now I will proclaim this first of all. (13) Evil shall come to the godly men, who dwell around the great temple (14) of Solomon, and who are the descendants of righteous (15) men. Yet of these also I will proclaim (16) the family and kindred of their fathers and the people of all, (17) everything expressly will I proclaim, O mortal of cunning wiles and crafty mind.

(18) There is a city (Camarina) down in the land of Ur of the Chaldees, (19) from which comes

167 ff. The list of world powers falls into five divisions: (a) Asia, (4) Greece, (c) Rome, (@) Egypt, (e) Jews.

168. and the Phoenician invaders of Asia, &c. MSS. have ‘invaders of Phoenicia, Asia’, &c.

172. then. «ira Volkmann for d\X\o, MSS.

175-93. Rome is still a distant power, but it arouses intense apprehension. The lines seem to reflect a date between 190 (Magnesia) and 165 B.C. when Rome intervened to effect a peace between the Hasmoneans and Lysias.

176. of many hoary heads, lit. ‘white and many headed’, referring to the Roman Senate.

178. Perhaps referring to the check of Antiochus Epiphanes by G. Popilius Laenas in 168 B.C.; cf. Polyb. xxix. 27.

179. Referring to the tribute of 15,000 talents exacted after Magnesia.

180. there shall be in the godlike earth gold. The meaning seems to be that men would hide their treasures in order to prevent their being requisitioned to pay the tribute. The practice is condemned in Sirach xxix. 10; 2 Enoch li. 2.

183 ff. The particular vices are out of place as ascribed to the Romans of this early date.

188. The line is repeated in 1. 613, where it refers to Antiochus the Great.

190. Macedonia was divided after the battle of Pydna (168 B.C.), and made a Roman province in 147 B.C.

192. The seventh king is Ptolemy VII, Philometor, son of Cleopatra I, and grandson of Antiochus III. He was proclaimed king in 182 B.c. Ewald, however, would understand the king to be Ptolemy Physkon.

194. The exaltation of the Jews refers to the age of the later Maccabees.

199-210. Another different enumeration of world powers beginning with the Titans.

200. i.€. viois yap Kpatepoto Sikas titovor Kpdvoro emended from vor yap kpt. Kpovou tecovow dixas (Badt).

204. adulterous refers to the abduction of Helen by Paris.

209. an evil hard to remove. Read 7’ dropoy for re xaxdv (with Herwerden).

211-17. An introduction to a sketch of Jewish history, which extends to 294.

218. The lacuna is to be filled up by ‘Camarina’, which Eupolemus gives as an old name for Ur. Schrader points out that Camarina might be connected with the Arabic word for moon, Ur being one of the main seats of the worship of Sin the Moon God. Ewald understands Oipxadéaiov to refer to Abraham, and ‘the land of Abraham’ to mean Palestine. He reads onxés re for kapapiva. For Odp Xadduiov y read etpudyua, but this seems a mere guess.

219. For 57 reads pou, ‘my race’; as if the Sibyl claimed a Mesopotamian descent.

THE SIBYLLINE BOOKS. Book III, Lines 220-285

a race of most righteous men, (20) who ever give themselves up to sound counsel and fair deeds. (21) For they search not out the circling course of the sun or the moon, (22) nor monstrosities beneath the earth, (23) nor the depth of Ocean’s shimmering sea, (24) nor portents of sneezes, and birds of augurers, (25) nor wizards, nor magicians, nor enchanters, (26) nor the deceits of ventriloquists’ foolish words, (27) nor do they study the predictions of Chaldaean astrology, (28) nor do they astronomize: for all these things are in their nature prone to deceive, (29) such things as witless men are searching out day by day, (30) exercising their souls for a work of no profit. (31) Yes, and they have taught deceits to ill-starred men, (32) from which come many evils to mortals on the earth, (33) so that they are led astray from good paths and righteous acts. (34) But these diligently practise justice and virtue, (35) and not covetousness, which is the source of myriad ills (36) to mortal men, of war and desperate famine.

(37) But they have just measures in country and city, (38) nor do they carry out night robberies one against another, (39) nor do they drive off herds of oxen and sheep and goats, (40) nor does a neighbour remove his neighbour's landmarks, (41) nor does a man of much wealth vex his lesser brother, (42) nor does anyone afflict widows but rather assists them, (43) ever ready to supply them with corn and wine and oil. (44) And always the wealthy man among the people sends a portion of his harvest to those who have nothing, (45) but are in want, (46) fulfilling the command of the Mighty God, the ever abiding strain: (47) for Heaven has wrought the earth for all alike.

(48) But when the people of twelve tribes with their God-sent leaders (49) shall leave Egypt and pursue their road, (50) journeying with a fiery pillar in the night-time, (51) and in a pillar of cloud whensoever the dawn leads on day, (52) over them He shall set up as leader the mighty man (53) Moses, whom the princess found and took home from a marsh, (54) and bringing up called her son. But when he came, (55) leading the people whom God was bringing from Egypt (56) to Mount Sina, then God gave them the law forth from heaven, (57) writing all its ordinances on two tables, (58) and commanded to keep them: and if so be any disobeyed, (59) he should pay the penalty, either according to law or by mortals’ hands, (60) or if he escaped mortal men, he should perish by divine justice.

: (63) To them alone does the fruitful field yield its fruit (64) up to an hundred fold from one, and the measures of God are yielded.

(65) But they too shall have evil, neither shall they escape (66) pestilence. Yea, and thou too shalt leave thy lovely shrine (67) and flee, since it is thy fate to leave thine holy soil. (68) And thou shalt be carried to the Assyrians, and shalt see thine infant children (69) enslaved to hostile men, (70) and thy wives: and all thy livelihood and wealth shall perish. (71) And every land shall be full of thee and every sea: (72) and every one shall be incensed at thy customs. (73) And the whole land shall be empty of thee: and the fenced altar, (74) and the temple of the Mighty God and the long walls (75) shall all fall to the ground, because thou didst not obey in thy mind (76) the holy law of the Immortal God, but wentest astray, (77) and didst serve miserable idols, and didst not fear (78) the Immortal Father of gods and of all men, (79) nor wouldst honour Him, but didst honour the idols of mortal men. (80) Therefore for seven decades of times thy fruitful land (81) shall all be empty of thee and (so shall) thy wondrous shrine. (82) But there awaits thee good at the end and exceeding great glory, (83) as the Immortal God has ordained for thee. But do thou tarry, (84) trusting in the holy laws of the Mighty God, (85) when bowing thy knee thou prayest toward the light of dawn.

227-8. astrology ... astronomize. The distinction between dorpodoyety and dorpovomeity appears, apart from this passage, to be not earlier than Sextus Empiricus. For Chaldaea as the home of astronomy cf. Philo, De Migratione

242. Theline is metrically defective, and has to be emended. Read ovd€ yé rus ynpas OdiBer waddov dé Bonet (Mein.).

246. ever abiding, ¢ppovoy, conjecture, for ‘lawful’, évvouov. For ‘ strain’, vuvov, there is a variant, ‘ sleep’, Urvov.

247. For the sentiment cf. il. 319 ff., vili. 110 ff.

248. God-sent leaders. These are either Moses and Aaron, or, according to Jewish tradition, angels, who guided the Israelite host. Volkmann compares Philo, Vita Mosis, i, p. 628.

251. whensoever (éray), a conjecture of Geffck. for ‘ all’ (aay).

260. divine (6ciy) seems required for MSS. ‘all’ (mon). Compare the trespass of Achan (Judg. vii). After this line two lines are omitted. Lines 247 and 585 are inserted in some MSS.

264. measures of God perhaps = ‘bounteous measures’. The imperfect teAéGovro (are yielded) is, perhaps, used

nomically. ; 266. leave. «xaradurwv, though metrically defective, need not be altered to kdpra Auroy (Wilamowitz) or KadQXelrov Alex). ae Immortal. MSS. kai Bpords for Gu8poros, Volkmann would read 6 kat Bpordés, and understand a reference to the Incarnation, but this is highly improbable.

285. The text is certainly corrupt. The MSS. have émmére ceio kapdy dpOdv yovv mpos pdos dpy, ‘ whenever he lifts thy tired (or ‘and my’) knee upright toward the light.” The emendation is not very violent to émmdre cou kdurrev bpOpov ydvu mpos dos apy.

THE SIBYLLINE BOOKS]? Book Whe Iiines) 236=340

(86) And then the God of heaven shall send a king, (87) and shall judge each man with blood and flame of fire. (88) There is a royal tribe, whose family shall (89) never stumble: and this in the circuit of times (90) shall have dominion and shall begin to raise up a new shrine of God. (g1) And all the kings of the Persians shall succour it (92) with gold and brass and well wrought iron. (93) For God Himself shall give a holy dream by night. (g4) And then the Temple shall be again as it was before.

(95) Then indeed my spirit ceased its God-sent strain, (96) and I besought the Great Father to ease me from my spell. (g7) And again the word of the Great God fluttered in my breast, (98) and bade me prophesy of each several (99) land and to put in the minds of the kings that which is to be. (300) And this first God put it in my mind to say, (301) how many grievous woes the Eternal has devised for Babylon, (302) because it sacked His great temple.

(303) Woe unto thee Babylon and race of Assyrian men, a rushing destruction is coming one day upon the whole land of the sinners, (305) and a crash shall destroy the whole country of men, (306) even the scourge of the Mighty God }the inspirer of my strains}.

(307) For from the air from above there shall come to thee Babylon (308) (yea from heaven there shall come down to thee from the Holy Place) (309) and to the children of wrath eternal perdition. (10) And then thou shalt be as thou wast before as though thou hadst not been born. (11) And then thou shalt be surfeited with blood, as formerly thou thyself (12) didst spill the blood of good men and just, (13) whose blood even now cries unto the farthest heaven.

(14) Then shall come home to thee, O Egypt, a mighty plague (15) and dread, which thou didst never expect to come to thee. (16) {For a sword shall go through the midst of thee}, (17) and confusion and death and famine shall last (18) to the seventh generation of kings, and then thou shalt cease.

(19) Woe unto thee, land of Gog and Magog that art in the midst of (20) the rivers of Ethiopia ; what an outpouring of blood shalt thou receive, (21) and thou shalt be called among men the habitation of judgement, (22) and the drenched earth shall drink thy life blood.

(23) Woe unto thee, Libya: woe to the sea and land! (24) Ye daughters of the West to what a bitter day shall ye come: (25) yea come pursued by a grievous struggle, (26) dreadful and grievous: a dreadful judgement shall there be again. (27) And perforce ye shall all come to perdition (28) forasmuch as ye utterly destroyed the great House of the Eternal, (29) and ground it fearfully with iron teeth. (30) Therefore thou shalt see thy land full of dead bodies, (31) some from war and all assaults of the devil, (32) by famine and pestilence, and by savage-hearted foes. (33) And all thy land shall be empty of thee, and thy cities deserts.

(34) In the west a star shall shine, which they shall call a comet, (35) a messenger to men of the sword, famine, and death, (36) and the tdestructionf of ruling men and great notables.

(37) Again there shall be very great signs among men: (38) for deep eddying Tanais shall leave the Maeotic sea, (39) and down the deep bed a fertile furrow shall be drawn, (40) and the vast stream shall

286. king. The king is Cyrus, though possibly the writer has in mind his own times rather than the Babyionian captivity, and looks for a deliverer like Cyrus. Ewald understands the king to be the Messiah.

288. The royal tribe is Judah, from which tribe sprang Jesus son of Jozedek.

293. The writer is probably thinking of the story in 1 Esdras iii. 3 ff.

295-488. The third main section in the book. The date is uncertain, various sections of different ages being apparently incorporated. Alexandre supposes the editor to be a Christian or semi-Jew of the age of the Antonines, but there is no trace of Christian influence. Badt puts the date at about 140 B.C.

306. the inspirer of my strains. The title jyyropos Uuvey is curious and of uncertain meaning.

307. from the air, or ‘ at dawn’ (so Kautzsch, Pseudep.).

314-18. Woe on Egypt. Bousset regards these lines as a later insertion.

316. Reference to the internal struggle between the two brothers Ptolemy VII Philometor and Ptolemy Euergetes II, who reigned conjointly in Egypt from 170 B.c. The MSS. reading is unmetrical, and emendations are purely conjectural.

ar. Cf. supr. 192. Here, however, it is pointed out that there is a more obvious break in the Ptolemaic history after the death of Ptolemy Physkon in 117 B.C.

319-22. The names Gog and Magog occur frequently in apocalyptic literature, but their identification is not without difficulty. Nowhere else are they located as ‘amid the rivers of Ethiopia’. Here, perhaps, they represent Nubians, who returned with Antiochus from Egypt, when he desecratedthe Temple. In Rabbinic theology Gog and Magog are those who revolt against God and His Messiah. See references in Volz, /tidische Eschatologie, p. 176.

324. daughters of the West. These are probably Libyans in the army of Antiochus. Alexandre understands the phrase to refer to the Romans under Vespasian. Explanations differ widely, but there is, very probably, a reference to Ezek. xxxviii. 39, which represents Magog, Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya as marching to lay waste the Holy Land.

333. thy cities deserts. MSS. have ‘the desolations of thy city’.

334. Perhaps refers to the comet mentioned in Seneca, (Vat. Quaes?. vii. 15, as occurring at the death of Demetrius, King of Syria.

336. dentraciom pfopay, though metrically false, is not improbably original.

338. Tanais the River Don. The ‘ Maeotic Sea’ the sea of Azov.

bend its neck. (41) Chasms there shall be and yawning gulfs: and many cities (42) shall fall with all their people: in Asia’s land Iassus, (43) Cebren, Pandonia, Colophon, Ephesus, Nicaea, (44) Antioch, Cyagra, Sinope, Smyrna, Murine, (45) Gaza rich in wealth, Hierapolis, Astypalaea, (46) and of Europe famous Tanagra, royal Meropea, (47) Antigone, Magnesia, and divine Mycenae. (48) Know then that the baleful race of Egypt is nigh its doom, (49) and then to the Magnesians the year that is past shall be better.

(50) For all the wealth that Rome received from tributary Asia, (51) threefold as much shall Asia receive back again (52) from Rome, and shall repay to her her hideous violence. (53) And for all those children of Asia who served Italian homes, (54) Italians to twenty-fold shall live in bondage and penury in Asia, (55) and shall pay back their debt ten thousand-fold.

(56) O Rome, pampered golden offspring of Latium ! (57) thou virgin oft intoxicated by thy many suitors in marriage, (58) as a slave-girl shalt thou be wedded without ceremony, (59) and ofttimes shall thy mistress shear thy luxuriant locks, (60) and passing sentence on thee shall cast thee from heaven to earth, (61) and shall lift thee up again from earth to heaven, (62) because men held toa bad and lawless life.

(63) Samos too shall be sand, Delos shall vanish (64) and Rome become a street: and all the oracles are being fulfilled. (65) Of perishing Smyrna there shall be no account. Outlaw shall she be, (66) but with evil counsels-and the villainy of her leaders.

(67) But tranquil peace shall make its way to the land of Asia. (68) And Europe shall then be happy, the air salubrious, (69) year after year bracing and free from storms and free from hail, (70) producing everything, birds and creeping creatures of the earth. (71) Thrice happy who shall live unto that time, man (72) or woman: *happy he whose life is as among country folk*. (73) For good law shall come in its fullness from the starry heaven (74) upon men, and good justice, and with it (75) the best of all gifts to men, sober concord, (76) and affection, faithfulness, friendship from strangers and fellow-citizens too. (77) And lawlessness, murmuring, envy, wrath, and folly (78) shall flee from men: penury, too, shall flee, and distress, (79) and murder, and destructive strifes, and baleful feuds, (80) and thefts by night and every evil in those days.

(81) But Macedonia shall bring forth a grievous calamity for Asia, (82) and for Europe there shall shoot up a desperate woe, (83) from the race of the son of Cronos, a family of bastards and slaves. (84) This shall subdue even the fortified city of Babylon, (85) and after being called mistress of every land on which the sun looks, (86) shall perish with miserable fate, (87) keeping but a name among its far-wandering sons of a later age.

(88) One day there shall come unexpectedly to Asia’s wealthy land (89) a man clad with a purple cloak upon his shoulders, (90) savage, a stranger from justice, fiery: for he hath exalted himself (91) even against the thunder,a mortal as he is. And all Asia shall have an evil yoke, (92) and

344. Cyagra. Alex.’s emendation for Tanagra (see line 346). Murine. An emendation of Alex. for Mdpos.

347. The end of the line is uncertain. Meineke suggests Mycenae, Oiantheia (in Locris).

350-62. A great Roman disaster in Asia. If a specific occasion is to be found it may be the Mithradatic war of 88-84 B.C., or the defeat of Crassus at Carrhae in 53 B.C. But possibly it denotes merely the humbling of the world powers that is to precede the days of the Messiah.

356 ff. The picture suggested by Isa. xiii; Apoc. xviii.

363. Samos ... sand. For the play on words Sdpos ciupos, Ajdos adndos, “Poun pupn, Cf. iv. 92, viii. 165, 166. Also Tert. De Padlio 2, Lact. vii. 25.

366. There is apparently a gap after this: but the whole order of lines is uncertain.

372. The line is unintelligible and no satisfactory emendation has been suggested. Geffcken proposes pakdpay kev én aris ws éy dypavdots, and suspects a Christian interpolation. But the first part should probably be pdkap 6s kev éy. For the thought cf. Pss, Sol. xvil. 50.

376. from strangers and fellow-citizens too. fceivey amd kacréy, a conjecture for gelvey dd kaitav.

381-7. Disaster to Asia and Europe arising from Macedonia: perhaps from the Persian Sibyl.

383. Alexander gave himself out to be the son of Juppiter Ammon after his visit to the shrine of that God in 332 B.C. The translation follows an emendation of Castalio. MSS. have vd6ov dodddv re.

384. Babylon, captured in 331 B.C.

388-400. The reference is much disputed. The view adopted here is, in the main, that of Hilgenfeld, Jd. Afoé., 68 ff. The unknown one (388) is Antiochus Epiphanes; the race which he destroys (394) is his brother Seleucus Philopator’s infant son. But Demetrius, the elder son of Seleucus, had the sons of Antiochus put to death (395). A certain Alexander Balas, however, came forward as the second son of Antiochus, and in 150 B.c. Demetrius I fell in battle against him (398). Alexander Balas was defeated by Ptolemy Philometor in 145, and shortly afterwards assassinated. Demetrius II then reigned alone, but a usurper, Tryphon, seized the throne (400), at first in the name of Antiochus, a young son of Alexander Balas. He, however, died, or was murdered, in 142, and Tryphon then became sole king.

388. unexpectedly to Asia’s wealthy land, or ‘unexpectedly from Asia to the wealthy land’. All MSS. have e€, but es seems required.

391. for he hath exalted himself even against the thunder. The rendering rests on a conjecture. MSS. have ‘for the thunder raised him up before, a man’.

the drenched earth shall drink large draughts of blood. (93) But even so Hades shall attend him utterly destroyed. (94) By the race of those whose family he wishes to destroy (95) by them shall his own family be destroyed. (96) Yet after leaving one root, which the Destroyer shall cut off, (97) he shall put forth a side-shoot of ten horns. (98) He shall cut down the warrior parent of the purple race, (99) tand he himself at the hand of his grandsons shall perish in a like fate of wart: (400) and then a parasite horn shall have dominion.

(401) Then fertile Phrygia shall have a sign (402) when in the land of Rhea an accursed race, a perennial branch (403) vigorous with roots that feel no thirst, (404) disappears stock and all in one night, (405) with men and all in the city of the earth-shaking Thunderer, (406) which in time to come they shall call from that event Dorylaeum (407) in ancient dark Phrygia, the land of many tears. (408) That time goes by the name of the Earth-shaking time. (40g) It shall shatter the recesses of the earth and pull down the walls, (10) and signs shall spring forth which are the beginning not of good but of evil. (11) It shall have kings expert in the war of every tribe, (12) *wily indigenous descendants of Aeneas, an aboriginal race*. (13) But in after times thou shalt bea prey to thy lovers.

(14) Ilium, I pity thee: for in Sparta an avenging fury (15) shall put forth a shoot exceeding fair, ever famed and noble, (16) leaving the far-spread sea of Asia and Europe. (17) But to thee above all it shall bring lamentations and labours and groanings, (18) and set them down; yet to future generations thy fame shall never wax old. .

(19) Then again there shall be an aged wight false in writing, (20) and false in birthplace: and the light in his eyes shall set. (21) Yet he shall have much wit, and a verse fitted to his thoughts (22) blended under two names. Chian shall he call (23) himself, and he shall write the story of Ilium, not truthfully indeed, (24) but with poetic skill; for he shall gain possession of my verses and measures. (25) He first shall unfold my books with his hands: (26) and then right well shall he deck out the helmed men of war, (27) Hector Priam’s son and Achilles, offspring of Peleus, (28) and all the rest who cared for doughty deeds. (29) Yea and he shall make gods stand by the warriors side (30) leading astray in every way the mortals of empty head. (31) Their widespread glory rather will it be to have died (32) in Ilium: but he himself shall receive his recompense.

(33) To Lycia too the race of Locros shall bring forth many evils.

(34) Chalcedon, to whose lot has fallen the passage of the narrow sea, (35) to thee too chal the scion of A£tolia come and work ruin.

(36) Cyzicus, from thee the sea shall rend away thy ponderous wealth. (37) *And thou, Byzantium, one day wilt look on Ares’ shield*, (38) and then thou shalt receive groanings and seas of blood.

(39) Thou too, Krasos, lofty mountain of Lycia, from a rock (40) opening in chasms from thy peak water shall bubble forth, (41) until it cause even Patara’s prophetic wonders to cease.

(42) O Cyzicus, thou that dwellest in vine-growing Propontis, (43) the crested wave of Rhyndacus shall thunder round about thee.

(44) And thou, Rhodes, shalt for a long time escape slavery, (45) thou daughter of the day, and great shall be thy wealth in later times, (46) and on the sea thou shalt have strength pre-eminent over

396. The Destroyer is Demetrius I.

397. side-shoot. This is Alexander Balas, who gave himself out as a son of Antiochus Epiphanes. The ‘ten horns’, if it refers to him, may have reference to the ten letters of Alexandros. But cf. Daniel vii. 7 ff.

The reading in 397 and 399 is uncertain. The conjecture followed in 399 is kavros if’ vievav kal’ 6udppova aicay “Apnos.

398. The parent is Demetrius I: the purple race is Demetrius II, who married Cleopatra of Egypt.

399. This is wrong. Alexander Balas was assassinated by some followers after a defeat by Ptolemy Philometor, not by the hand of Demetrius’ children.

400. a parasite horn, i.e. Tryphon.

401-18. The Fall of Troy. From the Erythraean Sibyl. Cf. Paus. x. 12. 2.

402, the land of Rhea Phrygia. The ‘accursed race’ the Trojans, ancestors of the Romans.

Lines 402-4 recur early in i. 184-6. For xia it seems necessary to read «Aja, ‘branch’.

405. the city of the . . . Thunderer, i.e. Troy, whose walls were built by Poseidon.

406. Dorylaeum is in Phrygia, on the "Thymbris. Coins of this city with the head of Poseidon have been found. But the whole passage 406-9, which appears to identify Troy with Dorylaeum, has not been satisfactorily explained, It is possible that Dorylaeum is merely suggested in its literal meaning (= ¢he prey of the spear) as anickname for Troy.

412, wily indigenous descendants of Aeneas. Read Aiveddas dSodiovs avrdxOovas.

413. thy lovers, i.e. Paris and Helen. Geffcken compares Pausanias sey Wh OA be “Hpodidn, vewrepa pev exeiyns (sc. THs Ach puxis) paiverat dé 6, pas ™po TOU TrohEpOU yeyovuia kai arn Tod Tpa.kod’ kal “Edévny te mpocdi\ooen ev rois xXpnopois ws en bdcOp@ ths Agias kal Evporns Tpapng oro ey Sraptp.

419. aged wight, i.e. Homer. For the contention that Homer borrowed from the Sibyl cf. Lact. Div. Just. i. 6. 9, Diod. Sic. iv. 66, The argument is also found in Aristobulus in the second century B.C.

420, The blindness of Homer is alluded to as early as in the Homeric hymn to Apollo, quoted in Thucyd. ili. 104.

422. two names, i.e. the /ad and Odyssey.

433-88 A series of calamities on various towns and countries.

437. look on... shield. The rendering rests on an emendation (domida dépén for” Acids orépén).

441. Patara, the seaport of Xanthus, contained a famous oracle of Apollo. Cf. Horace, Cavm. iii. 4. 64.

THE SIBYLLINE BOOKS. Book III, Lines 447—499

others. (47) But in the end thou shalt be a prey to thy lovers (48) with thy beauty and thy wealth: a grievous yoke shalt thou put upon thy neck.

(49) Furthermore, a Lydian earthquake shall lay Persia in ruins, (50) bringing most direful woes on Europe and Asia. (51) {The Sidonians’ baleful king, and the war of others (52) shall bring baleful destruction to the sea-faring Samians.f (53) With the blood of perishing men the plain shall bubble to the sea: and wives with bright-robed girls (55) shall shout aloud for their own hideous violence, (56) some for their bridegrooms, some for their perishing sons.

(57) The token of Cyprus: an earthquake shall destroy its ravines, (58) and Hades at one fell swoop shall possess himself of many souls.

(59) Trallis, neighbour to Ephesus, shall shake down with an earthquake (60) its well-built walls and people of stout-hearted men. (61) And the earth shall be drenched by boiling water, (62) and the stupefied earth shall drink in mist as well: and there shall be an odour of sulphur. (63) Samos too at that time shall build a royal mansion.

(64) Italy, to thee no foreign war shall come, (65) but a people of thy blood shall destroy thee, (66) shameless one, with many woes, stalwart as thou art and much renowned. (67) And thou, stretched by thine own warm ashes, (68) fcareless of thy children’s future, shalt slay thyself,; (69) and thou shalt be not the mother of heroes but the nurse of beasts.

(70) But when from Italy a destroyer shall come, (71) then Laodicea, (72) thou fair city of the Carians beside the wondrous waters of Lycus, thou shalt be dashed headlong, (73) and be silent after bemoaning thy much-vaunted parent.

(74) The Thracian Crobuzi shall rise throughout Haemus.

(75) On the Campanians there falls chattering of teeth, by reason of the city-wasting famine, (76) and they shall bewail their long-lived ancestor.

(77) Cyrnos and Sardo, by the great storm eddies (78) and the lashes of the Holy God through the depths of the sea, (79) shall sink beneath the wave with their sea-faring children. (80) Alas for all the maids that Death shall wed, (81) and the lads whom the deep shall attend unanealed. (82) Alas for the infant children floating on the sea, and the stores of wealth.

(83) The happy Mysian land shall suddenly produce a royal race. (84) But not for long shall Carthage ftrulyt be. (85) And the Galatians shall have a miserable and piteous fate. (86) To Tenedos too there shall come a final unequalled evil. (87) And brazen Sicyon and thou, Corinth, too (88) {shalt resound with howls for all: and Aulis shall shout in equal measuref.

(89) Then when my spirit ceased its inspired strain, (90) again the oracle of Mighty God stirred within my breast, (91) and bade me prophesy of several lands.

(92) Woe to the race of Phoenicians, men and women, (93) and to all their sea-coast cities: not one of you, (94) shall come to the light of the sun in that light that iscommon toall. (95) Nor shall there be any more any numbering of thy life nor tribe to thee, (96) because of thine unrighteous tongue and thy lawless and unclean life (97) which all have led, opening their mouth for uncleanness, (98) and because they covenanted with monstrous words, false and unjust, (99) and stood before God

447. Rhodes was subdued by Rome in 167 B.C., after having successfully maintained its independence and prosperity through many difficult years.

451-2. Reading very uncertain. A slight emendation would give ‘a baleful king and war of others shall bring baleful destruction to the sea-faring sons of the Sidonians,’ Sidon was barbarously ravaged by Artaxerxes Ochus in BbaUR.C,

456. bridegrooms (vupdiev), a conjecture of Rzach for ‘corpses’ (vexvor).

462. mist: a conjecture (dyAvv for adrijs).

463. Samos fell into the hands of the Ptolemies some time before 274 B.C.

464 ff. Reference probably to the Social War.

no foreign war. For ovris MSS. have otros.

467. ashes, orodujor, a conjecture for ‘ offerings’, omovdjot.

468. MSS. unintelligible. Various conjectures proposed. The text translates dmpo.d)s texéecow Eois evapi€eat avrny.

470. a destroyer, i.e. probably Sulla, who sailed for Greece in 87 B. C. to prosecute the war against Mithradates,

472. For the earthquakes at Laodicea cf. iv. 107. The date is, however, uncertain.

473. thy much-vaunted parent, i.e. Zeus, whose figure is very common on the coins of the town.

474. Thracian Crobuzi. The restoration of these names is due to Meineke. W Opijxes axpdBu Cor.

475. city-wasting. MSS. ‘fruitful’ (mrodimopGov (So Castal.) for wohvKapzoy).

476. The end of the line is apparently corruptly restored from 473.

477. Cyrnos and Sardo = Corsica and Sardinia.

480. Compare the discussion on death represented as marriage in J. C. Lawson’s Avcient Greek folk-lore and modern Greek religion, pp. 546 ff.

484. Carthage. It is proposed to read ‘Chalcedon’. But the allusion may be to the fall of Carthage in 146 B.C.

487-8. The rendering is a mere conjecture, the text being unintelligible.

489-808. A further series of woes, the prosperity of the righteous, eschatological pictures, and exhortations to true worship.

Bee sor tribe. Perhaps ‘throughout thy race’, xara pddov for kat pidov.

THE SIBYLLINE BOOKS. "Boor III, Linss 500—563

the Great King, (500) and opened with falsehood their filthy mouth. Therefore shall he (501) marvellously bring them low with His scourges more than any (502) land, and God shall send on them a bitter fate, (503) burning their cities from the ground and their many foundations.

(504) Woe to thee, much-vexed Crete. To thee shall come a scourge (505) and a dread eternal destruction. And all the earth shall see thee once more wreathed in smoke, (507) and fire shall never leave thee but thou shalt burn.

(508) Woe unto thee, Thrace: how shalt thou come to the yoke of bondage: (509) when Galatians mingled with the sons of Dardanus (10) swoop on to ravage Hellas, then shall be thine evil day, (11) and to a strange land thou shalt give (thine own) and receive nought.

(12) {Woe unto thee, Gog and Magog, and to all the several tribes, (13) Marsians and Daciansy, how many evils fate brings near to you: (14) (many, too), to the sons of the Lycians, Mysians and Phrygians. (15) And many tribes of the Pamphylians and Lydians shall fall, (16) of Moors and Ethiopians and nations of barbarous speech, (17) Cappadocians and Arabians. But why should I proclaim the fate of each severally ? (18) for upon all nations who dwell on the earth (19) the Most High shall send a grievous scourge.

(20) But whensoever a numerous barbarian race shall fall upon the Greeks, (21) it shall destroy many heads of picked men, (22) and many of men’s fat flocks shall they ravish, (23) and herds of horses and mules and lowing oxen. (24) And well-built houses shall they lawlessly burn with fire. (25) And many miserable wights shall they carry by force as slaves to another land, (26) children and tender deep-girdled women, (27) snatched from their chambers and with delicate feet falling forward. (28) They shall see them in bonds at the hand of strange-tongued foes (29) suffering every horror of outrage. And they shall have (30) no man to lend them but a little aid in war and to succour their lives. (31) They shall see the foe reaping the enjoyment of their own possessions and of all their wealth, (32) and trembling shall be underneath their knees. (33) An hundred shall flee and one shall slay them all: (34) and five shall rout a heavy squadron; and they, thrown one against another (35) in shameful confusion by the dread din of battle, (36) shall bring exultation to the foe but to Greeks mourning.

(37) Then all Hellas shall lie under the yoke of slavery, (38) and war and pestilence shall come upon all mankind at once, (39) and God shall make the great heaven above brazen, (40) and drought over the whole earth, and it of iron, (41) Then all mankind shall grievously lament (42) no sowing and no ploughing: and fire upon earth (43) shall He send down column upon column, who created heaven and earth: (44) and of all mankind the third part shall be destroyed.

(45) Hellas, why dost thou put thy trust in governors, (46) mortal men who are powerless to escape the consummation of death ? (47) With what view dost thou proffer vain gifts to the dead (48) and sacrifice to idols? Who has put error in thine heart, (49), that thou shouldst perform these rites and forsake the face of Mighty God? (50) Reverence the name of the Father of all and forget him not. (51) There are a thousand years and five hundred more, (52) since the reign of the haughty kings (53) of the Greeks who were the pioneers of evils to mankind, (54) holding fast to many idols of defunct gods, (55) whereby ye have been taught to think vain things. (56) But when the wrath of the great God shall be upon you, (57) then shall ye know the face of the great God. (58) And every soul of men with deep groans, (59) upraising their hands straight to the broad heaven, (60) shall begin to call to his succour the Mighty king, (61) and to seek who shall come as a deliverer from the mighty wrath.

(62) But come and learn this and store it in thy mind, (63) how many shall be the woes of the

505. destruction. The reading follows a conjecture of Wilamowitz, ¢Eaddmaéis for ¢fadardée.

509. The Gaulish invasion of 280 B.C.

510. The line as it stands is unmetrical.

swoop on to ravage Hellas, then shall be thine evilday. Read°E\\a& éenéoouvrat ropbeiv, rére wot Kakdy eorat.

511. (thine own). Supply 76 ody after dacecs.

512-13. The lines are corrupt and the names of the tribes cannot be restored with certainty. For Marsians we should perhaps read Mardians, a tribe inhabiting the hill country of Hyrkania.

520 ff. Probably referring to ‘the Roman invasion culminating in the capture of Corinth in 146 B.c.: so Hilgenfeld. The reference, however, may be to the Gaulish invasion of 279 B.C.

593. Ci isan coal 79) MEUL ext 30;

534. Squadron (\édyov), Wilamowitz’s conjecture for ‘ wrath ’ (xd)ov).

543. column upon column. Alexandre’ s suggestion moAvvnoror i is followed for the unintelligible wodty iordr.

544. shall be destroyed, ¢ooer tiorov, a conjecture for €ooerat avéis.

545, 547-9. Quoted by Lact. Dev. Just. php tipy Us

554. holding fast, caréxovres, a conjecture for Gavedyrwy, which leaves no governing verb,

563. A line has evidently dropped out after this. That inserted is a mere conjecture. Apparently the meaning is that the doom of Hellas is irrevocably fixed.

THE SIBYLLINE BOOKS. Boox III, Lrnrs 564-633

circling years. [For not even if thou shouldst offer up hecatombs of sacrifices], (64) as many as Hellas offered of old, of kine and bellowing bulls, (65) bringing whole burnt sacrifices to the temple of the Mighty God, (66) not even so wilt thou escape from jarring war and panic (67) and pestilence, and the yoke of bondage again. (68) But so long the race of godless men shall exist, (69) until the day of fate reaches its appointed end. (70) Ye shall not sacrifice to God until all these things come to pass. (71) Whatsoever the one God purposes fails not of its accomplishment. (72) For that all things be accomplished the stress of necessity will insist.

(73) There shall be thereafter a holy race of God-fearing men, (74) adhering to the counsels and the mind of the Most High: (75) who pay full honour to the temple of the mighty God, (76) with drink offerings and fat offerings and sacred hecatombs, (77) with sacrifices of lusty bulls and unblemished rams, (78) and piously offer as whole burnt sacrifices rich flocks of firstling sheep and lambs upon the great altar. (80) And in righteousness possessing the law of the Most High, (81) they shall dwell happily in their cities and rich fields, (82) themselves as prophets exalted by the Immortal One, (83) and bringing great joy to all mortals. (84) For to them alone the Mighty God has given discreet counsel, (85) and faith and an excellent understanding in their hearts: (86) in that they give not themselves to vain deceits, nor honour the works of men’s hands, (87) of gold and brass, silver or ivory, (88) idols of dead gods of wood and stone, (89) idols of clay vermilion painted, pictured likenesses of beasts, (90) such things as men with minds void of counsel do honour. (gr) But they instead raise heavenwards holy arms, (92) rising early from their bed and ever cleansing their flesh (93) with water, and they honour Him alone who reigns for ever, (94) the Eternal, and after him their parents: and more than any (95) men they are mindful of the purity of marriage. (y6) Nor do they hold unholy intercourse with boys, (97) as do the Phoenicians, Egyptians, and Latins, (98) and spacious Hellas, and many nations of other men, (99) Persians and Galatians and all Asia, transgressing (600) the holy law of the immortal God which he ordained. (601) For which cause the Eternal shall impose on all men (602) retribution and famine and woes and groans, (603) war, too, and pestilence and fearful calamities ; (604) because they would not honour in holiness the eternal Father of all men, (605) but reverenced and honoured idols (606) made by men’s hands, which men themselves shall cast (607) into the crannies of rocks and hide in shame, (608) whensoever a youthful king of Egypt, seventh in line, (609) of his own land reckoned from the Greeks shall reign over (10) an empire, over which the doughty Macedonians shall reign; (11) and there comes from Asia a mighty king, a fiery eagle, (12) who shall darken every land with foot and horse, (13) and shall break up everything and fill everything with miseries: (14) he shall cast down the kingdom of Egypt, and taking all (15) its wealth, shall ride upon the broad surface of the sea. (16) And then at length to God the great King, the Eternal, (17) they shall bend the white knee upon the fruitful earth, (18) and the works of men’s hand shall all fall into the flame of fire. (19) And then God shall give great joy to men. (20) For the earth and the trees and the innumerable flocks of sheep, (21) shall give their true fruit to mankind, (22) of wine and sweet honey and white milk (23) and corn which is to men the most excellent gift of all.

(24) But thou, O man of wiles, tarry not with hesitation, (25) but turning round again make intercession to God. (26) Sacrifice to God hundreds of bulls and firstling lambs (27) and of goats in the circling seasons. (28) Yea, make intercession to Him, the Immortal God, if perchance He may have mercy upon thee. (29) For He alone is God, and there is none beside. (30) Honour righteousness and oppress no man: (31) for these are the commands of the Eternal to wretched mortals.

(32) But do thou beware of the wrath of the mighty God, (33) whenever the consummation of

564. The beginning of the line is quite uncertain. MSS. have ‘ even those which Hellas offered’.

573 ff. The happy state of the righteous. The writer has, perhaps, in mind the prosperity of the Jews under Simon Maccabeus.

578. flocks, »jda. For this Mendelssohn suggests ‘ thighs’, uypa, but the correction is not convincing.

589. Cf. Wisdom xiii. 14. Such painting was common among the Romans: cf. Pliny, Wat. H7zs¢. xxxv. 45; Virg.

fie! ceiling is uncertain. Perhaps mydwa pdrrdxpiot’ } Coypadias tumoetdets (So Volkmann).

591-2. Cf. iv. 165-6. The insistence on lustration is specially Essene. Cf. Joseph. Bed/. Sid. ii. 8.5. For prayer on waking cf. Pss. Sol. vi. 6.

600. The end of the line is a conjecture. (dvmep ¢Onxev for dv mapéBnoav). MSS. ‘which they transgressed’.

608. a youthful king, i.e. Ptolemy Philometor, cf. 192. In fleeing from the invasion of Antiochus Epiphanes (170-169 B.C.) he was captured and brought back a prisoner. Antiochus failed to take Alexandria, but captured much booty and returned by sea (615).

616. The writer passes over an interval of years and comes to the prosperous conditions under the later Mateabees:

618. Lact. quotes this line (Dzv. inst. Vii. 19. 9) as epya dé xetporointa Oe@y kataxavOjoorvra. He refers it to the Erythraean Sibyl.

625-6. Quoted by Clem. Al. Protreft. vii. 74 as Orphic verses.

pestilence comes upon all mortals, (34) and, overthrown, they meet witha terrible retribution (35) and king captures king and takes his land, (36) and nations ravage nations and potentates people, (37) and rulers all flee to another land, (38) and the land is changed in men and a barbarian empire (39) ravages Hellas, and drains the rich land (40) of its wealth, and men come face to face in strife (41) for the sake of gold and silver, (42) (the love of money shall be the shepherd of evils to many) (43) in a foreign land. And all shall be unburied, (44) and vultures and savage beasts of the earth (45) shall devour the flesh of some. And when all these things are fulfilled, (46) the giant earth shall devour the relics of the dead. (47) And it shall all be unsown and unploughed, (48) proclaiming in its misery the corruption of myriads of men. (49) And then for many spaces of time in circling years [men shall gather and burn in their houses] (50) targes and shields and javelins and divers kinds of weapons. (51) Nor shall wood be cut from the thicket to kindle fire.

(52) And then from the sunrise God shall send a king, (53) who shall give every land relief from the bane of war: (54) some he shall slay and to others he shall consecrate faithful vows. (55) Nor shall he do all these things by his own will, (56) but in obedience to the good ordinances of the mighty God.

(57) And again the people of the mighty God shall be laden with excellent wealth, (58) with gold and silver and purple adornment. (59) The land shall bear her increase, and the sea (60) shall be full of good things. And kings shall begin to be weary (61) of repelling evil one against another with wrath. (62) Envy is no good thing for miserable mortals. (63) But again the kings of the nations shall throw themselves against this land (64) in troops, bringing retribution on themselves. (65) For the shrine of the mighty God and the noblest men (66) they shall seek to ravage whensoever they come to the land. (67) In a ring round the city the accursed kings shall place (68) each one his throne with his infidel people by him. (69) And then with a mighty voice God shall speak unto all (70) the undisciplined empty-minded people, and judgement shall come upon them (71) from the mighty God, and all shall perish (72) at the hand of the Eternal. From heaven shall fall (73) fiery swords down to the earth: lights shall come bright (74) and great, flashing into the midst of men. (75) And earth, the universal Mother, shall shake in those days (76) at the hand of the Eternal, and the fishes in the sea, (77) and all the beasts of the earth and the countless tribes of flying things, (78) and all souls of men and every sea (79) shall shudder at the presence of the Eternal and there shall be panic. (80) And the towering mountain peaks and the hills of the giants (81) He shall rend, and the murky abyss shall be visible to all. (82) And the high-hung ravines in the lofty mountains (83) shall be full of dead bodies: the rocks shall flow (84) with blood, and each torrent shall flood the plain. (85) The well-built walls of the disaffected men shall all fall to the ground, (86) because they knew not the law (87) nor the judgement of the Mighty God, but with witless mind (88) with one united onslaught tye cast your spears} against the Holy One. (89) And God shall judge all with war and sword, (go) and with fire and cataclysms of rain. And there shall be (91) brimstone from heaven, yea stones and hail (92) incessant and grievous: and death shall be upon the fourfooted beasts. (93) And then shall they know the Immortal God, who ordains these things. (94) ¢ Wailing and lamenting through the length and breadth of the landj{ (95) shall come with the perishing of men: and all the shameless (96) shall be washed with blood. Yea, the land itself shall

635-7. An allusion to the invasion of Egypt by Antiochus Epiphanes (see on 1. 608). 638. a barbarian empire, i.e. Rome. Cf. 1. 520. 642. to many, rodéaow, possibly intended as from zondvs. 648. myriads (uvpiwy) is unmetrical. Possibly read pepdrey, ‘ articulate’. After this verse there is a gap in the text. The line supplied is a conjecture. The thought is taken from Ezek, xxxix. 9, and is referred to again in Lact. Div. Jns¢. vii. 26. 4. 652 ff. The coming of the Messiah. from the sunrise, dz’ jeAiovo, may mean either ‘from the East’ or ‘from heaven’: cf. supr. 286 (of Cyrus), Sib. Holtzmann thinks of Simon Maccabeus as the heaven-sent king. 657. people (ads). Meineke and Geffck. alter to ‘temple’ (vads), but this seems unnecessary. 661-2. shall begin .. . wrath. MSS. ‘shall begin to be angry with one another (koréev) avenging evils in their mind’. The translation renders xomiay . . . dmrapvvovtes. 663. A fresh onslaught against the Holy City. The description is borrowed in part from Jer. 1.15. Cf. 1 En. shall come. A comparison with 1 En. cii, 2. 3 suggests that for (fovra: we should very likely read @piovra., _ 688. ye cast your spears. The change of person is awkward. Perhaps read ‘they lifted up reproach’ (pay éXeyxos for ripare Abyxas). 694. The text of the MSS. needs some emendation. Read (with Rzach) oluwyn 7 dAadaypos 6uod Kat’ areipova yatay. 695. Shameless (dva:deis) for ‘ speechless ’ (@vavdor).

THE SIBYLLINE BOOKS. Book III, Lives 697-753

drink (g7) of the blood of the perishing: the beasts shall eat their fill of flesh. (98) God Himself, the great eternal God (gg) bade me prophesy these things: and they shall not lack their fulfilment. (700) Nothing fails of its appointed end when He but conceives the thought. (701) For all over the world the Spirit of God cannot lie.

(702) Then again all the sons of the great God (703) shall live quietly around the temple, rejoicing in those gifts (704) which He shall give, who is the Creator, and sovereign righteous Judge. (705) For He by Himself shall shield them, standing beside them alone in His might, (706) encircling them, as it were, with a wall of flaming fire. (707) Free from war shall they be in city and country. (708) For they shall not feel the touch of horrid war, for the Eternal shall be (709) Himself their champion, and the hand of the Holy One. (10) And then all the isles and the cities shall say, (11) How doth the Eternal love those men! (12) For all things work in sympathy with them and help them, (13) the heaven and God’s chariot the sun, and the moon. (15) A sweet strain shall they utter from their mouths in hymns. (16) Come, let us all fall upon the earth and supplicate (17) the Eternal King, the mighty, everlasting God. (18) Let us make procession to His Temple, for He is the sole Potentate. (19) And let us all ponder the law of the Most High God, (20) who is the most righteous of all on earth. (21) But we had gone astray from the path of the Eternal, (22) and with foolish heart worshipped the works of men’s hands, (23) idols and images of men that are dead. (24) So shall the souls of the faithful raise their ery. (25) Come, let us throughout God’s people fall upon our faces, (26) and gladden with hymns God our Father throughout .our households, (27) furnishing ourselves with the weapons of our enemies throughout the whole land (28) for seven spans of circling years, (29) targes and shields and helms and weapons of all and sundry kinds (30) in great numbers, and quantities of bows and arrows and javelins. (31) For even wood shall not be cut from the thicket for kindling fire.

(32) But, wretched Hellas, cease thine arrogance : (33) supplicate the great heart of the Eternal and take heed to thyself. (34) To dispatch indeed against this city thine ill-advised people, (35) which comes not of the holy land of the Mighty! (36) Arouse not Camarina: ’tis better not aroused. (Rouse not) (37) a leopard from its lair, lest mischief befall. (38) Nay, withhold thine hand, and cherish not a spirit of overweening arrogance in thy breast, (39) dispatching to a mighty contest. (40) And serve the Mighty God, that thou mayst have a share in these gifts.

(41) But when the fated day shall reach this consummation, (42) and “there shall come to mortals the judgement of the Eternal God, (43) there shall come upon men a great judgement and empire. (44) For Earth the universal mother shall give to mortals her best (45) fruit in countless store of corn, wine and oil. (46) Yea, from heaven shall come a sweet draught of luscious honey, (47) the trees shall yield their proper fruits, and rich flocks, (48) and kine and lambs of sheep and kids of goats. (49) He will cause sweet fountains of white milk to burst forth. (50) And the cities shall be full of good things and the fields rich: (51) neither shall there be any sword throughout the land nor battle din: (52) nor shall the earth be convulsed any more with deep-drawn groans. (53) No war

702-31. The peace and prosperity of the sons of God.

705. in His might (yeyadwori) for ‘and greatly’ (ueyddws re). So Geffcken.

713. After this 1. 675 is interpolated in the MSS.

715. Reading a little uncertain. The hymn is modelled on the theocratic Psalms xcv-c.

718. make procession (roprépev), a conjecture for ‘send’ (wéurr@per).

721f. The confession of the converted is quoted by Justin, Cohord. 16.

725-31. Apparently an alternative hymn incorporating 649-51.

730. javelins (dxidwy), a conjecture of Meineke for ‘ of the unjust’ (ddikov).

732-40. A warning to Greece.

734-5. A passage ‘that has given much trouble and occasioned many conjectures. The rendering keeps the MSS. reading with the single exception of yy for pév in 735. It is probably a taunt sung at the expulsion of the Seleucid garrison from the Acra at Jerusalem in I4I B.C.

736. An ancient proverb quoted by Servius on Virg. Aew. iii. 701. There was a swamp round Camarina which protected the city till it was drained.

737. Another proverb: the verb is lacking.

- 739. dispatching. The participle is masc., whereas ‘ Hellas’ is fem. Probably the writer has in mind the Seleucid ing.

741 ff. The blessings of Messiah’s reign.

741-3. Quoted by Lact. Div. Jus? vil. 20. 1 as from the Erythraean Sibyl.

742. Occurs only in Lact. and seems to be a doublet. Cf. Secrets of Enoch Ixv. 6.

746-8. Are marked by Wilam. as an interpolation.

_ 747. trees ... fruits. It is best to read (with Fehr) dévdpev 7’ axpodptwy. For the fruitfulness of trees cf. 2 Enoch

749. Cf. Joel iii. 18. A similar idea in Koran, Swva xlvii.

THE SIBYLLINE BOOKS. Boox III, Lings 754-809

shall there be any more nor drought throughout the land, (54) no famine nor hail to work havoc on the crops. (55) But there shall be a great peace throughout all the earth, (56) and king shall be friendly with king till the end (57) of the age, and a common law for men throughout all the earth (58) shall the Eternal perfect in the starry heaven (59) for all those things which have been wrought by miserable mortals. (60) For He above is God and there is none else. (61) He too shall burn with fire the race of stubborn men.

(62) But consecrate your minds within your breasts, (63) and eschew unlawful service: serve the Living God. (64) Shun adultery and confused intercourse with males. (65) Rear thine own offspring and slay it not: (66) for the Eternal will surely be wroth with him who commits these sins.

(67) And then indeed he will raise up his kingdom for all ages (68) over men, he who once gave a holy law (69) to godly men, to all of whom He promised to open out the earth (70) and the world, and the portals of the blessed, and all joys, (71) and everlasting sense and eternal gladness.

(72) And from every land they shall bring frankincense and gifts to the house (73) of the great God : and there shall be no other (74) house for men even in future generations to know (75) but only that which He has given to faithful men to honour. (76) For mortals call that alone (the house) of the great God. (77) And all the paths of the plain and the sheer banks, (78) and the lofty mountains and the wild sea waves (79) shall become easy to travel over by foot or sail in those days. (80) For nought but peace shall come upon the land of the good: (81) and the prophets of the Mighty God shall take away the sword. (82) For they are the judges of mortal men and just kings. (83) Even wealth shall be righteous among men: (84) for this is the judgement and the rule of the Mighty God.

(85) Rejoice, O virgin, and exult: for to thee (86) the Creator of heaven and earth has given everlasting joy. (87) And in thee shall he dwell, and thou shalt have eternal light.

(88) And wolves and lambs together shall crop grass upon the mountains, (89) and leopards shall feed with kids. (go) Prowling bears shall lie with calves, (91) and the carnivorous lion shall eat hay in the manger (92) like the ox, and the tiniest infants shall lead them in bonds, (93) for He shall make the beasts upon the earth incapable of harm. (94) Serpents and asps shall sleep with babes, (95) and shall not harm them: for God’s hand shall be stretched over them.

(96) Now I will tell thee a very evident sign, that thou mayst understand (97) when the end of all things is coming on the earth. (98) When swords in the star-lit heaven (99) appear by night towards dusk and towards dawn, (800) and straightway dust is carried from heaven (801) tto earth, and all the brightness of the sun (802) fails at midday from the heavens}, and the moon’s (803) rays shine forth and come back to earth, (804) and a sign comes from the rocks with dripping streams of blood : (805) and in a cloud ye shall see a battle of foot and horse, (806) as a hunt of wild beasts, like unto misty clouds. (807) This is the consummation of war which God, whose dwelling is in heaven, is bringing to pass. (808) But all must sacrifice to the Mighty king.

(809) These are the acts of the wrath of God which I, leaving the far-off walls of Assyrian Babylon

761. race. Another reading is ‘might’ (yévos Wy, pevos ).

762-6, An exhortation to right living. The lines interrupt, and are possibly out of place.

762. consecrate your minds. Reading uncertain. MSS. ‘hastening my mind’ (karaomevoavtes euas ppévas). The simplest emendation is, as above, kataomeiaaytes €ds.

767-84. Further description of the Messianic kingdom. The passage may refer to the eternal condition of the godly, for the Messianic kingdom on earth was not regarded as permanent ; contrast 767-8.

772. For the offerings of the converted heathen to the Temple, cf. Isa. Ix; Tobit xiii. 11; 1 En. xc. 33, 37.

773-4. Perhaps a reference to the destruction of the Temple on Mount Gerizim, by John Hyrcanus.

775. but only that which. Lact. Div. Jmst. iv. 6. 5 reads dddov for add’ dy, ‘God gave Another to faithful men to honour’, and supposes a reference to the Son of God.

to faithful men. MSS. have miordp dvdpa instead of muorois avdpecou.

776. MSS. have ‘for mortals call him the son of the Mighty God’. For ‘son’ (vidv) it is proposed to read ‘ temple’ (vady). It is simpler to read ‘alone’ (oiov). So Mendelssehn. Gfrérer, Hilgenfeld and Fehr regard the line as an interpolation.

777. For the smoothing away of the difficulties of nature cf. Isa. xi. 15, 16, xl. 3; Pss. Sol. xi. 5 f.

781. For the part assigned to the prophets cf. 1 Macc. xiv. 41.

788 ff. Cf. Isa. xi. 6. Virg. Zcd. iv. 17, 21 f.; Lactantius quotes 788-91, 794 as from the Erythraean Sibyl.

794. and asps, an emendation of the MS. reading dua oduon, ‘ with themselves.’ ;

796-808. The signs that are to herald the end. Compare the signs related in 2 Macc. v. 1-4 as preceding the invasion of Egypt by Antiochus Epiphanes, and in Josephus, BZ. /. vi. 5 as presaging the fall of Jerusalem.

801. The line is defective and emendations can only be conjectural.

805. Cf. Tac. Azs¢. v. 13 ‘visae per coelum concurrere acies’.

807. the consummation of war. Reading again uncertain. Perhaps ‘the end of all things’, rodro réhos mavrwy te\eec Ocds, So Rzach from 797.

809-29. Epilogue and credentials. I

Lact. expressly assigns 809-18 to the Erythraean Sibyl, who, as he says, claims to have been born at Babylon. Lut it is not easy to see why the Erythraean Sibyl should come from Babylon, and it has been suggested that the

THE SISYLEINE BOOKS. Boor Til, Link $10—IV, 27

(10) impelled by frenzy, and coming as a fire launched forth against Hellas, (11) am proclaiming unto all mankind, (12) so as to proclaim unto mortals the mysteries of God.

(13) And mortals throughout Greece shall call me a stranger of another land, (14) born of Erythrae and shameless. Others shall call me, born of my mother Circe (15) and my father Gnostos, the Sibyl, (16) a crazy impostor. But when all these things come to pass, (17) then ye shall make mention of me, and no man any more (18) shall call me crazy, the prophetess of the Mighty God. (19) For he did not reveal to me those things which before he revealed to my parents, (20) but all those things which happened first of all God hath (not) detailed to me, (21) but of the later things God hath put all in my understanding, (22) so that I may proclaim the things that shall be and that were before (23) and tell them to mortal men. For when the world was being swallowed up (24) by the waters, and one man only who found favour was left, (25) floating on the waters in a dwelling of hewn wood, (26) with beasts and birds, that the world might be replenished again: (27) his daughter-in-law was I, and of his blood I came, (28) to whom the first things happened: and now the latter things have all been told. (29) So let all these things be accounted true that are spoken of my mouth.

BOOK IV

(1) Hear, O ye people of vaunting Asia and Europe, (2) what prophetic strains of truth I purpose to pour forth, through the honied speech of my mouth from our shrine. (4) No oracle-monger I of a false Phoebus whom vain (5) men have called a god and falsely termed a seer; (6) but the prophetess of the mighty God whom men’s hands fashioned not, (7) like to dumb idols of polished stones. (8) For He has not as His habitation a stone set up in a temple, (9) dumb and helpless, a bugbear of many woes to mortals. (10) But He is one whom none can see from earth, nor measure (11) with mortal eyes, seeing He was not fashioned by mortal hand. (12) With all-embracing view He beholds all, yet Himself is seen by none. (13) His is the murky night and day, the sun, (14) the stars and moon, and sea the haunt of fish; (15) and land and rivers and the source of perennial streams, (16) creatures ordained for sustaining life and showers that cause the cornfield fruit to grow, (17) and trees and vines and olive trees. (18) He has driven a goad right through my heart (19g) to tell out exactly all that is happening to men now and all that is to happen, (20) reaching from the first generation to the tenth. (21) For He shall vindicate all (22) by bringing it to pass. But do thou, O people, hearken in all things to the Sibyl (23) as she pours forth true speech from holy mouth.

(24) Happy shall those men be throughout the earth who shall truly love the Mighty God, blessing Him (26) before eating and drinking, staunch in their godliness. (27) Who, when they see them, shall

pene of the Babylonian Sibyl has been putposely omitted and some lines from the Erythraean added without careful adjustment.

811. The sentence lacks a verb. Instead of ‘mortals’ (@vnrois) it is proposed to read ‘I show’ (daivw). After this line some MSS. showa gap. It is suggested that it contained the name Sambethe, who, according to Justin, Cohort. 37, was the daughter of Berossus the historian.

OG According to Virg. Aen. vi. 36, Deiphobe, the Cumaean Sibyl, is the daughter of Glaucus, and possibly of irce.

819. Compare Plutarch’s account of the Sibyl (De Py¢h. Or. vii).

849-29. These lines are not referred to by Lact., and Alex. regards them as spurious.

819. for he did not reveal to me. MSS. read ‘for he will not reveal to me’ (dnA@oe). For ov Rzach reads 6s.

823. Suidas represents the Chaldaean Sibyl as a descendant of Noah, and says she prophesied about the time ot Alexander the Great. Epiph. adv. Haer. 26. § 8 says the Gnostics attributed certain books to Noria the wife of Noah.

Tatian, on the other hand (Ovat. c. Graec. 41), says that the Sibyl was not older than Moses.

1V. 1-24. The Sibyl claims to be the prophetess of the true, invisible, and almighty God.

I. Hear, kktre. Most MSS. have ‘weep’ (dale).

2. shrine (peydpo.o). Mendelssohn’s emendation for ‘great ’ (4eyaAovo) agreeing with ‘mouth’.

4. Cf. v. 326. Lines 4~7 are quoted in Clem. Al. Prodm. iv. 50.

8. set up in a temple (iSpuvévra). There is a variant ‘dragged to a temple’ (€Axvo6évra).

habitation (oikov). Buresch would read ‘likeness’ («ixév’), but the fem. gender of this word would cause a difficulty. The writer appears to condemn the ancient Semitic idea of sacred stones as the dwelling-place of a god,

9. helpless (v@Opev), an emendation for ‘toothless’ (vwdév).

11. The end of the line is uncertain in reading. Perhaps read 006’ em\doOn xept Ornty.

BO Gtriit, 5;

20. to the tenth. Cf. ii. 15 ff. The MSS. have ‘to the eleventh’ (évdexdrnv or evdexarys). But the world’s history is regularly divided into ten periods,

23. as she pours forth. The participle is, however, masculine.

24-34. The happiness of the godly.

24-30. Quoted by Just. Co#. 16. The last three lines are also yuoted in Clem. Al. Pro/r. iv. 62.

26. For the custom of saying grace before meals cf. Arist. Afo/. 15. It was a strict rule among the Essenes (Josephus, Z. /. ii. 8. 5), and among the Pharisees. Cf. Mishna, Berakhoth iii; Schiirer, Jewish People, Div. ii,

27. The abhorrence of temples and animal sacrifice is specially Essene. Cf. Lightfoot, Colossians, p. 369 ff.

THE SIBYLLINE) BOOKS) Boom IN SLinks 23-67

disown all temples (28) and altars, vain erections of senseless stones, (29) befouled with constant blood of living things and sacrifices (30) of four-footed beasts. But they shall look to the great glory of the one God (31) neither committing dastard murder, nor bartering for dishonest (32) gain, which things are altogether evil. (33) Nor do they set their foul affection on another’s bed, (34) [nor on the hateful and hideous abuse of males].

(35) Whose conversation and godliness and manners other men (36) will never emulate, men whose affections are set on shamelessness. (37) But mocking them with ribald jest and laughter, (38) fools in their senselessness, they will falsely attribute to them (39) all the dastardly and evil deeds that they shall do. (40) For slow of faith is all the race of men. But when (41) the assizes of the world and of mortals shall come, which God himself (42) shall hold when he judges ungodly and godly alike: (43) then shall he send the ungodly in the fire beneath the murky gloom, (44) and then shall they know what grievous impiety they have committed. (45) But the godly shall remain upon the fruitful field, (46) when God has given them breath and life and grace. (47) But all these things are to be accomplished in the tenth generation. (48) Now I will tell all that is to come to pass from the first generation.

(49) First of all, the Assyrians shall rule over all mankind, (50) holding the world for six generations under their sway, (51) from the time when, since the heavenly God was wroth with (52) the cities themselves and all mankind, (53) the sea covered the earth with the outbreak of the flood.

(54) Them shall the Medes subdue and vaunt themselves on their throne, (55) yet their generations shall be but two. In their time shall be these mighty works. (56) Darkling night shall fall at the middle hour of day: (57) the stars and the moon’s disk shall fail from heaven. (58) And the earth shaken by the upheaval of a mighty earthquake (59) shall cast down headlong many cities and works of men. (60) And then islands shall peep forth from the depths of the sea.

(61) But when great Euphrates shall run in torrents of blood, (62) then betwixt Medes and Persians the dread din of battle (63) shall arise in war. And the Medes, overthrown by the Persians’ spears, (64) shall flee over the broad waters of the Tigris. (65) And the Persians’ might shall be supreme in all the world; (66) yet they shall have but one generation of prosperous kingship.

(67) Then there shall be all those evil works which men pray to be spared, (68) wars and murders, schisms and exiles, (69) the headlong crash of towers and the overthrow of cities, (70) when proud Hellas shall sail to the broad Hellespont, (71) bringing grievous doom to Phrygians and to Asia.

(72) Then into Egypt the many-furrowed land of wheat, (73) famine and failure of crops shall stalk for twenty circling years, (74) when the Nile, the cornblade’s nurse, (75) shall hide its black water somewhere else beneath the earth.

(76) There shall come from Asia a king brandishing a mighty sword (77) with ships innumerable ; and over the watery paths of the deep (78) he shall journey on foot, and shall cut a path for his ships through a lofty mountain peak. (79) Yet craven Asia shall receive him back a fugitive from war.

(80) Wretched Sicily shall be burned up from end to end (81) by a stream of mighty fire when Etna’s flame belches forth. (82) And Croton’s great city shall fall into the deep stream. (83) Hellas shall have strife: and men distraught with rage one against another (84) shall cast down headlong many cities and shall slay many (85) in battle: and the strife shall be of doubtful issue.

(86) But when the race of mortals comes to the tenth generation, (87) then the Persians shall experience the yoke of slavery and terror.

28. The reading comes from Justin. In Clement a line is inserted here from Frag. iil. 49 and another after 1. 30.

34. The line is probably a gloss and is omitted in Q.

35-46. The impending judgement on the ungodly.

38. For the thought that the heathen are themselves guilty of the same charges which they bring against the godly cf. Tert. Apol. § 9.

46. The righteous are to be quickened again for a further life on earth. The line recurs infra line 189.

47-85. The history of the first nine generations.

50. generation is evidently a vague term. Assyrian supremacy may be said to have lasted roughly six centuries (¢. 1250-630 B.C.). The Median empire closed with the defeat of Astyages by Cyrus in 546 B.C.

56. Possibly an allusion to the phenomenon mentioned in Herod.i. 71. During a battle between the Lydians and Medes in 585 B.C. the day suddenly became night.

65. The conquest of Egypt in 525 B.c. may be said to have given the Persians the empire of the world.

70. The Athenians sent maritime assistance to the Ionians in their revolt from Persia in 499 B.C.

72. of wheat. For mupédopoy re Q has favdos éréXOn. The subjunctive would be used as future.

76-79, The expedition of Xerxes 491-490 B.C. Reference is made to the bridge of boats built across the Hellespont (Herod. vii. 35-54), and the canal cut through Mount Athos (Herod. vii. 22-8; Thuc. iv. 109; Juv. v. 174).

82. Possibly Croton is confused with Sybaris, over which, after its capture, the river Crathis was turned (Herod. v.45). Some MSS. have ‘a great city of men’ (Bporéy) for *‘ Croton’.

83-5. The Peloponnesian war, or, more probably, the fighting which ended in the Thirty Years’ Truce in 446 B.C.

87. The reference would be to Alexander’s victories, especially at the Granicus (334 B.C.) and Issus (333 B.C.).

THE SIBYLLINE BOOKS. Boox IV, Lines 88-129

(88) But when the Macedonians boast of the sceptre, (89) then Thebes too in later days shall experience capture. (go) And Carians shall occupy Tyre and the Tyrians shall perish ; (gr) and sand shall envelop the whole of Samos under sandhills, (92) and Delos shall appear no more, but all Delos shall disappear. (93) And Babylon mighty to behold but puny in battle (94) shall stand buoyed up by ineffective hopes. (95) Macedonians shall occupy Bactra; and the fugitives from Bactra (96) and Susa shall all flee to the land of Greece.

(97) Posterity shall know a time when silvery eddying Pyramus (98) pushing forward its strand shall come to the holy island. (99) And thou, Baris, shalt fall and Cyzicus too when the earth (100) quivers with earthquakes and cities perish. (101) And to the Rhodians there shall come a last but crowning disaster.

(102) Nor shall the might of Macedonia last. But from the west (103) a great Italian war shall blossom forth, whereby the world (104) shall serve as slaves under the yoke of the sons of Italy. (105) And thou, ill-starred Corinth, shalt one day look on thy capture. (106) Carthage, thy tower, too, shall bend the knee to earth.

(107) Miserable Laodicea, thee too an earthquake shall one day raze (108) in precipitate ruin, but thou shalt stand built up again as a city.

(109) O fair Lycian Myra, thy quivering earth shall no longer (10) hold thee firm: but falling down headlong on the earth; (11) thou shalt be fain to flee as an exile to another land, (12) {what time over the impieties of Patara the Lord (13) shall spread the dark sea wave with thunderings and earthquakesf.

(14) For thee, too, Armenia, the stress of slavery is in store.

(15) To Solyma too the evil blast of war shall come (16) from Italy, and shall lay in ruins God’s great temple, (17) whenever, confident in their folly, they shall cast godliness to the winds (18) and commit keel murders before the temple. (19) And then from Italy a great king, like a fugitive slave, (20) shall flee unseen, unheard of, over the passage of the Euphrates; (21) when he shall dare even the hateful pollution of a mother’s murder, (22) and many other things beside, venturing so far with wicked hand. (23) And many for. the throne of Rome shall dye the. ground with their blood, (24) when he has run away beyond the Parthian land. (25) And a Roman leader shall come to Syria, who shall burn down Solyma’s temple with fire, (26) and therewith slay many men, (27) and shall waste the great land of the Jews with its broad way.

(28) And then an earthquake shall destroy Salamis and Paphos es (29) when the dark stormy water shall swamp Cyprus.

89. Thebes was captured by Alexander in 335 B.C. go. Carians perhaps = ‘mercenaries’. Cf. Plato, Laches 187. occupy Tyre. Capture of Tyre 332 B.C.

QI, 92. Cf. ili. 363. Alexandre would place these lines after 96 ; Rzach after 100.

93. Babylon captured without resistance 331 B.C.

gs. Alexander’s invasion of Bactria. Cf. Strabo, xi; Arrian, iii. 29.

from Bactria. For td Baxrpwy it seems necessary to read dé Bdkrpor.

95. Susa surrendered soon after Babylon.

97, 98. The Pyramus is a Cilician river. This oracle is quoted by Strabo, Geogr. i. p. 53, xii. p. 536, who in the second line has ‘ Cyprus’ for ‘ island’.

99. thou, Baris. Badt’s conjectural emendation for ‘Sybaris’. Baris was a Pisidian town, mentioned by Pliny

v.42. The ais strictly long. Another conjecture is KiBvpa, a Phrygian town.

102. Macedonian Wars beginning in 214 B.C. and ending with the Battle of Pydna, 168 B.C.

105, 106, Capture of Corinth and Carthage, 146 B.C.

107. Laodicea. The famous earthquake here in A.D. 60 (Tac. Az. xiv. 27) seems too late. On the strength of Szd. iii. 471 Lightfoot (PAzlippians, p. 38) postulates an earthquake in Laodicea about 125 B.C.; but the inference is precarious.

112-13. The reading is uncertain, and the lines are omitted in many MSS. The rendering follows a conjecture 6 Médov for dpador.

114. Armenian wars A.D. 43-66, in which latter year Tiridates came to Rome to receive his crown from Nero.

115-28. Disaster to Jerusalem.

117, 118. Referring to the internal struggles in Jerusalem during the siege. Cf. Josephus, 2. J. vi. 3.

118. and commit hateful murders. The reading of the MSS. is corrupt.

119 ff. Nero died by his own hand in a, D. 68, but there was a persistent belief that he would return. At least three false Nero’s arose at different times.

119. fugitive slave (Spacrns). Some MSS. have ‘ star’ (dornp).

121. Nero had his own mother put to death (Suet. Vero xxxiv). Dio Cass. lxiv. 9 preserves a pseudo-Sibylline oracle: éxxaros Aiveaddy pntpoxtovos nyepovevoet.

123. The year of Galba, Otho, and Vitellius,

125. The Roman leader is Titus.

THE SIBYLLINE BOOKS. Boox IV, Linges 130-190

(30) But when a firebrand starting from a deep cavern in the land of Italy (31) shall reach the broad heaven, (32) and burn many a city and consume its men, (33) and clouds of sooty ashes beset the great heaven, (34) and grains fall from the sky like red earth, (35) then recognize the wrath of the God of heaven, (36) because they shall destroy the guiltless race of godly men. (37) And to the west shall come the strife of gathering war, (38) and the exile from Rome, brandishing a mighty sword, (39) crossing the Euphrates with many myriads.

(40) Ill-starred Antioch, they shall call thee no longer a city, (41) when in thy folly thou fallest under Italian spears. (42) And Cyrrhus shall be consumed by pestilence and dreadful strife.

(43) Woe to thee, wretched Cyprus, the level sea-wave (44) shall envelop thee tossed up and down with wintry blasts.

(45) There shall come to Asia great wealth which Rome once (46) stole for herself and stored in her rich treasure-house. (47) And twofold and more shall she restore (48) to Asia, and then there shall be a surfeit of war.

(49) The cities of the Carians by the waters of the Maeander, (50) with all their battlements exceeding fair, shall be destroyed by pinching (51) famine, when Maeander buries her black water. (52) But when faith in godliness shall perish from men, (53) and justice is hidden away in the world, (54) fand men, becoming renegadest and living on unholy enterprises, (55) commit deeds of shame and acts dastardly and evil, (56) and no man takes account of the godly, but even (57) in their senselessness, fond fools, destroy them all, (58) rejoicing in acts of violence and turning their hands to deeds of bloodshed ; (59) then be sure that God is no more of tender mercy, (60) but gnashing His teeth in wrath and destroying at once (61) the whole race of men by means of a mighty conflagration.

(62) O ill-starred mortals, let not these things be, and (63) drive not the great God to divers deeds of wrath ; but have done with (64) swords and moanings and killing of men, and deeds of violence, (65) and wash your whole bodies in ever-running rivers, (66) and, stretching your hands to heaven, seek forgiveness for your former deeds, (67) and with praises ask pardon for your bitter ungodliness. (68) God will grant repentance (69) and will not slay: He will stay his wrath once more if with one accord (70) ye practise precious godliness in your hearts. (71) But if with evil mind ye obey me not, but delighting in ungodliness (72) ye receive all these words with ill-affected ears, (73) then fire shall come upon the whole world, and a mighty sign (74) with sword and trumpet at the rising of the sun. (75) The whole world shall hear a rumbling anda mighty roar. (76) And he shall burn the whole earth, and consume the whole race of men, (77) and all thecities and rivers and the sea. (78) Heshall burn everything out, and there shall be sooty dust.

(79) But when at last everything shall have been reduced to dust and ashes (80) and God shall quench the giant fire, even as he kindled it, (81) then God Himself shall fashion again the bones and ashes of men, (82) and shall raise up mortals once more as they were before.

(83) And then the judgement shall come wherein God himself shall give sentence, (84) judging the world again. And all who have sinned with deeds of impiety (85) a heap of earth shall cover again, (86) and murky Tartarus and the black recesses of hell. (87) But all who are godly shall live again on earth (89) when God gives breath and life and grace to them, (90) the godly. +And then all shall

130-6, The great eruption of Vesuvius which overwhelmed Pompeii, August 23, 24, A.D. 79. Cf. Pliny, Z/. vi. 16. 20.

130. Starting from. For droorpadéeis it is tempting to read (with Alexandre) dracrpapéeis ‘ shot out like lightning’.

139. It was expected that Nero would return from Parthia.

140. Probably the Syrian Antioch is meant, which revolted several times against Rome.

141. folly ... Italian spears. The text renders dppoovwns "Irddos. So pw. Geffcken reads adppootryct reais with Q.

142. Cyrrhus a conjecture. MSS. have ‘Scyros’ or ‘Cyprus’. Alexandre suggests Zupinv.

145-8. A Roman defeat. Probably the defeat of Paetus at Randeia in A. D. 62.

148. The line is omitted in dw.

153-4. The text has become corrupt. 154 is omitted in some MSS. and in others 153-4 are joined.

160. gnashing his teeth, Bpvxovra. Lact. has ‘heavy with wrath’, Spidovra.

165. The stress on complete lustration seems Essene. Cf. iil. 592.

168. God will grant. ©cds dca. So Volkmann from © which reads @eds d€ dave. W has Oeds & e€er.

173. Another reading gives ‘ fire shall be throughout the world wherein this sign is wrought’, év 6 réd¢ ona réruKrat. So gy.

179-92. The Judgement following on the destruction of the world. The passage up to 190 is quoted in 4p. Const. v. 7 as a testimony of the Sibyl to the Resurrection, the New Life, the Judgement.

185. The text in Af. Const. .c. runs ‘those mortals, who have sinned with deeds of impiety, the earth shall cover’.

187, After this there is a weak line inserted only in Q and rejected by Rzach and Geffcken.

190, then . .. shall behold themselves, rér’ cicdWovrat énvrovs. The text comes from AZ. Const. has xéyorrat, ‘“bewail’. @ eicovrat ydpwv adrois (or avrois) perhaps ‘shall have themselves to thank’. Possibly the true reading is

Tor dvrovtat Gedy adroy.

THE SIBYLLINE BOOKS. Boox IV, Line 191—V, 39

behold themselves,} (91) beholding the lovely and pleasant sunlight. (g2) Thrice blest the man who lives until that time.

BOOK V

(1) Now come, hearken unto the woful chronicle of the sons of Latium. (2) Verily first of all after the decease of the kings (3) of Egypt, all of whom a like measure of earth bore down; (4) and after the citizen of Pella, under whom the whole (5) East had been subdued and the West with its stores of wealth, (6) whom Babylon disillusioned and handed over, a corpse, to Philip, (7) famed by no true report a son of Zeus, of Ammon: (8) and after the man of the family and blood of Assaracus, (9) who came from Troy, who clave the onrushing fire ; (10) and after many kings and warlike wights, (11) and after infants, children of the beast who preys on sheep, (12) there shall be a king first of all, who shall sum up twice ten (13) with his initial letter: and in wars he shall conquer for long. (14) He shall have his first initial of ten: and so after him (15) shall reign one who has the first of letters. (16) Before him Thrace shall cower, and Sicily, and, later, Memphis: (17) Memphis hurled headlong by the wickedness of its rulers (18) and of an untamable woman who fell upon the wave. (19) And he shall ordain laws for the people and bring all things under his sway. (20) After a long time he shall hand over the empire to another, (21) who shall have his first letter of the number of three hundred, (22) and a river's own name, who shall also reign over the Persians (23) and Babylon: then he shall subdue the Medes with his spear. (24) Then one shall reign who has the letter of the number three. (25) The next king who shall reign shall have twice ten for his first letter: (26) and he shall go to Ocean’s farthest (27) water, tdirecting his ebb against the Ausonianst. (28) Then he shall be sovereign who has the letter of fifty, (29) a direful serpent causing grievous war, who shall one day put forth his hands (30) on his own family and slay them, and shall throw all into confusion, (31) as athlete, charioteer, murderer, and doer of a thousand extravagant acts. (32) He shall pierce, too, the hill between two seas, and besprinkle it with blood ; (33) Yea, even when he disappears, he shall be malignant. Then he shall return, (34) making himself equal to God: but God shall convince him that he is not.

(35) Three kings after him shall perish at each other’s hands. (36) Then there shall come a great destroyer of godly men (37) who displays the letter of seventy. (38) His son, who has the initial of three hundred, shall overcome him (39) and take away his power: and after him there

Igi. Omitted in dy.

V. 1-51. A brief sketch of history till the reign of Hadrian. 1. hearken. The reading is due to Rzach. MSS. have no verb. $y k\eway te Aativer. The first eleven lines recur at the beginning of the twelfth book.

4. The citizen of Pella = Alexander the Great. Cf. Juv. x. 168 ‘ Unus Pellaeo iuveni non sufficit orbis’.

6. Alexander died of fever at Babylon 323 B.c. Clem. Al. Protr. x. 96 quotes the first part of this line as ov BaBuday reyEe vexpdv.

7. After his visit to the temple of Zeus Ammon in 332 B.C. Alexander seems to have persuaded himself that he was the son of that god.

8. Assaracus, king of Phrygia and great-grandfather of Aeneas. The restoration of the name is due to Castalio.

9. Referring to the escape of Aeneas from burning Troy. Text corrupt; restored by Rz. from xii. 9.

11. i.e. Romulus and Remus.

12. twice ten. The name is Kaicap (K denoting 20) ; line 14 gives ’Iovduos (I denoting 10).

15. one who has the first of letters. i.e. Adyovoros.

16. References to the Battle of Philippi, the war with Sextus Pompeius, and the struggle with Antony and Cleopatra in Egypt.

18 The desertion of Cleopatra’s fleet at Actium. The parallel line in xii. 22 has tro Sovupi for él kdpa.

21. who shall have... three hundred. i.e. Tiépuos.

23. War between Rome and Parthia a. D. 34-5.

24. who has ... three. i.e. Daios.

25. twice ten = K. Kn)avd.os is meant.

26. Claudius’ short-lived expedition to Britain A.D. 43.

27. The reading is uncertain. Ausonia is strictly S. Italy, but is used poetically for the whole country.

28. fifty = N. Népey is meant.

29. A serpent was found around Nero’s neck when he was an infant. Cf. Tac. Ava, xi. 11.

30. For Nero’s murder of his mother cf. iii. 121.

31. A reference to Nero’s competing as a charioteer in the Olympian Games. Cf. Juvenal x. 224 ff.

32. Nero made an attempt to pierce the Isthmus of Corinth, in A.D. 66-7. Cf. 1. 138.

hill between two seas. dixuuor dpos is a conjecture of Rzach from xii. 84: dy have diikpov Vdap.

33. For the expectation of the return of Nero cf. iv. 119.

34. For the claim of Antichrist to be God cf. 2 Thess. ii. 4; Iren. v. 25.15; Asc. Isa. iv. 6.

35. Galba, Otho, and Vitellius.

37. i.e, Oveonaciavos the conqueror of the Jews.

39. An ungrounded suspicion charges Titus with attempting to supplant his father. ‘Cf. Suet. 777. 5,16

shall be a sovereign (40) of the letter of four, a cursed man. And next (41) a reverend man of the number of fifty. And after him (42) one whose initial signifies three hundred, (43) a Celtic mountaineer ; and he, hot-footed for Eastern war, (44) shall not escape ignoble fate, but shall succumb. A foreign dust shall hide his corpse, (45) even one that has the name of the Nemean flower. And after him another shall reign, (46) a silver-helmed man: he shall have the name-of a sea. (47) He shall be a most excellent man and shall understand everything. (48) And in thy time, most excellent, most noble, dark-haired prince, (50) and in the time of thy scions, all these days shall come. (51) After him three shall reign, but the third shall rule late in life.

(52) Thrice wretched I, I am wearied to conceive the message of evil in my heart, (53) I the familiar friend of Isis, and the inspired strain of oracles. (54) First of all around the steps of thy lamented temple, (55) frenzied priestesses shall rush, and thou shalt be in evil hands (56) on that day when the Nile passes over (57) the whole land of Egypt up to sixteen cubits, (58) so as to flood the whole land and drench it with its streams. (59) And the grace of the land shall subside and the glory of its face.

(60) Memphis, thou shalt mourn more than all for Egypt. (61) For thou, who before wast the mighty mistress of earth, shalt become (62) miserable, so that even He whose delight is in the thunder shall shout (63) from heaven with a loud voice: O Memphis, mighty in strength, (64) thou who of old didst boast so loudly to miserable men, (65) shalt mourn wretched and ill-starred, (66) so that the eternal immortal God will notice thee in the clouds. (67) Where is thy spirit that has been so masterful among men? (68) Forasmuch as thou hast spent thy fury upon my divinely anointed servants, (69) and hast launched forth evil upon men that are good, (70) in return for such things thou shalt have’such a nurse for thy recompense. (71) Thou shalt have no longer any right fopenlyT among the blessed. (72) Thou hast fallen from the stars: thou shalt not ascend to heaven. (73) These things God bade me tell forth to Egypt (74) in the last time when men shall be wholly evil. (75) But wicked men exhaust wickedness awaiting (76) the wrath of the immortal, loudthundering God of heaven, (77) and worshipping stones in place of God, and beasts, (78) and fearing a motley crowd of deities, which have no speech, (79) no understanding and no hearing, such things as it isa shame for me even to mention, (80) each several form of idols which owe their being to the hands of mortal men. (81) And from their own labours and miserable devices (82) men have taken to themselves gods of wood and stone, (83) of brass and gold and silver too, vain gods, (84) lifeless and dumb and smelted in the fire, (85) have they made, putting their trust in vain in such as these. (86) {Thmouis and Xouis are in tribulation. Abydos laments,} (87) and (the cities) of Heracles, Zeus and Hermes. (88) And thee Alexandria, famous nurse of cities, (89) war shall not leave, nor famine, but thou shalt pay the penalty (90) of thy haughtiness and all thy former deeds. (91) Long ages shalt thou be in silence and the day of return thou shalt not see. (92) And

4o. cursed. MSS. untranslatable. It is simplest to emend réPOos pdpos to ebOappevos. Compare the imprecation pbciperbe.

41. Nepovas, 1.e. Nerva, who was over 60 at his accession, and was long remembered as the gentlest of the Emperors.

42. Tpatavos born at Italica in Spain. After continual wars in the East he died at Selinus in Cilicia.

45. The parsley (céAuvoy) furnished the wreath which was the prize at the Nemean games. Cf. Pindar, OZ, xili. 46:

46. i.e. Hadrian, whose name recalls the Adriatic Sea.

50. Hadrian had no children. He adopted first L. Verus and then Antoninus.

51. On this line see Intr. p. 373.

52-9. A calamity in Egypt.

53. familiar friend (yyworn): perhaps ‘kinswoman’ (yvwry). A suggestion is ‘Isis, thou shalt know God’ (Io, Gedy yuaon) from vil. 66,

55. rush, digovor: most MSS. ‘increase’, avéovor.

60-72. Woes on Memphis.

67. Cf. the dirge on Babylon in Isa. xiv; also xix. 12 ff.

68. divinely anointed, perhaps = ‘ Christian’.

70. The nurse is probably Rome. Alex. would translate ‘foster-child’.

71. The sense is unsatisfactory. We might read ‘Thou shalt no longer have a right among the clans of the blessed’ (ppytpats for cbavepas).

73-110. The confusion of Egypt.

86. Text corrupt in the second half of the line.

Thmouis and Xouis are towns in Lower Egypt connected with the worship of Amen. Abydos is merely a conjectural emendation (kdémrer’” ABvdos).

87. The word for cities is missing. The three towns are Heracleopolis, Diospolis (= Thebes), and Hermopolis.

89. The latter part of the line is missing. The restoration is by Alex.

gi. A gap in the MSS. after this line.

92. The line is cut short. Supply NeiAos dragor,

THE SIBYLLINE BOOKS.) | Booka » Lines) 93-141

no more shall the Nile flow for thee with its boon of delicious drink. (93) For the Persian shall come upon thy field like hail (94) and shall destroy thy land and thy men of evil arts, (95) with blood and corpses, tbeside thy glorious altars} ; (96) a people of uncouth mind, stalwart, red with blood, of senseless rage, (97) in full force like the sand to hasten thy doom. (98) And then, O thou rich with the wealth of cities, thou shalt be rich with distress. (gg) All Asia shall mourn because of those gifts of thine from which (100) she joyed to crown her head, now falling upon earth. (101) And he to whose lot fell the Persians’ land shall war thee down, (102) and killing man by man shall crush out thy whole life, (103) so that but a third part shall remain to wretched men. (104) And he shall leap on thee with light spring from the West, (105) blockading thy whole land and laying it all in waste. (106) But when he reaches his zenith of power, and his boldness knows no shame, (107) he shall come fain even to sack the city of the blessed. (108) And then a king sent from God against him (109) shall destroy all the mighty kings and the best of the men. (10) And so shall the judgement come from the Immortal upon men.

(11) Woe unto thee, my craven heart, why dost thou provoke me (12) to declare these things unto Egypt, even the grievous partition of sovereignty? (13) Go to the East, to the senseless Persian tribes, and signify to them the present and that which is to be.

(15) The stream of the river Euphrates shall bring on a flood (16) and it shall destroy Persians and Iberians and Babylonians, (17) and Massagetae lovers of war and trusting in bows. (18) The whole of Asia shall blaze with flames of fire as far as the islands. (19) Pergamus, of old so venerable, shall perish as a cluster of grapes, (20) and Pitane shall appear among men as a mass of ruins. (21) The whole of Lesbos shall sink into the deep abyss to perish. (22) Smyrna shall one day mourn rolled down the cliffs ; (23) she that of old was revered and renowned shall perish. (24) The Bithynians shall mourn their land reduced to ashes, (25) and great Syria and Phoenice with its multitude of peoples.

(26) Woe to thee, Lycia, for all the evils that the sea is devising, against thee, (27) invading of its own accord thy woebegone land, (28) so as to flood with evil earthquake and bitter streams (29) the myrrhless myrrh-breathing land of Lycia.

(30) Phrygia, too, shall have grievous wrath on account of the infatuation (31) whereby Rhea the (mother) of Zeus came and stayed there.

(32) The sea shall destroy the family of the Tauri and their barbarian folk, (33) and a devourer shall slay the Lapithae throughout their land}. (34) The deep-eddying river shall destroy the Thessalian land, (35) even Peneius with its deep stream chasing mortals from the land.

(37) Poets shall sing well-a-day for thrice-wretched Hellas, when one from Italy shall pierce the neck of the isthmus, even the mighty king of mighty Rome, a godlike man, (40) to whom, they say, Zeus himself gave birth and our lady Hera. (41) Who courting applause with honied strains uttered

93-I1I are contained (except 98) only in the Paris excerpt, which has besides iv. 179-190 (see Introduction, p. 374). At the end of 111 there is a summary in prose of the contents of this passage.

93- The line is only found in the Paris excerpt, and the word for fields (Sdzos) is omitted. Possibly the Persian is Nero representing the Antichrist returning at the head of a Parthian army, cf.147. For the description cf. 1 En. lvi. 5. Fehr compares a striking passage in Commodian, Carm. Apol. 825 ff.

95. beside thy glorious altars. Text again uncertain. Geffck. proposes ‘shall fill full thine altars’, epurAjoovai Te Bapovs.

lol. Reading due to Buresch from Paris excerpt.

104. Nero is to lead a successful campaign in the West. For spring (date) Par. excerpt has ‘chariot’ (dpyart).

107-10. The lines are quoted i in Lact. Div. Znst. vii. 18. 5. In 106 read (with Geffcken) avaidés for andés.

108. The Messiah is to intervene from heaven to save Jerusalem. ware unmetrical: cOevapds Bactheds exmeupdeis ent TOUTOY.

111-31. Calamities in various Eastern countries foretold.

112. The partition of sovereignty would refer to the disputes as to the imperial throne of Rome.

119. The simile is a little strained. Alex. would read ‘from its foundations’ (BaOpyddr).

125. Read modududoy for MSS. Tohugurov.

129. The epithets duupoy, pupimvouy, are apparently chosen to play on the name Myra, the chief city of Lycia. But for dpupoy (myrrhless) we might possibly read a dydpay (water-channel).

130. infatuation (Aéoons), a suggestion for ‘grief’ (Avmns). Rhea is closely connected with Cybele, whose worship was attended with great orgies.

132-6. The whole text is corrupt and only a conjectural restoration is possible. In 133 a devourer (Sdrrwv) is a conjecture for ‘ground’ (damedov). In 135 péporras, ‘mortals’, is read for poppdas 136 is regarded as a doublet of 135 and omitted. It runs, literally, ‘ Epidanus claiming (saying) one day to beget the forms of beasts’.

The Lagithae were a wild tribe living in Thessaly in heroic times, and the Pemezuzs is the principal river of Thessaly.

137-54. The return of Nero.

138. Cf. 632. The description in the next two lines is bitterly sarcastic.

140. It was said that Nero’s birth was wrapped in mystery, cf. Suet. /Vero 6.

with melodious voice (42) shall destroy many together with his ill-starred mother. (43) Then shall flee from Babylon a king fearful and shameless (44) whom all mortals and all the best men loathe. (45) For he destroyed many and laid his hands on the womb (46) and sinned against wives and was born of abominable parentage. (47) He shall come to the Medes and to the kings of the Persians, (48) the first whom he desired and to whom he added glory, (49) making his lair with these evil men against the true people. (50) He seized the temple built by God, and burnt the citizens and the people who went up to it, whom I have justly sung. (52) For when he died the whole of creation was shaken (53) and kings perished, and those among whom the empire remained (54) destroyed the great city and the righteous people.

(55) But when after the fourth year a great star shines, (56) which by itself shall destroy the (whole) land, }because of the honour (57) which they first paid to Poseidon god of the seat, (58) then shall come a great star from heaven into the divine sea, (59) and shall burn up the deep sea and Babylon itself, (60) and the land of Italy on whose account (61) many faithful saints of the Hebrews have perished, and the true people.

(62) Thou shalt be afflicted with evil among evil men, (63) but thou shalt remain utterly desolate for whole ages hereafter, .... (65) hating thy soil because thou didst love magic. (66) Adulteries are with thee and unlawful intercourse with boys, (67) effeminate and unjust, thou wicked city, most ill-starred of all. (68) Woe unto thee all unclean city of Latin land, (69) frenzied and +poisonloving}, in widowhood shalt thou sit beside thy banks, (70) and river Tiber shall mourn for thee, his wife, (71) that hadst a bloodthirsty heart and a godless mind. (72) Didst thou not know what God can do and what are his designs? (73) But thou hast said, I am unique, and none shall bring ruin on me. (74) But now God whose Being is for ever shall destroy thee and all of thine, (75) and there shall be no token of thee in that land, (76) as of old when the Mighty God found for thee thine honour. (77) Remain, O lawless one, unique, and, wedded unto flaming fire, (78) make thine home in the nether region of Hades where laws are not.

(79) But now once more, Egypt, I bemoan thy doom. (80) Memphis, thou shalt be in the van of troubles, tsmitten in thine anklest. (81) The very pyramids in thee shall utter a speechless voice. (82) Python, thou that of old wast justly called the double city, (83) be thou silent for ages that thou mayst cease from thy wickedness. (84) Insolence, storehouse of evil woes, frenzied with much lamentation, (85) direful sufferer, full of tears, thou shalt remain a widow for ever. (86) For many a year thou wast the sole sovereign of the world.

(87) But when Barca puts on the white kilt (88) over soiled clothes, may I not live or be born.

143. Babylon probably means Rome. But it is noticeable that in the Avesta Azhidaka has his seat at Babylon, and some have supposed that the Nero myth has borrowed certain features from this source.

146. abominable, prapév. Most MSS. read ‘small’, prxpay, but the correction is certain. It is noticeable in how many details Nero and the Antichrist are confused.

148. Nero desired to transfer his seat of empire to the East. Cf. Suet. (Vero 4o.

150. Nero did not, of course, capture Jerusalem. But his sending Vespasian to the East to quell the Jewish revolt was the beginning of the end.

152. died, Oavéovros. MSS. ‘appeared’, mpodavévros. But Nero’s death was followed by a terrific earthquake (Dio 63. 28), and the kings who perished would be Galba, Otho, and Vitellius.

MSS. have ‘ the’ 7 for ‘the whole of’, én, and the line is left unmetrical.

155-61. An apocalyptic passage suggested by a notable comet which appeared in A.D, 73 (Plin. Wat. Hist. ii. 25), and is supposed to presage the fate of Rome. ; ; ;

157. The line is corrupt; perhaps we should read ‘because of the precious things which aforetime they put on Poseidon god of the sea’. The arrogance of Babylon (= Rome) is based to a large extent on the wealth of its seaborne merchandise, cf. Apoc. xviii. 4-20,

162-78. A dirge on Rome suggested by Isa. xiii. and Apoc. xviii. ’

164. The line omitted (‘it shail be, but it shall remain utterly desolate or ever’) is evidently a doublet.

165. magic, dapyakin. Cf. Apoc. xviii. 23. }

169. poison-loving, ¢x.dvoxdpns, properly ‘delighting in vipers’. The word may have been suggested by the story of the death of Cleopatra.

177. A reference to the great fire of A.D. 63. ; ,

179-205. A dirge on Memphis and other Egyptian towns. . ‘

180. smitten in thine ankles, m\nxGeioa révovras (Geffck.) may refer to the system of canals which crossed ancient Memphis. But the MSS. reading gives mAno@eioa révovros, and it is simple to read with Alex. mAnodeica Oavdvrer, ‘ filled with the dead’. :

181. A reference to the sounding pyramid mentioned in Pliny, Vat. Hist. xxxvi. 58, Juv. xv. 5. }

182, Python = Pithom, the treasure city partially built by the Israelites. The Romans built another city close by, called Heropolis. It is Egypt in general rather than Memphis or Python that is now addressed.

For speechless (dvavdov) the MSS. have ‘shameless’ (dvaid7).

187. Barca, a city of Cyrenaica captured by the Persians in the time of Darius, The kilt (kumdcovov) was a Persian garment. The oracle is probably an ancient one: yevoiyay shows a Doric ending.

THE SIBYLLINE BOOKS. Book V, Lings 189-238

(89) O Thebes, where is thy great strength ? a savage man (90) shall utterly destroy thy people. And thou, taking thy sombre garments (91) shalt mourn, poor wretch, alone, and shalt make full amends (92) for all that thou didst before in the shamelessness of thine heart. (93) And they shall make grievous lament because of their lawless deeds.

(94) Syene an Ethiopian hero shall destroy. (95) Teuchira the dark-skinned Indians shall forcibly occupy. (96) Pentapolis, thou shalt mourn: fa man of mighty strength shall destroy thee.f (97) O Libya, steeped in tears, who shall tell forth thy dooms? (98) And what mortal, Cyrene, shall weep piteous tears for thee? (99) Thou shalt not cease thy lament to the time of thine hateful destruction.

(200) Among the Britains and the Gauls rich in gold (201) the ocean shall roar filled with streams of blood: (202) forasmuch as they too committed wickedness against the children of God (203) twhen the red king brought against the Sidonians (204) a great horde of Gauls out of Syriaf. And he shall slay even thee, (205) O Ravenna, and shall rule over thee with bloodshed.

(206) Ye Indians, be not overbold, and ye stout-hearted Ethiopians. (207) For when the circle of the arched Axis, Capricorn (208) and Taurus among the Twins revolve round mid heaven, (209) and Virgo is coming forth, and the sun (10) reigns fixing his fire-flashing belt about his brow: (11) then there shall be a great celestial conflagration on the earth, (12) and in the battle of the stars a new creation shall come forth, so that (13) the whole land of the Ethiopians shall perish with fire and moanings.

(14) Do thou too, Corinth, Cbeuiead the piteous destruction that is in thee. (15) For when with their weft of twisted thread the three sister-Fates (16) bring back him that fled by guile to the bank of the Isthmus (17) in mid-air that all may see him, (18) who once pierced the rock with ductile brass, (19) then he shall destroy thy land and waste it, as it was determined before. (20) For to him God hath given strength to do (21) such things as none of all the former kings have done.

(22) For first of all cutting off with a mighty blow the roots from three heads, (23) he shall give them to his mighty comrades to devour (24) so that they shall eat the flesh of the parents of the unholy king. (25) For for all men blood and horrors are in store (26) because of the great city and the righteous people, (27) brought safe through all, whom Providence exalted.

(28) O thou unsettled and of evil counsel, beset with evil fate, (29) source of trouble and its great end unto men (30) when creation is vexed and again saved by the Fates, (31) O violence, fountainhead of evils and great bane unto men, (32) who of mortals hath desired thee, who within him hath not been vexed? (33) By thee a king cast down has lost his august life. (34) Thou hast ordered all amiss and hast brought on all the flood-tide of evil, (35) and through thee the fair plains of the earth have been altered. (36) Throw out these seeds of strife (perhaps they are thy last) for our contention. (37) How and what dost thou speak? I will persuade thee, yea, even if I blame thee I say it. (38) There was once among men the bright sun-ray, when the beam of the

193. make lament (xdWovra:), an emendation for ‘see lament’ (éWovra). The ending of lines 192, 193 are transposed in the MSS.

194. Syene, modern Assouan. There was an Ethiopian invasion of Egypt in 24 B.C.

195. Teuchira, a city in Cyrenaica, afterwards called Arsinoe.

196. Pentapolis, a district on the coast embracing Cyrene. The text is uncertain.

200-5. Woes on Western peoples.

200. Britains. MSS. Bpvreoo:. Wilam. suggests Bpvyeoou.

203. Meaning uncertain. Bacwe’s boiné may refer to Vespasian who brought Gallic troops to the campaign in Palestine. Or there may be an allusion to the phoenix which reappeared at certain intervals, and if so the reference would probably be to Nero.

205. MSS. ‘thee, Ravenna here’ (ce . . . avtn ‘PaBévyn).

206-13. A conflagration to occur among the Ethiopians at a certain conjunction of stars.

206. be not overbold, pu) Gapoeire. MSS. ‘fear not’, un rapBeire.

207. arched, xvprov, an emendation for rovrouvs which gives no sense.

210. fire-flashing. The word is uncertain.

214-28. A dirge on Corinth.

216. Reading uncertain. If the restored text as translated is accepted there is apparently a reference again to Nero. In the next line he seems confused with Simon Magus, who, according to tradition, met his death while flying in the air. Line 218 would then return to Nero and his attempt to pierce the Isthmus of ‘Corinth.

bank, 6xOnv. py have ougyy, ‘ voice’.

222. Cf. the picture in Dan. vii. 8. The three heads may be the three Flavian Emperors,

cutting off (oracodpevos), a suggestion for ‘ weighing’ (arnodpevos).

223. his comrades (érdpors), a conjecture for ‘others’ (érépots), So peydhors for peyddos.

224. For parents (yovéwy) we should perhaps read ‘race’ (yeveas). The unholy king is Nero.

228-46. A much disputed passage. Hildebrandt sees in it a direct allusion to the Avesta. Fehr regards it as an address to Rome. It seems more probable that it refers to the Rabbinic conception of the fall of Adam brought about by the envy of the Angels, and of the withdrawal of the Shechinah from earth. But the whole passage is obscure.

230. by the Fates (Moipas). MSS. have ‘when destiny is again saved *, sa Copevns made Moipns.

237. Alex. would read ‘If thou hast aught against me, speak it’, ef dé re pépdear adda.

prophets was shed forth in concord. (40) A tongue distilling a fair honied drink to all mortals (41) came forth and waxed greater, and reared its gentle crop for all. (42) Therefore, O thou of cramped counsel, fountain-head of the greatest of evils, (43) the hooked knife and mourning shall come on that day. (44) O thou source of trouble and its great end unto men, (45) when creation is vexed and again saved by the Fates, (46) listen to my bitter speech of evil sound, thou bane unto men.

(47) But when the Persian land shall be quit of war (48) and of pestilence and lamentation, then there shall be on that day (49) the godlike heavenly race of the blessed Jews, (50) who dwell around the city of God at the centre of earth. (51) Building a great ring-wall as far as Joppa (52) they are exalted on high up to the darkling clouds. (53) No more shall the trumpet hiss forth the blast of war's turmoil, (54) nor shall they perish any more by the fanatic hands of their foes. (55) But they

‘shall set up trophies around in an age innocent of harm.

(56) Then there shall come from the sky a certain exalted man, (57) whose hands they nailed upon the fruitful tree, (58) the noblest of the Hebrews, who shall one day cause the sun to stand still, (59) when he cries with fair speech and pure lips.

(60) Let thy spirit within thy breast no longer be vexed, thou blessed one, (61) child of God, excellent in wealth, only longed-for blossom, (62) pleasant light, august offshoot, longed-for branch, (63) well-favoured Judaea, fair city, inspired in hymns. (64) No longer shall the Greeks’ unclean foot run riot in thy land, (65) for they shall have within their breasts a mind that conforms to thy laws. (66) But thy noble sons shall encircle thee with honour, (67) and with holy music they shall attend thy table, (68) with divers kinds of sacrifices and prayers to the honour of God. (69) All those righteous men who from short-lived affliction have endured troubles, (70) shall have a more ample and well-favoured rope of life. (71) But the evil men who trim to the breeze a lawless tongue (72) shall cease to speak one against another, (73) and they shall hide themselves tuntil the world pass awayft. (74) And then shall come from the clouds a rain of flaming fire. (75) No longer shall men gather in the blithe corn-blade from the earth. (76) All shall remain unsown and unploughed, until mortal men take note of (77) God, the Chief of all, the Immortal and Eternal, (78) and no longer pay homage to mortal things, (79) nor dogs and vultures, which Egypt has taught (80) to reverence with vain mouths and foolish lips. (81) But the holy land of the godly alone shall bear all these things, (82) An ambrosial stream distilling honey and milk shall flow from rock and fountain for all the righteous. (84) For they fixed their hope on the one God, the Father who alone is excellent, (85) and they held fast to great piety and faith.

(86) But why, O why, does my wise mind lay this burden on me? (87) Now it is thou, O wretched Asia, that I piteously lament, and the race of the Ionians, Carians, and Lydians rich in gold. (89) Woe to thee, Sardis: and to thee, lovely Trallis. (go) Woe to thee, Laodicea, fair city, how shall ye perish (91) destroyed by earthquakes and reduced to dust. (92) To dusky Asia and (the race) of the Lydians rich in gold... .

(93) The shrine of Artemis fashioned (by the citizens) of Ephesus (94) shall one day by yawnings

240. The tongue was perhaps a comet, a sign of peace and prosperity. du orayéovca, ‘distilling . . . honeyed’ is a conjecture of Alex. for pev orayéovoa pb. (W has pev orvyéovea.)

241. For datve ré read aivero.

249. Lact. quotes this line and refers it to the Christians. ;

250. For the Rabbinic idea that Jerusalem was the centre of the earth cf. 1 En. xxvi. 1; Jubilees viii.

255. The text is corrupt, and the emendation proposed is slight. Read adda mépiE orncovo akdk@ aid tpdmata.

256-9. A Christian interpolation.

257. MSS. ‘whose hands he spread out’, 08 raddpas frdooev. For fr\woev read ijhooav. Fehr, reading dapiris in 258, renders ‘ whose hands the company of the Hebrews spread out’. Blass refers this line to Moses (Exod. xvii. 12).

258. In the MSS. the verb is in the past, orjoe. Many commentators treat this as referring to Joshua, but manifestly the allusion is to St. Luke xxiii. 43, 44.

260-85. The coming prosperity of Judaea and the plight of the ungodly. g

Bleek and Gefrérer treat this section as one of the oldest (c. 160 B.C.), but without convincing reason.

262. Read @ados for rédos, and épvos for ayvos.

267. attend thy table. Perhaps ‘set up (émorjoovor) thy table’, Referring to the restoration of the Temple sacrifices, which was to be one of the features of the new Jerusalem. y be

270. rope is a conjecture (kddwpy for kaddv: cf. ili. 45). The metaphor would be a nautical one, but it is not very convincing, and there is probably a corruption in the text. a

273. until the world pass away. Read (with Rzach) gos dd\\ax6y7 6 Kéopos for €ws Kéopos addayy.

280. vain mouths, xevois. MSS. ‘new’ (véos), Alexandre suggests ‘their mouths’ (cropdrecow €ois).

286-97. Disasters in Asia following an earthquake. : Fe :

There was a specially severe earthquake in A.D. 17, details of which are given in Tac. Avzm. ii. 47; Pliny, Wad.

Hist. ii. 86. Twelve cities were destroyed in one night and Sardis suffered most severely.

292. Obviously there is a gap after this line. It may be filled in with a line like iv. Iot.

293. The temple of Ephesus survived, and was changed into a Christian Church.

THE SIBYLLINE BOOKS. Boox V, Lines 295-341

and quakings of the earth sink into the divine sea: (95) headlong, even as tempests overwhelm ships. (96) Ephesus shall lament prostrate and weeping by her shores, (97) and seeking for her temple which is no longer inhabited.

(98) And then in wrath the Immortal God who dwells in heaven (99) shall hurl from the sky a fiery meteor down on the unholy head. (300) And instead of winter there shall be summer on that day, (301) and then indeed shall be autumn’s end to mortal men. (302) For He who thunders from on high shall utterly destroy all the shameless men, (303) with thunderings and lightnings and flaming thunderbolts, (304) on those who are his enemies, and he shall destroy them as ungodly (305) so that dead bodies shall remain on the earth more numerous than the sand.

(306) Smyrna too shall come bemoaning her minstrel (307) to the gates of Ephesus, and she shall perish more thoroughly.

(308) And Cyme, the foolish, with her streams inspired of God, (309) hurled down by the hands of godless men, unjust and lawless, (310) shall not so much as put forth a branch toward heaven, (11) but shall remain dead by its swelling streams. (12) And then they shall groan together awaiting an evil doom. (13) They shall know when they have a token wherefore they have laboured, (14) that stubborn folk and shameless race of the Cymaeans. (15) Then when they shall bemoan their wicked land reduced to ashes (16) Lesbos shall be for ever destroyed by Eridanus.

(17) Woe unto thee Cibyra, thou fair city, cease thy rout, (18) and Hierapolis, thou land uniquely wedded to the god of wealth. (19) Thou shalt have, what thou hast longed to have, gold but gold of many tears, (20) burying it in the earth by the streams of Thermodon. (21) And rockclinging Tripolis by Maeander’s waters, (22) left widowed by the billows at night against the shore, (23) God’s Providence shall one day make a full end of thee unto the ground.

(24) May it never befall me to choose willingly the land that is neighbour to Phoebus. (25) One day a meteor from on high shall destroy delicate Miletus, (26) forasmuch as she chose the deceitful verse of Phoebus, (27) and men’s learned study and prudent counsel.

(28) Be favourable, Father of all, to the delicate fruitful land, (29) to great Judaea, that we may see thy purposes. (30) Her first didst thou know, O God, with thine acts of favour, (31) so that she seemed to all mankind to be the object of thy special grace, (32) and to realize what a charge she had from thee.

(33) Thrice wretched me, I long to see the Thracians’ works, (34) and the wall that spans two seas, dragged by Ares (35) river-like in the dust like a fishing diver.

(36) Wretched Hellespont, a son of the Assyrians shall one day yoke thee. (37) {The Thracians’ battle shall come and utterly destroy thy might}: (38) and an Egyptian king shall take Macedonia, (39) and a barbarian clime shall cast down the might of rulers. (40) Lydians and Galatians, Pamphylians and Pisidians (41) bear rule with all their people armed with bitter strife.

296. prostrate. Read trria for vata 6’.

298-305. Further calamities and reversal of seasons. The section seems misplaced here.

301. autumn’s end. perdémwp’ for MSS. perézeir’.

306. minstrel, Avpoupydy. Geffck.’s emendation for Avxouvpydv. The reference would be to Homer. The idea seems to be that in the general distress even the inveterate rivalry between Ephesus and Smyrna would cease.

308. The people of the Asiatic Cumae were regarded as specially foolish. But the reference to the inspired streams would fit in better with the Cumae in Campania.

310. Read kAjpa mponces for dppa mpodadet.

311. swelling (xupaivover) for ‘Cumaean’ (kvpjouw). The play on words seems to make this emendation preferable to Geffcken’s kvaveourw.

316. The Eridanus was a river famous in old legends. Here, perhaps, used for the sea. Cf. Virgil’s ‘ Acheloia pocula’.

317. Cibyra. Mendelssohn’s emendation for Corcyra, Cibyra was on the borders of Caria and Lycia.

319. longed to have (memd@nxas). MSS. ‘made’ (reroinkas). Cold, xypuody, is a suggested emendation for place, ydpov. It carries on the idea of wedded to the god of wealth’ (MAovta pryeioa).

One of the features of Hierapolis was the Ploutonium, a hole just wide enough to admit a man, reaching deep into the earth, from which issued a mephitic vapour. See Ramsay, Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia, p. 86. 322. left widowed. Read ynpevdcica for MSS. kAnpwbcioa. Should we read ‘ hurled down, kappupOcioa? Tripolis was situated on a hill overhanging the Maeander.

323. Read mrédovde for 708" HOe,

324. Miletus was not far from the famous temple of Apollo at Branchidae.

327. study = pederny, a play on MiAnroy. Miletus was proud of her philosophers, and especially of Thales.

334. The great wall that spanned the isthmus on which Byzantium stood.

335. like (ic’) a suggestion for ‘to’ (ém’). The diver was probably a sea bird.

336. Xerxes’ bridge across the Hellespont.

337. Reading uncertain. It is suggested to read Avoipayoy for eis o€ dyn, and translate ‘The Thracians’ might shall utterly undo Lysimachus’. The reference would be to the death of Lysimachus in the battle of Corupedion in 281 B.C. His vanquisher, Seleucus, was slain by Ptolemy Keraunos, and he in his turn was defeated and killed by the Gauls in 280 B.C.

341. bear rule (kparcovot). Perhaps read kporéovor, ‘resound with din of arms’.

THE SIBYLLINE BOOKS) "Boo WV, anes 342-204

(42) Thrice-wretched Italy, thou shalt remain all desolate, unwept. (43) A baleful beast in thy luxuriant land shall destroy thee.

(44) TWhen the broad heaven above is clear}, (45) men shall hear a crash, as of thunder, even the voice of God. (46) And even the imperishable fires of the sun itself shall be no more, (47) nor shall there be any more the bright moonlight (48) in the last time when God shall reign, (49) All things shall become black and darkness shall be over the earth, (50) (and mortals shall be blind and beasts evil) and trouble. (51) That day shall last long time, so that (52) men will take note of God Himself, the King, the Watcher of all from heaven. (53) Then he shall have no pity for those who are his foes, (54) when they spend themselves in sacrificing herds of lambs and sheep and lowing bulls, (55) of great calves too with gilded horns (56) to lifeless Hermes and gods of stone. (57) But let justice, wisdom, and glory hold sway over the just, (58) lest the Immortal God in anger destroy (59) the whole bloodstained race of men and their shameless kin. (60) We needs must love God the Father, the Wise, the Everlasting.

(61) There shall be at the last time, about the waning of the moon, (62) a world-convulsing war deceitful in guilefulness. (63) And there shall come from the ends of the earth a matricide (64) fleeing and devising sharp-edged plans in his mind. (65) He shall ruin all the earth, and gain all power, (66) and surpass all men in the cunning of his mind. (67) That for which he perished he shall seize at once. (68) And he shall destroy many men and great tyrants, (69) and shall burn all men as none other ever did. (70) And those that were fallen he shall raise up again through contrary zeal. (71) And from the west shall come much war to men, (72) and streams of blood shall flow up to the banks of the deep-eddying rivers. (73) And gall shall distil in the plains of Macedonia} . . . (74) alliance, but to the king from the west destructionf. (75) And then a wintry blast shall blow throughout the earth, (76) and the plain shall be filled again with cruel war. (77) For fire shall rain on mortal men from the fields of heaven, (78) fire and blood, water, meteor, darkness, heaven’s night, (79) and consumption in war and a mist over the slain (80) shall destroy at once all kings and the best of men.

(81) Then at last war’s piteous ruin shall be stopped (82) and no man shall fight any more with swords or steel, (83) nor with javelins either, for these things shall no more be permitted. (84) But the wise people that are left shall have peace, (85) having had trial of evil that later they might rejoice.

(86) Ye matricides, cease from your shamelessness and wicked boldness. (87) Ye that of old foully furnished boys for abuse, (88) and set in your houses as harlots those who before were pure (89) with wanton violence and punishment and laboured foulness. (90) In thee a mother had incestuous commerce with her child, (91) and a daughter became the bride of her own father. (92) In thee even kings befouled their ill-starred mouth: (93) in thee evil men even found means to lie with beasts. (94) Silence, thou miserable, wicked city, from the revel that thou hadst. (95) For no longer under the roof of thy virgin-loving court shall the virgins tend the divine fire. (97) Quenched from thee was thine house, desired of old, (98) when for the second time I saw thine house hurled (99) headlong down, lapped with fire, by an unholy hand, (400) thine ever flourishing house, the temple that guarded thy god, (401) made with holy hands, (402) and such as men from their soul and body itself trusted would be ever immortal.

(403) Not recklessly do they praise a God of senseless earth, (404) nor did a cunning workman

343. The reading of the MSS. needs some correction. Read éefarodei ce for e€arodéaba.

344. MSS. unintelligible. Read éora: 8 émoray aiOpuos obpavos edpis Urepber.

358-60. Quoted by Lact. De Jra Dez, xxiii. 8.

359. bloodstained (8pordev) a conjecture for ‘life ’ (Bioroy).

361-85. Wars and disasters preceding the end.

363. The ends of the earth. Either Parthia, or the West conceived of as the scene of the appearance of the Antichrist in the form of Nero. A similar description in Testament of the Lord vy.

The passage is referred to in Lact. De Morte Pers. ii. 8.

367. Probably the sovereignty.

370-3. Friedlieb supposes these lines to be an interpolation. ;

373. A gap after this line. The sense was probably, ‘ But God shall send from on high to that people help (or alliance) ’.

Dee Outburst of hatred against Rome. For the description cf. ili. 185 ff. :

395. No good sense can be obtained from the MSS. A somewhat bold emendation is proposed. Read over yap mapa oeio réyer pudorapOévov avdAjs. The reference is apparently to the burning of the Temple of Vesta in A.D. 64 (or possibly the second burning in A.D. 191). : [ ;

398. The Sibyl claims to have seen the Temple at Jerusalem twice destroyed, and regards its destruction as the reason for the burning of Vesta’s Temple. }

401. The indestructibility of Herod’s Temple was a dogma deep-rooted in the Jewish mind. Compare the story in Josephus, Bed/. Lud. vi. 5.

403. senseless (défpovos) for ‘ vanished’ (apavods).

among them make a god of stone: (405) no ornament of gold to lead souls astray do they worship.

(406) But God, the great Father of all within whom is the breath of God, (407) they were wont to reverence with holy sacrifices and hecatombs. (408) But now an obscure unholy king has gone up (409) and cast it down and left it without inhabitant (10) with a great multitude and ‘with doughty warriors. (11) But he himself perished when he landed on the mainland from the Eternal Land, (12) and no such sign has yet been wrought on men (13) that others should think to lay in ruins the

reat city.

: (14) For there has come from the plains of heaven a blessed man (15) with the sceptre in his hand which God has committed to his clasp: (16) and he has won fair dominion over all, and has restored to all (17) the good the wealth which the former mentook. (18) And he has destroyed every city from its foundations with sheets of fire, (19) and burnt up the families of the men who before wrought evil, (20) and the city which God loved he made (21) more radiant than the stars and the sun and the moon; (23) and he set it as the jewel of the world, and made a temple (23) exceeding fair in its fair sanctuary, and fashioned it (24) in size of many furlongs, with a giant tower (25) touching the very clouds and seen of all, (26) so that all the faithful and all the righteous may see (27) the glory of the invisible God, the vision of delight. (28) East and West have hymned forth the glory of God: (29) for no longer are wretched mortals beset with deeds of shame, (30) adulteries and unnatural passions for boys, (31) murder and tumult, but rivalry is fair among all. (32) It is the last time of the saints, when God pape al these things, (33) God the sender of thunder, the Creator of the great Temple.

(34) Woe to thee, Babylon, golden-throned and golden-sandalled, (35) thou who for many a year wast queen, sole sovereign of the world, (36) of old so great and cosmopolitan, no more shalt thou lie (37) on golden mountains and by Euphrates’ streams. (38) Thou shalt be levelled by an earthquake’s shock: and the dread Parthians (39) have made thee rattle through and through. Keep thy mouth with the bridle of constraint, (40) thou race of the Chaldees, and ask not nor care (41) how thou mayst rule the Persians or have dominion over the Medes. (42) For because of the empire that thou hadst, tthou shalt send hostages (43) to Rome, even those who were in bondage to Asiat. (44) Therefore thou thyself, thou haughty queen, shalt come to the summons of thine (45) adversaries on whose account thou hast sent ransom, (46) and for thy crooked words thou shalt give a bitter reckoning to thine enemies.

(47) And in the last time the sea shall be dry, (48) and no longer shall ships sail to Italy, (49) and great Asia which produces everything shall be water, (50) and Crete a plain. Cyprus shall have a great sorrow (51) and Paphos shall lament aloud her grievous fate, so that (52) even Salamis the great city shall perceive that she has suffered a great sorrow. (53) Now again the dry land up to the sea-shore shall be barren, (54) and swarms of locusts shall waste the land of Cyprus. (55) Ye illstarred mortals, ye shall weep when ye look toward Tyre. (56) Phoenicia, grievous wrath awaits thee, till thou fallest (57) with a grievous fall so that the Sirens in very truth should weep.

(58) There shall be a time in the fifth generation, when Egypt’s destruction shall cease, (59) when kings ally themselves in shameless marriages. (60) And Pamphylian races shall settle in Egypt, (61) and in Macedonia and in Asia and among the Lycians (62) ¢here shall be a world-convulsing war with streams of blood in the dust, (63) which a king of Rome and western princes shall arrest.

408. The king is Titus.

411. Text uncertain. Titus lingered for some time in Egypt after the capture of Jerusalem, and there was an expectation among the Jews that he would die directly he set foot on [talian soil. Read yépo@ dm aOavdrns emBas yrs and understand yépo of the mainland of Italy.

414-33. The coming of the Messiah, conceived of as already having occurred.

422. The line is mutilated in the middle. The emendation suggested is kat kdopou karéOyxev dyahpa, veor Tt eroingev €v ONK@ KAN@ TreptkadXea.

434-46. Woes on Babylon and the Parthians.

437. The golden mountains are merely a proverbial figure for immense wealth.

439. rattle (kporeiv) for MSS. ‘rule’ (kpareiv). In the latter half of the line the MSS. reading has been kept with the single alteration of pipdv to pipe.

443. The text is again corrupt. Read els ‘Popny wéeupers ov kat “Acids Ontevovras. Augustus, by diplomacy, induced the Parthians to restore the Roman prisoners captured at Carrhae.

444. Reading again uncertain. For eis kpiow read émi kAjow.

447-57. Convulsions of nature.

451. lament, aide. Alexandre’s emendation for aifec.

457. For the Sirens as spirits of lamentation cf. 2 Bar. x. 8.

458. War in Egypt. For ‘when... shall cease’ (ére matcer’) we should, perhaps, read ‘ when... shall come’ (ér eevee ).

459. Perhaps a reference to Cleopatra and Caesar.

461. For Lycians Alex. suggests ‘ Libyans’, ‘referring to Octavian’s capture of Pelusium and Alexandria.

(64) When a wintry blast distils in form of snow, (65) and a great river and the largest lakes are frozen, (66) straightway a barbarian horde shall make its way to the land of Assia, (67) and shall destroy the race of the dreaded Thracians as though it were but puny. (68) And then mortals in desperation shall devour their own parents (69) in the last stages of famine, and shall consume them greedily as food. (70) And from every house beasts shall devour the table (71) and the very birds shall devour al] mortals, (72) and as a result of grievous war the bloodstained ocean shall be filled (73) with the flesh and blood of the insensate men. (74) Then such faintness shall there be throughout the earth (75) that one may tell the number of men and the measure of women. (76) Myriad shall be the lamentations of the wretched generation about the term (77) when the sun sets never to rise again, (78) waiting to be bathed in the waters of ocean. (79) For it has seen the unholy villainies of many men. (80) There shall be a moonless darkness even around the great heaven, (81) and no slight mist shall envelop the folds of earth (82) a second time. But then God’s light shall guide (83) all those good men who have raised their hymns to God.

(84) Isis, thou goddess thrice ill-starred, thou shalt remain by the streams of Nile (85) alone, frenzied but speechless by the sands of Acheron, (86) and no memory of thee shall remain throughout the whole earth. (87) And thou, Sarapis, covered with many useless stones, (88) shalt lie a giant corpse in Egypt thrice ill-starred. (89) And all who have brought the precious things of Egypt to thee, (90) shall weep for thee bitterly, bethinking them of the Immortal God. (g1) They shall know thee to be nothing, all who have sung hymns to theeas God. (92) And then one of the priests shall say, a linen-clad man, (93) Come, let us set up the fair temple of the true God. (94) Come, let us change the grievous custom we have received from our fathers, (95) whereby, performing processions and rites to gods of stone and earthenware, they had no sense. (97) Let us turn ourselves and hymn the Immortal God, (98) the Father himself who is from everlasting, (99) the Chief of all, the True, the King, (500) the Father, Sustainer of souls, the Great Eternal God. (501) And then in Egypt there shall be a great and holy temple, (502) and to it the people whom God made shall bring sacrifices. (503) To these God shall grant a life without decay.

(504) But when, leaving the shameless tribes of the Triballi, (505) the Ethiopians tarry to till the land of Egypt, (506) they shall begin their evil deeds that all the latter things may come to pass. (507) For they shall destroy the great temple of the land of Egypt. (508) And God shall rain grievous wrath upon them down to earth, (509) so as to destroy all the evil and all the lawless. (10) And there shall be no more any sparing in that land (11) because they did not keep that which God entrusted to them.

(12) I saw the threatening of the gleaming sun among the stars, (13) and the moon’s grievous wrath among the lightning flashes. (14) The stars travailed with war: and God suffered them to fight. (15) For instead of the sun long flames rose in revolt, (17) and the two-horned revolution of the moon was Changed. (16) Lucifer waged battle, mounted on Leo’s back. (18) Capricorn smote the heel of the young Taurus: (19) and Taurus snatched from Capricorn his day of return, (20) Orion removed the Scales so that they remained no more. (21) Virgo changed her sphere with the Twins in Aries. (22) The Pleiad appeared no more: and the Dragon disowned the Belt. (23) Pisces entered into the girdle of Leo. (24) Cancer did not stay, for he feared Orion. (25) Scorpio drew up his tail, because of savage Leo: (26) and the dog-star perished from the sun’s flame. (27) The might of doughty Lucifer burned up Aquarius. (28) Heaven itself was stirred till it shook the warriors, (29) and in anger cast them headlong to the earth. (30) And smitten swiftly into the waters of Ocean, (31) they kindled the whole earth: and the sky remained starless.

464-74. A Gaulish invasion. Probably an ancient oracle on the Gaulish inroad into Asia after their repulse at Delphi in 279 B.C.

476-83. A plague of darkness, the righteous only having light.

476. wretched, dehy, a conjecture for MSS. Sewn.

482. The writer has in mind probably the dabloness that reigned in Egypt when only the Israelites had light.

484-503. The conversion of Egypt. Four lines are quoted by Clem. Al. Pro¢r. iv. 50 with slight alterations from the MSS.

487. So Clem. But the MSS. have ‘stretched on thy stones thou shalt have many toils’, NiBors emekeimeve TOAAA poynaers.

489. Or perhaps ‘whom the spell of Egypt hath brought to thee’. éccovus 5° Aiytmrrou ré6os ifyayev ets oe (SO Rz.).

501. The Temple of Onias at Heliopolis was destroyed by order of Vespasian.

504-11. Destruction of the Temple followed by God’s vengeance.

504. The Triballi, properly a rude tribe living on the borders of Thrace, are here used generally for savages.

505. The MSS. tarry is to be kept. But “the land of Egypt’ is Alexandre’s emendation (Atyomrana yatay for Alyurroy ény Te).

512-31. The battle of the stars; cf. Lucan, Phars.i. 72. If the stars are taken as representing angelic beings, the scene is parallel to the ‘war in heaven’ in Apoc. xii. 7. Only here all are finally expelled.

514. war. A necessary emendation for the MSS. reading, which gives no sense.

517. revolution (/oifos) for ‘ trouble’ (d:¢s). :

525. MSS. uncertain.

THE Assumption of Moses was in all probability a composite work, and consisted of two originally distinct books, of which the first was the Testament of Moses, and the second the Assumption. The former was written in Hebrew, between A.D. 7 and 29, and possibly also the latter. A Greek version of the entire work appeared in the first century A.D. Of this a few phrases and sentences appear to have been preserved in Acts vii. 36, Jude 9, 16, 18, 2 Baruch, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and other Greek writers. The Greek version was translated into Latin not later than the fifth century. Of this version a large fragment was discovered by Ceriani in a sixth-century MS. in the Ambrosian library in Milan.

The book was written by a Pharisaic Quietist and was designed by its author as a protest against the growing secularization of the Pharisaic party through its fusion with political ideals and popular Messianic beliefs. Its author sought herein to recall his party to the old paths, which they were fast forsaking, of simple unobtrusive obedience to the law. He glorifies accordingly the old ideals which had been cherished and pursued by the Chasid and Early Pharisaic party, but which the Pharisaism of the first century B.C. had begun to disown in favour of a more active rdéle in the life of the nation. And yet he was full of patriotism; for he looked for the return of the Ten Tribes, the establishment of the theocratic kingdom, the triumph of Israel over its foes. But though a patriot he was not a Zealot. The duty of the faithful was not to resort to arms, but simply to keep the law, and prepare, through repentance, for the personal intervention of God in their behalf. Accordingly, though he depicts in all its horrors the persecution under Antiochus, he leaves unmentioned the great achievements of the Maccabean leaders and only once refers to the entite dynasty from 165 to 37 B.C., and that in most disparaging terms. For him the true saints and heroes of the time were not Judas and his great brethren, but an obscure group of martyrs—Eleazar and his seven sons, who unresistingly yielded themselves to death on behalf of God and the law. In setting forth his ideal saints and heroes our author idealized deliberately the facts of history and represented as a single incident two distinct events—a pardonable liberty on the part of an Apocalyptist—not to speak of an unconquerable optimist and idealist. His action in regard to the Maccabean movement was the natural outcome of his conception of religion, and reflected his attitude towards the present dominant form of Pharisaism; for he clearly saw the growing secularization of the religion of his time, and perhaps foresaw the doom to which his country was hurrying under such a shortsighted and unspiritual policy, and laboured with all his power to stay its downward progress. But all in vain. He but played afresh the part of Cassandra. The leavening of Pharisaism with earthly political ideals went on apace, and the movement thus initiated culminated finally in the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 A.D.

It adds no little to the interest of the book that it was written during the early life of our Lord, or possibly contemporaneously with His public ministry, and that its conception of spiritual religion as opposed to an alliance of religion with politics generally or with any specific school of politics was essentially one with His.!

§ 2. THE PRESENT BOOK IN REALITY A TESTAMENT OF MOSES—NOT THE ASSUMPTION, WHICH IS PRESERVED ONLY IN A FEW GREEK QUOTATIONS.

In the lists of Apocryphal books we find mention of a Testament of Moses (Avadjxn Mwvoéws) followed immediately by an Assumption of Moses (‘AvdAnwis Mavogws). In the ‘List of Sixty Books’ and in the Synopsis of Athanasius the number of stichoi is omitted, but this desideratum is supplied by the Stichometry of Nicephorus, which assigns to them respectively 1,100 and 1,400 stichoi. Schiirer conjectured that these designations were titles of two separate divisions of one

? This section is mainly taken from my edition of the Assumption of Moses, pp. xiii sq.

and the same book, the first of which has been preserved, whereas the quotations in the Fathers almost all belong to the second. The studies of the present writer have led him to accept this suggestion in a modified form. The ‘Testament’ and ‘Assumption’ mentioned in the above lists are not to be regarded with Schiirer as ‘two separate divisions of one and the same work’, but as two originally independent works subsequently put together and edited as one.

Of the Latin fragment of the Assumption (i.e. the Testament), which consisted originally of 1,100 stichoi, about one-half is preserved.! Some writers, as R6nsch (Das Buch der Fubilien, pp. 480 sq.), have sought to identify this Testament with the Book of Jubilees. But this is impossible; for since 4,300 stichoi are assigned to the Canonical Book of Genesis in the Stichometry of Nicephorus, this Testament, if it were identical with the Book of Jubilees, would have run to 5,000 or 6,000 stichoi and not to 1,100, as it is there stated. Independently of this fact on a variety of grounds this identification is inadmissible.

We shall now give some of the grounds for regarding the Latin version and the Greek fragments in the Fathers as belonging to two originally independent works, which were subsequently edited together.

1°. The book quoted by Jude, Clement of Alexandria, and later Greek writers,? was wholly concerned with the individual destiny of Moses, i.e. his assumption and incidents connected with it. This was the original Assumption of Moses.

2°. The book partially preserved in the Latin version is the ‘Testament’ which was wholly taken up with the destinies of the chosen people: it was distinct also from the Assumption of Moses ; for according to the Latin version (i. e. the ‘ Testament’) Moses was to die an ordinary death. Thus in i. 15 Moses says: ‘I am passing away to sleep with my fathers even in the presence of all the people,’ and similarly in x. 14. In iii. 13 the Tribes speak of Moses’ death. In these three passages the death referred to is obviously an ordinary one, and the same fact was stated in x. 12, before it was interpolated by the editor who joined the ‘Testament’ and the ‘ Assumption of Moses’ into one book. In x. 12, i,e. ‘From my death [assumption] until His advent, there will be CCL times,’ this word ‘assumption’ was introduced by the final editor into the Testament, which knew nothing of Moses’ assumption, in order to prepare the reader for the main subject of the added work, ‘ The Assumption of Moses’.

3°. In the thirteenth section of the Palaea Historica edited by Vassiliev—an O.T. history of events from Adam to Daniel—of the portion which deals with the death of Moses, part seems to be ultimately derived from the ‘ Testament’ and part from the ‘ Assumption’ properly so called. The following lines (pp. 257-58) would form a fitting close to the ‘ Testament’.

kal eimev Maiofs mpos “Incoty (tov) to} Navi. “AvédAOopen ev To dpe. Kal dveAOovtwy adroy cidey Mwions thy yy ths émayyeAlas kal eitev mpds adrov. KdreAbe Tpds Tov adv, Kal avayyeAov adrots STL Moiovjjs éerededrnoev. Kal xatndOev ‘Inoods pds Tov Aadv, 6 5& Matots Ta TéEAn TOD Blov extHoaro. Here Moses dismisses Joshua and dies apparently an ordinary death. But according to the Assumption proper (see Clem. Alex. Stvom. vi. 15) both Joshua and Caleb were present, when the assumption

1 It is not improbable that the lost half of the Testament dealt with certain revelations made by Moses, and that it closed with his disappearance in a cloud, so that his death was hid from human sight. We make this conjecture on the ground of the following statement in an old Catena on the Pentateuch (Fabric. Cod. Pseud. VT, ii. 121-2) ‘Est quidem in apocrypho mysticoque codice legere, ubi de creatis rebus subtilius agttur, nubem lucidam, qao tempore mortuus est Moses, locum sepulcri complexam oculos circumstantium perstrinxisse ita ut nullus neque morientem legislatorem neque locum videre potuerit ubi cadaver conderetur’. Here there is an extraordinary disappearance of Moses’ body as in Deut. xxxiv. 5, 6 but no assumption. If the writer had been acquainted with the original Assumption, in which the details of Moses’ ascension to heaven were recorded, he could not have writtén in these vague terms.

2 On pp. 105-10 of my edition I have shown by an examination of the existing Greek fragments of the Assumption proper, that the order of action in it was probably as follows :

1°. Michael was commissioned to bury Moses.

2°, Satan opposed the burial on the ground (a) that he was the lord of matter (vAn) and that accordingly the body should be rightfully handed over to him; (4) that Moses was a murderer, having slain the Egyptian.

3°. Michael having rebutted Satan’s accusations proceeded to charge Satan with having instigated the serpent to tempt Eve.

4°. Finally, all opposition having been overcome, the assumption took place in the presence of Joshua and Caleb, and in a very peculiar way. A two-fold presentation of Moses appeared: one was Moses in company with angels, the other was the dead body of Moses, being buried in the recesses of the mountains.

The passages in support of 1° will be found in Severus, Patriarch of Antioch (A.D. 512-19). See Cramer, Cat. 77 Ep. Cathol., p. 160; likewise the two anonymous passages of. céZ. on pp. 161, 163; two scholia from Oecumenius (c. 990). In support of 2° Jude 9; Clem. Alex., Adumbrat. in Ep. Iudae; Didymus Alex. (309-94); Severus of Antioch ; Acta Synodi Nicaen, ii. 20; anonymous passages in Cramer’s Caz. in Ep. Cathol., pp. 160, 161, 163 and the scholia of Oecumenius. In support of 3° Origen, De Princ. iii. 2. 1. In support of 4° Clem. Alex., Strom. vi.15; Origen, Zz Jos. Hom. ii. 1; Euodius, £p. ad August. 258. All these passages are given in full in my edition,

of Moses took place. The words that follow on the above in the Palaea Historica are based ultimately on the Assumption proper and deal with the strife of Sammael and Michael over the body of Moses, the real Moses in a spiritual form having been borne off to heaven by angels.

4°, The two books—the ‘ Testament’ and the ‘ Assumption’—were probably put together in one work in the first century A.D., since Jude draws upon both in his Epistle. See $10. Josephus (Ant. iv. 8. 48), while holding fast to Deut. xxxiv. 5, 6, shows that he is aware of the new claims made on Moses’ behalf in the Assumption: véqovs aipvid.ov brép adtod ordvros, apavicerat Kata Tivos papayyos. Téypade dé adrév ev Tots tepats BiBrous TeOvedra, deloas ur bv drepBodhy THs Tept avTov aperis mpos TO Oelov adtov dvaxwpnoat Tokwjowow eimeiv. Does the account of the Transfiguration point in any respect to popular belief in Moses’ assumption?

§ 3. OTHER Books OF MOSEs.

i. In Fewish literature.

(a) Midrash Tanchuma Debarim translated by Wiinsche into German (1882). Petirath Moshe (nu nna) ed. by Gaulmyn (Paris 1629) with a Latin translation, which latter was republished by Fabricius in 1714 and Gfrorer in 1840. Two other recensions of this work were printed by

nen midyaa. This Hebrew Apocalypse tells of Moses’ transformation into the form of a fiery angel and his ascent through the seven heavens. Since it shows many affinities with 2 Enoch, some of its contents will be found under § 4 of the Introduction to that book.

Another legend dealing with the temporary translation of Moses before his death into heaven is preserved in the Midrash Bereshit Rabbati of R. Moses Ha-Darshan published by Jellinek in his Beth ha-Midrasch vi, § 22. When translated into heaven the heavenly Jerusalem and the Temple were revealed to him, and he was told these would descend to earth after God had gathered Israel a second time from the ends of the earth.

On the above legends see Beer, Leben Mosis nach Auffassung der jiidischen Sage, 1863; M. Griinbaum, Weue Bettrdge sur semitischen Sagenkunde, 153.

(2) In Greek. Philo’s Vita Mosis; Josephus, Azz. iv. 8. 4, 48.

BiBAos Adywy pvotindvy Mwvoéws. This book is mentioned in the Acts of the Nicene Council ii. 18. Its contents as there given have their parallels in Rabbinic literature. See Fewish Lucyc.

ii: Lz Christian literature.

Apocalypsis Mosis in Tischendorf’s Apocalypses Apocryphae. This book is wrongly named and belongs really to the Adamic literature.

Apocryphum Mosis (Amcxpvpov Mavo€gws). According to Euthalius and others Gal. vi. 16 was borrowed from this book, but there can be little doubt that the borrowing is just the other way.

§ 4. THE LATIN VERSION OF THE ASSUMPTION.

The solitary MS. of this version was discovered in the Ambrosian library in Milan by Ceriani and published by him in his Mon. sacr. et prof. 1.i. 55-64 in 1861. This MS. is a palimpsest of the sixth century. It consists of eight folios written on both sides. There is no division of words, and occasionally whole verses are undecipherable. It is not, as scholars have supposed, the actual work of the original Latin translator, but only a fragmentary copy of that version; for our text contains duplicate renderings and attempts at a better translation, which were primarily marginal glosses, but were afterwards introduced by’ a copyist into the text ; cf. v. 6, xi. 13, and probably in vi. 3 and vill, 5:

The Latin belongs in style and orthography to the fifth century. Nearly all its chief characteristics can be paralleled from the fifth-century Bobbio MS. X edited in 1886 by Wordsworth, Sanday and White. A full study of our MS. and its idiosyncrasies and critical worth will be found in my edition, pp. xxx—xxxvi.

§ 5. THE LATIN VERSION—A TRANSLATION FROM THE GREEK.

Of the derivation of our Latin text from the Greek there can be no question. Thus (1) Greek words are transliterated, as chedrio i. 17 from kedpdw, heremus iii. 11 from €pnpos, acrobistia viii. 3 from axpoBSvoria. (2) Greek forms and idioms survive in the Latin. Thus scene i. 7 = rH oxnv7 : ‘usque nos duci captivos’ iii. 13 is an imitation of the Greek éws tod jas aixpadoriobijvat.

(3) Not infrequently we must translate not the Latin text, but the Greek which it presupposes but which was misrendered by the translator. Thus zam must not be rendered by ‘for’ in ii, 4, 5 ; Vili. 2,4; x. 11, &c. In vii. 7 ‘ab oriente ad occidentem’ is to be rendered not ‘ from east to west’ but ‘from sunrise to sunset’, i.e. dp’ HAlov avaréddovros peéxpt dvouévov. The Greek is susceptible of either meaning.

(4) Fragments of the Greek version are still preserved: see note on i. 14.

§ 6. THE GREEK—A TRANSLATION FROM THE HEBREW.

The view maintained by Hilgenfeld that this book was written originally in Greek has been long universally abandoned. The only question at issue now is as to the original being Hebrew or Aramaic. Schmidt-Merx, Colani, Hausrath, and Carriére decide for the latter, and Rosenthal for the former. Of these scholars only Schmidt-Merx and in a minor degree Rosenthal have treated the question seriously. In the Archiv f. wissenschaftl. Erforschung des A. T. 1. ii. 111-52 Schmidt- Merx show how readily the text admits of retranslation into Aramaic; but this proof is wholly inadequate, for the same passages can be just as readily rendered into Hebrew. In two passages, however, they urge that the idiosyncrasies of the Latin text can be explained on the hypothesis of an Aramaic original but not on that of a Hebrew. The first is i. 10 ‘promitte . . . omnia quae mandata sunt ut facias’. Here the position of ‘ut facias’ (which = miyyd) after its object is usual in

Aramaic ayns sppns 1 5. But the same order is found also in Hebrew. See Isa. xlix. 6; 2 Chron, xxviii. 10. The second instance of alleged Aramaic order is that in iii. 2 ‘sancta vasa

omnia’= p52 xuND NWP. The position of ‘omnia’ is no doubt conformable to Aramaic, but it is also possible in classical Hebrew, nba wip v2. Cf. 2 Sam. ii. 9 ; Jer. xiii. 19, xlviii. 31.

Among the positive grounds for a Hebrew original might be enumerated the following :

1°. Hebrew idiomatic phrases survive in the text, ‘Circumibo’ ii. 7 anpx ‘I will protect’: cf. Deut. xxxii. 10; Jer. xxxi. 22; Ps. xxxii wo. ‘Dividentur ad veritatem”) yoegeee NPN spon : cf. 1 Kings xvi. 21. *In sacerdotes vocabumtur” vi. 1 = pynan-by wip: cf. 1 Chrom xxiii. 14. These are pure Hebraisms, and cannot apparently be explained from Aramaic.

2°, In some cases we must translate, not the Latin, but the Hebrew presupposed by it. Thus in i. 7 ‘successor’ d:ddoxos nw, which must here be rendered ‘minister’. In i. 13 ‘non coepit’

ovx iparo 5x1n xd, which must here be rendered ‘he was not pleased ’, ‘ did not consent’.

3°. Frequently it is only through retranslation that we can understand the source of the corruptions in the text. In iv. 9g we have the impossible text ‘x tribus crescent et devenient apud fnatosf in tempore tribum’. . Here ‘tribum’ is for ‘tribuum’ and ‘natos’ corrupt for ‘nationes’. Clemen renders the text thus emended : ‘zehn Stamme werden immer mehr zu Heiden werden.’ Now, to translate ‘devenient apud nationes’ by ‘ become heathens’ is highly questionable. But, even if this were possible, ‘ crescent et devenient’ cannot, if the original was Semitic, mean ‘ will become more and more’, and it cannot do so in either Greek or Latin. And finally this idea of the Ten Tribes becoming heathen is contrary to the beliefs expressed in 4 Ezra xiii. 36-48, and in Philo, Leg. ad Caium 31, as to their religious character and their immense numbers in the first century A.D. That our author shares in this view is clear from iii. 5-14, where he represents all the Tribes as joining in a general confession of sin with the Two Tribes, and all the Tribes in iii. 9 as claiming that God had sworn that the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and of Jacob should never fail from the land that He had given them, and from x. 8, where all the Tribes are represented as ultimately triumphant. We conclude, therefore, that iv. 9 speaks favourably of the Ten Tribes. The verb ‘crescent’ is therefore what we might expect. The corruption, therefore, lies in ‘devenient’ and ‘tribuum’. The former xareAeJoovra: 95", which is obviously corrupt for 270°. Next in the phrase ‘in tempore tribuum’ we should have the time defined during which this increase took place. From Philo, Josephus, and 4 Ezra we know that it was while the Ten Tribes were in exile. Hence opav (ie. ‘tribuum’) is corrupt for on’av or pay =‘captivitatis suae’. This reconstruction of the original is not possible from an Aramaic background.

In i. 13 ‘non coepit’ od #péato, but the text requires a verb of another meaning. Now odk ijp€aro dyin xd, which can also mean ‘was not pleased ’.

For other passages see the notes on v. 5, v. 6, Vii. 4, Xil. 7.

O73. THE DATE.

The book was written before A. D. 70; for the temple was to stand till the establishment of the theocratic kingdom, i. 17. It was standing when the book was written ; for if it had fallen such an event could not have been passed over in silence. It could not have been passed over in a book, where all the fortunes of the temple, even its temporary profanations by a faithless priesthood, are carefully recorded: see ii. 4, 8, 9; ili. 2; v. 3, 4; vi. I, 9; viii. 5. When the temple did fall it left an ineffaceable mark on all subsequent literature.

So far for the latest limit of composition, i.e. A.D. 70. Now as fo its earliest. This is 3 B.C. ; for Herod is already dead, vi. 6, and the War of Varus already past, vi. 9. Thus the limits lie between 3 B.C.and A.D. 70. But there are data for a nearer determination. In vi. 7 the statement, ‘And he (Herod) shall beget children, who, succeeding him, shall rule for shorter periods,’ is true of Archelaus alone; for Philip and Antipas reigned longer than their father. Hence the book must have been written before A.D. 30. But the limits may be defined still more closely. For the prediction that Herod’s sons should rule for shorter periods than their father may be reasonably explained from two considerations: (a) from the general expectation that the sons of such a wicked king could not long preserve their authority ; but still more (4) from the actual deposition of Archelaus after a short reign of ten years, 4 B.C.-A.D. 6—an event that would naturally be construed by our author in the light of a divine judgement, and suggest to him the prediction that appears in our text. Hence, however we may interpret the ‘four hours’ in vii. 1, it may be fairly concluded that part of these had already elapsed when the author wrote, and that the earliest limit of composition was A.D. 7. Thus the book was written between the years A. D. 7-30.

§ 8 THE AUTHOR—A PHARISAIC QUIETIST.

The school to which the writer of our book belonged cannot be mistaken. (1) He was not a Sadducee ; for he looks forward to the direct intervention of God on behalf of Israel, and his establishment of the theocratic kingdom onearth. He dwells on the future blessedness of the righteous (x. Io, 11). Finally, he attacks the Sadducean party in the most bitter terms. (2) He was not a Zealot, as Dillmann and Schiirer suppose, for his complete silence as to the Maccabean rising forms an emphatic censure of their appeal to arms. This silence is all the more impressive, as the writer was thoroughly acquainted with all the history of the Maccabean movement. Moreover, whilst he evinces clearly his aversion to a militant Judaism, he indicates just as clearly his admirations. He will not trust an arm of flesh. His ideal hero (ch. ix) was not one who flew to arms on behalf of Israel, but one who amid the most bitter persecution in the history of Israel raised no hand in self-defence, -but committed his cause to God. Ch. x further is wholly against the idea of a Zealot author. The theocratic kingdom is here introduced, not by the militant acts of the saints, but by the direct intervention of God.

(3) He was not an Essene—a view that has been advocated by Schmidt and Merx. For the entire book is interpenetrated with national hopes and aspirations. The ideal of the Essene was individualistic and ethical, and not national. The greatest interest is taken in all the fortunes of the temple, ii. 4, 8, 9; v. 3, 4; iii. 2; vi. 1. Such an interest would not be natural in an Essene. The author also was much concerned in the character of the temple sacrifices, but the Essene disapproved wholly of animal sacrifices.

(4) From the preceding facts it follows that our author was neither Sadducee, Zealot, nor Essene, but a Pharisaic Quietist. He was a Pharisee of a fast-disappearing type, recalling in all respects the Chasid of the early Maccabean times, and upholding the old traditions of quietude and resignation.

Good works. On the doctrine of merit or good works, our author’s views are more nearly allied to O.T. conceptions than to the legalism of the rabbinic doctrine of man’s righteousness, which bulks so largely in Jewish literature from A.D. 50 onwards, and against which the Pauline dialectic was so vigorously directed. So far was man’s righteousness from involving merit over against God, that the greatest hero of Judaism is represented as declaring: ‘Not for any virtue or strength of mine, but of His good pleasure have His compassion and long-suffering fallen to my lot’ (xii. 7). Similarly the election of the nation was not due to any righteousness of its own: ‘ For I say unto you, Joshua, it is not on account of the godliness of this people that thou shalt root out the nations ’(xii. 8). This call, therefore, alike of the individual as of the nation was a matter of grace, and the covenant relation between God and Israel was based on divine grace and not on human merit. But whilst the divine grace is made the absolute pre-condition of Israel’s election and salvation,

the necessity of works is no less insisted on and moral responsibility affirmed, xii. 10-12: ‘ Those, therefore, who do and fulfil the commandments of God shall increase and be prospered ; but those who sin and set at nought the commandments shall be without the blessings before mentioned, and they shall be punished with many torments.’ There is, however, one passage from which the sense of demerit is wholly absent, i.e. ix. 4.sq.: ‘Observe and know that neither did the fathers nor their forefathers tempt God, so as to transgress His commands. And ye know that this is our strength.’ These words imply that a faithful remnant existed at all times. But even so they introduce a note of discord into the writer’s theology.

Quietism. ‘We have touched repeatedly on this characteristic in our author, so that it does not call for further notice here. It was typical of the older Pharisees, and in this respect the tone of the book has its affinities with that of the Sermon on the Mount, which essentially exhibits this temper.

Pr he Messianic kingdom. There is no Messiah. This is probably de to the fact that the conception of the Messiah, as a man of war, was gaining more and mote acceptance amongst the Pharisees, and was thus of a nature to promote the growing secularization. of Pharisaism. No such Messiah could be acknowledged by our author.

The kingdom was to be ushered in by a day of repentance (i. 17). IRGO years after the death of Moses, between A. D. 75 and 107 (?) God was to intervene on behalf of Is’rael—of Israel and not merely of Judah and Benjamin. Our author always dwells on the solidarity of the nation. As the tribes suffered vicariously for each other’s sins (iii. 5), so the promises, were made to the Twelve Tribes collectively (iii. 9), and they were all to be glorified together (x. 8). During their kingdom Israel’s national enemies were to be destroyed (x. 8). Finally, Israel was to be exalted to heaven (x. 9), whence they should see their enemies in Gehenna (x. Io).

Moses unique relation to fudaism. Moses was prepared from the foundation of the world to be the mediator of God’s covenant with His people (i. 14; iii. 12). Pre-existence is here ascribed to Moses, but to him uniquely. In Alexandrian Judaism it was conceived to be the prerogative of mankind generally.!. During his life Moses was Israel’s intercessor with God (xi. 11, 17); for forty years he suffered many things at their hands in Egypt, the Red Sea, and the wilderness (iii. 11). When about to die, he chose Joshua in his stead (x. 15), apparently as the prophet promised in Deut. xviii. 15. His death was an ordinary one (i. 15; ill. 13; x. 12, 14), but no single placé was worthy to mark the place of his burial ; for his sepulchre was from the rising to the setting sun, and from the south to the confines of the north (xi. 8). His relation, moreover, with Israel did not cease with death ; he was appointed by God to be their intercessor in the spiritual world (xii. 6).

Israel. Israel was God’s own people (i. 12); the world was created in their behalf (i. 12), and Moses prepared, before the foundation of the world, to establish the covenant relation between God and His people (i. 14), and Jerusalem prepared in like manner to be the centre of the worship of Yahweh till the establishment of the theocratic kingdom.

§ 10. INFLUENCE ON THE NEW TESTAMENT.

Jude was unquestionably acquainted with the Testament of Moses and the Assumption of Moses properly so-called. From the latter Jude g is derived: 6 5 MixaijA 6 apxdyyedos, bre TH d1aBorAw draKpudpevos dveA€yeto Tepl TOD Mavoews ceparos, ovK eTdAunoe Kpiow eneveyKely BAaodnmlas, GAN e€imev* -Emitijoat cor Kvpios.

Jude’s acquaintance with the Testament of Moses may be reasonably concluded from the following parallels:

Jude 16 yoyyvorai, peuwiporpor * vil. 7 querulosi Kata Tas ériOvuias aitdv ropevdmevor Kal TO oTdpa vil. g et manus eorum et mentes eorum immunda avtOv Nadel trepoyKa tractantes, et os eorum loquetur ingentia Gavpalovres tpdcwra, apedeias xc pu. Vv. 5 mirantes personas cupiditatum et accipientes munera.

The doeBets who are mentioned in Jude 4 appear twice in Ass. Moys. vii. 3, 7 (¢mpiz). The classes of evildoers are those who shall be ‘in the last time’, Jude 18, and when ‘the times shall be ended ’, in Ass. Moys. vii. 1.

' This belief appears in Wisdom and 2 Enoch as the prerogative of mankind generally. This view is challenged by Dr. Porter (‘The Pre-existence of the Soul in The Book of Wisdom and in the Rabbinical Writings’ in the American Journal of Theolegy, Jan., 1908, pp. 53-115), but I cannot agree with him.

2 Peter il. 13 pdovjv yovpevor THY ev NuEepe Tpvpyv, Ass. Moys. vii. 5 omni hora diei amantes convivia. ibid. évtpupayres ev Tals dyarais abrdv ovvevwxovpevo. | Vil. 8 habebimus discubitiones et luxuriam.

Acts vii. 36 roumoas tépata Kat onpeta ev TH Aiyvrrw j ul. 11 Moyses . . . qui multa passus est in Aegypto

kal ev "Epv6pa Oadrdoon Kai ev TH epyym ern teooapd- | et in mari rubro et in heremo annis xl. KOVTG. |

For other possible borrowings or parallels see my edition, pp. Ixiv. sq.

(a) CHIEF EDITIONS OF THE TEXT.

Hilgenfeld, Movum Testamentum extra Canonem receptum?, 107-35, 1876; Messias Judaeorum, 435-68, 1869 (retranslated into Greek).

Volkmar, Mose Prophetie und Ltimmelfahrt, 1867.

Schmidt and Merx, ‘Die Assumptio Mosis’ (Merx, Archiv fiir wissenschaftliche Erforschung des Alten Testa-

Fritzsche, Lzb7z Apocryphi Vet. Testamentz, 700-30, 1871.

Charles; 7e Assumptin of Moses... the unemended Text... together with the Text in its... critically emended Form, 187. i

Clemen, The Assumption of Moses, 1904,

(0) CHIEF CRITICAL INQUIRIES, Colani, ‘ L’Assomption de Moise’ (Revue de Théologie, iv, 65-94, 1868). Rosenthal, Vier apocryphische Biicher, 13-38, 1885. Baldensperger, Das Selbstbewusstsein Jesu, 25-31, 1888. Deane, Pseudepigrapha, 95-130, 1891. De Faye, Les Apocalypses juzves, 67-75, 1892. Charles, of, cé¢., pp. xili-Ixv. Clemen in Kautzsch, Afpok. u. Pseud., 1899. 1. 311-31. Burkitt, ‘The Assumption of Moses’ in Hastings’ B.D. iii. 448-50, Igoo. (c) EDITIONS OF THE BOOK. Volkmar, Mose Prophetie und Himmelfahrt ... zum erstenmale deutsch herausgegeben, 1867. Charles, The Assumption of Moses translated from the Latin sixth century MS., the unemended Text of which ts published herewith, together with the Text in tts restored and critically emended Form, 1897. In this last work (pp. xviii- “xxviii) a full bibliography is given ; see also Schiirer®, Gesch. d. jiid. Volkes, iii. 222 sq.

li The Testament of Moses even the things which he commanded in the one hundred and twentieth 2 year of his life, that is the two thousand five hundredth year from the creation of the world:

B [But according to oriental reckoning the two thousand and seven hundredth, and the four hundredth

4 after the departure from Phoenicia], when the people had gone forth after the Exodus that was made

5 by Moses to Amman beyond the Jordan, in the prophecy that was made by Moses in the book Deutero-

6, 7 nomy: and he called to him Joshua the son of Nun, a man approved of the Lord, that he might be 8 the minister of the people and of the tabernacle of the testimony with all its holy things, and that he

9 might bring the people into the land given to their fathers, that it should be given to them according to the covenant and the oath, which He spake in the tabernacle to give (it) by Joshua: saying to Joshua

I. 1. Three lines are wanting. These must not consist of more than forty-eight or forty-nine lines, or less than fortyfive as the following lines in the MS. show. Now since, as I have shown elsewhere, this book is the actual d.a6j«y Mavoéws or Testamentum Moysi (see p. xlv of my Comm.), and since the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs begin always with the title of the Testament (cf. T. Reub. i. 1 dvriypadov Siadnkns ‘PovBnp, doa évercikaro) so here the text most probably ran :—

‘Testamentum Moysi Quae precepit ano vi tae elus Cmo et xxmo.’

Here I have put gwae and not guzod since in every case the Testaments have 4 or éca in this very same context.

Hilgenfeld restores: ‘Assumptio Moysis quae facta est anno vitae ejus Cmo et xxmo; Volkmar: Liber profetiae Moysis quem scripsit ano aetatis centesimo vicesimo; Roénsch: Liber receptionis Moysi factae anno vitae eius Cmo et xxmo; Clemen: Liber profetiae Moysis, quae facta est anno vitae eius Cmo et xxmo.’

Schmidt Merx’s restoration (‘et factum est anno aetatis Moysi centesimo et vigesimo’) will not do here owing to its being too short as well as on other grounds. The need of a title such as Testamentum or Assumptio is against Volkmar’s and Clemen’s restoration: while the fact that the book is not the Assumption but the Testament is against Hilgenfeld’s and Rénsch’s.

2-4. These verses are an interpolation—apparently made by a Greek scribe and in the West. No Hebrew writer would regard himself other than an Oriental, and a Jew is beyond question the author of this book. Hence he could not have written verse 3. Nor could a Jew have described Hebron, from which Jacob set out for Egypt, as being in Phoenicia. Moses, moreover, could not have spoken of Amman as beyond the Jordan: only a dweller in Jerusalem could have so described it.

2. two thousand five hundredth year. Contrast the dates given in Jubilees (2450 a.M.), Josephus, Av#. viii. 3. I and xx. Io (2550), Samaritan Pentateuch (3309), LXX (3859), while the Massoretic chronology (2706) seems unknown to all the others. But cf. the ‘ Oriental reckoning’ of verse 3 (as restored).

3. the two thousand and seven hundredth, and the four hundredth. Text = ‘numerus .. mus et... mus et... . mus’. I restore (with Clemen) ‘numerus MMmus et DCCmus, et CCCCmus’.

four hundredth after the departure from Phoenicia. The number of years varies in different authorities ; as some give 400 (cf. Gen. xv. 13), others 430. The ¢evminus a guo of reckoning also varies. The Samaritan reckoning (cf. also LXX, Jubilees, Gal. iii. 17; Josephus, Azz. ii. 15. 2; Ps. Jon. on Exod. xii. 40) embraces in the four hundred and thirty years the sojourn of the patriarchs in Canaan. [Exod. xii. 40 (Mass. text) states that Israel sojourned in Egypt four hundred and thirty years, while Gen. xv. 13 may be interpreted either way. See also Acts vii. 6.

5. in the prophecy. /rofetdae | take as = profetid. ae occasionally is found for @ in fifth-century Latin, Cf. 7 scenae for 7% scena, i. 9.

6. called tohim...Nun. Cf. Deut. xxxi. 7.

the son of Nun. Text = /ilium Nave, the LXX spelling of the name.

approved of the Lord. Cf. Acts ii, 22; 2 Tim. 11, 15.

7. minister of the people. Text = successor plebt. 6SidSoxos means the chief minister of the king in LXX of 1 Chron. xviii. 17; 2 Chron, xxvi. 11, xxviii, 7; also in Philo, and Josephus, Azz, xv. 10. In Sirach xlvi. 1 the Hebrew equivalent is NW, the special term used in Exod. xxiv. 13, xxxiii. 11 ; Num. xi, 28; Josh. i. 1 to describe Joshua's relation to Moses; also in Num. viii. 26, &c., it is used of service in the tabernacle. Cf. Ass. Mos. x. 15 (note).

tabernacle of the testimony, i.e. the tabernacle in its aspect of a witness to God’s presence, with the ark and the tables of testimony. In its aspect of meeting-place it was the spot where God spoke to Moses and Joshua, Deut.

8. bring ... into. So Deut. xxxi. 7 (Samaritan text, Syriac and Vulgate versions), against ‘ enter’ (Massoretic, LXX, Targum of Onkelos).

to their fathers = patribus. So I emend text ex tribus.

9. the covenant and the oath. Cf. ii. 7 (restored), iii. 9, x1. 17, xii. 13.

which He spake, Deut. xxxi. 14, 20, 23.

by Joshua. Text = de /esuwm, cf. v. 1 de veges.

saying to Joshua, resumes verse 6, ‘ And he called’.

THE ASSUMPTION OF MOSES I. 10o—2. 2

10 these words: ‘(Be strong) and of a good courage so as to do with thy might all that has been com- 12 manded that thou mayst be blameless unto God.’ So saith the Lord of the world. For He hath created 13 the world on behalf of His people. But He was not pleased to manifest this purpose of creation from the foundation of the world, in order that the Gentiles might thereby be convicted, yea to their own 14 humiliation might by (their) arguments convict one another. Accordingly He designed and devised | me, and He prepared me before the foundation of the world, that I should be the mediator of His 15 covenant. And now I declare unto thee that the time of the years of my life is fulfilled and I am 16 passing away to sleep with my fathers even in the presence of all the people. And receive thou this 17 writing that thou mayst know how to preserve the books which I shall deliver unto thee: and thou shalt set these in order and anoint them with oil of cedar and put them away in earthen vessels in 18 the place which He made from the beginning of the creation of the world, that His name should be called upon until the day of repentance in the visitation wherewith the Lord will visit them in the consummation of the end of the days.

2:1 And now they shall go by means of thee into the land which He determined and promised to give to

2 their fathers, in the which thou shalt bless and give to them individually and confirm unto them their

to. (Be strong) and of a good courage. Text e¢ promitte. Promitte is due to a corruption in the Hebrew “WON for POS, while the c¢ betrays a word lost after verbum hoc t0 BIN. Probably PIN was omitted after In. Clemen’s suggestion, ‘And promise’ has no support in the O.T. text. Moses exacted no promise from Joshua, while my restoration is upheld by Deut. xxxi, 7, &c.

that thou mayst be... unto God. Text = est zdéeo, corrupt for s7s Deo. Clemen renders ‘as is blameless. Therefore thus saith, &c.’, putting a full stop after es/. blameless unto God. Cf. Deut. xviii. 13, &c. 11. So saith the Lord. God says these words ‘ Be strong’, &c., directly in Deut. xxxi. 23; by Moses, xxxi. 6, 7. Lord of the world. Cf. iv. 2 ‘Lord of all .. . who rulest the world’. Cf. xi. 17.

12, created the world on behalf of His people. The prevalent Judaistic view from first century A.D. onwards. Cf. 4 Ezra vi. 55, 59, vii. 11; 2 Bar. xiv. 18 (note), The still more narrow view that the world was created for the sake of the righteous in Israel occurs in 2 Bar. xiv. 19, xv. 7, xxl. 24. Cf. Hermas’ Shepherd, Vzs. i. 1. 6, ii. 4. I, iv, v (for the Church’s sake). The larger view—that it was for the sake of mankind, we find in 2 Bar. xiv. 18; 4 Ezra viil. 1, 44; Hermas, Mand. xii. 4; Justin Mart. 4fo/. i. 10 and post-apostolic writers generally.

13. was... pleased. Text cocfit S10 which also means ‘ was pleased’.

purpose. Text = znceptionem.

13, 14. These verses are strongly predestinarian. The Gentiles are fore-ordained to ignorance and blind conjecture, while Moses is the chosen agent of the true revelation.

14. Quoted by Gelasius of Cyzicum in his Comm. Act. Syn. Nic. ii. 18, ‘the prophet Moses being about to depart from life, as is written in the book of the Assumption of Moses, summoned Joshua, the son of Nun, and, speaking with him, said: kat mpoebedcard pe 6 Ocds mpd KataBodjs Kéopov etvai we Tis SuaOHKns adrod peairny.’

Moses here is assigned pre-existence as is the Son of Man in 1 En. xlili. 2 (note). Later Judaism, like the Alexandrian form of first century A. D., held the pre-existence of all souls alike. See 2 En. xxiii. 5.

Note that the Latin has ‘ab initio orbis terrarum’ =-Gelasius’ mpd kataBoAjs Koopov.

mediator. Moses is not given this title in the O.T. where indeed the word only occurs once, in Job ix. 33 (LXX), but he obviously exercises mediatorial functions in Exod. xx. 19; Deut. v. 2,5. The title was commonly assigned to him by the first century A.D. Cf. i. 14, iii. 12; Gal. ii. 18; Philo, Vt. Moys. iii. 19; Talmud (see Levy, Wemwhebr.

is, sleep with my fathers. Cf. im. 13; x 12; 14; Deut. xxxi. 16; 2 Bar. xlivy. 2. Observe there, is’ no reference to Moses’ Assumption. Unlike our text, Deut. xxxiv. 5,6 state that his death was witnessed by no one, while the Greek fragments of the Assumption make Joshua and Caleb alone view it, and not all the people.

16. thou. Supply Zz to fill the space in the text. Cf. x. II, xi. I.

the books, 1.e. the Pentateuch.

17. anoint. Books were thus preserved. Even the heavenly books shown to Enoch, 2 En. xxii. 12, are ‘fragrant

with myrrh’.

from the beginning of the creation of the world. Cf. verse 14.

the place, i.e. Jerusalem. Zion is said to be the centre of the earth in Ezek. xxxvili. 12; 1 En. xxvi. I, xc. 26; Jubilees viii; while in Joma 54> the world is said to be created with Zion as a starting-place.

18. until the day of repentance. This must have been written before A.D. 70, as the existing temple is expected

to stand until the Theocratic kingdom is set up.

the day of repentance. A great national repentance was to usher in the new kingdom of God, and was a necessary condition to its coming. ‘If Israel practises repentance, it will be redeemed ; if not, it will not be redeemed,’ Sanh. 97». ‘ Israel will not fulfil the great repentance before Elijah comes,’ Pirke R. Eliezer, xliii; cf. Mal. iv. 6, and Luke i. 16,17; Matt. xvii. 10-12. ‘If all Israel together repented for a single day, redemption through the Messiah would follow ’, Pesikta 163».

the visitation, in a good sense. Cf. Luke i. 79; Acts xv. 14. For the bad sense cf. 2 Bar. xx. 1 (note). The time of visitation, Wisd. ili. 7; Luke xix. 44, is the setting up of the kingdom of God.

the consummation, i.e. the time of the kingdom. Cf. 2 Bar. xxvii. 15, xxix. 8. Contrast 2 Bar. xxx. 3.

If. 1. And now. Supply ef szac in lacuna. 2. their inheritance in me. Cf. ‘inheritance in the son of Jesse’, 2 Sam. xx. 1. Or for ‘in me’ read iz eam,a Hebrew repetition after 27 gz.

inheritance in me and establish for them the kingdom, and thou shalt appoint them prefectures 3 according to the good pleasure of their Lord in judgement and righteousness. And it shall come to pass five years after they enter into the land, that thereafter they shall be ruled by chiefs and 4kings for eighteen years,and during nineteen years the ten tribes shall break away. And the twelve tribes shall go down and transfer the tabernacle of the testimony. Then the God of heaven will make the court of His tabernacle and the tower of His sanctuary, and the two holy tribes shall 5 be (there) established : but the ten tribes shall establish kingdoms for themselves according to their 7 own ordinances. And they shall offer sacrifices throughout twenty years: and seven shall entrench the walls, and I will protect nine, but four shall transgress the covenant of the Lord, and profane the 8 oath which the Lord made with them. And they shall sacrifice their sons to strange gods, and they 9 shall set up idols in the sanctuary, to worship them. And in the house of the Lord they shall work impiety and engrave every form of beast, evex many abominations. I And in those days a king from the east shall come against them and his cavalry shall cover their 2land. And he shall burn their colony with fire together with the holy temple of the Lord, and he shall 3 carry away all the holy vessels. And he shall cast forth all the people, and he shall take them to the 4 land of his nativity, yea he shall take the two tribes with him. Then the two tribes shall call upon the 5 ten tribes, and shall march as a lioness on the dusty plains, being hungry and thirsty. And they shall cry aloud: ‘Righteous and holy is the Lord, for, inasmuch as ye have sinned, we too, in like manner, 6 have been carried away with you, together with our children. Then the ten tribes shall mourn on 7 hearing the reproaches of the two tribes, and they shall say: ‘What have we done unto you, 8 brethren? Has not this tribulation come on all the house of Israel?’ And all the tribes shall mourn,

appoint. Text dmittes seems corrupt. prefectures. Text magisteria locorum, i.e. romapxias. Perhaps we should translate ‘local magistrates’. Cf. Deut. xvi. 18 ; 1 Chron. xxiii. 4. 3. it shall come to pass. There is a gap in the text. five years. I supply ‘five’. The conquest of Canaan took five years, Josh. xiv. 10; Josephus, Avz/. v. 1. 19. eighteen years, i.e. the fifteen judges, and the three kings, Saul, David, and Solomon. nineteen years, the nineteen kings of Israel from Jeroboam to Hoshea. This is an anticipation, as verse 4 returns to the removal of the ark to Jerusalem by David. tribes shall break away. Text abrumpens tib. Read ‘se abrumpent tribus’. ; 4. twelve. Text ‘two’. The reference is to David’s action in 2 Sam. vi. 1, 2. Cf. 1 Kings viii. 1-4, tabernacle of the testimony. Text ‘testimony of the tabernacle’. the God of heaven. Cf. iv. 4, v. 3; Gen. xxiv. 7. After the exile this title became frequent. Cf. Ezra v. 11, court. Text falam emended to alam. Cf. Exod. xxvii, 9. : tower. Text = ferrum emended to ¢urrem. Cf. the tower in I En. Ixxxix. 50,67, 73. The text is uncertain. For aulam and ferrum Volkmar suggests /ocum and terram ; Haupt portam and forem.

5. A parenthesis.

6. twenty years, the twenty sovereigns (including Athaliah’s) of Judah. ;

7. Apparently the ‘seven’, ‘nine’, and ‘four’ reigns must be taken successively of three periods, of the advance, power, and falling away of Judah. :

The ‘ seven’ are Rehoboam, Abijah, Asa, Jehoshaphat, Jehoram, Ahaziah. and Athaliah. The ‘nine’ are Joash, Amaziah, Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, Manasseh. Amon, Josiah; while the ‘four’ are Jehoahaz, Jehoiakim, Jehoiachin, and Zedekiah.

four, inserted to complete the twenty.

transgress. Text adcedent ad rpooBjoorra corrupt for mapaBnoovra. Cf. Ezek. xvi. 59, &c.

the oath. Text /izem épov corrupt for épxov. Thus the combination of covenant and oath is restored. Cf.

8. idols in the sanctuary. Text = zdola scenae. For this form of the ablative cf. i. 9 ‘in scenae’. Rénsch proposes zdola obscena, comparing LXX of Jer. xxxii. 34 ra pidopara airov. :

g. form. Text = simzlitudinem omitted in text after ovmem through hmt. For ‘beast . . . many abominations’ cf. Ezek. viii. 10, where there is the same apposition.

III. 1. a king from the east. Nebuchadnezzar, 588-586 B.C. j 2. colony. This gives a clue to the date of the Greek or Latin translation as being later than 135 A.D., when Hadrian rebuilt Jerusalem as a Roman colony. Cf. v. 6, vi. 9. Rois i : ‘ all the holy vessels, 2 Chron. xxxvi. 7, Part had been removed in Jehoiakim’s reign, according to Dan. i, 2; Jer. xxvii. 19, 20; while 2 Bar. vi describes the concealment of the vessels by angels, 2 Macc. ii. 4-8 by Jeremiah, | to preserve them for the future Messianic kingdom. ] ; mt? : 4. march. Possibly the text ducent se is wrong, and is due to a corruption of dyéécorra, ‘will be indignant,’ into ax@noovra, This suits the simile of the lioness better. ; hungry and thirsty, 2 Bar. Ixxvii. 14. Text adds ‘with our children’. I transpose to the end of verse 5. 5. Righteous and holy. 2 Bar. Ixxvii. 3, 4. t : : inasmuch as ye have sinned. Judah suffers for the sins of Israel. 2 Bar. Ixxvii. 10; Jer. xi. 17; Dan. 1x. 7; 1 Baruch ii. 26 ascribe the captivity to the sins of Judah as well. ’ 7, have we done. Text = ‘shall we do’. : this tribulation. The allusion seems to be to some recent calamity.

9 crying unto heaven and saying : ‘God of Abraham God of Isaac and God of Jacob, remember Thy covenant which Thou didst make with them, and the oath which Thou didst swear unto them by to Thyself, that their seed should never fail from the land which Thou hast given them.’ Then they 11 shall remember me, saying, in that day, tribe unto tribe and each man unto his neighbour : ‘ Is not this that which Moses did then declare unto us in prophecies, who suffered many things in Egypt 12 and in the Red Sea and in the wilderness during forty years: and assuredly called heaven and earth to witness against us, that we should not transgress His commandments, in the which he was 13 a mediator unto us? Behold these things have befallen us after his death according to his declaration, as he declared to us at that time, yea behold these have taken place even to our being carried away 14 captive into the country of the east.’ Who shall be also in bondage for about seventy and seven years.

41 Then there shall enter one who is over them, and he shall spread forth his hands, and kneel upon his

2 knees and pray on their behalf saying: ‘Lord of all, King on the lofty throne, who rulest the world, and didst will that this people should be Thine elect people, then (indeed) Thou didst will that Thou shouldst be called their God, according to the covenant which Thou didst make with their fathers.

3 And yet they have gone in captivity in another land with their wives and their children, and

4 faroundy} the gates of strange peoples and where there is great vanity. Regard and have compas-

5 sion on them, O Lord of heaven.’ Then God will remember them on account of the covenant which

6 He made with their fathers, and He will manifest His compassion in those times also. And He will put it into the mind of a king to have compassion on them, and he shall send them off to their land

7 and country. Then some portions of the tribes shall go up and they shall come to their appointed

8 place, and they shall anew surround the place with walls. And the two tribes shall continue in their prescribed faith, sad and lamenting because they will not be able to offer sacrifices to the Lord of their

g fathers. And the ten tribes shall increase and multiply among the Gentiles during the time of their captivity.

1 And when the times of chastisement draw nigh and vengeance arises through the kings who share

2, 3 in their guilt and punish them, they themselves also shall be divided as to the truth. Wherefore

8. heaven, an equivalent for ‘God’. Cf. Dan. iv. 23.

g. the oath. Gen. xvii. 8. Cf. Pss. Sol. xvii. 5; Test. xii Patr., Jud. 22.

10-13. These verses are the source of 2 Bar. Ixxxiv. 2-5, or else both passages are derived from the same original. Cf. Dan. ix. 11-13.

11. then. Text = cum, which I emend with Schmidt-Merx to évz7.

in Egypt... years. Cf. Acts vii. 36; 2 Bar. Ixxxiv. 3. 12. and assuredly called, &c. So I render ef ¢estans (¢estatus et in text) zmvocabat ... testes. Deut. iv. 26, mediator. See i. 14 (note). 13. Behold these. Text gwae corrupt for ecce ea. Cf. 2 Bar. Ixxxiv. 5. after his death, de zsto ‘after him’. Cf. Job xxi. 21.

I4. Seventy and seven years. Perhaps this number is to be taken as implying an indefinite period. Cf. Gen. iv. 24; Matt. xviii. 22. In any case it is a modification of Jeremiah’s prophecy of the seventy years’ captivity, Jer. XXv. II, 12, xxix. lo, which Dan. ix. 24 reinterprets as being seventy weeks of years, i.e. 490. Merx suspects a play on “tY = 77 and Mt 77N3Y, ‘strange service’, i.e. ‘idolatry,’ which is often denoted by ? y.

2. elect people. Cf. Isa. xlii. 1, &c.

3. taroundt. Text = civca. Read perhaps ‘go about in the gates’.

vanity. Text mazestas peyadercrns corrupt for patarns, i.e. an idol. Cf. Ps. xxxi. 6; also 2 Kings MVMeEUS Meets 1.5, X. 3.

8. not be able to offer sacrifices. For the low value set on the worship of the restored temple, cf. 2 Bar. ‘not as fully as in the beginning’, Ixviii. 5,6 (Hag. ii. 3; Ezra iii. 12). The sacrifices were unacceptable, cf. the ‘polluted bread’ of Mal. i. 7; 1 En. Ixxxix. 73. The objection here indeed is not an Essene one to sacrifice as such, but to the imperfection of the worship of God’s people so long as they were subject to heathen powers. God would restore their glory and freedom when they repented, i.17, but on no other condition, ix.

g. multiply among the Gentiles during the time of their captivity. Text +t‘ devenient apud natost in tempore ttribumt.’ Devenient cannot refer to a going upto Jerusalem, nor can apud mean anything but ‘among’ or ‘with’. Now devenient 111, which is an easy corruption of 119. mudltiplicabuntur and natos is corrupt for xationes, tribum, i.e. tribuum DOW, which Rosenthal takes to be corrupt for DUAY = zudiciorum, But I prefer to emend to DMI or DAY captivitatis suae, comparing Josephus, Av‘. xi. 5.2; 4 Ezra xiii. 36-48; Philo, Leg. ad Caium, 31. Clemen’s rendering ‘werden immer mehr (crescunt et devenient) 21 Heiden werden’ is quite impossible.

V. 1. through the kings. Text = de reges, cf. de Tesum, i. 9. These kings are the Seleucidae who had encouraged the disuse of the Jewish law and worship, and later, in the person of Antiochus, punished the apostate nation. Cf.

2. divided as to the truth. Already under the Seleucid domination the enormities of the Sadducean priesthood reacted upon the stricter scribes and led to a religious awakening and the formation of what was later known as the Pharisaic party. See 1 En. xc. 6, 7 (note).

it hath been said: ‘They shall turn aside from righteousness and approach iniquity, and they shall defile with pollutions the house of their worship,’ and [because] ‘they shall go a-whoring after 4 strange gods.’ For they shall not follow the truth of God, but some shall pollute the altar with the 5 (very) gifts which they offer to the Lord, who are not priests but slaves, sons of slaves. And many in those times shall have respect unto desirable persons and receive gifts, and pervert judge- 6 ment [on receiving presents]. And on this account the colony and the borders of their habitation shall be filled with lawless deeds and iniquities: those who wickedly depart from the Lord shall be judges: they shall be ready to judge for money as each may wish. 1 Then there shall be raised up unto them kings bearing rule, and they shall call themselves priests of 2 the Most High God: they shall assuredly work iniquity in the holy of holies. And an insolent king shall succeed them, who will not be of the race of the priests, a man bold and shameless, and he shall 3 judge them as they shall deserve. And he shall cut off their chief men with the sword, and shall 4 destroy hem in secret places, so that no one may know where their bodies are. He shall slay the 5 old and the young, and he shall not spare. Then the fear of him shall be bitter unto them in their

3. hath been said = /utwm fuit emended by Schmidt-Merx from /actum fuzt.

This saying is pieced together from the O.T., e.g. Ezek. iii. 20, ‘turn . . . righteousness’; xliv. 7, ‘defile... worship.’ Cf., too, Pss. Sol. i. 9, viii. 26. ‘They will go... gods,’ Deut. xxxi. 16.

[because]. Text guia, which may, however ‘that’ introducing a new quotation.

3, 4. These verses cannot refer to the Maccabean high-priests. They did not go astray after strange gods. Moreover, they were of true priestly descent (1 Macc. ii. 1-5), and not sons of slaves. They are referred to in vi. 1, and so their mention here would be premature. But the statements suit Jason and Menelaus exactly, the Hellenizing priests who preceded the Maccabees. Cf. 2 Macc. iv. 13, 19, 20, v. 8. A decisive factor in the identification is the statement ‘ who are not priests but slaves, sons of slaves’. Menelaus was not of the tribe of Levi, but a Benjamite, 2 Macc. iii. 4, iv. 23. Cf. the implication in 1 Macc, vii. 14 that other high-priests had belonged to non-Aaronic families. Moreover they were the nominees and absolute tools of Antiochus, 2 Macc. iv. 7-9, 23-9. Josephus, Az/. xiii. 10. 5 mentions, but only to deny, the slander that Hyrcanus’s mother had been a captive under Antiochus. Cf. the Talmud also for the tale.

5. And many. So I emend ‘qui enim magistri sunt’ = D°370, i.e. ‘the many’ or ‘the Rabbis’. Text adds ‘doctores eorum’, a gloss on the word in the latter meaning.

shall have respect unto desirable persons and receive gifts and pervert. The text reads ‘erunt mirantes personas cupiditatum et acceptiones munerum et pervendent’, which is un-Semitic. Acceptiones is an easy corruption of accipientes, after which, taken as a noun, mumerum could stand. Now leaving for the present cupidztatum \et us pass on to the next clause. This runs fervendent iustitias, This phrase does not occur in Jewish literature, but we find, 1 Sam. viii. 3 ‘acceperunt munera et perverterunt iudicium’ = LXX éAdpBavoy Sapa kat e€éxduvov Sikardpara, DBWID 363) TINY IP. Hence I accept Wieseler’s emendation fervertent. We have now ‘erunt mirantes personas cupiditatum et accipientes munerum et pervertent iustitias’. Now if we compare Deut. xvi. 19 we find ovk ExkAwwodar Kpiow ovd€ emyvacovra mpdc@mov ovSé Aorta. Sdpa, TINY npn-N) DE Wan xb DBvIID non Nd, which is exactly what we have arrived at above. The original of our text could be reconstructed from this verse save that instead of "37 we should use NW), Cf. 2 Chron. xix. 7 od8é Oavudoa mpdcamov ovd€ haBeiv Sdpa (LXX), OD NWA TNY-N ID.

We have still to consider cufddttatum. Clemen compares Dan. ix. 23, x. 11, 19. He might have added Ezek. xxiii. 6, 12 “WiN2, And yet in none of them have we a real parallel. Acczpzendo poenas I have bracketed as an explanatory gloss.

6. those who wickedly depart from the Lord shall be judges. There is a curious dittography in the text here: ‘a deo ut qui facit erunt impii iudices’, ‘a domino qui faciunt erunt impii iudices’: the first and inferior version was intended to be deleted. For gud faciunt erunt tmpit read gui faciunt impie erunt and the text is restored = Day ym oywan min. Cf. 2 Sam. xxii. 22 Vulg. ‘non egi impie a Deo meo,’ Tapia) YW xb and Ass. Mos. Xii7, Sl... ample fecerunt 2 ‘

they shall be ready to judge for money. Text ‘erunt in eam post iudicare’, ‘inerunt in campo iudicare’. The second version of the doublet gives the right clue. J campo év dyp@ corrupt for év dpyipo = */DI3.

VI. 1. kings bearing rule, i.e. the Maccabees like Judas, Jonathan, and Simon, though not technically styled kings. Cf. ‘king of the west’, vi. 8.

they shall call themselves priests of the Most High God. Jonathan became high-priest in 153 B.C., and the office was declared to be hereditary in the Maccabean family in 141 B.C.

call themselves. Text = 7”... vocabuntur,a Hebraism. Cf. 1 Chron. xxiii. 14 (LXX).

priests of the Most High God. This title was claimed by the Maccabean prince-priests. Cf. Ps. cx, a hymn to Simon. ‘Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.’

shall assuredly work iniquity. Text = facient facientes, a Hebraism.

2. an insolent king, Herod the Great, 37-4 B.c. He was only half a Jew, Josephus, Av/é. xiv. 15. 2, the son of Antipater of Idumea, though Nicolas of Damascus claimed a Jewish origin for Antipater.

judge them. Herod cut off the Maccabean family, the Sadducean aristocracy, and according to vi. 4, 5 oppressed the nation at large. The Pharisees and the Essenes did not suffer under him.

3. their chief men. Herod on becoming king executed forty-five of the Sadducean nobles (Amz. xv. 1.23; Bell.

destroy. I read stimguet for singuii corrupt. Hilgenfeld emends into sefelie/, which is weak, I have omitted ‘et corpora illorum’ before ‘ut nemo sciat’.

secret places. These secret murders are mentioned in A7zZ. xv. 10. 4.

4. young,and he. Perhaps, we should read ‘young he’, &c. Cf. Deut. xxvii. 50.

5. Cf. 2 Macc. vi. 3 for the phraseology.

6 land. And he shall execute judgements on them as the Egyptians executed upon them, during

7 thirty and four years, and he shall punish them. And he shall beget children, (who) succeeding him

8 shall rule for shorter periods. Into their parts cohorts and a powerful king of the west shall come,

g who shall conquer them: and he shall take them captive, and burn a part of their temple with fire, (and) shall crucify some around their colony.

7 And when this is done the times shall be ended, ina moment the (second) course shall be (ended),

2, 3 the four hours shall come. They shall be forced.... And, in the time of these, destructive and

4 impious men shall rule, saying that they are just. And these shall stir up the poison of their minds,

being treacherous men, self-pleasers, dissemblers in all their own affairs and lovers of banquets at

5» 6 every hour of the day, gluttons, gourmands.... Devourers of the goods of the (poor) saying that

7 they do so on the ground of their justice, but zz reality to destroy them, complainers, deceitful,

concealing themselves lest they should be recognized, impious, filled with lawlessness and iniquity

6. thirty and four years. Herod reigned for thirty-four years after Antigonus’s death, and thirty-seven after he had been declared king by the Romans.

7. children ...shorter periods. The text is defective: ‘(p)roducet natos (qui su)ccedentes sibi breviora tempora donarent’ (we must read dominarent). NHerod’s sons are to reign for shorter periods than their father. This is true of Archelaus only, as Antipas reigned forty-three years and Philip thirty-seven. So that this book must be earlier than A.D. 30, i. e. thirty-four years from Herod’s death in 4 B.C.; unless we suppose that the author is thinking of Archelaus and Agrippa, who alone had close connexion with Jerusalem.

8. Into their parts cohorts. Text = ‘in pares eorum mortis’, emended into ‘in partes eorum cohortes’.

a powerful king of the west. Varus, governor of Syria, quelled a Jewish rebellion in 4 B.c. (Azz. xvii. 10. 9, Rootes 0). who. Text = gua corrupt for guz.

g. burn a part of their temple. The soldiers of Varus’s lieutenant Sabinus did such damage that the repairs were

not completed till Nero’s reign (Azz. xx. 9. 7). crucify some. Varus crucified 2,000 (Azz. xvii. 10. 10).

VII. 1. the times shall be ended. We have now arrived at the date at which the author is writing, and so leaves obvious historical allusions for obscure predictions and enigmatical symbols. The text is often doubtful. {second) ... (ended). Text defective, ‘. ..etur cursus a... Merx reads seguetur not finietur, and Hilgenfeld aevd not alter. 2. The text, which defies translation, is: ‘Coguntur secund...ae... pos... initiis tribus ad exitus viili propter initium tres septimae secunda tria in tertia duaeh...ra... tae.’ For attempted restorations see my Comm., p. 78. 3-10. The identification of the persons here attacked is much disputed. They cannot be the Herodian princes, as ver. 10 would suit none of them. Nor can they be the Pharisees. Their worst enemies never accused them of open unblushing gluttony and profligacy. Matt. xxiii. 25 mentions only their secret ‘extortion and excess’. (Colani ingeniously suggests that the Jewish doctors at Jabne and Usha after a.D. 135 are meant. But he requires too late a date for the book.) Nor yet can verses 3, 4 be assigned to the Sadducees, and 6-10 to the Pharisees. This division is not justified by the text. The Roman procurators, again, are excluded by phrases like ‘ Do not touch me lest thou shouldst pollute me’, and ‘concealing themselves lest they should be recognized’. The most probable explanation is that the Sadducees are meant. The play on P7%¥, the priestly aloofness of ver. 10, and their rule (the Sanhedrim, which was almost entirely Sadducean, was the virtual ruling power under the Romans from A.D. 6 till 70). The close parallels with the attacks on the Sadducees in the Psalms of Solomon seem to clinch the matter. 3. in the time of these. Text de his émi rovroy (?). Perhaps translate ‘some of these’ ex rovroy. destructive. Cf. verse 5. impious, could not be said of a Pharisee. shall rule. Cf. ver. 8, also for the Sadducean constitution of the Sanhedrim Pss. Sol. iv. 1 od Ka@noat BéBnre €v cuvedpio. saying that they are just, a play on O'PT¥ ‘Sadducees’ and O'p¥ ‘just’. saying. I read dicentes for docentes corrupt. 4. poison. Here I take ram animorum suorum Ovpoy tov Kapdiov aitov mad nian, where 9M should have been rendered ?év poison. This gives a good sense, but the change of azzmorum into amécorum (so Clemen) does not. treacherous. Pss. Sol. iv. 27 ard avOporav Sodwy Kal dpaptodav. self-pleasers. Probably the Hebrew original was misread DMSY, ‘of themselves’, instead of DDS), ‘of the mighty.’ The designation ‘pleasers of the mighty’ would then be parallel to dv@perapecxor, Pss. Sol. iv, used of the Sadducees. dissemblers. Text fictz. Cf. Pss. Sol. iv. 7 év troxpicet. 5. This verse of seven lines is undecipherable, except for omz7zis. 6. Devourers of the goods of the (poor). Cf. the charge against the Sadducees in Pss. Sol. iv. 11, 13, 15, 23; xii. 2, 4; also the charge in Matt. xxiii. 14; Mark xii. 4o; Luke xx. 47. {poor). Text ( faupe)rum. justice, msericordiam. The Hebrew APTS is often thus rendered, here mistakenly. The Sadducees were as proverbially severe (Awd. xx. 9.1) as the Pharisees were merciful in judgement (Azz. xiii. 10. 6). See also Pss. Sol. nee destroy them. Text = ef exterminatores, corrupt for u¢ exterminarent. concealing themselves, &c. Cf. Pss. Sol. iv. 5 év vuxri kai €v droxpugots duapraver Os ovx dpmpevos. Cf. also i. 7. impious. . . iniquitv. For wapdvona and auaprwdoi as epithets of the Sadducees see Ryle and James, Psalms of Solomon, Introd, xlv—xlviil.

THE ASSUMPTION OF MOSES/72).3—S. 5

8 from sunrise to sunset: saying: ‘We shall have feastings and luxury, eating and drinking, and we

y shall esteem ourselves as princes.’ And though their hands and their minds touch unclean things yet

to their mouth shall speak great things, and they shall say furthermore: ‘Do not touch me lest. thou shouldst pollute me in the place (where I stand’)...

t And there shall come upon them a second visitation and wrath, such as has not befallen them from the beginning until that time, in which He will stir up against them the king of the kings of the earth and one that ruleth with great power, who shall crucify those who confess to their circumcision :

2 and those who conceal (it) he shall torture and deliver them up to be bound and led into prison.

3 And their wives shall be given to the gods among the Gentiles, and their young sons shall be operated

4 on by the physicians in order to bring forward their foreskin. And others amongst them shall be punished by tortures and fire and sword, and they shall be forced to bear in public their idols, polluted

5 as they are like those who keep them. And they shall likewise be forced by those who torture them to enter their inmost sanctuary, and they shall be forced by goads to blaspheme with insolence the word, finally after these things the laws and what they had above their altar.

from sunrise to sunset, not ‘from East to West’ as the phrase in Greek might also mean.

8. shall esteem ourselves. Text = eft putabimus nos. Possibly potabimus, ‘we shall drink,’ but nos is against this.

princes. Text adds ‘we shall be’. An intrusion due to the difficulty of zos.

9. ‘though’: 2. yet.” Vext'= (27 ge ee ee lebralsmn wh foams ix iis

mouth ... speak great things. Dan. vii. 8, 20; Jude 16.

_9, 10. For this combination of priestly aloofness with an unclean and worldly life, cf. Pss. Sol. i. 8; ii. 14, 15;

to. Isa. lxv. 5. Four lines are defective at the end of Io.

VIII-IX. This ‘ second visitation’ is too accurate an account of Antiochus Epiphanes’ persecution to refer to any other calamity, or to have been a bare prediction, e.g. of Bar Cochba’s suppression in A.D. 136. Strangely enough there is a gap in the history between V and VI of this book, where an account of Antiochus’s devastation is required. It is equally out of place here. Thus we have a clear case of transposition by the final editor. Cf. 1 En. xci-xciii. V ends with the Hellenizing priests under Antiochus, VI begins with the Maccabean princes. Such a tragic time would not be omitted in a work like this, still less could the greatest desecration of the temple have been overlooked

VIII. 1. a second visitation. Soix.2. The final woes would not be so described. The text has ... Za (or Ze) only. Fritzsche restores Zazta. I read al¢tera with Merx.

such as has not, &c. Dan. xii. 1; cf. Jer. xxx. 7; 1 Macc. ix. 27; Matt. xxiv. 21; Rev. xvi. 18. ‘from the beginning’, a saeculo, which is nearer the Syriac (= a dzebus saeculorum) of Dan. xii. 1 than the LXX or Theod. Compare dm’ dpyjs kécpou, Matt. xxiv. 21.

king of the kings of the earth, used of Artaxerxes in Ezra vii. 12, so naturally here of the despot Antiochus IV.

one that ruleth. Text = fotestatem. I read fotentatem.

crucify ... circumcision. Cf. 1 Macc. i. 48, 60, 61; 2 Macc. vi. 10, viii. 4. For the crucifying cf. Joseph.

2. conceal. Text = zecantes. I read celantes. Possibly we should read secandes, ‘circumcise’, or even zegantes, ‘refuse to confess’.

3. wives shall be given to the gods, &c. For the cult of Venus see 2 Macc. vi. 4. But ds donabuntur may be corrupt for disdonabuntur (Haupt). Then translate ‘ will be distributed among the Gentiles’.

their young sons, &c. Cf. 1 Macc. i. 15; Joseph. Amz. xii. 5.1. Cf. 1 Cor. vii. 18.

4. tortures. Cf. 2 Macc. vi. 28, vil; Joseph. Azz. xii. 5. 4.

bear in pwhblic their idols. 2 Macc. vi. 7. For the carrying of idols cf. Amos v. 26; Isa. xlvi.7; Epist. Jer. 4, 26.

polluted, &c. The rendering is uncertain and difficult.

like. Text fariter also ‘likewise’ in the next verse.

5. inmost sanctuary of the heathen temples which the Jews were compelled to build. Cf. 1 Macc. 1. 47; Joseph. Ant. xv. 5.4. Or it may be the Holy Place.

the word 6 Adyos 13217, which in late Hebrew (Jer. Shabb. vii. 10, &c.) and Aramaic = ‘ the person’ of God.

the laws and. I read /eges e¢ for text ed /eges.

what... above their altar, i.e. the sacrifice upon it, Matt. xxiii. 18. Clemen states that under a/tarium we are to understand 70°. But this latter word simply means the raised platform in the Synagogue from which prayers were said andthe Lawread. There is no ground, so far as I am aware, for ever connecting the twoideas. See Religion and Worship of the Synagogue, Box and Oesterley, 309 sqq. = Schiirer®, ii. 450. The expression favours our interpreting the inmost sanctuary of the Temple.

IX. The historical references seem to be to 2 Macc. vi. 18 (Eleazar the Scribe) and vii (the seven brothers, sons of the widow), who went to the tortures rather than eat swine’s flesh ; while in 1 Macc. ii. 29-38 we are told of those who fled to the secret places of the wilderness, to avoid the ‘ unclean visitation’ (Ass. Mos. ix. 2) of Antiochus. For the close parallels with 1 and 2 Maccabees see the notes.

This piecing together of details has a purpose. The author intentionally avoids a reference to Mattathias, and thus by implication censures the Maccabean uprising with its methods and aims. He emphasizes the opposed policy of the Chasids, as evidenced by the passages quoted above, by way of suggesting and urging their stricter and quietistic methods. The ideal is not ‘ Let us war’, but ‘ Let us die rather than transgress’.

The Chasids’ temporary coalition with the Maccabees, 1 Macc. ii. 42, &c., is not mentioned. It soon ended, and the Pharisees returned to their old attitude of non-resistance. But by the close of the first century B.C. Pharisaism, as the Psalms of Solomon show, was being leavened with patriotism and earthly political ideas. Our author must have been in the minority by the time he wrote.

9, Then in that day there shall be a man of the tribe of Levi, whose name shall be Taxo, who having

2 seven sons shall speak to them exhorting (them) : ‘Observe, my sons, behold a second ruthless (and) unclean visitation has come upon the people, and a punishment merciless and far exceeding the first. 3 For what nation or what region or what people of those who are impious towards the Lord, who 4 have done many abominations, have suffered as great calamities as have befallen us? Now, therefore, my sons, hear me: for observe and know that neither did the fathers nor their forefathers 5 tempt God, so as to transgress His commands. And ye know that this is our strength, and thus we 6 will do. Let us fast for the space of three days and on the fourth let us go into a cave which is in the field, and let us die rather than transgress the commands of the Lord of Lords, the God of our 7 fathers. For if we do this and die, our blood shall be avenged before the Lord. , And then His kingdom shall appear throughout all His creation, And then Satan shall be no more, And sorrow shall depart with him. 2 Then the hands of the angel shall be filled Who has been appointed chief, And he shall forthwith avenge them of their enemies. 3. For the Heavenly One will arise from His royal throne, And He will go forth from His holy habitation With indignation and wrath on account of His sons. 4 And the earth shall tremble: to its confines shall it be shaken : And the high mountains shall be made low And the hills shall be shaken and fall.

1. day there shall be. I read de erit for text dicente. of the tribe of Levi. Thus the Chasid movement emanated from the priestly tribe. Our author seems to identify the Eleazar here with the Eleazar of 2 Macc. vi. 18, who was one of the chief scribes, and, according to 4 Macc. v. 3, a priest. Taxo. Professor Burkitt has offered the right interpretation. Taxo is a mistake for Taxoc Tagox PIDIN,

which by Gemattia = syybe, Eleazar. Cf. 4 Macc. i. 8. This interpretation strengthens the argument for a dislocation of the text.

seven sons. The widow of 2 Macc. vii (following on the martyrdom of Eleazar in vi. 18-31) and 4 Macc. has seven sons. Mattathias had five, 1 Macc. ii. 1.

shall speak. I read dcef, for text dicens.

z. second. . . unclean visitation, under Antiochus, with its ceremonial defilement and moral abominations. The first was under Nebuchadnezzar. See chapter iii.

far exceeding. I read eminens for eminent, text.

4. neither did the fathers, &c. Text =‘nunquam temptans deum nec parentes nec proavi eorum’. Clemen restores ‘neither did I nor the fathers’, supplying ego to agree with ‘¢emptans, which, however, is corrupt for temptantes. Cf. the consciousness of fulfilling God’s law in the Psalms. The sense of sin is markedly absent at times: here with regard to the nation.

6. fast, here a sign not of repentance but of desperate resolution. For fasting cf. Dan. vi. 18, ix.3; 2 Bar. v. 7,

let us die rather than transgress. For this typical and earnest motto of those persecuted under Antiochus,

X. I-10. These verses form a hymn of ten stanzas with three lines each. There are three main divisions, 1-2, 3-6, 7-10. Note that the kingdom and the angel appear in the first division, but God Himself arises in the second. 1. His kingdom. Cf. the ‘kingdom of God’ in Mark and Luke; Pss. Sol. xvii. 4. There is no mention of a new heaven and a new earth here. Satan seems to be here the head of the kingdom of evil. But 2 suggests that he is the adversary of Israel. sorrow, &c. Cf. Isa. xxxv. 10; Rev. xxi. 4. 2. hands... filled. Cf. Exod. xxviii. 41, xxix. 9; Lev. xxi. 10; Test. Levi viii. 10. Here it signifies the delegation of power as warrior not as priest. the angel. Michael. Cf. Dan. xii.1. He is Israel’s patron angel. chief. Michael is at the head of the forces of heaven, Rev. xii. 7. Here he avenges Israel, but in ver. 7 God does so. Thus 3-10 (which belong to the text) are inconsistent with 1-2, an insertion, as the felicity of ver. 1, contrasted with the terror of 4-6, also shows. 3-6. Signs to accompany God’s coming. 3. the Heavenly One. Cf. ii. 4, iv. 4. from His holy habitation. Deut. xxvi. 15; Isa. Ixili. 15. 4. high mountains ... made low. Isa. xl. 4; 1 En. i. 6. and the hills shall be shaken and. | read ‘et colles concutientur et’ for ‘et concutientur et convalles’, The mountains would not be shaken after being made low, nor could the valleys fall. We require a hill after the high mountains. Cf. Isa. xl. 4. It is easy to exdlain comvadles = MIYP3 corrupt for MIYAI as in LXX of Isa. xl. 12.

And the horns of the sun shall be broken and he shall be turned into darkness ; And the moon shall not give her light, and be turned wholly into blood.

And the circle of the stars shall be disturbed.

And the sea shall retire into the abyss,

And the fountains of waters shall fail,

And the rivers shall dry up.

For the Most High will arise, the Eternal God alone,

And He will appear to punish the Gentiles,

And He will destroy all their idols.

Then thou, O Israel, shalt be happy,

And thou shalt mount upon the necks and wings of the eagle,

And they shall be endedft.

And God will exalt thee,

And He will cause thee to approach to the heaven of the stars,

yIn the place of their habitationf.

And thou shalt look from on high and shalt see thy enemies in Ge(henna),

And thou shalt recognize them and rejoice,

And thou shalt give thanks and confess thy Creator.

And do thou, Joshua (the son of) Nun, keep these words and this book; For from my death

13 [assumption] until His advent there shall be CCL times. And this is the course of the times which

5. The MS. has ‘sol non dabit lumen et in tenebris convertent se cornua lunae et confringentur et tota convertit se in sanguine’. The order seems wrong. The darkening is always connected with the sun, and only with the moon in conjunction with it. Cf. Joel ii. 103 iii. 15; Eccles. xii. 2. See also Isa. xiii. 10; Matt. xxiv. 29; Mark xiii. 24; Luke xxiii. 45; Acts il. 20; Rev. vi. 12, ix. 2. Again, ‘non dabit lumen’ is used only of the moon, Ezek. xxxii. 7 ; Matt. xxiv. 29; Mark xiii. 24. Thirdly, ‘turned into blood’ is only used of the moon, Joel ii. 31; Acts ii. 20; Rev. vi. 12. Thus I alter the text to

‘(Et) cornua solis confringentur et in tenebras convertet se ; Et luna non dabit lumen et tota convertet se in sanguinem.’ circle. Text = ordis. ; 6. fountains .. . fail. Cf. Pss. Sol. xvii. 21; Test. Levi iv.1; 4 Ezra vi. 24. fountains ...andrivers. Cf. Rev. villi. 10, xvi. 4. dry up. I read exarescent for MS. expavescent. . 7-10. God punishes the Gentiles, destroys their idols, makes Israel triumph over Rome, and exalts them to heaven.

7. Eternal God. Cf. Deut. xxxili. 27 O17) mds. $2 and probably 8” are based on verse 29 of that chapter.

alone, i.e. without help of Michael or Messiah. Cf. 4 Ezra v. 26, vi. 6.

destroy ... idols. Cf. 1 En. xci. 9.

8. Israel to triumph in this world over Rome.

Then thou... happy. Deut. xxxii. 29.

+mount upon the necks. So Deut. xxxiil. 29 in LXX Syr. Vulg. Targ. Onk., Targ. Jon., Jarchi. Modern scholars, however, render ‘tread upon their high places’. For ‘necks’ cf. Baruch iv. 26; also for the idea Josh. x. 24. An older form of the Eagle Vision, that in 4 Ezra xi sqq. may here be in the mind of the writer. Now line 2 is too long and line 3 too short. Formerly I accepted Dr. Cheyne’s suggestion that des ductus tuz (cf. Isa. lx. 20) was lost after tniplebuntur. Clemen suggests dies aguilae; but neither accounts for the irregularity noted, and there is no loss of letters in the MS. Hence | propose that there has been simply a transposition of cervzces e¢ alas (1.e. alae) from line 3 to 2. Then et rmplebuntur = kai cvvteheoOnoovra, perdentur or delebuntur. Hence:

‘And thou shalt go up against the eagle And its necks and wings shall be destroyed.’ g. Israel to be exalted to heaven.

to approach. Text = haerere, i.e. YJ.

the heaven of the stars. Cf. Pss. Sol. i. 5 tWoOnoay éws ray dotpwyv, and Jer. li. (xxviii. in LXX) 9. Cf. ‘the stars of heaven’, Isa. xiv. 13 (LXX), or ‘the stars of God’ (Heb.), which, however, Targ. Jon. renders ‘the people of God’. Here, however, there is no metaphor, but a description of Israel transfigured and glorified after the final judgement. Cf. 1 En. civ. 2, 6.

tIn the place of their habitation.t Text = /oco habitationis eorum. Eorum suits neither ‘ stars’ nor ‘thee’. The parallelism also requires ‘and He’ to commence the clause. There I read DYN ‘and He will establish’ for Dp. ‘in the place’, and O23 JAW) ‘thy habitation among them’ for DIW¥ ‘their habitation’, and render:

‘And He will establish thy habitation among them.’

10, Shalt look. I read conspicies for conspiges, text.

shalt see. I read vzdedzs for vides, text. f

Gehenna. MS. has ¢erram = yj, i.e. SN} or 73 transliterated as in Josh. xvill. 16 (LXX), &c. Gehenna is called ‘the valley’ in Jer. ii. 23; iii, 40, and so 037 need not be restored. Clemen thinks ‘in terra’ can be supported by Isa. Ixvi. 24, but the cases are not parallel. :

In earlier times (Isa. Ixvi. 24; 1 En. xxvii. 2, 3, liv. 1, 2, xc. 26, 27) Gehenna was considered the place of punishment for faithless Jews, who should be tormented there in full view of the righteous. But in N.T. times it had come to be thought of as the future abode of all the wicked. Cf. 4 Ezra vii. 36.

12. [assumption]. The original here told only of Moses’ death, not his assumption. Cf. i. 15 and x. 15. The addition is due to the editor, who combined this ‘Testament of Moses’ with another work, the ‘ Assumption of Moses’,

~ 14, 15 they shall pursue till they are consummated. And I shall go to sleep with my fathers. Wherefore,

Joshua thou (son of) Nun, (be strong and) be of good courage ; (for) God hath chosen (thee) to be minister in the same covenant.

1 And when Joshua had heard the words of Moses that were so written in his writing all that he

2 had before said, he rent his clothes and cast himself at Moses’ feet. And Moses comforted him and

3, 4 wept with him. And Joshua answered him and said: ‘Why dost thou comfort me, (my) lord

Moses? And how shall I be comforted in regard to the bitter word which thou hast spoken which

has gone forth from thy mouth, which is full of tears and lamentation, in that thou departest from

5, 6 this people? (But now) what place shall receive thee? Or what shall be the sign that marks (thy)

7 sepulchre? Or who shall dare to move thy body from thence as that of a mere man from place to

8 place? For all men when they die have according to their age their sepulchres on earth ; but thy

sepulchre is from the rising to the setting sun, and from the south to the confines of the north: all

g, 10 the world is thy sepulchre. My lord, thou art departing, and who shall feed this people? Or who

rr is there that shall have compassion on them and who shall be their guide by the way? Or who shall

pray for them, not omitting a single day, in order that I may lead them into the land of ¢hezr fore-

12 fathers? How therefore am I to foster this people asa father (his) only son, or as a mistress er

daughter, a virgin who is being prepared to be given to the husband whom she will revere, while she

guards her person from the sun and (takes care) that her feet are not unshod for running upon the

13 ground. (And how) shall I supply them with food and drink according to the pleasure of their

14 will? For of them there shall be 600,000 (men), for these have multiplied to this degree through

1s thy prayers, (my) lord Moses. And what wisdom or understanding have I that I should judge or

16 answer by word in the house (of the Lord)? And the kings of the Amorites also when they hear

that we are attacking ¢em, believing that there is no longer among them the sacred spirit who

CCL times, i.e. 250 year-weeks, or 1,750 years. Thus from the Creation (2,500 years before Moses’ death) to the final judgement will be 4,250 years or 85 jubilees. Cf. Sanh. 97”, which gives the same date for the Messiah’s coming. 13. of the times. MS. ‘... horum’ emended to ¢emporum. 14. Moses expects an ordinary death, a sleep with his fathers in Sheol. 15. {be strong and) be of good courage. MS. forma ¢e. I have restored with Schmidt-Merx ‘confortare et (for) ... (thee). I supply zam ¢e after firma te. minister. Seei.7 (note). Is Joshua thus the prophet promised in Deut. xviii. 15? XI. 1. Moses’ feet. I emend MS. fedes meos to pedes Monse. 4. comfort me... be comforted. I read ‘solaris . . . solabor’ with Schmidt-Merx for MS. ‘celares .. . celabor’; Volkmar emends to ‘zelaris . . . zelabor’. For the mourning at his departure, cf. 2 Bar. xxxili. 3, Ixxvil. 2; 4 Ezra xii. 44. depart die, as in 2 Bar. xiv. 19, xv. I, xliil. 2, &c. this people. Text plede ist (a). 5. (But now) what, &c. Text is defective. 7. Baldensperger thinks this verse is directed against the Christians, as Christ’s body was moved from the cross to the sepulchre. from thence. I restore zvde for 77 e. that of a (mere) man. [I restore homznis for homo. 8. all the world is thy sepulchre. Cf. Thuc. 11. 43 raca yy ragos. g. thou art departing. I restore ads for ab his MS. Il. pray. Cf. xi. 6. not omitting. Text mec patiens ovd¢ rapteis. single. MS. wo corrupt for unum. forefathers. I restore afavorum for Araborum. Ewald Amorreorum. 12. foster. MS. fotero (hanc plebem) dSuvioopat (rov Nady rodrov) = (FIT Dyn) Saw where 52s is corrupt for

DBP2N = ‘nourish’.

’ asa mistress her daughter, a virgin. Text ‘ tanquam tfiliam dominam virginemt.’ If«vpiav ( dominam) can be applied to persons as Volkmar supposes and mean ‘legitimate’, ‘his own’, then the difficulty is solved. But the repetition of Zanguam is against this view. It seems to require a parallel noun in the nominative such as domzna. And was kuptos ever applied in the above sense even to things? Failing this we might with Fritzsche read f/zam domina, virginent,

or since xvpia alone may be suspicious in this sense domina virginem may mina ndya corrupt for M30 N2¥3, ‘mistress of the house ’, to be given. I restore dari for tali MS. whom. I restore gem for guae. revere. Cf. Sirach xxvi. 28. guards her person. Cf. Sirach vii. 24, 25. 13. (And how). I supply e¢ gzi to fill the lacuna. pleasure of their will. I read voluptatem voluntatis for MS. voluntatem voluntatis. Cf. Eph. i. 5. 14. 600,000. I insert D before C mi/za, from Exod. xii. 37. men). I restore vz7i in lacuna in MS. 15. {of the Lord). I restore Domini in lacuna after domo in MS. 16. among them. I read secum for semet MS. sacred spirit... manifold. Cf. mveipa . .. Gyov . . . modupeoes, Wisd. vii. 22.

was worthy of the Lord, manifold and incomprehensible, the lord of the word, who was faithful in all things, God’s chief prophet throughout the earth, the most perfect teacher in the world, [that he 17 is no longer among them], shall say “Let us go against them. If the enemy have but once wrought impiously against their Lord, they have no advocate to offer prayers on their behalf to the Lord, like Moses the great messenger, who every hour day and night had his knees fixed to the earth, praying and looking for help to Him that ruleth all the world with compassion and righteous- 18 ness, reminding 727 of the covenant of the fathers and propitiating the Lord with the oath.” For they shall say: “He is not with them: let us go therefore and destroy them from off the face of the 19 earth.” What shall then become of this people, my lord Moses?’ 121,2 And when Joshua had finished (these) words, he cast himself again at the feet of Moses. And Moses took his hand and raised him into the seat before him, and answered and said unto him: 3, 4 ‘Joshua, do not despise thyself, but set thy mind at ease, and hearken to my words. All the nations which are in the earth God hath created and us, He hath foreseen them and us from the beginning of the creation of the earth unto the end of the age, and nothing has been neglected by Him even to 5 the least thing, but all things He hath foreseen and caused all to come forth. (Yea) all things which are to be in this earth the Lord hath foreseen and lo! they are brought forward (into the 6 light.... The Lord) hath on their behalf appointed me to (pray) for their sins and (make interces- 7 sion) for them. For not for any virtue or strength of mine, but of His good pleasure have His com- 8 passion and longsuffering fallen to my lot. For I say unto you, Joshua: it is not on account of the 9 godliness of this people that thou shalt root out the nations. The lights of the heaven, the foundations of the earth have been made and approved by God and are under the signet ring of His right to hand. Those, therefore, who do and fulfil the commandments of God shall increase and be prospered : 11 but those who sin and set at nought the commandments shall be without the blessings before men- 12 tioned, and they shall be punished with many torments by the nations. But wholly to root out and 13 destroy them is not permitted. for God will go forth who has foreseen all things for ever, and His covenant has been established and by the oath which ...

worthy of the Lord. Cf. Wisd. iii. 5.

lord of the word, a unique expression.

faithful in all things. Num. xii. 7; Heb. iii. 2.

God’s chief prophet. Text divinum ... profetem DONT NID = * che prophet of God’.

[that he ... them]. A dittography from above.

17. wrought impiously against. Text zmpie fecerunt in1 \YW 7, perhaps corrupt for 2 yw. Cf. v. 6 (note).

no advocate to offer prayers. This is the function of Jeremiah especially (for Moses cf. ver. 14), e.g. 2 Macc.

Moses. MS. wrongly adds ‘was’.

looking for help... world. MS.=‘intuens homini potentem orbem,’ &c. omni is clearly a corruption. Hilgenfeld suggests ommnipotentem orbem. But it is better to read omnzs and orbis, ‘potentem omnis orbis.’ Schmidt-Merx suggest ‘omni potent(ia tenent)em orbem ’.

XII. 2. Cf. Sifre Piska 140 on Num. xxvii.28. ‘Thereupon (Moses) raised him (Joshua) from the ground and placed him beside himself on the chair.’

3. thyself. I restore ze for e¢, MS.

4. A word of comfort against the time of Israel’s tribulation. God made Israel and the nations, and foresees the destinies of both. Therefore all that befalls must tend to the same end (Israel’s benefit, i. 12).

caused all to come forth. I read ‘ promovit cuncta’ for MS. ‘provovit cum es’; provovit may, however, be corrupt for Araenovit mpoéyyw V1’, which again may be corrupt for TW, praedestinavit.

6. appointed me to (pray) for their sins. This is a real Jewish idea and not borrowed from Christianity. Cf. Jeremiah (see xi. 17 above); also Enoch, 2 En. Ixiv. 5 (MSS. A,B), the righteous forefathers, Philo, De Execr. ix (ii. 436). Contrast 2 En. liii. 1. The text is defective. I supply ovarem and implorarem.

7. strength. I read frmitatem for MS. znfirmitatem.

of His good pleasure. Text temperantius émetkéotepov. émetks in both its occurrences in the O.T. = oN’, the verb, so that I have rendered it ‘of His good pleasure’ in the text, though a closer rendering of the Hebrew would be ‘He was pleased that His compassion, &c., should fall to my lot’. Cf. for this doctrine of the divine election, Rom. ix. 11, 12, to privilege, and Gal. i. 15, to service. According to the Tanchuma Pikkude 3, God does not determine beforehand whether a man shall be righteous or wicked, but puts this in the power of the man. See 2) Ens xxx 15.

8. not on account of the godliness, &c. Cf. Deut. ix. 4, 5,6; Ezek. xxxvi. 22, 32. The nation is so evil and needs such frequent chastisement, that its selection by God must be due not to merit but to the Divine purpose. Yet the world was created on behalf of Israel, i. 12; and it is God's foreknowledge, not His purpose, that is dwelt on in Kilwa se ho hlse

9. lights. Read dumina for text omnia.

foundations. Read fundamenta for text firmamenta.

and approved. I read et frobata for ut provata. :

signet ring. Read annulo for nullo. Cf. Jer. xxii. 24 dnooppdyicpa emt ris xetpds ris Seévas pov, also Sirach xlix. 11s

1o. God. Read Dez for ez, MS. :

11. shall be without the blessings. Read carebunt bona (nom. plur.) for carere donam. But Schmidt-Merx may be right, who retain the text and retranslate rois yap duaprdvovow . . earl borepeiv Tay ayabev.

12. destroy. I read extinguat for relinguat.

§ 1. SHORT ACCOUNT OF THE Boox.

THE Book of the Secrets of Enoch has, so far as is yet known, been preserved only in Slavonic. For the sake of convenience it will in this edition be designated shortly as ‘2 Enoch’, incontradistinction to the older book of Enoch which is designated as ‘1 Enoch’.

This new fragment of the Enochic literature came to light through certain MSS. which were found in Russia and Servia. My attention was first drawn to this fact when editing the Ethiopic or 1 Enoch by an article by Kozak on Russian Pseudepigraphic Literature in the ¥ahkrd. f. Prot. Theol., pp. 127-158 (1892). As it was stated in this article that there was a Slavonic Version of the Book of Enoch hitherto known through the Ethiopic Version, I applied to the late Professor Morfill for help, who procured printed copies of two of the MSS. in question. When once I had before me Professor Morfill’s English translations of these texts, it did not take much study to discover that Kozak’s statement was devoid of foundation. The Book of the Secrets of Enoch was, as it soon transpired, a new pseudepigraph, and not in any sense a version of the older and well-known Book of Enoch. In some respects it is of no less value, as we shall see in the sequel.

2 Enoch in its present form was written somewhere about the beginning of the Christian era. Its final editor was an Hellenistic Jew, and the place of its composition was Egypt.

Written at such a date, and in Egypt, it was not to be expected that it should exercise a direct influence on the writers of the New Testament. On the other hand, it occasionally exhibits striking parallelisms in diction and thought, and some of the dark passages of the latter are all but inexplicable without its aid.

Although the very knowledge that such a book ever existed was lost for probably. twelve hundred years, it nevertheless was much used both by Christian and heretic in the early centuries. Thus citations appear from it, though without acknowledgement, in the Books of Adam and Eve, the Apocalypses of Moses and Paul (A.D. 400-500), the Sibylline Oracles, the Ascension of Isaiah and the Epistle of Barnabas (A.D. 70-90). It is quoted by name in the later portions of the Testaments of Levi, Daniel, and Naphtali. It was referred to by Origen and probably by Clement of Alexandria, and used by Irenaeus, and a few phrases in the New Testament may be derived from it.

But it was not only on Christian literature that the influence of 2 Enoch is manifest. A Hebrew book entitled ‘the Book of Enoch’ (7)3n 18D) and twice ‘the Book of the Secrets of Enoch’ (qn7 pm 7D) in the Zohar exhibits very close affinities with 2 Enoch. R. Ishmael, a martyr of the Hadrianic persecution, is claimed to be its author, but its composition belongs most probably to a later date. It is, however, possible, that this Hebrew Book of Enoch has preserved in some cases the Hebrew original, from which apparently portions of 2 Enoch are derived. But the influence of 2 Enoch is not confined to this Hebrew Book of Enoch. Traces of it are found also in the apocalyptic fragment published by Jellinek, Beth ha-Midrasch vi. 19-30, and also in the Zohar.!

§ 2. THE Two SLAVONIC VERSIONS.

The two versions of the Slavonic redaction of the book of Enoch from which the following translations have been made are:

1. The complete version, published by Mr. A. Popov in the 7raxsactions of the Historical and Archaeological Society of the University of Moscow, vol. iti. (Moscow, University Press, 1880). The MS. is a South Russian recension, dating from the second half of the seventeenth century and belongs to Mr. A. Khludov. It is in many places so corrupt that emendation in the absence of the Greek text is impossible. This version is marked by the letter A in Morfill’s translation.”

1 See Jewish Encyc. i. 677 sqq. 2 There is a Bulgarian recension of the above version in a MS, in the public library of Belgrade according to Morfill (Gen. Editor).

THE BOOK OF STE es ECR ED SsCree NOCH

2. The incomplete version, published by Novakovi¢ in the sixteenth volume of the literary magazine Stdérine (Agram, 1884). The MS. is a Servian recension dating from the sixteenth century, and is in the Public Library at Belgrade. It is marked B in Morfill’s translation. In order to spare biblical students the confusion inseparable from the omission of the division of the paragraphs into verses and from a disposition of the paragraphs themselves in any way different from that to which they are already used, I have adopted that arrangement of paragraphs and verses which both Morfill and Bonwetsch employed in their translations. It must be pointed out, however, that in the complete version (A) there are only sixty-three, while Morfill and Bonwetsch both divide the same quantity of text into sixty-eight paragraphs ; that in the incomplete version (B) there is no division into paragraphs; that in neither A nor B is there any division of the paragraphs into verses,1 and that in neither A nor B? are the titles of the paragraphs in brackets, as indicated in Morfill’s translation. (N. FORBES.)

§ 3. THE LANGUAGE AND PLACE OF WRITING.

1. Part of this book—possibly the main part—was written for the first time in Greek. This is shown by such statements, (1) as xxx. 13, ‘And I appointed him a name (i.e. Adam) from the four component parts: from East, from West, from South, from North. Adam’s name is here derived from the initial letters of the Greek names of the four quarters, i.e. dvaroA7, dvc.s, dpktos, weonuBpia. This fancy was first elaborated in Greek, as this derivation is impossible in Semitic languages. (2) Again, the writer follows the chronology of the LXX. Enoch is 165 years old when he begat Methuselah. According to the Hebrew and Samaritan chronologies. he was 65. Josephus also (Anz. i. 3. 3), it is true, adopts the LXX chronology. (3) In |. 4 the writer reproduces the LXX text of Deut. xxxii. 35 against the Hebrew. (4) The writer frequently uses Sirach, arid often reproduces it almost word for word: cf. xliii. 2, 3—Sirach xxiii. 7; x. 20, 22,24: also xlvii. 5 —Sirach i. 2: also li. 1, 3—Sirach vii. 32; ii. 4: also Ixi. 2—Sirach xxxix. 25: also Ixv. 2— Sirach xvii. 3, 5. (5) Ixv. 4 seems to be derived from the Book of Wisdom vii. 17, 18. So far as we can judge, it was the Greek Versions of Sirach and Wisdom that our author used.

Some sections of this book may have been written originally in Hebrew. (See § 4 ad fin.)

2. This book in its present form was written in Egypt, and probably in Alexandria. This is deducible from the following facts. (1) From the variety of speculations which it holds in common with Philo and writings which were Hellenistic in character or circulated largely in Egypt. Thus the existent was created from the non-existent, xxiv. 2; xxv. I: cf. Philo, de /ust#t. 7; souls were created before the foundation of the world, xxiii. 5: cf. Philo, de Sommno, i. 22; de Gigantibus 3; Wisdom viii. 19, 20. Again, man had seven natures or powers, xxx. 9: cf. Philo, de Mundi Op. 40. Man could originally see the angels in heaven, xxxi. 2: cf. Philo, Quaest. i Gen. xxxii. There seems to be no resurrection of the body, |. 2 ; Ixv.6: sothe Book of Wisdom and Philotaught. Finally, swearing is reprobated by both, xlix. 1, 2: cf. Philo, de Spec. Leg. ii. 1. (2) The whole Messianic teaching of the Old Testament does not find a single echo in the work of this Hellenized Israelite of Egypt, although he shows familiarity with almost every book of the Old Testament. (3) The Phoenixes and Chalkydries, xii—monstrous serpents with the heads of crocodiles—are natural products of the Egyptian imagination. (4) The syncretistic character of the account of the creation, xxv-xxvi, undoubtedly betrays Egyptian elements.

§ 4. RELATION OF THE BOOK TO JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN LITERATURE,

In the Book of Adam and Eve of the fifth century we find two passages drawn from our book which are quotations in sense more than in words. Thus in I. vi we read: ‘ But the wicked Satan... set me at naught, and sought the Godhead, so that I hurled him down from heaven.’ This is drawn from xxix. 4,5: ‘One from out the order of angels (i.e. Satan, cf. xxxi. 4)...conceived an impossible thought, to place his throne higher than the clouds above the earth, that he might become equal in rank to My power. And I threw him from the height.’ Again in the Book of Adam and Eve, I. viii: ‘When we dwelt in the garden ... we saw his angels that sang praises in heaven.’ This comes from xxxi. 2: ‘I made the heavens open to him, that he should see the angels singing the song of victory.’ See notes on xxxi. 2 for similar view in Philo and St. Ephrem.

1 This division into verses was necessarily made by the General Editor when he edited this book in 1896.

2 The bracketing of the titles in A was due not to the translator but to the editor, for they have no claim to being original. They are not given in Sokolov’s text which was used by Professor Morfill, nor are they found in B. A few titles do appear in B, but with one exception these consist merely of ‘Entry of Enoch into the first heaven, Entry of Enoch into the second heaven’, &c. (Gen. Editor).

Again in I. xiv of the former book the words: ‘ The garden, into the abode of light thou longest for, wherein is no darkness, and I. xi: ‘That garden in which was no darkness,’ are probably derived from 2 En. xxxi. 2: ‘... the gloomless light’ seen by Adam in Paradise.

Next in the Apocalypse of Moses (ed. Tischend. 1866) p. 19 we have a further development.-of a statement that appears in our text regarding the sun: see Apoc. Mos. xxxvi. 1-3 under ‘ The Books of Adam and Eve’ in this volume.

In the anonymous writing De montibus Sina et Sion 4, we have most probably another trace of the influence of our text in this century. In this treatise the derivation of Adam’s name from the initials of the four quarters of the earth is given at length. This derivation appears probably for the first time in literature in xxx. 13 (see note).

In the fourth century there are undoubted indications of its use in the Apocalypse of Paul (ed. Tischend. 1866). Thus the statement, p. 64, odds éorw 6 rapddeoos, evOa . . . d€vdpor TappeyeOn (sic) @paior, év @ enavevavero TO Tvebpa TO Gytov is beyond the possibility of question a Christian adaptation of 2 Enoch viii. 3: ‘And in the midst of the trees that of life, in that place, whereon the Lord rests, when He goes up into Paradise. Again the words, p. 64, ék Tis piGys abrob efpxero nO Bowp, pepiCopevor eis Téeooapa dptypara, and p. 52, morapol TEToapes Ai . péovtes ped kal yada Kat éXaov kal oivov, are almost verbal reproductions of our text, viii. 5: ‘Two springs come out which send forth honey and milk, and their springs send forth oil and wine, and they separate into four parts. With two characteristic features of hell in this Apocalypse, i.e. odk iv exe? @ds and 6 wvpwvos Torapds (pp. 575 58) we may compare x. 1 of our text: ‘And there is no light there ... and a fiery river coming forth.’

In the early part of the third and in the second century there is the following evidence of the existence of our text. Thus in the Szbylline Oracles, ii. 75 dppavixots xjpais 7 émidevouevors TE mapacxov, and 88 ony xelpa Tevntredovow dpe$ov are too closely parallel to li. 1, ‘Stretch forth your hands to the orphan and to the widow (B),’‘ Stretch out your hands to the poor (A),’ to be accidental.

In Irenaeus contra Haer. v. 28. 3 we have the Jewish speculation in our text, xxxili. I, 2, reproduced to the effect that as the work of creation lasted six days so the world would last 6,000 years, and that there would be 1,000 years of rest corresponding to the first sabbath after creation. See text, xxxiii. 1, 2 (notes),

There is a direct reference in Origen’s de Princip. i. 3.2 ‘Nam et in eo libello. .. quem Hermas conscripsit, ita refertur: Primo omnium crede, quia unus est Deus, qui omnia creavit atque composuit : qui cum nihil esset prius, esse fecit omnia. ... Sed et in Enoch libro his similia describuntur.’ Now since there is no account of the creation in 1 Enoch, Origen is here referring to 2 Enoch xxiv—-xxx.

The fragment of the Apocalypse of Zephaniah preserved in Clement, Strom. v. 11. 77 is likewise to be traced to our text: cf. xviii. 1 (note).

During the years A.D. 50-100 our text seems not to be without witness in the literature of that period. Thus in the Ascension of Isaiah, viii. 16 we read with regard to the angels of the sixth heaven: ‘Omnium una species et gloria aequalis,’ whereas the difference between the angelic orders in the lower heavens is repeatedly pointed out. Now in our text, xix. 1,it is said of the seven bands of angels present in the sixth heaven that ‘there is no difference in their faces or behaviour or manner of dress.’

In 4 Ezra vii. 97 the words ‘incipiet vultus eorum fulgere sicut sol’ are found in i. 5 ‘ Their faces were shining like the sun’.

With 2 Baruch iv. 3 ‘1 showed it (i.e. Paradise) to Adam before he sinned’, compare xxxi. 2.

In the £pzstle of Barnabas xv. 4 ti déyer to Suverérd(eoe ev 2E Huepars. otro A€yer bru ev éLaxirxtAlous éreow ovvTedeoes Kvpios Ta ovyTarta. % yap nuepa Tap av’T@ onpaiver xidia érn, we have an exposition of the rather confused words in our text, xxxii. 2—xxxiii. In xv. 5~7, however, the writer of this Epistle does not develop logically the thought with regard to the seventh day ; for the seventh day on which God rested from His works should in accordance with the same principle of interpretation as in xv. 4 have been taken as a symbol of a thousand years of rest, i.e. the millennium. In xv. 8, however, this writer shows his return to our text by his use of the peculiar phrase ‘the eighth day’ : od Ta vov oapBara [évot] bexrd, GAAG O TeTOiNKa, €v @ KaTaTavoas TA TavTA dip xiv Hyepas bybns Tojo, 6 €oTw GAdov Kdopov Gpxijv. It may not be amiss here to point out that in the next chapter, in verse 5, 1 Enoch (Ixxxix. 56, 66) is quoted as Scripture. The fact, therefore, that Barnabas does not quote our text as Scripture may point to his discrimination between the two books of Enoch to the detriment of the latter. Again in this Epistle, xviii. 1, the words 6801 dv0 cloly ... 7] TE TOD wros Kal 7) TOO oKdTovs seem to be derived from our text, xxx. 15, ‘I... showed him the two ways, the light and the darkness.’ Though the Two Ways are often described in early literature (see note on xxx. 15), only in Barnabas are they described in the same terms as in our text.

THE BOOK OP Arie reECR Els Oly ENOCH

In the New Testament the similarity of thought and diction is sufficiently large to establish q close connexion if not a literary dependence. With St. Matt. v. 9, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers,’ compare lii. 11, ‘Blessed is he who implants peace.’ With St. Matt. v. 34, 35, 37, ‘Swear not at all: neither by the heaven... nor by the earth... nor by Jerusalem, ... but let your speech be, Yea, yea: Nay, nay,’ compare xlix. 1, ‘I swear not by any oath, neither by heaven, nor by earth, nor by any other creature which God created. ...If there is no truth in men, let them swear by the words, “yea, yea, ’ or “nay, nay.”’ (See notes.)

With Vii. 20, ‘By their fruits ye shall know them,’ compare xlii. 14, ‘In their works are known those who lie evilly.’ The words ‘ Be of ao cheer, be not afraid, St. Matt xiv. 27, are of frequent occurrence in our text, i. 8; xx. 2; xxi. 3, &ce. With St: Matt. xxv. 34, ‘Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the w orld, compare ix. 1, ‘This place (i.e. Paradise) O Enoch, is prepared for the righteous . . for eternal inheritance’ Next with John xiv. 2, ‘In my Father’s house are many mansions, compare Ixi. 2, ‘In the great time (to come) . . . are many mansions prepared for men, good for the good, bad for the bad.’ With Acts xiv. 15, ‘Ye should turn from these vain things unto the living God, who made the heaven and the earth,’ compare ii. 2, ‘Bow not down to vain gods . _ who made neither heaven nor earth.’ In the Pauline Epistles there are several parallels in thought and diction. With Col. i, 16, ‘ Dominions or principalities or powers, compare xx. 1, ‘Dominions, orders, and governments ’ : with Eph. iv. 25, ‘Speak ye truth each one with his neighbour, compare xii. 12, ‘Blessed is he in whom is truth that he may speak truth to his neighbour.’ For other Pauline parallels with our text see my edition, pp. xxxix—xli. With Heb. xi. 3, ‘The worlds have been framed by the word of God, so that what is seen hath not been made out of things which do appear,’ compare xxv. 1, ‘I commanded... that visible things should come down from invisible, and xxiv. 2, ‘I tell to thee...all that I created from nonbeing, and visible things from invisible.’ With Rev. i. 16, ‘ His countenance was as the sun shineth, compare i. 4, ‘Their faces were shining like the sun’: with ix. 1,‘ There was given to him the key of the pit of the abyss,’ compare xlii. 1,‘ The key-holders and guards of the gates of hell.’ With Rev. iv. 6,‘ A glassy sea,’ compare iii. 3, ‘A very great Sea greater than the earthly sea.’ This sea in the first heaven, however, may be merely ‘the waters which were above the firmament’ (Gen. i. 7). With Rev. x. 5,6,‘ And the angel... sware...that there shall be time no longer,’ compare lIxv. 7, ‘Then all time shall perish, and the years,’ &c.: xxxiii. 2, ‘That... there should

be... atime of not-counting, endless, with neither years, nor months,’ &c. Finally, in the T. Lev. iii. 2 we have avenging powers in the third heaven: éy air@ eicl mavta ra avetpata TOV eTaywyav eis Exdiknow TSV dvépwr,... ol TaxOevrTes eis Nucpav Kploews, ToLHoaL eKdlKnow ...

Tols mvevpacr Ths TAdyns. With these compare the angels of punishment in the third heaven in x. 3. With the statement from Enoch in T. Dan v. 5, 6 rév mvevudrewr tis tovnpias. ~Avéyvav yap ev BiB "Evox Tod dixkalov, dru 6 dpxev tydv 6 Latavas éoriy we might compare xviii. 3, ‘ These are the Grigori (i.e. "Eypnyopot) who with their prince Satanail rejected the Lord of light.” In the T. Naph. iv. 1-2 the authority of Enoch is claimed by the writer as follows: “Avéyvay éy ypapy Evéy, bri kalye ipeis amoorncecOe amd Kuplov, mopevdpevor Kata macav dvoplay eOvav, Kal Towjoete Tacay Tovnplay Yoddpwv. 2. kat éma&er kvpros tyiv aixpadrwolav ... €ws avaddoet kUpios Tavtas tas. This may be a loose adaptation to later times of 2 Enoch xxxiv. 2, 3. The quotation in T. Sim. v. 4 is probably derived from the same source, and also that in T. Benj. 9 trovod 5é Kat mpdges od Karas ev tyiv EveoOar, and Adywv "Evdy tod srxalov' mopvedoete yap Topvelay LYoddpwv, cal amwdrciobe Ews Bpaxd (so B S}, and practically c). The words in T. Jud. xviii. 1-2 avéyvwv év BiBrous ’Evox T08 dicaiov (so B A S}, but not a), doa Kaka Tojoete ev Tals eoydras Huepas. pvddkacbe ody, réxva pov, and THs Topyveias may likewise be founded upon it. The loose and inaccurate character of the quotations may in part be accounted for as follows.

Although it is a matter of demonstration that a considerable part of the book was written originally in Greek, it seems no less sure that certain portions of it were founded on Hebrew originals. Such an hypothesis seems necessary owing to the above Enochic quotations which appear in the Testaments of the XII Patriarchs. For the fact that the latter work was written in Hebrew obliges us to conclude that its author or authors drew upon Hebrew originals in the quotations from Enoch. I have not attempted in the present work to discriminate the portions derived from Hebrew originals. For such a task we have not sufficient materials, and what we have, moreover, have not been preserved with sufficient accuracy.

But there is further evidence in this diceutaie Many of the most notable statements regarding Enoch in 2 Enoch are to be found in later Hebrew writings. Now it is hardly conceivable that these traditions were borrowed from a Greek source. We must assume that their source is native to Judaism, and that 2 Enoch is an outstanding and comparatively early representation of this tradition. This tradition appears in various forms in the ‘Book of Enoch’ (713m 15D), sometimes called the

‘Sepher Hekalot’ (i.e. the ‘Book of the Halls’), the ‘Life of Enoch’ (qn »n), and the Hekalot Rabbati.. We shall deal here only with the first and point out a few of the many points in which this work draws on 2 Enoch or rather upon the Hebrew source behind 2 Enoch.

In this work R. Ishmael (of the time of Hadrian) ascends through the six heavens and is received by the Metatron, i.e. Enoch, at the entrance to the seventh. Enoch tells him how he was translated (iii—v, vii-xvi) in a fiery chariot to heaven in order there to bear witness against his wicked contemporaries: how God transfigured him and made him like one of the archangels (cf. 2 Enoch xxii. 6°-10): how he had been instructed in the mysteries of creation, in things past and to come (cf. 2 Enoch xxiv—xxxiii. 2): how God abode under the tree of life, when Adam was driven forth from Paradise (cf. 2 Enoch viii. 3): how Adam and his contemporaries saw the heavenly glory till the fall of the angels (cf. 2 Enoch xxxii. 2). In xviii-xxii the seven heavens are described, the courses of the sun, moon, and stars. Even the three heavens mentioned in 2 Enoch xxi. 6—xxii. 1— only in the A recension as the eighth,ninth, and tenth, i.e. Muzaloth, Kuchavim, Aravoth—are reproduced here, but with a difference: Muzaloth and Kuchavim are placed below the seven heavens and Aravoth above them. This Jewish work was published by Jellinek, 2. H. 1873, v. 170-190; and under the title man ap at Lemberg in 1864 and Warsaw in 1876.!

Again we find a large amount of material has been borrowed from 2 Enoch by the 72’ md33 which is printed in Jellinek’s 6.4.17, 9 sqq. This work tells of Moses’ ascent to heaven, after Metatron has transformed his body into a fiery figure like to that of the angels. In the first heaven Moses sees waters, and also windows by which are let in and out all the things pertaining to human life and its needs. In the second heaven he sees the angels who control the clouds, the winds, and the rain; in the third, the angels placed over vegetation; in the fourth, those over the earth, sun, moon, stars, planets, and spheres. The seventh heaven, we observe, is called ‘Arabot’. Moses is also privileged to view hell and Paradise. The angel Gabriel conducts him to hell. ‘There he sees the manifold torments and punishments of the different classes of sinners, those who were envious of their fellow men and bore false witness against them; women who exposed their charms to young men; sinners who committed adultery, theft, and murder; those who perjured themselves ; those who desecrated the Sabbath, despised the learned, and persecuted orphans ; those who committed sodomy and idolatry, or cursed their parents; those who took bribes, put their fellow men to shame, delivered up their brother-Israelite to the Gentile, and denied the oral law; those that ate all kinds of forbidden food; usurers; apostates, and blasphemers; those who wrote the ineffable name of God, and those who ate on Yom Kippur.’ In Paradise among other things Moses sees the guardian angel of Paradise sitting under the tree of life; also ‘the fountain of life welling forth from beneath the tree of life and dividing itself into four streams, and four rivers flowing under each throne, the first of honey, the second of milk, the third of wine, and the fourth of pure balsam.’!

§ 5. DATE AND AUTHORSHIP.

The question of the date has to a large extent been determined already. The passages presupposed by the Zestaments of the XII Patiriarchs must be of a pre-Christian date. These passages may belong to an older form of the Enoch tradition than 2 Enoch. 2 Enoch in its present form was written probably between 30 P.c. and A.D. 70. It was written after 30 B.C., for it makes use of Sirach, 1 Enoch, and the Book of Wisdom (see my edition pp. xxv. sq.), and before A.D. 70 ; for the temple is still standing. We may, therefore, reasonably assign its composition to the

The author was a Jew who lived in Egypt, probably in Alexandria. He belonged to the orthodox Hellenistic Judaism of his day. Thus he believed in the value of sacrifices, xlii. 6 ; lix. 1, 2; Ixvi. 2; but he is careful to enforce enlightened views regarding them, xlv. 3, 4; Ixi. 4, 5; in the law, lii. 8,9; and likewise in a blessed immortality, 1. 2; Ixv. 6, 8-10; in which the righteous shall wear ‘the raiment of God’s glory’, xxii. 8. In questions affecting the origin of the earth, sin, death, &c., he allows himself the most unrestricted freedom and borrows freely from every quarter. Thus, Platonic (xxx. 16, note), Egyptian (xxv. 2 note), and Zend (lviii. 4-6 notes), elements are adopted into his system. The result is naturally syncretistic.

§ 6. SOME OF THE AUTHOR’S VIEWS ON CREATION, ANTHROPOLOGY, AND ETHICS.

God in the beginning created the world out of nothing, xxiv. 2.*. (For a detailed account of each day’s creations see xxv-xxx.) In this creation He made seven heavens, xxx. 2, 3, and all the

1 See Jewish Encyc. i. 676-7, whence this account is derived. 2 Or else formed it out of pre-existing elements, xxv. 1, where we have an adaptation of the egg theory of the

universe.

angelic hosts—the latter were created on the first day—and all animal and plant life, and finally man on the sixth day. After His work on the six days God rested on the seventh. This six days of work followed by a seventh of rest is at once a history of the past and a forecasting of the future. As the world was made in six days, so its history would be accomplished in 6,000 years, and as the six days of creation were followed by one of rest, so the 6,000 years of the world’s history would be followed by a rest of 1,000 years. On its close would begin the eighth eternal day of blessedness when time should be no more, xxxii. 2—xxxili. 2.

As regards man, all the souls of men were created before the foundation of the world, xxiii. 5, and alsoa future place of abode in heaven or hell for every individual soul, xlix. 2; lviii. 5 ; Ixi. 2. The age was resolved for man’s sake, lxv. 3 (B). When Wisdom made man of seven substances, xxx. 8, at God’s command, God gave him the name Adam from the four quarters of the earth—dvaroay, dvots, ApKros, HeonuBpla—xxx. 13. Man’s soul was created originally good, and while in the Garden he could see the angels in heaven, xxxi. 2. Free-will was bestowed upon him, and the knowledge of good and evil. He was likewise instructed in the Two Ways of light and darkness, and then left to mould his own destiny, xxx. 15. But the incorporation of the soul in the body with its necessary limitations biased its preferences in the direction of evil, and death came in as the fruit of sin, xxx. 16. Men and angels will be judged and punished for every form of sin!, xl. 12, 13; xlvi. 3; Ixv. 6; but the righteous will escape the last judgement, Ixv. 8; Ixvi. 7; and will be gathered in eternal life, Ixv. 8, and will be seven times brighter than the sun, Ixvi. 7, and they will have no labour, nor sickness, nor sorrow, nor anxiety, nor need, and an incorruptible paradise shall be their protection and their eternal habitation, Ixv. 9,10. As for sinners, hell is prepared for them as an eternal inheritance, x. 4,6. And there is no intercession of departed saints for the living, lili. 1.

In an ethical regard there are many noble sentiments to be found in our author, but generally in a very unliterary form. The Slavonic Version is, no doubt, partially to be blamed here. I will append here an outline of a man’s ethical duties with sundry beatitudes according to our author. Every man should work ; for blessed is he who beholds the labour of his own hands, but cursed is he who looks to undo the labours of another, lii. 7,8. And men, likewise, should be impartially just ; for blessed is he who executes a just judgement, xlii. 7. And men should also practise charity and beneficence. They should not hide their silver in the earth, but assist the faithful man in his affliction, li. 2, and stretch out their hands to the orphan, the widow and the stranger, li. 1, and give bread to the hungry, and clothe the naked, and raise the fallen,and walk without blame before the face of the Lord, ix. Furthermore, men should not swear either by heaven or earth or by any other creature which God made, but by a word, yea, yea, or nay, nay, xlix. 1; neither should they avenge themselves, 1. 4, nor abuse and calumniate their neighbour, lii. 2; but endure every affliction and every evil word and attack for the sake of the Lord, |. 3; li. 3. Moreover, they should shun pride: for God hates the proud, I]xiii. 4; and walk in long-suffering, in humility, in faith and truth, in sickness, in abuse, in temptation, in nakedness, in privation, loving one another till they depart from this age of ills, Ixvi. 6. Finally, whereas one man is more honourable than another, either on the ground of cunning or of strength, of purity or wisdom, of comeliness or understanding, let it be heard everywhere that none is better than he who fears God, xliii. 2, 3.

§ 7. ON THE VALUE OF THE BOOK IN ELUCIDATING CONTEMPORARY AND LATER RELIGIOUS THOUGHT. See my edition, pp. xxix—xlvii.

Charles and Morfill. Zhe Look of the Secrets of Enoch, translated from the Slavonic by W. R. Morfill, M.A. and edited with Introduction, Notes, and Indices, by R. H. Charles, Oxford, 1896. Bonwetsch. Das slawische Henochbuch (Abhandlungen der Géttinger Gesellsch. der Wissensch., philol.-hist. Klasse, Neue Folge, Bd. i, No. 3). Berlin, 1896. Harnack. Gesch. der altchristl. Literatur, IJ, i. 564 sq. Encyc. Britt.” Littmann. /ewish Encyc. v. 181-2.

1 Observe that men will be specially punished for ill-treatment of animals, lviii. 4-6.

THE BOOK OP THE SaCRETS OF EN@GH

Of Enoch’s life and dream.

THERE was a wise man, a great artificer, and the Lord conceived love for him and received him, that he should behold the uppermost dwellings and be an eye-witness of the wise and great and inconceivable and immutable realm of God Almighty, of the very wonderful and glorious and bright and many-eyed station of the Lord’s servants, and of the inaccessible throne of the Lord, and of the degrees and manifestations of the incorporeal hosts, and of the ineffable ministration of the multitude of the elements, and of the various apparition and inexpressible singing of the host of Cherubim, and

of the boundless light. A

At that time, he said, when my 165th year was completed, I begat my son Mathusal. After this too I lived two hundred years and completed of all the years of my life three hundred and sixty- 2 five years. On the first day of the first month I

was in my house alone and was resting on my 3 couch and slept. And when I was asleep, great

distress came up into my heart, and I was weeping with my eyes in sleep, and I could not understand what this distress was, or what would 4 happen to me. And there appeared to me two men, exceeding big, so that I never saw such on 5 earth ; their faces were shining like the sun, their eyes too were like a burning light, and from their lips was fire coming forth fwith clothing and singing of various kinds} in appearance purple, their wings were brighter than gold, their hands whiter than snow. They were standing at the head of my couch and began to call me by my name. And I arose from my sleep and saw clearly those two men standing in front of me. 7 And I saluted them and was seized with fear and the appearance of my face was changed from terror, and those men said to me: ‘ Have courage, Enoch, do not fear; the eternal God sent us to

Meroe se Ct, TBs ixxxiii3.) 5: GLACES, «| ) = Stil. eyes, &c. fire coming forth. Cf. Rev. ix. 17; xi. 5. of various kinds (A). kinds’. various (B), i.e. differing from one another. their wings > B.

whiter than snow. Cf. 1 En. cvi. 2,10; Apoc. Petri.

7. appearance... changed. Dan. v. 6, 9, Io. 8. Have courage.

do not fear.

Now behold the books of the secret of God, the revelations of Enoch.

At that time when three hundred and sixty-11 five years were fulfilled to me, on a certain day 2 of the second month I was alone in my house.

I was in great trouble, weeping with my eyes, 3 and was resting, asleep on my couch, and there 4 appeared to me two very big men, such as I have never seen on earth—their faces shone like the 5 sun, their eyes were like burning candles, out of their mouths was fire coming forth, their clothes and singing were various, and their arms like golden wings—at the head of my couch, and called upon me by my name.

And I having awoken from my sleep and stood 6 up tat my coucht bowed down to them and 7 covered my face from terror.

And the two men spoke to me: ‘ Have courage, 8 Enoch, do not fear, the Eternal Lord hath sent

Chixise me Revi oe. 4 Byzra vil. 97.

The next clause is corrupt. The text has vazdayaniya = ‘of distribution’.

Emend to vas(d)ntya = ‘of different

Cf. Matt. xiv. 27. The LXX renders thus the Hebrew ‘fear not’.

THE BOOK’ OF THE@BECRETS OFSE NOCH 153-172

thee, and lo! thou shalt to-day ascend with us

9 into heaven, and thou shalt tell thy sons and all thy household all that they shall do without thee on earth in thy house, and let no one seek thee

ro till the Lord return thee to them. And I made haste to obey them and went out from my house, and made to the doors, as it was ordered me, and summoned my sons Mathusal and Regim and Gaidad and made known to them all the marvels those sex had told me.

The Instruction. How Enoch instructed his

sons.

21 Listen to me, my children, I know not whither

2 1 go, or what will befall me; now therefore, my children, I tell you: turn not from God before the face of the vain, who made not Heaven and earth, for these shall perish and those who

3 worship them, and may the Lord make confident

4 your hearts in the fear of him. And now, my children, let no one think to seek me, until the Lord return me to you.

Of Enoch’s assumption; how the angels took him into the first heaven.

xr It came to pass, when Enoch had told his sons, that the angels took him on to their wings and bore him up on to the first heaven and placed

2 him on the clouds. And there I looked, and again I looked higher, and saw the ether, and

3 they placed me on the first heaven and showed me a very great Sea, greater than the earthly sea.

Of the Angels ruling the stars.

They brought before my face the elders and rulers of the stellar orders, and showed me two hundred angels, who rule the stars and ¢heir 2 services to the heavens, and fly with their wings

and come round all those who sail.

ascend with us. g. sons. Io. Regim. See lvii. 2.

Gaidad. Gen. iv. 18 (LXX) gives this as the son of the Enoch who is Cain’s grandson.

II. 1. know not whither. 2. turn not from God.

Ch ivilesse

vain gods... who made neither heaven nor earth (B).

3. make confident, &c.

DIN ae:

Prov. xiv. 26.

us to thee, behold to-day thou shalt go up with us on to the heavens.

Tell thy sons and thy household all that they 9 must do in thy house, and let no one seek thee, till the Lord return thee to them.

And I listened and went out, summoned my 10 sons Mefusailom and Regim, and told them all that those two men had spoken to me.

And behold, my children, I know not whither 2 1 I go, nor what will befall me, and now, my chil- 2 dren, turn not away from God, walk before the Lord’s face and observe his judgements, and bow not down to vain gods, to gods who made neither heaven nor earth, they shall perish.

Keep your hearts true to terror of the Lord, 3 and now, my children, let no one seek me till 4 the Lord return me to you.

Enoch’s ascent on to the first heaven,

And it happened when I had spoken to my 31 sons, and the two men summoned me, and took me on to their wings and carried me'up on to the first heaven and set me down there,

and brought 4 1 me before the face of the elder, the ruler of the stellar orders, and he showed me all their courses, and their passages from year to year, and he showed me two hundred angels, and he showed me there a very great sea, greater than the earthly 2 sea, and angels were flying with their wings.

1 En. Ixxxi. 5, 6; xci. 1 mentions them, but not by name.

So B rightly omits.

Cf. Acts xiv. 153 Jer. x. 11 ; also Ps. xcviigpulieae

In 1 En. xiv. 8 the clouds invite and the winds raise Enoch.

2. the ether = the firmament of Asc. Isa. vii. 9, i.e. the first heaven.

3. a very great Sea. Cf. Rev. iv. 6; xv. 2.

In Test. Levi ii. 7 this sea lies between the first and second heavens.

IV. 1. the elders, staréishina = ‘elder’, i.e. one set in command over.

the rulers of the stellar orders.

For another account of these see 1 En, Ixxxii. 9-18, 20.

Note the divergence

of B, which makes the elder, or special angel, of the stars act as guide to Enoch in the first heaven.

two hundred angels.

In x En. vi. 5 this is the number of the apostatizing angels.

EME BOOK’ OF “THE SECRETS OF "ENOCH 6018, 1

Of how the Angels keep the store-houses of the | snow. 51 And here I looked down and saw the treasure- He showed me the store-house of cloud, whence 5 !

houses of the snow, and the angels who keep _ it goes up and goes out, and showed me all the 2 their terrible store-houses, and the clouds whence | treasure-houses of snow and cold, and terrible they come out and into which they go. angels guarding the treasure-houses,

Of the dew and of the olive-oil, and various flowers.

61 They showed me the treasure-house of the and he 6 1 dew, like oil of the olive, and the appearance of | showed me the treasure-houses of the dew, like its form, as of all the flowers of the earth; further | olive oil, and angels guarding their treasuremany angels guarding the treasure-houses of | houses, and their clothing like all the flowers of these things, and how they are made to shut | the earth. and open.

Of how Enoch was taken on to the second heaven. Enoch’s ascent to the second heaven.

71 And those men took me and led me up on to And the two men placed me ¢hence and carried 7 1 the second heaven, and showed me darkness, | me up on to the second heaven, and showed me greater than earthly darkness, and there I saw | there prisoners kept of the measureless judgement, prisoners hanging, watched, awaiting the great | and I saw the condemned weeping, and I spoke 2

2 and boundless judgement, and these angels were | to the two men who were with me: ‘ Wherefore dark-looking, more than earthly darkness, and | are these tormented?’ and the two men said to incessantly making weeping through all hours, | me: ‘These are the Lord’s apostates, not listen- 3 and I said to the men who were with me: | ing to the Lord’s voice, but taking counsel of

3 ‘ Wherefore are these incessantly tortured?’ they | their own will.’ answered me: ‘These are God’s apostates, who obeyed not God’s commands, but took counsel with their own will, and turned away with their And I was very sorry for them. And the 4 prince, who also zs fastened on the fifth heaven. | angels bowed down to me and said tome: ‘Man

4 And I felt great pity for them, and they saluted | of God, would that thou mightst pray for us to me, and said to me: ‘Man of God, pray for us to | God!’

5 the Lord’; and I answered to them: ‘Who am And I answered them: ‘Who am I, a mortal 5 I, a mortal man, that I should pray for angels? | man, that I should pray for angels? who knows who knoweth whither I go, or what will befall | whither I go or what will befall me or who pray

me? or who will pray for me?’ for me?’ Of the assumption of Enoch to the third heaven. The ascent on to the third heaven. 8: And those men took me thence, and led me And the two men placed me thence and carried 8 1

up on to the third heaven, and placed me there; | me up on to the third heaven and set me down

V. 1. treasure-houses of the snow. Job xxxviii. 22; cf. 1 En. lx. 17, 18—in the second heaven according to

Test. Levi iii. 2. store-house of cloud (B). Cf.1 En. Ix. 19. A seems corrupt.

VI. 1. treasure-house of the dew. Cf. 1 En. Ix. 20,

VII. 1. darkness... prisoners ... watched, awaiting the great and boundless judgement. Cf. 2 Pet. ii, 4; Jude 6, and possibly Test. Levi iii. 2. The angels who sinned with women are imprisoned under the earth in 1 En. x as in 2 En. xviii. 7; those who sinned by ambition are imprisoned in the second heaven. See, however, xviii. 4 (note).

3. took counsel with their own will. Cf. Isa. xlvi. Io.

their prince = Satanail, xviii. 3. fifth heaven. These angels had originally been in the fifth heaven, see xviii. But it is hard to see why their leader alone should be imprisoned there, when they are reduced to the second. See xxix. 3-5 (notes).

4. The angels ask Enoch to intercede for them, asin 1 En. xiii. 4.

Man of God. Deut. xxxiii. I.

Geet i En, xv. 2.

VIII. 1. Paradise is here in the third heaven, as in 2 Cor. xii. 2, 4.

and I looked downwards, and saw the produce of these places, such as has never been known for 2 goodness. And I saw all the sweet-flowering trees and beheld their fruits, which were sweet-

smelling, and all the foods borne dy them bubbling |

3 with fragrant exhalation.

And in the midst of |

the trees that of life, in that place whereon the |

Lord rests, when he goes up into paradise; and this tree is of ineffable goodness and fragrance, 4 and adorned more than every existing thing ; and on all sides z¢ zs in form gold-looking and vermilion and fire-like and covers all, and it has produce from all fruits. Its root is in the garden 5 at the earth’s end.

springs come out which send forth honey and

milk, and their springs send forth oil and wine, | and they separate into four parts, and go round |

6 with quiet course, and go down into the paradise of Eden, between corruptibility and incorruptibility. and havea revolution to their circle even as other

7 elements. And here there is no unfruitful tree,

8 and every place is blessed. And ¢here are three hundred angels very bright, who keep the garden, and with incessant sweet singing and never-silent voices serve the Lord throughout all days and hours. And I said: ‘How very sweet is this place, and those men said to me:

The showing to Enoch of the place of the righteous and compassionate.

righteous, who endure all manner of offence from those that exasperate their souls, who avert their eyes from iniquity, and make righteous judgement, and give bread to the hungering, and cover the naked with clothing, and raise up the fallen, and help injured orphans, and who walk without fault before the face of the Lord, and serve him

This place, O Enoch, is prepared for the |

And paradise is between | corruptibility and incorruptibility. And two |

And thence they go forth along the earth, |

in the midst of Paradise, and a place unknown in goodness of appearance.

Every tree sweet-flowering, every fruit ripe, all 2 manner of food perpetually bubbling with all pleasant smells, and four rivers flowing by with quiet course, and every growth is good, bearing fruit for food, and the tree of life is at that 3 place, at which God rests when he goes up into Paradise, and that tree is ineffable for the goodness of its sweet scent, and another olive tree 5 alongside was always discharging the oil of its fruit.

And there is no tree there without fruit, and 7 every tree is blessed. And the angels guarding 8 the Paradise are very bright and serve the Lord all days with incessant voice and sweet singing. And I said : ‘ How very sweet is this place !’

And the two men answered me: ‘ This place, Enoch, is prepared for the righteous, who suffer offence in their lives and spite in their souls, and avert their eyes from injustice and make righteous judgement, to give bread to the hungering, to clothe the naked and cover them with a garment, to raise the fallen, and help the wronged, who walk before God’s face and serve him alone ; now

unknown in goodness of appearance (B), i.e. the like of which is not known anywhere else. 2. all the sweet-flowering trees, &c. Cf. Gen. ii. 9; 1 En, xxix, 2; Apoc. Mosis xxxviil. 4.

all the foods. 3. in the midst of the trees that of life.

Cf. ‘twelve manner of fruits’, Rev. xxii. 2. y : e : For the ‘tree of life’ see Gen. ii. 9. For this familiar feature in

Jewish Apocalypse cf. 1 En. xxv. 4, 5; Rev. ii. 7; xxii. 2, 14; 4 Ezra vii, 53; viii. 52; Test. Levi xviii. 11. See also

Epiphanius, aer. 66, p. 278, bans the doctrine as Manichaean.

in that place whereon the Lord rests. Cf. Apoc. Pauli (ed. Tisch., p. 64) d€vdpoy mappeyeOn @patov, ev @ émavamavero TO TvEdpa Gyov, and Apoc. Mosis xxii. 4 kal 6 Opdvos rod Oeov drov iv TO EvNov THs Cons everpemiceto. é Re 5. between corruptibility and incorruptibility, i.e. at the earth’s end. Cf. ‘ the ends of the earth,’ 1 En, xxxiil, 1,

to which Enoch proceeds from the garden of righteousness. § 4 £ These are taken over into the Apoc. Pauli (ed. Tisch., p. 52), and also into the Koran xlvii, where,

four rivers (B).

however, a river of incorruptible water replaces the river of oil. ; conception what were originally two different conceptions—the earthly and the heavenly Paradise. The latter occurs in I En, Ix. 8, Ixi. 12, Ixx. 3.

Cf. xxii. 8 ; Evang. Nicod. ii. 3.

the older idea: Gen. ii. 8-17; 1 En. xxxii. 3-6; Ixxvii. 3. another olive tree (B). 1X. 1. prepared for the righteous,

avert their eyes from iniquity. Ps. cxix. 37. make righteous judgement. Ezek. xviii. 8.

The writer seems to be bringing into one organic The former was

help injured orphans. walk without fault. Luke i. 6.

Chlsasis 17in) Cr. Sxilngymhos

alone, and for them is prepared this place for | for these is this place prepared for an eternal eternal inheritance. inheritance.’

Here they showed Enoch the terrible place and various tortures.

10: And those two men led me up on to the And the two men lifted me up thence, and 10 1

Northern side, and showed me there a very | carried me up to the north of the heaven, and

2terrible place, and ‘there were all. manner of | showed me there a very terrible place, all torture tortures in that place: cruel darkness and un- | and torment ; at that place ¢here was darkness 2 illumined gloom, and there is no light there, but | and gloom, and there is no light there, but fire murky fire constantly flameth aloft, and there is | and flame, and obscurity comes down at that a fiery river coming forth, and that whole place | place and ¢here zs cold and ice and dungeons, and 3 is everywhere fire, and everywhere there is frost | cruel relentless angels carrying arms and _tor-

3 and ice, thirst and shivering, while the bonds are | menting without mercy. very cruel, and the angels fearful and merciless, | bearing angry weapons, merciless torture,and I | And I said: ‘ How very terrible is this place. 4

4 Said: ¢ Woe, woe, how very terrible is this place, And the two men answered me: ‘This place, and those men said to me: This place,O Enoch, | Enoch, is prepared for the dishonest, that work is prepared for those who dishonour God, who | godless things on earth, who make witchcraft on earth practise sin against nature, which is | and sorcery and boast of their works, who steal 5 child-corruption after the sodomitic fashion, | men’s souls secretly, who sever a binding yoke, magic-making, enchantments and devilish witch- | who grow rich by doing violence, from the procrafts, and who boast of their wicked deeds, | perty of the others, who being able to feed, kill

5 Stealing, lies, calumnies, envy, rancour, fornica- | the hungering through famine, and being able to tion, murder, and who, accursed, steal the souls | clothe the naked, took away their clothes, who of men, who, seeing the poor take away their recognized not their creator, but bowed down to 6 goods and themselves wax rich, injuring them | vain gods: for all these is this place prepared for other men’s goods ; who being able to satisfy | for an eternal inheritance.’ the empty, made the hungering to die; being

6 able to clothe, stripped the naked; and who knew not their creator, and bowed down to soulless (sc. lifeless) Gods, who cannot see nor hear, vain gods, who also built hewn images and bow down to unclean handiwork, for all these is prepared this place amongst these, for eternal inheritance.

eternal inheritance. Cf. Heb. ix. 15.

X. 1-6. The idea of evil in heaven is foreign to modern thought, but we find Satan presenting himself in heaven in Job i. 7, 8, while Eph, vi. 12 speaks of ‘the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places’. Rev. xii. 7, 8, 9 represents the end of this state of things. Satan is cast down and henceforth limited to the earth, xii. 12. The older view is found in Test. Isaac 146, 147; Test. Jacob 153, but was later banished from both Christian and Jewish thought.

2, darkness, &c. Cf. Apoc. Petri 12; Apoc. Pauli, pp. 57 and 62.

gloom (B). 7’g/a can also mean fog.

fiery river. In 1 En. xiv. 19; Dan. vii. 10 this idea is connected with God’s holiness, but here it connotes punishment, like the Greek Pyriphlegethon. Cf. Rev. xix. 20; xx. Io, 14, 15; xxi. 8; Or. Sibyll. ii, 196-200, 252-3, 286; iii. 84; viii. 411; Apoc. Petri 8; Apoc. Pauli, p.57. Clem. Alex. Exc. 7eod. 38 combines the two ideas.

fire...and frost andice. Cf. 1 En. xiv. 13, where God’s dwelling is described.

3. For angels of destruction, cf. 2 Sam. xxiv. 16; 2 Kings xix. 35; 1 Chron. xxi. 15; and probably Sirach xxxix, 28. In i En. liii. 3, 4; lvi. 1; Ixii, 11; Ixiii. 1, a class of evil angels whose sole function is to punish first appears, and the idea seems already a familiar one. Cf. Rev. ix. 11, 15 (Apollyon) ; xvi. In Matt. xiii. 49, however, good angels cast the wicked into the furnace of fire. For later occurrences of the view cf. Test. Levi iii. 3; Apoc. Petri 6, 8. Test. Abraham A. xii follows our text closely.

4. prepared, &c. Contrast Matt. xxv. 41.

4, 5. For the sins cf. Rev. xxi. 8; Apoc. Petri 17; Test. Isaac (ed. James, p. 148). One is too gross to appear in the text.

5. soulsofmen. Cf. Rev. xviii. 13.

I

THE BOOK ‘OF THE(SECRENTS (OF ENOCH: Tis tr—I2i 3

Here they took Enoch up on to the fourth heaven where is the course of sun and moon.

Those men took me, and led me up on to the fourth heaven, and showed me all the successive goings, and all the rays of the light of sun and moon. And I measured their goings, and compared their light, and saw that the sun’s light is greater than the moon’s. Its circle and the wheels on which it goes always, like a wind going past with very marvellous speed, and day and night it has no rest. Its passage and return are accompanied by four great stars, avd each star has under it a thousand stars, to the right of the sun’s wheel, avd dy four to the left, each having under it a thousand stars, altogether eight thousand, issuing with the sun continually. And by day fifteen myriads of angels attend it, and by night a thousand. And six-winged ones issue with the angels before the sun’s wheel into the fiery flames, and a hundred angels kindle the sun and set it alight.

Of the very marvellous elements of the sun.

And I looked and saw other flying elements of the sun, whose names ave Phoenixes and Chalkydri, marvellous and wonderful, with feet and tails in the form of a lion, and a crocodile’s head, their appearance zs empurpled, like the rainbow; their size zs nine hundred measures, their wings are like those of angels, each has twelve, and they attend and accompany the sun, bearing heat and dew, as it is ordered them from God. Thus ¢he sux revolves and goes, and rises under the heaven, and its course goes under the earth with the light of its rays incessantly.

XI. 1. fourth heaven. and Michael who offered daily sacrifice.

the successive goings . . . of sun and moon. 2. The sun has sevenfold more light, &c. (B).

the wheels (‘the chariots’, B).

dav and night it has no rest.

3,4. Not ini En.

5. Cit Bans Isocveras

XII. 1. Phoenixes and Chalkydri.

This is the only reference to these creatures in literature.

Enoch’s ascent on to the fourth heaven.

And the two men lifted me up thence, and 111 carried me up on to the fourth heaven, and showed me all the courses and goings and all the rays of the light both of the sun and of the moon, their measurements and their goings, and I saw their goings.

The sun has sevenfold more light than the 2 moon and their circles are the chariots on which each of them rides just as the wind goes, and ever going and returning they have rest neither by day nor by night.

And / saw four great stars on the right of 3 the sun’s chariot and four on the left going with 4 the sun always, and angels going before the sun’s chariot.

Flying spirits, each having twelve wings, and 12 1 each of the angels that rolls the chariot has twelve wings, carrying dew and heat, when the Lord commands them to descend on to the earth with the sun’s rays. ;

This, according to Chag7ga 12», contained the heavenly Jerusalem, the temple, the altar,

Cf. 1 En, lxxii-ixxviii. Cir En. Ixxir. 37. Cir Ene lxatee sy xttt, 2) xxv. 13) xxii 32 1 Enxle7eixtions7.

The phoenix was

always solitary, Tac. Az. vi. 28. Jewish authorities find a reference to the phoenix in Job xxix. 18, where they render 21ND ‘as the phoenix’ and not ‘as the sand’, The fable was believed in by 1 Clem. ad Cor, xxv; Tertullian, de Res.

Carn, xiii, &c.

The poem De Phoenice of the pseudo-Lactantius has many apparent references to our text.

phoenix is, e.g. a ‘ satelles Phoebi’ (33, cf. xii. 2 here), it greets the sun at rising (43-50) and claps its wings (51-4).

Chaxviinle

For the two different legends in the Talmud about the phoenix’s origin see Hamburger, 2.-£. fiir den

Talmud, 508-9, and on the question generally, Lightfoot, &c., on 1 Clem. ad Cov. xxv.

Chalkydri, seemingly a transliteration of Xadkvdpa, brazen hydras or serpents.

These are classed with the

Cherubim in 1 En. xx. 7,and so = the Seraphim of Isa. vi. 2,6. These then were perhaps conceived as winged dragons,

as the analogy of the animal-like forms of the Cherubim in Ezek. i. 5-11 would lead us to suppose.

The Serpent as

an object of reverence or a symbol of healing occurs in Num. xxi. 8,9; 2 Kings xviii, 4; Matt. x. 16; John ill, L453 in a physically bad sense in Num. xxi. 6; Deut. viii. 15; Isa. xiv. 29, xxx. 6; and morally as a designation of Satan

in Rev. xii. 9. in the four living creatures of Rev. iv. 6-8. feet and tails ... ofa lion.

It is significant that neither Cherubim nor Seraphim occur in the N.T.; their characteristics are fused

The Cherubim’s feet in Ezek. i. 7 are like calves’ feet.

2. each has twelve, i.e. twice as many wings as the angel of xi. 4.

bearing heat and dew. Contrast 1 En. Ix. 20. 3. goes under the earth. fourth heaven. See xiv. 2 (note).

incessantly. Cf. ‘always’, xi. 2.

This seems to conflict with xxx. 3, where the sun’s goings would appear to be in the

The angels took Enoch and placed him in the east at the sun’s gates.

Those men bore me away to the east, and And the two men carried me to the East of placed me at the sun’s gates, where the sun goes | the heaven and showed me the gates through forth according to the regulation of the seasons | which the sun goes up at the appointed seasons and the circuit of the months of the whole year, | and after the completion of every month and and the number of the thours} day and night. | after the shortening to the lengthening of the days And I saw six gates open, each gate having | and nights, six great gates, and the greatness of sixty-one stadia and a quarter of one stadium, | the proportions of those gates, and | could not and I measured them truly, and understood their | comprehend their greatness; and of those through size to be so much, through which the sun goes | which the sun goes up and goes over to the West forth, and goes to the west, and is made even, | through the first gates it goes out forty-two

4 and rises throughout all the months, and turns | days, through the second gates thirty-five,

back again from the six gates according to the | through the fourth gates thirty-five days, through

5 succession of the seasons; thus ¢e period of the | the fifth thirty-five, through the sixth gates .

whole year is finished after the returns of the four | at the going out of the season the years finish at 4

seasons. the returns of the seasons.

They took Enoch to the West.

And again those men led me away to the And the two men carried me up to the West western parts, and showed me six great gates | of the heaven and showed me six great open open corresponding to the Eastern gates, opposite | gates after the Eastern entrance and opposite it, to where the sun sets, according to the number | through which (sc. gates) the sun goes down there of the days three hundred and sixty-five and a | after the going up from the Eastern gates and quarter. Thus again it goes down to the western | according to the number of days, thus it goes down gates, and draws away its light, the greatness of | through the Western gates. When it goes out its brightness, under the earth; for since the | fromthe Western gates, four angels take the crown crown of its shining is in heaven with the Lord, | and carry it up to the Lord, and the sun turns its

3 and guarded by four hundred angels, while the | chariot and goes out without light, and they put

sun goes round on wheel under the earth, and | the crown on it again a¢ the Eastern gates. stands seven great hours in night, and spends half z¢s course under the earth, when it comes to the eastern approach in the eighth hour of the night, it brings its lights, and the crown of shining, and the sun flames forth more than fire.

The elements of the sun, the Phoenixes and Chalkydri broke into song.

Then the elements of the sun, called Phoenixes and Chalkydri break into song, therefore every bird flutters with its wings, rejoicing at the giver of light, and they broke into song at the command of the Lord.

The giver of light comes to give brightness to

XIII. 1. the sun’s gates, i.e. the six of the next verse. Cf. 1 En. Ixxii. 2-37, which is no doubt the original of this chapter.

2-5. Corrupt.

5. four seasons. Cf, xl.6. Two of the four are dealt with in 1 En. Ixxxii. 15-20.

XIV. 1. three hundred and sixty-five anda quarter. The writer of 1 En. Ixxii--lxxxii knew of the solar year, but refused to recognize it from national prejudice.

2. In 1 En. Ixxii. 5 the sun returns after sunset through the north to the east to rise again. In our text, however, during the night the sun, which revolves through the fourth heaven xi, xxx. 3, goes under the earth. It is without light at night, as its crown is taken from it, and its own light is under the earth. The sun cannot shine before the Light of the Universe, Apoc. Mosis xxxvi. 3. The crown is the added light bestowed by God.

3. stands. We should expect ‘ceases from shining’; B has ‘ goes without light’.

spends half its course, i.e. apparently the seven hours, which are not hours of fixed duration. But it is hard to see why there should be sevex hours.

XV. 1. See xii. I (note). therefore every bird... light. A parenthetic reference to the songs of birds at sunrise.

THE BOOK OF THE SECRETS OF ENOCH 15. 2—I6: 6

the whole world, and the morning guard takes shape, which is the rays of the sun, and the sun of the earth goes out, and receives its brightness to light up the whole face of the earth, and they showed me this calculation of the sun’s going. And the gates which it enters, these are the great gates of the tcomputation of the hourst

4 of the year; for this reason the sun is a great

creation, whose circuit Jasts twenty-eight years, and begins again from the beginning.

They took Enoch and again placed him in the east at the course of the moon.

Those men showed me the other course, that of the moon, twelve great gates, crowned from west to east, by which the moon goes in and out of the customary times. It goes in at the first gate to the western places of the sun, by the first gates with ¢hirty-one days exactly, by the second gates with thirty-one days exactly, by the third with thirty days exactly, by the fourth with thirty days exactly, by the fifth with thirty-one days exactly, by the sixth with thirty-one days exactly, by the seventh with thirty days exactly, by the eighth with thirty-one days perfectly, by the ninth with thirty-one days exactly, by the tenth with thirty days perfectly, by the eleventh with thirty-one days exactly, by the twelfth with

3 twenty-eight days exactly. And it goes through

the western gates in the order and number of the

4 eastern, and accomplishes the three hundred and

sixty-five and a quarter days of the solar year, while the lunar year has three hundred and fiftyfour, and there are wanting ¢o z¢ twelve days of the solar circle, which are the lunar epacts of the whole year. [Thus, too, the great circle con-

6 tains five hundred and thirty-two years.| The

quarter of a day is omitted for three years, the fourth fulfils zt exactly. Therefore they are taken outside of heaven for three years and are not added to the number of days, because they

XVI. 1. Twelve great gates.

The two angels showed me this disposition of 15 3

the gates by which it goes up and goes out. These gates the Lord made for the taking of time and counting of the years for the sun.

And they showed me the other lunar disposi- 16 1

tion, all its courses, and the two men pointed out to me all its circuits, and they pointed out to me its gates, twelve eternal gates to the East, through which the moon enters at the usual seasons, thus also through the Western gates after going round and according to the number of the Eastern gates.

Thus it goes down also through the Western gates, and completes the year; therefore it goes in the year with three hundred and sixty-four days complete, and therefore it is called outside heaven, and the years are not reckoned in the number of the days, because the seasons of the year change.

These are the same as the gates of the sun in xiii, xiv.

2. This account cannot possibly apply to the moon, but applies perfectly to the sun, which must therefore be

understood as the subject.

The numbers when added together = 365, which accords with the statement in verse 4

that a solar year = 365+ days, while in verse 5 we proceed to the lunar year which amounts to 354 days.

5. 364 days complete (B). twelve days. More exactly 114.

[Thus, too, the great cycle contains five hundred and thirty-two years]. 1 They arose obviously from a marginal gloss.

they have no real connexion with the context.

This seems to be an error for 354 (A).

I have bracketed these words as The writer in this

chapter does not get beyond the Metonic cycle, whereas the great cycle of 532 years is produced by multiplying together the Metonic cycle of 19 years and the Solar cycle of 28 years. This great cycle is cailed the Dionysian or Great Paschal Period. As it includes all the variations in respect of the new moons and the dominical letters, it is consequently a period in which Easter and all the movable and immovable feasts would occur on the same day of the week and month as in the corresponding year of the preceding cycle. This cycle was first proposed by Victorius of Aquitaine, c. A.D. 457. It is obvious that any reference to such a cycle here is an intrusion.

6. the quarter, &c. Explanation of leap year.

because theyt change the time, &c. Hopelessly corrupt. : |

7. with its light (B). This seems to imply that her light is not borrowed from the sun as is taught in I En,

Ixxiii ; ‘ to the lights’ (A) seems meaningless.

THE BOOK OF THE SECRETS OP ENOCH 16, 6—18. 3

tchange the time of the years to two new months

towards completion, to two others towards |

7 diminutiont. And when the western gates are

finished, it returns and goes to the eastern to the lights, and goes thus day and night about the heavenly circles, lower than all circles, swifter than the heavenly winds, and spirits and elements

8 and angels flying ; each angel has six wings. It

has a sevenfold course in nineteen years.

Of the singings of the angels, which it is im- |

_ possible to describe.

In the midst of the heavens I saw armed soldiers, serving the Lord, with tympana and organs, with incessant voice, with sweét voice, with sweet and incessant vozce and various singing, which it is impossible to describe, and which astonishes every mind, so wonderful and marvellous is the singing of those angels, and I was delighted listening to it.

Of the taking of Enoch on to the fifth heaven.

The men took me on to the fifth heaven and placed me, and there I saw many and countless soldiers, called Grigori, of human appearance, and their size was greater than that of great giants

And when they jfinish the Western gates and it goes towards the Eastern with its light.

Thus their circle goes around like the heaven, and their chariot, on to which the wind mounts in its course, and flying spirits draw along their

chariot, six wings to each angel.

This is the lunar disposition.

And in the midst of the heaven I saw armed troops serving the Lord on cymbals and organs with incessant voice. And I was delighted listening Zo them.

Enoch’s ascent on to the fifth heaven.

i7 tr

And the men carried me up on to the fifth18 x

heaven, and I saw there many troops, Egoroi, and their appearance was like the human appearance and their size greater than that of great giants

? and their faces withered, and the silence of their mouths perpetual, and there was no service on the fifth heaven, and I said to the men who were with me: ‘Wherefore are these very withered and their faces melancholy, and their mouths silent, and wherefore is there no service on this heaven?’

3 And they said to me: These are the Grigori, who with their prince Satanail rejected the Lord of

each angel has six wings. twelve (xii. 2).

8. The reference is to the Metonic cycle, which consists of a period of nineteen solar years, after which the new moons happen on the same days of the year once more. As nineteen solar years 6,939°186 days 235 lunar months = nineteen lunar years and seven months, the solar and lunar years can be reconciled by intercalating seven lunar months at the close of the 5th, 8th, 11th, 13th, 16th, and 19th years of the cycle.

The moon’s attendant angels have sa wings, as the sun’s attendant creatures had

XVII. armed soldiers. The purpose for which they are armed is given in Test. Levi ili. 3, where, however, they are in the third heaven, not the fourth. They are rayOévres cis nuépay kpicews, roujoat exdiknow ev Trois mvevpact THS TavNs kai Tov BeXiap.

serving the Lord... various singing. of the fourth heaven .. . €v@ del duvor ro Oca mpoohépovra.

XVIII. 1. fifth heaven. Our text and Test. Levi iii. 7 differ absolutely as to the inhabitants of the fifth heaven. According to the latter the inhabitants are of dyyehor of Ghéportes Tas dmoKpioets Tois dyyéAows TOD Mpoga@mov Kupiov. This view, however, seems limited to the Test. Levi, whereas we find in Chag. 12» the same view expressed as here: i.e. in fy the fifth heaven are to be found ‘hosts of angels praising God by night, but keeping silent by day that God may hear the praises of Israel.’ The latter clause is a late Rabbinic idea. Again, in Clem. Alex. S¢vom. v. 11. 77, we find a fragment of the Apocalypse of Zephaniah which supports, and in all probability is based on, our text: dp’ odx 6yoa tadra Tois Ud Sopovia hexOcioe Tod mpodyrov; Kat avéhaBev pe veda Kal aynveyKev pe cis ovpavdy méumTov Kai eOe@pour dyyeXous Kaoupevous kupious .. . tuvovvras Gedy &ppynrov UYorov. This Apocalypse is extant in Thebaic in a fragmentary condition, but these fragments do not contain the passage just quoted.

_. Grigori. These are the Watchers, the "Eypyyopo, or O°, of whom we have so full accounts in 1 En. vi-xvi, xix, Ixxxvi.

3. The Grigori. These are the angels whose brethren rebelled and were confined in the second heaven. See vi. 3 (note). These Watchers rebelled against God before the angels were tempted to sin with the daughters of men. In other words, we have here the agents of the original revolt in heaven, the Satans ; and their leader is naturally named Satanail. These existed as evil agencies before the fall of the angels; for in 1 En. liv. 6 the guilt of the latter consisted in becoming subject to Satan. See 1 En. xl. 7 (note). The myth here, however, varies somewhat from that in 1 En. vi-xvi. The leaders in 1 En. vi-xvi are not Satans, but ‘ Watchers’, like their followers. In 1 En. Ixix, however, we have an account which harmonizes with our text. There we see that the superior angels had

This is the function assigned by Test. Levi iii. 8 to the inhabitants Note the dittography ‘ with sweet and incessant (voice) ’.

4 light, and after them are those who are held in great darkness on the second heaven, and three of them went down on to earth from the Lord’s throne, to the place Ermon, and broke through their vows on the shoulder of the hill Ermon and saw the daughters of men how good they are, and took

5 to themselves wives, and befouled the earth with their deeds, who in all times of their age made

6 lawlessness and mixing, and giants are born and marvellous big men and great enmity. And therefore God judged them with great judgement, and they weep for their brethren and they will be

7 punished on the Lord’s great day. And I said to the Grigori: ‘I saw your brethren and their works, and their great torments, and I prayed for them, but the Lord has condemned them ¢o be

8 under earth till heaven and earth shall end for ever.’ And I said: ‘ Wherefore do you wait, brethren, and do not serve before the Lord’s face, and have not put your services before the Lord’s face, lest you anger your Lord utterly?’

9 And they listened to my admonition, and spoke to the four ranks in heaven, and lo! as I stood with those two men four trumpets trumpeted together with great voice, and the Grigori broke into song with one voice, and their voice went up before the Lord pitifully and affectingly.

Of the taking of Enoch on to the sixth heaven. |

19: And thence those men took me and boreme And the two men took me from thence, they 19 1

up on to the sixth heaven, and there I saw seven carried me up on to the sixth heaven, and I saw bands of angels, very bright and very glorious, there seven ranks of angels very bright and and their faces shining more than the sun’s | glorious, their faces shining like the sun, and shining, glistening, and there is no difference in there is no difference in ¢hezr faces, nor in ther 2 their faces, or behaviour, or manner of dress; and extent, nor in the composition of zhezr clothes. these make the orders, and learn the goings of | These organize and learn the good ordering of 2 the stars, and the alteration of the moon, or | the world and the goings of the stars, of the sun revolution of the sun, and the good government | and of the moon. of the world. And when they see evil-doing Angels, angels, these heavenly’ angels harmo- 3

rebelled before the creation of Adam; that they had tempted Eve and brought about the fall of the angels in the days of Jared. Thus, in 1 En. lxix and here, the leaders of the angels who fell in Jared’s days are Satans. This is practically the view of portions of the Talmud. See Weber, pp. 211, 243, 244.

who with their prince Satanail. Quoted in Test. Dan v. 5,6... ray mveupdtey tis movnpias. ‘Avéyv@r yap ev BiBr@ “Evay tov dixaiov ... dru 6 dpxov vudy 6 Saravas éoriy (bpev is corrupt for adrey). Our text can hardly mean that all the Watchers rebelled, but only that it was from the class of the Watchers that the rebels proceeded. It is indeed possible that the writer’s scheme may differ from the conception we have given above, and be as follows. The rebellious Watchers, with their prince Satanail, are confined to the fifth heaven. The subordinate angels (‘after them’) who followed them (? = ‘the order that was under him,’ xxix. 4) are imprisoned in the second heaven, whereas the Watchers who went further and descended to earth and sinned with women are imprisoned under the earth. This view is very attractive, but raises more difficulties than the one we have followed. The MSS. reading //th in vii. 3 does indeed favour it, but for ‘prince who’ in that verse we must read ‘prince and leaders who’. The main objections, however, lie in xviii. 8, 9, and in vil. 3 where the prisoners of the second heaven are clearly identified with the fallen Watchers. In xxix. 4, 5 Satanail with his angels is cast down from heaven, to the air, above the abyss.

4. after them (A), i.e. of the same sort as they.

three. According to 1 En. ix. 6 the leader was Azazel, or vi. 3, ix. 7 Semjaza; Jalkut Schim, Beresch. 44 gives Assael and Semjaza. broke through their vows. Hermon means a place of cursing or vowing. We should expect ‘bound themselves by mutual vows’ as in 1 En. vi. 5. Rel lt cS, N16 they will be punished. Not those who weep, but the lustful Watchers are punished.

7. There is some confusion in this.verse. Enoch has seen in vii the rebellious Watchers in torment in the second heaven, but here he proceeds to refer to the Justful Watchers punished under the earth. We have not had an account of his journey thither.

I prayed for them. See vii. 5 (note). ‘

8, 9. The Watchers are silent out of sympathy for their fallen brethren, and at Enoch’s rebuke they resume their worship, but with sadness.

XIX. 1. This account of the sixth heaven disagrees more or less with that of Test. Levi iii. 5, 6, with that of Chag. 12", and with the colourless account in Asc. Is. there is no difference in their faces, &c. Asc. viii. 16 ‘Omnium una species et gloria aequalis’ seems to be derived from our text, as it emphasizes the differences in glory between the angelic orders in each of the first five heavens, and emphasizes no less the equality in glory of all the angels of the sixth heaven. (Cf. Asc. Is. viii. 5-7.) 2. The heavenly bodies are under Uriel in 1 En, Ixxii-lxxxii.

they make commandments and instruction, and sweet and loud singing, and all songs of praise. These are the archangels who are above angels, measure all life in heaven and on earth, and the angels who are appointed over seasons and years, the angels who are over rivers and sea, and who are over the fruits of the earth, and the angels who are over every grass, giving food to all, to

5 every living thing, and the angels who write all

the souls of men, and all their deeds, and their lives before the Lord’s face; in their midst are six Phoenixes and six Cherubim and six sixwinged oves continually with one voice singing one voice, and it is not possible to describe their singing, and they rejoice fiPetor the Lord} at his ‘footstool.

Hence they took Enoch into the seventh Heaven.

And those two men lifted me up thence on to the seventh Heaven, and I saw there a very great light, and fiery troops of great archangels, incorporeal forces, and dominions, orders and governments, cherubim and seraphim, thrones and many-eyed ones, nine regiments, the Ioanit stations of light, and I became afraid, and began to tremble with great terror, and those men took me, and led me after them, and said to me:

3 ‘ Have courage, Enoch, do not fear,’ and showed

me the Lord from afar, sitting on His very high throne. For what is there on the tenth heaven, since the Lord dwells here? On the tenth heaven is God, in the Hebrew tongue he is called Aravat. And all the heavenly troops would

4. Subordinate spirits are over these natural objects in 1 En. Ix. ‘gushing forth’, ‘abundant’.

bubbling (B .), lit. ‘boiling’, i.e. i Raphael’ s function in I En, xx. 3. 6. six six-winged ones.

BOOK OF PHE SECRETS OF

nize all the heavenly life, organize the commands, teachings and euphony, and singing and every glorious praise.

And those angels ¢hat rule over the seasons 4 and the years, and the angels that are over rivers and seas, and the angels that are over the fruit and grass and everything bubbling (szc), and 5 angels who organize all the life of all people and write before the Lord’s face.

In their midst seven phoenixes, seven cherubim, 6 and seven six-winged ones, voicing and singing to each other as one, and it is impossible to describe their singing, and the Lord rejoices in his footstool.

Enoch’s ascent on to the Seventh Heaven.

And the two men lifted me up thence and 20 1

carried me up on to the seventh heaven. And I saw there a great light and all the fiery troops of incorporeal archangels and the shining station of the Ostanim, and I became afraid and began to tremble.

And the two men put me in the midst of them, 2 saying to me: ‘ Have courage, Enoch, fear not.’

They showed me from afar the Lord sitting on 3 his throne, and all the heavenly troops in companies stepping on to the steps and they kept bowing down to the Lord, and would then walk 4 away and go to their places in joy and happiness and in immeasurable light ;

Cf, En, Ixxxil, 133s) Rev. peni4y xvie 5.

i.e. Seraphim, cf. xii. 1 (notes). Note that Cherubim and Seraphim are also in the seventh

heaven. Cag. 12” places Seraphim, Ophannim, and Chajjoth, and other angels of service in the seventh heaven. Test. Levi iii. 5 agrees with this verse, and places in the sixth heaven dpyayyeNor of Netroupyourres.

one voice.

XX. Chag. see xix. 6 (note). dominions, orders, and governments om apxai etre €Eovoia. many-eyed. Seems to be derived from Ezek. x. 12. nine regiments. We must read ‘ten’, steps. Toanit stations of light. I became afraid, &c. 2. Have courage, &c. 3. the Lord...

A dittography.

Chas, on His very high throne. tenth heaven. Cf. xxi. 6 (note), xxii. I. Aravat. See xxil. 1. all the heavenly troops...

With this description of the heavenly hosts, cf. Isa. vi ; But this account can well’ compare for grandeur with ae! of the above. . thrones. Cf. Eph. i. 21 apxns kal peobe ids kat Suvdpews Kal KupLoTyTos :

These are the Ophannim. to agree with ver. 3, where there are ten grades corresponding to the ten

i. 16 €tre Apdvor élre KupLoTyres elTe

So exactly Col.

Cf. 1 En. Ixi. 10, and B here.

Apparently some reference to the Apocalypse of John. iSawvis Ll En. xiv. 20 Revexiards

on the ten steps according to their rank. These hosts consist of the ten

troops mentioned in ver. 1, arranged in the order of their rank. According to Maimonides in the J/ishne Thora S.1 ;

Jesode Thora C. 2, they are: Elohim, Kerubim, Ishim (Weber, p. 163).

Chajjoth, Ophannim, Arellim, In the Berith menucha the list is different : Mal’achim, Chashmallim, Tarshishim, Shina’nim, Kerubim, Ophannim, Seraphim (Eisenmenger, il. 374).

Chashmallim, Seraphim, Mal’achim, Elohim, Bene Arellim, Ishim, Bene Elohim, But the

nearest parallel i is to be found in the nine orders of Dionysius the Areopagite, i. €. Sepapip, XepouBin, Opdvor, Kuptdryres,

Avvapers, E€ovoia, Apxai, ’Apxdyyeho, “Ayyedot.

These are reproduced in Dante, Par. c. xxviii, where the slightly

differing arrangement of Gregory the Great (//om. xxxiv- 7) is censured.

THE’ BOOK’ OF "THE SEGREW so OF E NOCHS20" 3 22r 2

come and stand on the ten steps according to their rank, and would bow down to the Lord, 4and would again go to their places in joy and felicity, singing songs in the boundless light with small and tender voices, gloriously serving him.

Of how the angels here left Enoch, at the end of the seventh Heaven, and went away from him unseen.

And the cherubim and seraphim standing PSS era and the glorious 21 1 about the throne, the six-winged and many-eyed | ones'serving him do not leave him by night nor ones do not depart, standing before the Lord’s | go away by day, standing before the Lord’s face, face doing his will, and cover his whole throne, | and working his will, and all the troops of cherusinging with gentle voice before the Lord’s face: | bim and seraphim about his throne never leaving ‘Holy, holy, holy, Lord Ruler of Sabaoth, | 47, and the six-winged ones cover his throne, heavens and earth are full of Thy glory.’ When | singing before the Lord’s face.

I saw all these things, those men said to me: And when I saw all, the two men went away ‘Enoch, thus far is it commanded us to journey | from me and thenceforward I saw them not. with thee,’ and those men went away from me, | And they left me alone at the end of heaven, and thereupon I saw them not. And I remained | and I grew afraid and fell on my face.

alone at the end of the seventh heaven and And the Lord sent one of his glorious ones became afraid, and fell on my face and said to | Gabriel to me, and he said to me: ‘ Have courmyself: ‘Woe is me, what has befallen me?’ | age, Enoch, fear not the troops, come after me, And the Lord sent one of his glorious ones, the | and stand before the Lord’s face into eternity.’ archangel Gabriel, and 4e said to me: ‘ Have And I said to him: ‘Woe is me, my Lord, my 4 courage, Enoch, do not fear, arise before the | soul is gone out of me for terror, call up to me Lord’s face into eternity, arise, come with me,’ | the two men who brought me to the place, be- 4 and I answered him, and said in myself: ‘My | cause I trusted them and with them I go before Lord, my soul is departed from me, from terror | the Lord’s face.’

and trembling, and I called to the men who led And Gabriel seized me, just as a leaf seized by 5 me up to this place, on them I relied, and z¢ zs | the wind, and took me, and put me before the with them I go before the Lord’s face. And | Lord’s face. ; Gabriel caught me up, asa leaf caught up by the wind, and placed me before the Lord’s face.

6 And'I saw the eighth Heaven, which is called in the Hebrew tongue Muzaloth, changer of the seasons, of drought, and of wet, and of the twelve signs of the zodiac, which are above the seventh Heaven. And I saw the ninth Heaven, which is called in Hebrew Kuchavim, where are the heavenly homes of the twelve signs of the zodiac.

In the tenth Heaven the archangel Michael led Enoch to before the Lord's face.

1 On the tenth Heaven, Aravoth, I saw the appearance of the Lord’s face, like iron made to glow in fire, and brought out, emitting sparks, and it burns. Thus I saw the Lord’s face, but the Lord’s face is ineffable, marvellous and very awful, and very, very terrible.

2 And who am I to tell of the Lord’s unspeakable being, and of his very wonderful face? and I cannot tell the quantity of his many instructions, and various voices, the Lord’s throne very great

XXI. 1. do not depart. Cf. 1 En. xiv. 23. six-winged ... Thy glory. Isa. vi. 2, 3.

SGiaveras:

6. This verse is clearly an interpolation. It is not found either in B or Sok. Furthermore, throughout the rest of the book only seven heavens are mentioned or implied. The term Muzaloth is the Hebrew name for the twelve signs of the Zodiac nioy. Kuchavim is merely a transliteration of D°23'3. Some ground for this conception may be found in 1 En. xiv. 17, where the path of the stars is above the throne of God, and as the throne of God according to this book is in the seventh heaven, the signs and stars might be regarded as in the eighth or ninth.

XXII. 1-3. Aravoth a transliteration of M27Y, which according to Chagig. 12» was really the seventh heaven. The rest of ver. 1,and verses 2, 3, may in some form have belonged to thetext. I have with some hesitation rejected them.

and not made with hands, nor the quantity of those standing round him, troops of cherubim and 3 seraphim, nor their incessant singing, nor his immutable beauty, and who shall tell of the ineffable

greatness of his glory? A

4 And I fell prone and bowed down to the Lord,

5 and the Lord with his lips said to me: ‘Have courage, Enoch, do not fear, arise and stand before my face into eternity.’

6 And the archistratege Michael lifted me up, and led me to before the Lord’s face. |

And the Lord said to his servants tempting them: ‘Let Enoch stand before my face into 7 eternity,’ and the glorious ones bowed down to the Lord, and said: ‘ Let Enoch go according to Thy word.’ 8 And the Lord said to Michael : ‘Go and take Enoch from out his earthly garments, and anoint him with my sweet ointment, and put him into the garments of My glory.’ 9 And Michael did thus, as the Lord told him. He anointed me, and dressed me, and the appearance of that ointment is more than the great light, and his ointment is like sweet dew, and its ro smell mild, shining like the sun’s ray, and I looked

at myself, and was like one of his glorious ones. tr And the Lord summoned one of his archangels by name Pravuil, whose knowledge was quicker in wisdom than the other archangels, who wrote all the deeds of the Lord; and the Lord said to Pravuil: ‘ Bring out the books from my store-houses, and a reed of quick-writing, and give z¢ to Enoch, and deliver to him the choice and ¢comforting} books out of thy hand.’

Of Enoch’s writing, how he wrote his wonderful journeyings and the heavenly apparitions and himself wrote three hundred and sixtysix books.

And he was telling me all the works of heaven, earth and sea, and all the elements, their passages and goings, and the thunderings of the thunders, the sun and moon, the goings and changes of the stars, the seasons, years, days, and hours, the risings of the wind, the numbers of the angels,

4. and could not see the Lord God (B).

B and I fell prone, and could not see the Lord God, 22 4 and I bowed down to the Lord, and the Lord 8 God spake to Michael: ‘Take Enoch, and take him out from his earthly (sc. garments), and anoint him with sweet oil, and clothe him in garments of glory. And Michael took me out from my 9 garments, and anointed me with sweet oil; and the appearance of that oil is better than great light, and its ointment like sweet dew, and its smell like myrrh, and shining like the rays of the sun.

And I looked down looking at myself, and 1o I was as one of the glorious ones, and there was no difference. And the terror and trembling went away from me, and the Lord with his mouth 4 summoned me and said: ‘ Have courage, Enoch, fear not, stand before my face into eternity.’

And the Lord’s archistratege Michael brought 6 me before the face of God. The Lord tempted his servants, and said to them: ‘Let Enoch step up to stand before my face into eternity.’ And 7 the Lord’s glorious ones bowed down, and said ; ‘Let him step up.’

And the Lord summoned Vretil, one of his 11 archangels, who is wise and writes down all the Lord’s works.

And the Lord said to Vretil: ‘ Take the books 12 from the safe places, and give Enoch a reed, and tell him the books.’ And Vretil hastened and brought me the books all made sharp with myrrh, and gave me the reed out of his hand.

And he began to tell me all things in heaven 23 1 and earth and sea, the courses and dwellings of all the elements, the seasons of the years, the courses and mutations of the days, and the commandments and teachings. .

Contrast xxii. 1 (A).

6. Michael. Cf. 1 En. Ixxi. 13, 14, where Michael takes charge of Enoch. He is the chief of the archangels in 1 En. xl. 9 also. As the angel set over Israel, 1 En. xx. 5 he is naturally the chief captain.

8. sweet ointment. This is 76 €\aov rod éehéov of Apoc. Mosis ix. 3, xiii. 1.

II

composition, and their wings, and how they bear rain and rain-drops.

And I investigated all things, and wrote the road of the thunder and of the lightning, and they showed me the keys and their guardians, their rise, the way they go; it is let out in measure (sc. gently) by a chain, lest by a heavy

chain and violence it hurl down the angry clouds |

and destroy all things on earth.

I wrote the treasure-houses of the snow, and |

the store-houses of the cold and the frosty airs, and I observed their season’s key-holder, he fills the clouds with them, and does not exhaust their treasure-houses.

And I wrote the resting-places of the winds and observed and saw how their key-holders bear weighing-scales and measures; first, they put them in ove weighing-scale, then in the other the weights and let them out according to measure cunningly over the whole earth, lest by heavy breathing they make the earth to rock.

And I measured out the whole earth, its mountains, and all hills, fields, trees, stones, rivers, all existing things I wrote down, the height from earth to the seventh heaven, and

XL. 1. I know all things :

- my eyes have seen, &c.

This have my eyes seen from the beginning even to the end, and the dwelling-places of the clouds, both rain-bearing and thunderous. And they showed me the angels that guard them and their keys.

I saw the treasure-houses of snow and of ice, and the going-up, whence they go up in measure they are carried up by a chain ‘and let down by a chain, lest by heavy violence they tear asunder the clouds and destroy what is on earth, both air and frost. I beheld for a time how those who hold fast the keys do fill the clouds full, and the treasure-houses are never exhausted.

I saw the lairs of the winds, how those who keep their keys do carry weighing-scales and measures, and first put them (sc. the winds) in the weighing-scales and then in the measure, and let them out in measure over the whole earth, lest by their heavy breath they make the earth to rock.

Thence I was led to the judgement-place, and

Cf. Clem. Alex. Eclog. Proph. (Dind. iii. 456) 6 Aaviyd

Eyer opodokev rT? °Evax TO eipnkdre ‘Kat eidov tas UAas macas’, and Origen, de Prine. iv. 35 ‘dicente Enoch universas

materias perspexi’. Cf. too Sibyll. Or. viii. 375. 3. not even the angels. Cf. xxiv. 3.

4. See xiii, xiv (notes).

4-6. There is an addition in Sokolov’s text between ‘rays’ and ‘ counted’.

g. road of the thunder. Cf. 1 En. lix; ia. pee I En. xli. 4.

It deals with the moon and the seasons

downwards to the very lowest hell, and the judgement-place, and the very great, open and weeping hell. And I saw how the prisoners are in pain, expecting the limitless judgement. And I wrote down all those being judged by the judge, and all their judgements (sc. sentences) and all their works.

Of how Enoch lamented Adam’s sin.

And I saw all forefathers from a// time with Adam and Eva, and I sighed and broke into tears and said of the ruin of their dishonour: ‘Woe is me for my infirmity and for that of my forefathers, and thought in my heart and said: ‘Blessed zs the man who has not been born or who has been born and shall not sin before the Lord’s face, that he come not into this place, nor bring the yoke of this place.

Of how Enoch saw the key-holders and guards of the gates of hell standing.

I saw the key-holders and guards of the gates of hell standing, like great serpents, and their faces like extinguished lamps, and their eyes of fire, their sharp teeth,

12. the very lowest hell.

The old Jewish beliefs of an and intrude even into our author’s scheme which in x locates hell in the third heaven.

I saw hell all open and the prisoners and infinite

And having seen I sighed and wept for the 41 1

destruction of the impious, and I said in my heart :

‘Blessed is he who has not been born, or 2 who having been born has not sinned before God, that he may not be come to this place, nor have borne this yoke.’

and I saw the guardians of the keys 42 1

of hell standing over against the gates like great serpents, their faces like lamps that are gone out, their eyes like darkened flames, and their teeth naked down to their breasts.

And I spake to their faces: ‘I had better not 2 have seen you, and may none of my tribe come to you.’

Enoch’s ascent into the paradise of the righteous.

And I saw there a blessed place, and all blessed 3 creatures and all there living in joy and in infinite happiness in eternal life.

underworld of punishment are too strong to be excluded, But see xviii. 7 (note). It fs

possible further that the author may have had some idea of a series of seven hells, hence the phrase ‘lowest hell’

here. See Eisenmenger, ii. 302, 13. expecting the limitless judgement. Sheol or Hades. An ancient Jewish belief: cf. liii, 2;

328-33 for later Rabbinic tradition. These words seem to imply an intermediate place of punishment, i. e. They are used too in vil. 1, of the fallen Watchers. xis I Ubueivame oe xn works, as in I and 2 Enoch, the transition was easy to the idea of Enoch as scribe of the deeds of men.

From the idea of Enoch as scribe of God’s For later

tradition cf. Test. Abraham (ed. James, p. 115) 6 d.ddoKahos TOU ovpavod kal TIS yas. kal ypappareds Tis Sixawotyns "Evox* dnéaorethey yap KUptos abrods évravda, va aroypapwow ras duaptias Kai Tas Sukarocvvas ExdoTov.

XLI. In B this chapter occurs after xlii. 1.

XLI. 1. Enoch’s forefathers, including Adam and Eve, appear to be in the place of punishment. Ixx. 3, 4 where Paradise is already peopled with the righteous, though in Ixxxix. 52; xcili. 8 Enoch In 1 En. xxii.

judgement on Cain and his seed is consummated. Cf. the early

and "Elijah seem to be its only inhabitants.

2: Cf. 4 Uzraiyt2 se En, Xxxviliv eee oeBare x, 6:

XLII. 1. the key-holders. kreOopvaAag. For ‘keys’ cf. Rev. ix. 13 xx. I. guards of the gates of hell. control of a certain angel (Eisenmenger, ii. 332). extinguished lamps.

Contrast 1 En.

however, Beles’ seems to remain in Hades till the ristian belief e.g. in Descensus ad Inferos viii-ix.

We have a strange application of this idea in Sibyll. Or. viii. 121-2 where the alov is

Emek hammelech, fol. 144, col. 2, says that each division of hell is under the Or the word rmieAooxos in Apoc. Pauli. Contrast the heavenly angels’ face and eyes, i. 5.

teeth naked down to their breasts (B), i.e. either the teeth reached down to the breasts, or the description of the teeth is incomplete, and the creatures themselves are referred to as naked down to their breasts.

2-13. These verses are omitted by A. PR AGIE pdb

Then I spake: ‘ My children, and now I speak 6 to you: Blessed is he who fears God and serves him. And you, my children, learn to bring gifts to the Lord, that you may enjoy life. Blessed is 7 he who judges a judgement justly to the widow 9 and orphan, and helps every one that is wronged, clothing the naked with garments, and to the 8 hungry giving bread.

Blessed is he who turns back from the change- 10 able path and walks along the straight path.

Blessed is he who sows the seeds of righteous- 11 ness, for he shall reap sevenfold.

Blessed is he in whom is truth, that he may 12 speak truth to his neighbour.

Blessed is he in whose mouth is mercy and 13

gentleness. I and I saw all the Lord’s Blessed is he who understands the Lord’s r4 Sas how they are right, while the works of | works and glorifies the Lord God.

man are some good, and othersbad, and in their works are known those who lie evilly.

Enoch shows his children how he measured and wrote out God’s judgements.

43 I, my children, measured and wrote out every Behold, my children (sc. all) the things that 43 1 work and every measure and every righteous | can be used on earth and the things that have judgement. been planned I have written down from the Lord

God.

Winter and summer, all have I put together, and of the years I have counted out the hours, and the hours have I all measured out and written down, and found out all the difference (sc. understood all their variety).

2 As one year is more honourable One year is more honourable than another, than another, so is oe man more honourable | and one day than another, and one hour is more than another, some for -great possessions, some | honourable than another. for wisdom of heart, some for particular intellect, Likewise one man is more honourable than some for cunning, one for silence of lip, another | another, this one for much property, that for for cleanliness, one for strength, another for | mercy of heart, that again for understanding and comeliness, one for youth, another for sharp wit, | cunning and for silence of tongue and mouth.

3 one for shape of body, another for sensibility, For there is none greater than he who fears let it be heard everywhere, but there is none | God; they shall be glorious into eternity. better than he who fears God, he shall be more glorious in time to come.

Enoch instructs his sons, that they revile not the face of man, small or great. 44: The Lord with his hands having created man, The Lord with his hands created man, and 441 in the likeness of his own face, the Lord made | likened /z7 to his own face.

6-14. Nine rather colourless beatitudes.

7. judges a judgement justly. Cf. ix; Ezek. xviii. 8. c

Io. straight path. Cf. Prov. iv. 11; Sibyll. Or. iii. g-10; Sib. Or. Fragm. 1. 23 sq.

maf Prov. xxxi. 26,

XLIII. 2, 3. As one year, &c. We might expect ‘as one day’, cf. Sir. xxiii. 7, The main thought of this passage is derived from Sir. x. 20, 22, 24, 30: cf. Sibyll. Or. ii. 125.

him small and great. Whoever reviles the ruler’s

face, and abhors the Lord’s face, has despised 2 the Lord’s face, and he who vents anger on any

man without injury, the Lord’s great anger will 3 cut him down, he who spits on the face of man reproachfully, will be cut down at the Lord’s great judgement.

Blessed is the man who does not direct his heart with malice against any man, and helps the injured and condemned, and raises the broken 5 down, and shall do charity to the needy, because

on the day of the great judgement every weight, every measure and every makeweight w// be as in the market, that is to say they are hung on scales and stand in the market, avd every one shall learn his own measure, and according to his measure shall take his reward.

God shows how he does not want from men sacrifices, nor burnt-offerings, but pure and contrite hearts.

The Lord God created all things great and small.

He that brings into contempt the face of man, brings the Lord’s face into contempt.

The Lord’s anger and great judgement are on 2 him who spits in the face of man.

Blessed is he who turns his heart towards such 4 a man, so as to help the condemned and raise the broken.

t Whoever hastens to make offering before the Lord’s face, the Lord for his part will hasten that offering by granting of his work. : 2 But whoever increases his lamp before the He who multiplies lights before the Lord’s 45 2 Lord’s face and make not true judgement, the | face, the Lord will multiply their storehouses. Lord will zo¢ increase his treasure in the realm of the highest. 3 When the Lord demands bread, or candles, or The Lord God wants not bread nor candles, 3 flesh (sc. cattle), or any other sacrifice, then that |'meal nor cattle, but by this seans tempts the is nothing ; but God demands pure hearts, and | heart of man. with all that ovly tests the heart of man. Jak , Of how an earthly ruler does not accept from man abominable and unclean gifts, then how much more does God abominate unclean gifts, but sends ¢hem away with wrath and accept his gifts. 1 Hear, my people, and take in the words of my lips.

If any one bring any gifts to an earthly ruler, ruler know this, will he not be angry with him

and have disloyal thoughts in his heart, and the , and not refuse his gifts, and not give him over to

Or zf one man make himself appear good to another by deceit of tongue, but “ave

evil in his heart, then will not the other understand the treachery of his heart, and himself be

3 condemned, since his untruth was plain to all ?

And when the Lord shall send a great light, then

there will be judgement for the just and the unjust, and there no-one shall escape notice.

XLIV. 1. Whoever reviles, &c.

Cf. James iii. 9.

4. This beatitude, out of place here, would come in fittingly at the end of xlii.

Supplic. pro Christo, 13. in Sir. xxxv. 1-3, side by side with injunctions to offer the candles. Cf. ‘lamp’ in verse 2. pure hearts. Ps. li. Lo. tests the heart of man.

XLVI. 3. a great light.

Deut. vili. 2; 2 Chron, xxxil. 315; Ps. xxvi. 2.

This is not Essenism. See lix. 1-3. We find the same spiritual appreciation of sacrifices

tempts (B), or ‘ proves’.

The reference is not clear, but cf. Isa. ix. 2 or John i. 9, v. 35, viii. 12, and esp.

A Enoch instructs his sons from God’s lips, and hands them the handwriting of this book.

47: And now, my children, lay thought on your hearts, mark well the words of your father, which are all come to you from the Lord’s lips.

2 Take these books of your father’s handwriting and read them.

For the books are many, and in them you will learn all the Lord’s works, all that has been from the beginning of creation, and will be till the end of time.

3. And if you will observe my handwriting, you will not sin against the Lord; because there is no other except the Lord, neither in heaven, nor in earth, nor in the very lowest A/aces, nor in the one foundation.

4 The Lord has placed the foundations in the unknown, and has spread forth heavens visible and

5 invisible ; he fixed the earth on the waters, and created countless creatures, and who has counted the water and the foundation of the unfixed, or the dust of the earth, or the sand of the sea, or the drops of the rain, or the morning dew, or the wind’s breathings? Who has filled earth and sea, and the indissoluble winter ?

I cut the stars out of fire, and decorated heaven, and put it in their midst.

Of the sun’s passage along the seven circles.

481 That the sun go along the seven heavenly circles, which are the appointment of one hundred and

2 eighty-two thrones, that it go down on a short day, and again one hundred and eighty-two, that it go down on a big day, and he has two thrones on which he rests, revolving hither and thither above the thrones of the months, from the seventeenth day of the month Tsivan it goes down to the month Thevan, from the seventeenth of Thevad it goes up.

3 And thus it goes close to the earth, then the earth is glad and makes grow its fruit, and when it goes away, then the earth is sad, and trees and all fruits have no florescence.

4 All this he measured, with good measurement of hours, and fixed a measure by his wisdom, of the visible and the invisible.

5 From the invisible he made all things visible, himself being invisible.

6 Thus I make known to you, my children, and distribute the books to your children, into all your

7 generations, and amongst the nations who shall have the sense to fear God, let them receive them, and may they come to love them more than any food or earthly sweets, and read them and apply themselves to them.

8 And those who understand not the Lord, who fear not God, who accept not, but reject, who do not receive them (sc. the books), a terrible judgement awaits these.

9 Blessed is the man who shall bear their yoke and shall drag them along, for he shall be released on the day of the great judgement.

Peels i Cf. Xxxix., 2. 2. Cf. 1 En. xciii. 10 for this high estimate of the Enochic works. 3. you will not sin. Cf. xxxiii. 9; xlviii. 7-9. Fora like claim cf. 1 En. xxxvii. 4; xcii. 1.; xcili, 10; c. 65 civ. 12, 13, and contrast Sir. xviii. 3. Weal 4. spread forth heavens. Ps. civ. 2; Isa. xl. 22; xlii. 5. fixed the earth on the waters. 2 Pet. iii. 5 5. who has counted ... the sand of the sea, or the drops of the rain. Drawn from Sir.1. 2. Cf. Isa. xl. 12; Job xxxvi. 27 (LXX). decorated heaven. Cf. Sir. xvi. 27.

XLVIII. 1. The text is faulty and unintelligible. The sun is in the fourth circle of the heavens in xi. 1 ; xxx. 3, and does not revolve through the seven circles. The twice-mentioned 182 thrones, too, are really, when added, the 364 world-stations of 1 En. Ixxv. 2, i.e. the 364 different positions occupied by the sun on the 364 days of the year. As in I En. Ixxii-lxxxii and Jub. iv the number is not exact (contrast 2 En. xiv. 1). This older Enochic reckoning may be partly due to opposition to heathen systems, and partly to the fact that 364 = 52 weeks of 7 days exactly.

2. Corrupt. Read either ‘Sivan... Kislev’ or‘ Tamuz .. . Tebet’. Thevan and Thevad seem to be the same.

6, See xxxiii. 9 (note).

7. love them more than any food. Cf. 1 En. Ixxxii. 3. Cf. 2 En. xlvil. 2 (note).

8. No such terrible judgement is threatened on the rejecters of Enoch’s disclosures in 1 En., but cf. Rev. xxii. 18, 19.

g. No such blessing is offered to the obedient in 1 En. There the righteous elect, or the righteous and the wise, receive Enoch’s revelations. Cf. Ixxxii. 3 ; xciii, 103 civ. 12.

Ja B

Enoch instructs his sons not to swear either by heaven or earth, and shows God’s promise, even in the mother’s womb.

49: I swear to you, my children, but I swear not by any oath, neither by heaven nor by earth, nor by any other creature which God created.

The Lord said: ‘ There is no oath in me, nor injustice, but truth.’ If there is no truth in men, let them swear by the words ‘yea, yea’, or else, ‘nay, nay.’

2 And I swear to you, yea, yea, that there has For I swear to you, my children, that before 49 2 been no man in his mother’s womb, dwt that | man was, a judgement-place was prepared for already before, even to each one there is a place | him, and a measure and a weighing-scale, in prepared for the repose of that soul, and a mea- | which man will be proved, and ¢hey are there sure fixed how much it is intended that a man | already prepared. be tried in this world.

Yea, children, deceive not yourselves, for there has been previously prepared a place for every soul of man.

Of how none born on earth can remain hidden nor his work remain concealed, but he (se. God) bids zs be meek, to endure attack and insult, and not to offend widows and

orphans. 501 I have put every man’s work in writing and And I shall put the work of every man in 501 none born on earth can remain hidden nor his | writing, 2 works remain concealed. I seeall things. Now And now, my children, spend the number of 2

therefore, my children, in patience and meekness | your days in patience and gentleness, that you spend the number of your days, that you inherit | inherit the endless age that is to come. endless life.

3 Endure for the sake of the Lord every wound, Every wound, every hurt and heat (szc) and 3 every injury, every evil word and attack. wicked word (sc. which) shall befall you, suffer 4 If ill-requitals befall you, return ¢#em not either | them for the Lord God’s sake; to neighbour or enemy, because the Lord will and if you are able to requite (sc. ill), do not 4

return ¢hem for you and be your avenger on the | requite your neighbour (sc. with ill) because the day of great judgement, that there be no avenging | Lord is your requiter, and he (/¢. who) will be

here among men. the avenger on the day of the great judgement.

5 Whoever of you spends gold or silver for his Lose gold or silver for a brother’s sake, that 5 brother’s sake, he will receive ample treasure in | you receive inexhaustible treasure on the judgethe world to come. ment-day.

Injure not widows nor orphans nor strangers, lest God’s wrath come upon you.

XLIX. 1. I swear not, &c. Cf. Matt. v. 34, 35. See also Philo, De Special. Leg. ii. 1; Leg. All. ili. 72; De Decem Orac. 17; De Sac. Abelis et Caini, 28; De Plant. Noe, 19; Quod Omnis Probus Liber, 12. This appears to be a Jewish commonplace (Conybeare). For Jewish forms of swearing see Eisenmenger, ii. 490 sqq.

2. to each . . . a place prepared for the repose, &c. So Chagiga, fol. 15,col.1 ; Zorath Adam, fol. 101, col. 3; Avodath hakkodesh, fol. 19, col. 1, where it is said a place is prepared for every man either in paradise or hell. Cf.

L. 1. nor his works remain concealed. 1 En. ix. 5. i 4 2. in patience. Cf. Luke xxi. 19 ‘in your patience ye shall win your souls’. This book teaches a blessed immortality but not, it seems, the resurrection of the dead. F 4: Cf, Sir, xxvility 2: Ss : avenger... day of great judgement. Cf. Deut. xxxii. 35 (LXX). Cf. too Prov. xx. 22; xxiv. 29. Rom, xii. 19; Heb. x. 30 agree partly with Mass. and partly with LXX. _ Injure not. We expect ‘stretch out your hands to’ as in ix. Cf. Sibyll. Or. 11, 75.

Enoch instructs his sons, that they hide not treasures in the earth, but bids them give alms to the poor. |

51: Stretch out your hands to the poor according 2to your strength. Hide not your silver in the earth. Help the faithful man in affliction, and affliction will not find you in the time of your trouble.

3 And every grievous and cruel yoke that come upon you bear all for the sake of the Lord, and thus you will find your reward in the day of

4 It is good to go morning, midday, and evening into the Lord’s dwelling, for the glory of your creator.

5 Because every breathing thing glorifies him, and every creature visible and invisible returns | him praise.

God instructs his faithful, how they are to praise his name.

Blessed is the man who opens his lips in praise of God of Sabaoth and praises the Lord with his heart.

2 Cursed every man who opens his lips for the bringing into contempt and calumny of his neighbour, because he brings God into contempt.

3. Blessed is he who opens his lips blessing and praising God. |

4 Cursed is he before the Lord all the days of his | life, who opens his lips to curse and abuse.

5 Blessed is he who blesses all the Lord’s works.

6 Cursed is he who brings the Lord’s creation into contempt.

7 Blessed is he who looks down and raises the fallen.

8 Cursed is he who looks to and is eager for the destruction of what is not his.

9 Blessed is he who keeps the foundations of his

fathers made firm from the beginning.

Cursed is he who perverts the decrees of his forefathers.

Blessed is he who implants peace and love.

ite Sity Vil. 32>) \brov. xxxi,.20., Cf Job vil..95 Sibyll.

Stretch forth your hands to the orphan and to 51 the widow, and according to your power help the poor, and thus you shall find your reward on the 3 judgement-day.

In the morning, at midday and in the evening 4 and by day (sic) it is good to go into God’s house and to glorify the creator of all.

Blessed is he who opens his heart and mouth 52 r for the Lord’s praise.

Cursed is he who opens his mouth for the 2 humbling of his neighbour.

Blessed is he who glorifies all the Lord’s works.

Cursed is he who brings a creature of the Lord 6 into contempt.

Blessed is he who beholds the labour of his 7 hands.

Cursed is he who looks to undo the labours of 8 others.

Blessed is he who keeps the foundations of his g fathers.

Cursed is he who distorts the decrees and 10 limits of his fathers.

Blessed is he who goes (sc. with others) and rz brings (sc. others) together in peace.

according to your strength. Cf. Sir. xiv. 13; xxix. 20.

2. Hide not, &c. Cf. Sir. xxix. 1o.

Help ... in affliction. Cf. Sir. iv. 4.

the Lord’s dwelling, i.e. the temple.

sacrifice, and sacrifices could only be offered in Jerusalem. Reecr. Ps. cl. 6.

For these three Jewish hours of prayer—the third, sixth, and ninth—cf. Acts ii. 15 ;

Although the writer is a Jew living in Egypt, he writes for Judaism as a whole, and gives here the ideal conduct of a dweller at Jerusalem.

In lix. 2, 3 he prescribes the right method of

LII. For these beatitudes cf. xlii. 6-14. They are derived mainly from Sirach.

2. Cf. Wisdom i. II dwé karadadtas peicaabe yAooons. 4. curse and abuse. Cf. Sir. xxili. 9-12.

5. Cf. Sir. xxxix. 14 edAoynoarte Kiptoy emt racx tois épyots avrov.

12 Cursed is he who disturbs those that love their Cursed is he who disturbs what is in peace. 12 neighbours. 13 Blessed is he who speaks with humble tongue Blessed is he who speaks peace, and he has 13 and heart to all. peace.

14 Cursed is he who speaks peace with his tongue, while in his heart there is no peace but a sword.

15 For all these things will be laid bare in the All this will be laid bare in the weighing- 15 weighing-scales and in the books, on the day of | scales and on the books on the day of the great the great judgement. judgement.

And now, children, keep your hearts from all 16 unrighteousness, that you may inherit the weighing-scale of the light into eternity.

[Let us not say: ‘Our father is before God, he will stand forward for us on the day of judgement,’ for there father cannot help son, nor yet son father, |

531 And now, my children, do not say: ‘Our Say not, my children, that our father is with 53 1 father is standing before God, and is praying for | God, and will pray for us (sc. and obtain absolu-

our sins,’ for there is there no helper of any man | tion) from our sins. who has sinned.

2 You see how I wrote all works of every man, You see, how that I write down all the works 2 before his creation, a// that is done amongst all | of every man. 3 men for all time, and none can tell or relate my And none can distort my handwriting, because 3

handwriting, because the Lord sees all the imagin- | the Lord seeth all. ings of man, how they are vain, where they lie in the treasure-houses of the heart. 4° And now, my children, mark well ail the words And now, my children, mark well all the 4 of your father, that I tell you, lest you regret, | words of your father’s mouth, saying: ‘Why did our father not tell us??

Enoch instructs his sons, that they should hand the books to others also.

54 [At that time, not understanding this] let these that they may be 54 books which I have given you be for an inheri- ' for you for an inheritance of peace, and the books

ey, (GH SiaSeaavil, Oy 1% 14. Cf Ps: xxvii, 35 lv.215 Ixii./4;) Sibyll§Or\ neem. 16. unrighteousness (B). See Ixi. 1 (note).

LIII. 1. This verse has a duplicate reading in A. The idea that departed saints interceded on behalf of the living has been attributed by some scholars to Isa. Ixiii. 16 (see Ewald, Hzs¢. of Israel, i. 296 ; Cheyne, Prophecies of Isaiah, 107-8 ; 299-300). If, however, the doctrine of a blessed immortality or of the resurrection was a late development among the Jews, this idea must necessarily have been later still, and accordingly unless we are prepared to bring down considerably the date of Isa. lxiii, we shall have some difficulty in justifying such an interpretation. It seems indeed that this idea among the Jews was comparatively late in origin. The first indubitable evidence in its favour is to be found in 1 En. xxii. 12; xcvii. 3, 5 ; xcix. 16; and thus we find that it was an accepted Pharisaic belief early in the second century B.C. The next mention of this belief is to be met with in 2 Macc. xv. 14 where Jeremiah, who appears in a vision to Judas Maccabaeus, is described as follows: 6 @idddeAgos ovrds eat 6 moda TpoTEvXSpeEvos Tept TOU Aaod kal THs dyias wédews "lepepias 6 Tov beod mpopyrns. This was also the teaching of Philo, de Exsecrat 9: Tptol xpnodpevor mapakAnrois Tey mpds Toy matépa Kata\dayav ... Sevtépw S€ TH TOY apxnyeTav Tod EOvous dotsrnTL, Gre Tais adepevars copdroy Woxais dmacrov Kat yupyyy emideckvupévats pos Tov Gpxovra Oepaneiay Tas imep vidy Kai Ovyarepoy ixerelas ovK dreeis el@Oacr Toveto Oat, yépas adtois mapéxXovTos TOU maTpos TO emnKooy ev evxais. ‘The same view was obviously held by Josephus, Azz. i. 13. 3, where he describes Abraham as saying to Isaac when on the point of sacrificing him : per evyav S€ kal iepoupyias éxeivou thy Woyny thy ony mpoabekopevov Kal map’ att@ KabéEovros €on pot eis Kydeudva Kal ynpoxspov. And also in Sibyll. Or. 330-3 rois Kal 6 mavrokpdtwp Oeds apOiros thro rrapéLer edoeBéeco’, Sadr av Oedv dpO.rov airiowyrat’ €k j.adepoto mupéds Te Kal dkapdrov ard Bpvypav avOpomous coca dace Kat TodTo momoe. Finally this doctrine is recognized and apparently accepted in certain parts of the N.T.: Matt. xxvii. 47, 49; Luke xvi. 24-31 5 John viii. 56 (?); Heb. xii. 1?; Rev. vi. g-11. For the prevalence of this belief in later Judaism, see Eisenmenger ii. 357-9; 361. The idea of intercession may be derived from ancestor-worship, and not from the doctrine of a future life as I have implied above ; cf. Cheyne’s /ztrod. to the Book of Isatah, 352, 353.

2. Enoch is the universal scribe.

3. tell or relate. B has ‘distort’. Perhaps read ‘tell or gainsay’. Cf. Ps. civ. 113; Sir. xvil. 15, 20.

relate raskazati—possibly a mistake for vaskaziti ‘ to distort’. Cf. B.

LIV. See xxxiii. 9 (note).

fae BOOCKAOFr HE SECRETS “OF ENOCH? 55.

tance of your peace. Hand them to all who want them, and instruct them, that they may see the Lord’s very great and marvellous works.

Here Enoch shows his sons, telling them with tears: ‘My children, the hour has approached for me to go up on to heaven ; behold, the angels are standing before me.’

‘My children, behold, the day of my term and the time have approached.

For the angels who shall go with me are standing before me and urge me to my departure from you; they are standing here on earth, awaiting what has been told them.

For to-morrow I shall go up on to heaven, to the uppermost Jerusalem to my eternal inheritance.

Therefore I bid you do before the Lord’s face all 4zs good pleasure.

Methosalam asks of his father blessing, that he (sc. Methosalam) may make him (se. Enoch) food to eat.

Methosalam having answered his father Enoch, said: ‘What is agreeable to thy eyes, father, that I may make before thy face, that thou mayst bless our dwellings, and thy sons, and that thy people may be made glorious through thee, and then ¢Zaz thou mayst depart thus, as the Lord said ?’

Enoch answered to his son Methosalam and said: ‘ Hear, child, from the time when the Lord anointed me with the ointment of his glory, there has been no food in me, and my soul remembers not earthly enjoyment, neither do I want anything earthly.’

Enoch bade his son Methosalam to summon all his brethren.

‘My child Methosalam, summon all thy brethren and all your household and the elders of the people, that I may talk to them and depart, as is planned for me.’

And Methosalam made haste, and summoned his brethren, Regim, Riman, Uchan, Chermion, Gaidad, and all the elders of the people before the face of his father Enoch; and he blessed them, azd said to them:

the Lord’s...

LV. See xxxvi. 2. the highest heaven (B).

iy, t. Ch. xxxvi. 13 1 En oxci. i.

marvellous works.

Cf. Ixvii. 2.

B which I have given you from God, hide them not, tell them to all that want, that by word they learn of God’s works,

For behold, my children, the day of my term 55 1

has approached, the angels coming from the Lord God urge the appointed time, and stand with me before my face.

And I shall go up to-morrow on to the highest 2 heaven into my eternal inheritance.

Therefore I command you, my children, that 3 you do #zs good pleasure before the Lord’s face.

Mefusailom answered his father Enoch: ‘ What 56 1

food (sc. meal) is agreeable to thy eyes, father, that we may make before thy face, that thou mayst bless our dwellings and thy sons, and all thy household, and glorify thy people, and thus after that depart ?’

Enoch said to his son: ‘ Hear, my child, from 2 that day when the Lord anointed me with the oil of his glory, from that time there has been no food in me. I do not desire earthly food,

but 57 x

summon thy brethren and all our household, and the elders of the people, that I may speak with them and depart.’

And Mefusailom made haste and summoned 2 his brethren Regim and Rim and Azuchan and Chermion, and the elders of the people, and brought all before the face of his father Enoch. And he blessed them, and said to them:

A’s reading, ‘to the uppermost Jerusalem,’ seems inferior.

2. Riman, Uchan, and Chermion are not mentioned in i. Io,

THE BOOK’ OF THE SEGRE ES OF SE NOCE.-"55:

Enoch’s instruction to his sons.

‘ Listen to me, my children, to-day.

In those days when the Lord came down on to earth for Adam’s sake, and visited all his creatures, which he created himself, after all 2 these he created Adam, and the Lord called all

the beasts of the earth, all the reptiles, and all the

birds that soar in the air, and brought them all before the face of our father Adam.

And Adam gave the names to all things living |

3on earth. And the Lord appointed him ruler over all, and subjected to him all things under his hands,and made them dumb and made them dull (lit. deaf) that they be commanded of man, and be in subjection and obedience to him. Thus also the Lord created every man lord over all his possessions. 4 The Lord will not judge a single soul of beast for man’s sake, but adjudges the souls of men to 5 their beasts in this world ; for men have a special place. And as every soul of man is according to 6 number, similarly beasts will not perish, nor all

‘Listen, children, in the days of our father 58 1 | Adam, the Lord God came down (sc. to earth)

and visited it and all his creatures, which he 2 created himself, and the Lord God called all the beasts of the earth and all the wild animals and all the quadrupeds, and all the reptiles of the earth, and all the birds that soar, and brought them before the face of our father Adam, and called the names to all things that move over the earth. And God subjected to Adam all things 3 existing into subservience (lit. lessness) and secondly made them all dull (lit. deaf) that they might be in subjection and obedience to man.

For the Lord created man ruler over all his possessions.

In this there will be no judgement of every 4 living soul, but only of man’s,

But for the souls of beasts there is in the great 5 age one place and one fold.

For no soul of any animal which the Lord 6 created will be shut up till the great judgement,

LVIII. 1. the Lord came down, &c. See xxxii. 1 (note). 5. men have a special place. See xlix. 2 (note). : a similarly beasts will not perish. As the Jews believed about the opening of the Christian era that all animals had spoken one language before the fall, and so were rational to some extent (Jub. ili. 28; Josephus, Avz#. i. 1. 4) it was natural they should infer a future existence of the animal world. Yet nowhere else except here do we find it, either in O.T. or pre-Christian Jewish works. Their future life is limited and has an ethical motive, not for the brute’s own sake, but to accuse man at the final judgement. The Greek view of metempsychosis, and the deification of animals in Egypt show that the idea of animals’ future life was conceivable in the ancient world. Plutarch, P/ac. v. 20. 4 holds that brutes’ souls are rational, but incapable of acting rationally on account of their bodies; according to Xenocrates they possessed a consciousness of God, «aOédou yotv ri mept Tov Oetov Evvoray Hevoxparns . . . ovK dmehmifer kal ev rois dddyous (ous (Clem. Strom. v. 590). Chrysippus ascribed reason to brutes (Chalkid in Zim. p. 148b); while Sextus Medicus (ix. 127) maintained that the souls of brutes and of men were alike. Hence it was generally believed that the souls of men could pass into brutes, mpéroy péev aOdvaroy etvai pnow thy Wuxqy, etra petaBdddovoay cis Gra yévn (Sov (Porph. V, P. 19): while Plato indeed went further and derived the souls of all brutes ultimately from those of men, through a process of deterioration, ds yap more e& avSpdv yuvaikes kal rddXa Onpia yernoo.ro, imiorayto ot ouviorayres npas (Zim. 76D). With regard to individual animals, some thinkers believed that bees contained a divine element (Virg. Georg. iv. 219-21), while Democritus and Pliny placed religion among the moral virtues of elephants (7. J. viii. 1). But the closest parallels are to be found in Zoroastrianism, to which indeed we should probably trace in some measure the ideas of the text. Thus in the Zend-Avesta Vendidad Fargard 13 (Darmesteter) we find an entire chapter dealing with the sacredness of the life of the domesticated dog and the crime of attempting its life—its murderer was to lose his soul to the ninth generation (1-4): with the food that was to be given to it and the penalties entailed by feeding it badly (20-28), which were to range from fifty to two hundred blows with the horse-goad. Nay more, the land, its pastures and crops were to suffer for the unatoned death of the dog, and these plagues were not to be removed till the man who had slain it was slain in turn or had offered sacrifices three days and three nights to the pious soul of the departed dog (54,55). Finally, the soul of the dog went after death to the source of the waters (51). In the Mzdrash Koheleth, fol. 329, col. 1, we find the following quaint and slightly analogous thought: ‘Rabbi Chama, the son of Gorion, said that wolves and unfruitful trees must give account: just as man must give account, so also must unfruitful trees.’ Eisenmenger i. 468. It is noteworthy that the ideas of the text have passed over into the creed of the Mohammedans. Thus, according to Sale’s note on the sixth chapter of the Koran, irrational animals will be restored to life at the resurrection that they may be brought to judgement and have vengeance taken on them for the injuries they had inflicted on each other in this life. Then after they have duly retaliated their several wrongs, God will turn them again to dust (Sale’s Koran, Prelim, Discourse, Sect. iv), with the exception of Ezra’s ass and the dog of the Seven Sleepers which will enjoy eternal life in Paradise (Koran iii; xviii). Are we to interpret in this manner Orac. kal Uorepov es Kpiow Eo

kpivay evoeBéwv kai SvoweBeav Biov avdpar"

kal Kploy Kpt@ kal roupeve mrowpéva Onow

Kal poaxov porxe méeAas GAjA@v €s Eheyxor. Even in Christian times animals were credited with intelligence, conscience, responsibility, as well as with the passions, vices, and virtues of mankind (see Bestie delinguenti, D’Addosio, 1892, from which the following facts are taken). They were accordingly solemnly tried, and advocates were assigned at the public expense to them to plead their cause. Thus moles (A.D. 824), a sow (1324), a cock (1474), snails (1487) were duly tried and condemned. They were

THE BOCK OF THE SECRETS OF ENOCH 68.):6--61) i

souls of beasts which the Lord created, till the | and all souls will accuse the man,

great judgement, and they will accuse man, if he feed them ill.

Enoch instructs his sons wherefore they may not touch beef because of what comes from it.

59: Whoever defiles the soul of beast, defiles his whoever feeds 59 1 own soul. ill the soul of beast, defiles his own soul. 2 For man brings clean animals to make sacrifice But he who brings sacrifice of clean beasts, 2 for sin, that he may have cure of his soul. cures his own soul, and he who brings an offering

of clean birds, cures his own soul.

A And if they bring for sacrifice clean animals, and birds, man has cure, he cures his soul. 3 Allis given you for food, bind it by the four feet, that is to make good the cure, he cures his soul. 4 But whoever kills beast without wound, kills his own soul and defiles his own flesh. 5 And he who does any beast any injury whatsoever, in secret, it is evil practice, and he defiles his

own soul. ; 60: He who does injury to soul of man, does injury He who does injury to the soul of man, in- 60 1 to his own soul, and there is no cure for his flesh, | jures his own soul, and there is no cure for him nor pardon for all time. into eternity.

How it is not fitting to kill man neither by weapon nor by tongue. 2. He who works the killing of a man’s soul, kills his own soul, and kills his own body, and there is no cure for him for all time.

3 He who puts a man in any snare, shall stick He who puts a man into tparadise}—his 3 in it himself, and there is no cure for him for all | judgement shall not be exhausted into eternity. time.

4 He who puts a man in any vessel, his retribution will not be wanting at the great judgement for all time.

5 He who works crookedly or speaks evil against any soul, will not make justice for himself for all time.

Enoch instructs his sons to keep themselves from injustice and often to stretch forth hands to the poor, to give a share of their labours. 611 And now, my children, keep your hearts Now, my children, keep yourselves from every 61 1 from every injustice, which the Lord hates. | thing unrighteous, which the Lord hateth, still Just as a man asks (sc. something) for his own | more from every living soul.

also occasionally subjected to torture, and their cries were regarded as a confession of guilt (/.c. p. 46). Even as late as 1531 a book was written by Chassauée to discuss the lawfulness of trying animals judicially, and the legitimate methods of procedure (/. ¢. p. 75). LIX. 1. Whoever defiles the soul of beast. This refers not to the sin of bestiality, but, as B and 2-4 show, to some unlawful way of sacrificing or slaughtering animals. 2, 3. These verses suggest a date earlier than the destruction of the Temple, A, D. 70. 4. Against strangling beasts. 5. Here bestiality may be meant. LX. 1. The sin referred to in 1 Thess. iv. 6. . Cf. Ps. ix. 15 ; xxxv. 8; lvii.6. There is an utter want of proportion between sin and penalty here. +paradiset (B). The text is corrupt but easily emended to give the sense ‘ (crooked) dealing’. 4. vessel sosud, perhaps a mistake for sud ‘judgement ’, ‘ lawsuit ’. Ramer, Ps. ici. 5. LXI. 1. injustice which the Lord hates. Cf. Jud. v. 17; Sir. xv. 11, 13; 2 En. Ixvi. 1. : injustice. The same word, zefravda, means injustice, untruth, and unrighteousness. Cf. Ixvi. 1.

2 soul from God, so let him do to every living Just as man asks (sc. something) for his own soul, because I know all things, how in the great | soul from the Lord, so let him do to every living 2 time (sc. to come) are many mansions prepared | soul, lest in the great age... He has prepared for men, good for the good, and bad for the bad, | many mansions, very good dwellings, and bad without number many. dwellings without number.

3 Blessed are those who enter the good houses, Blessed is he who departs into the sweet 3 for in the bad (sc. houses) there is no peace nor | houses.

return (sc. from them). 4 Hear, my children, small and great! When man puts a good thought in his heart, brings gifts from his labours before the Lord’s face and his hands made them not, then the Lord will turn away his face from the labour of his hand, and he (sc. man) cannot find the labour of his hands. 5 And if his hands made it, but his heart murmur, and his heart cease not making murmur incessantly, he has not any advantage.

uy B Of how it is fitting to bring one’s gift with faith, because there is no repentance after death. 62: Blessed is the man who in his patience brings Blessed is he who in his patience brings a gift 62 1 - his gifts with faith before the Lord’s face, because | before the Lord’s face, for he shall find forgivehe will find forgiveness of sins. ness of /zs sins.

2 But if he take back his words before the time, When a man gives from his mouth terms of 2 there is no repentance for him; and if the time | time to bring gifts before the Lord’s face, doing pass and he do not of his own will what is | thus (sc. fulfilling his promise) he will find promised, there is no repentance after death. repentance of forgiveness (sic). But if the

3 Because every work which man does before | appointed time pass by and he go back on his

the time, is all deceit before men, and sin before | word he shall receive repentance. God.

Of how not to despise the poor, but to share with them equally, lest thou be murmured against before God.

63: When man clothes the naked and fills the When he covers the naked and gives bread to 63 1 hungry, he will find reward from God. the hungry, he shall find forgiveness.

2 But if his heart murmur, he commits a double But if his heart murmurs, then he makes ruin 2 evil: ruin of himself and of that which he gives ; | of his giving of alms. and for him there will be no finding of reward on account of that.

3 And if his own heart is filled with his food And if, when he has had his fill, he is con- 3 and his own flesh (sc. clothed) with his clothing, | temptuous, then he shall lose all his good deeds, he commits contempt, and will forfeit all his | and shall not find (sc. forgiveness), for every con- 4 endurance of poverty, and will not find reward | temptuous man is hateful to the Lord.’ of his good deeds.

4 Every proud and magniloquent man is hateful to the Lord, and every false speech, clothed in untruth ; it will be cut with the blade of the sword of death, and thrown into the fire, and shall burn for all time.’

good for the good, &c. Sir. xxxix. 25; Sibyll. Or. Fragm. iii. 18-19. f 4. The text seems corrupt, and the idea is: it is good to offer gifts to God; but if a man sacrifices to God what is another man’s or ill-gotten, God turns away His face from him, Cf. Ixvi. 2, and esp. Sir. xxxi. 21-4, 28. his hands made them not. Cf. Sibyll. Or. viii. 403, 406. 5. Only willing offerers are blessed. Cf. Exod. xxv. 2; xxxv. 5; Prov. xi. 25. his heart murmur. Cf. Ixiii. 2; Deut. xv. 10; Sir. xxxii. lo. LXII. 1, 2. There is forgiveness if men keep strictly to their vows. B has quite missed the point in ver. 2. 3. before the time. We might expect also ‘ or after the time’. LXIII. 1. See ix (notes).

Of how the Lord calls up Enoch, and people took counsel to go and kiss him at the place called Achuzan.

When Enoch had spoken these words to his sons, all people far and near heard how the Lord was calling Enoch. They took counsel together : 2*Let us go and kiss Enoch, and two thousand

men came together and came to the place

Achuzan where Enoch was, and his sons.

3 And the elders of the people, the whole assembly, came and bowed down and began to kiss Enoch and said to him: ‘Our father Enoch, be

4 thou blessed of the Lord, the eternal ruler, and |

now bless thy sons and all the people, that we may be glorified to-day before thy face.

5 For thou shalt be glorified before the Lord’s face for all time, since the Lord chose thee, rather than all men on earth, and designated thee writer of all his creation, visible and invisible, and redeemer of the sins of man, and helper of thy household.’

And Enoch answered all his people, saying :

Of Enoch’s instruction of his sons.

‘Hear, my children, before that all creatures were created, the Lord created the visible and invisible things.

2 And as much time as there was and went past, understand that after all that he created manin the likeness of his own form, and put into him eyes to see, and ears to hear, and heart to reflect, and intellect wherewith to deliberate.

3 And the Lord saw all man’s works, and created all his creatures, and divided time, from time he fixed the years, and from the years he appointed the months, and from the months he appointed the days, and of days he appointed seven.

4 And in those he appointed the hours, measured them out exactly, that man might reflect on time and count years, months, and hours, ¢hezr alternation, beginning, and end, and that he might count his own life, from the beginning until death, and reflect on his sin and write his work bad and

5 good; because no work is hidden before the Lord, that every man might know his works and never transgress all his commandments, and keep my handwriting from generation to generation.

6 When all creation visible and invisible, as the

Lord created it, shall end, then every man goes

LXIV. 5. writer of all his creation. redeemer. For Enoch as intercessor cf, 1 En. xili. 4.

LXV. 1. For creation cf. xxiv. 2 (note). 2. created man . 4. count years, &c. 5. Cf. xxxiii. 9 (note).

Cf. Wisdom vii. 17-18.

And it happened, when Enoch had spoken to 64 1

his sons and to the princes of the people, all the people and all those near him heard how the Lord God was calling Enoch. All took counsel

together, saying: ‘Come, let us kiss Enoch.’

And these came together up to four thousand 2 . men, and they came to the place Achuzan, where Enoch was and his sons.

And the elders of the people began to kiss 3 Enoch, saying: ‘Blessed art thou of the Lord, the eternal ruler, and now bless thy people, and 4 glorify us before the Lord’s face, for the Lord 5 hath chosen thee, and appointed thee the taker away of our sins.’ And Enoch said to all the people:

‘Hear, my children, before all creation took 65 1 shape, the Lord appointed the age of things created.

Then he created all his creatures visible and invisible.

And then he put together man in his own 2 image, and put into him eyes to see and ears to hear, the heart to reflect and the mind to deliberate.

Then the Lord resolved the age for the sake 3 of man, and divided up the various seasons and years and months and hours, that man might 4 reflect on the changes and end of the seasons, and the beginning and end of the years and the days and the hours, that he might reckon the death of his life.

And when the creation, which the Lord created, 6 shall end, and every man shall go to the Lord’s great judgement, then the seasons shall perish, and thenceforward there will be no more years, nor months, nor days, and there will be no more hours thenceforward, nor will they be reckoned, but there shall begin one endless age. 8

And all the righteous shall be collected together in the great age, and age and age of the

Contrast 2 En. liii. 1.

. . heart'to reflect) Cf Sin. xvii: 3,5.

6. The judgement is to close man’s existence on earth. At this judgement all men must appear, but there is nothing

here to show that there is a resurrection of the body.

Hh 2

7 to the great judgement, and then all time shall | righteous shall be collected together, and they perish, and the years, and thenceforward there | shall be eternal and incorruptible. will be neither months nor days nor hours, they And thenceforward there shall be no labour 9 will be stuck together and will not be counted. amongst them, nor sickness nor humiliation, nor

8 There will be one aeon, and all the righteous | anxiety zor need, nor night nor darkness, but who shall escape the Lord’s great judgement, | great, endless, and indestructible light. shall be collected in the great aeon, for the And the great paradise will be their shelter ro righteous the great aeon will begin, and they will | and eternal dwelling-place, and they shall no

9 live eternally, and then too there will be amongst | more bear the injuries (lit. lawlessnesses) of those them neither labour, nor sickness, nor humiliation, | on earth.

nor anxiety, nor need, nor violence, nor night, The Lord will send down great destruction on nor darkness, but great light. to earth and the earth’s whole composition shall to And they shall have a great indestructible | perish. wall, and a paradise bright and incorruptible, For I know, that this will end in tumult and 11 for all corruptible things shall pass away, and | will perish, only my brother will be preserved on there will be eternal life. that day, placed in . . . and those of his tribe and the sun.

Enoch instructs his sons and all the elders of the people, how they are to walk with terror and trembling before the Lord, and serve him alone and not bow down to idols, but to God, who created heaven and earth and every creature, and ;tof his image.

66: Andnow, my children, keep your souls from all And now, my children, keep your souls from 66 1 injustice, such as the Lord hates. all unrighteousness, such as the Lord hates.

2 Walk before his face with terror and trembling and serve him alone. Bow down to the true God, not to dumb idols, [but bow down to his picture], and bring all just offerings before the Lord’s face. The Lord hates what is unjust.

3 For the Lord sees all things ; when man takes thought in his heart, then he counsels the intellects, and every thought is always before the Lord, who made firm the earth and put all creatures on it.

4 If you look to heaven, the Lord is there; if you take thought of the sea’s deep and all the under-earth, the Lord is there.

5 For the Lord created all things. Bow not down to things made by man, leaving the Lord of all creation, because no work can remain hidden before the Lord’s face.

6 Walk, my children, in long-suffering, in meekness, honesty, in provocation, in grief, in faith and in truth, in relzance on promises, in illness, in abuse, in wounds, in temptation, in nakedness, in privation, loving one another, till you go out from this age of ills, that you become inheritors of endless time. :

7 Blessed are the just who shall escape the great judgement, for they shall shine forth more than

8 the sun sevenfold, for in this world the seventh part is taken off from all, light, darkness, food, enjoyment, sorrow, paradise, torture, fire, frost, and other things; he put all down in writing, that you might read and understand.’

Fer SCE XkXMin 2. 8-9. A blessed immortality.

10. wall. Perhaps the wall that divides Paradise (see ix) from the place of punishment (see x).

LXVI. 1. injustice . . . the Lord hates. Cf. lxi. 1; Deut. xii. 31 ; Wisdom xiv. 9. injustice. Cf. lxvi. 1 (note). Walk ... terror and trembling. Cf. Phil. ii. 12; also 2 Cor. vii. 13; Eph. vi. 5. 2. all just offerings. See Ixi. 4 (note). 3. sees all things .. . thought in his heart, &c. Cf. 1 Chron. xxviii. 9; 2 Chron. vi. 30; Ps.xciv.11; Prov. xv. 11;

4. Partly drawn from Ps. cxxxix. 8-12. Mention of Sheol is omitted here, as it is included in the author’s conception of the heavens.

6._Chy Rom»avitiessaazr Com kl27 4) 2 beta. Ge Ge bay ce

8. enjoyment, &c. 1 En, lxix. 8.

Poe DUOKIOF Thib SECKRE TS OF ENOCH 67, 1-68. 7

The Lord let out darkness on to earth and covered the people and Enoch, and he was taken up on high, and light came again zz the heaven.

When Enoch had talked to the people, the Lord sent out darkness on to the earth, and there was darkness, and it covered those men 2 standing and talking with Enoch, and they took

Enoch up on to the highest heaven, where the

Lord zs; and he received him and placed him

before his face, and the darkness went off from

the earth, and light came again.

3 And the people saw and understood not how Enoch had been taken, and glorified God, and found a roll in which was traced: ‘the invisible God, and all went to their homes.

When Enoch had talked to the people, the 67 1 Lord sent down murk on to the earth, and there was darkness, it covered all the men standing with Enoch.

And the angels hastened and having taken Enoch, they carried him up on to the highest heaven. And he received him, and put him before his face into eternity. And the darkness went off from the earth, and light came again, and all the people saw, and understood not how Enoch had been taken, and glorified God.

And they came to their homes, those who had seen such things. Glory be to our God into eternity. Amen.

Enoch was born on the sixth day of the month Tsivan, and lived three hundred and sixty-five years.

He was taken up to heaven on the first day of the month Tsivan and remained in heaven sixty

2 days.

He wrote all these signs of all creation, which the Lord created, and wrote three hundred

3 and sixty-six books, and handed them over to his sons and remained on earth thirty days, and was again taken up to heaven on the sixth day of the month Tsivan, on the very day and hour when

4he was born. departure from this life. hour too he died.

As every man’s nature in this life is dark, so are also his conception, birth, and At what hour he was conceived, at that hour he was born, and at that

5 Methosalam and his brethren, all the sons of Enoch, made haste, and erected an altar at the place called Achuzan, whence and where Enoch had been taken up to heaven. 6 And they took sacrificial oxen and summoned al] people and sacrificed the sacrifice before the

Lord’s face.

7 All people, the elders of the people and the whole assembly came to the feast and brought gifts

to the sons of Enoch.

And they made a great feast, rejoicing and making merry three days, praising God, who had given them such a sign through Enoch, who had found favour with him, and that they should hand

it on to their sons from generation to generation, from age to age.

LXVII. 2. highest heaven. Cf. lxv. 2 (B). the eternal abode of the righteous, lv. 2.

LXVIII. A short vésvsmé of Enoch’s life. I. sixty days. Cf. xxiii. 6 and xxxvi. I.

Cf. xxiii.

Amen.

This is an exceptional privilege, as Paradise in the third heaven is In Asc. Is. ix. 7 the future habitation of the righteous is the seventh heaven.

5-7. Cf. the fragment of Melchizedekian literature (appended to my Commentary on 2 Enoch) for Methusalem’s

sacrifice.

7. hand it on, &c. Cf. xxxili. Io.

The place of sacrifice, and here of Enoch’s assumption, is called Achuzan in i. 3, but Aruzan in il. 17.

I. SRE SVRIAC APROCALYESEC OF BARUCH

THE Apocalypse of Baruch, which for the sake of convenience will be designated 2 Baruch in this edition, is a composite work written in the latter half of the first century of the Christian era. Its authors were orthodox Jews and it is a good representative of the Judaism against which the Pauline dialectic was directed.

In this Apocalypse we have almost the last noble utterance of Judaism before it plunged into the dark and oppressive years that followed the destruction of Jerusalem. For ages after that epoch its people seem to have been bereft of their immemorial gifts of song and eloquence, or to have had thought and energy only for the study and expansion of the traditions of the Fathers. But when’ our book was written, that evil and barren era had not yet set in; breathing thought and burning word had still their home in Palestine, and the hand of the Jewish artist was still master of its ancient cunning.

This beautiful Apocalypse, with the exception of nine chapters towards its close, which under the title ‘the Epistle of Baruch’ or a similar one, were incorporated in the later Syriac Bible, was lost sight of for quite 1,200 years.

Written originally in Hebrew, it was translated into Greek, and from Greek into Syriac. Of the Hebrew original every line has perished save a few still surviving in rabbinic writings. Of the Greek version, a small fragment has been recovered from the papyri, while many phrases and sentences have been preserved in the Greek Apocalypse of Baruch (i.e. 3 Baruch in this edition) and in the Rest of the Words of Baruch (i.e. 4 Baruch). Happily the Syriac has come down to us in its entirety ina sixth-century MS., the discovery of which is due to Ceriani. Of this MS. Ceriani published a Latin translation in 1866, the Syriac text in 1871, and the photo-lithographic facsimile in 1883. Though there are no adequate grounds for assuming a Latin version, it is demonstrable that our Apocalypse was the foundation of a Latin Apocalypse of Baruch, a fragment of which is preserved in Cyprian.

This Apocalypse is, as has already been stated, composite. The editor has made use of a number of independent writings, belonging to various dates between 50 and go A.D. They are thus contemporaneous with the chief New Testament writings, and furnish records of the Jewish doctrines and beliefs of that period, and of the arguments which prevailed in Judaism in the latter half of the first century, and with which its leaders sought to uphold its declining faith and confront the attacks ofa growing and aggressive Christianity. Written by Pharisaic Jews as an apology for Judaism, and in part an implicit polemic against Christianity, it gained nevertheless a larger circulation amongst Christians than amongst Jews, and owed its very preservation to the scholarly cares of the Church it assailed. But in the struggle for life its.secret animus against Christianity begat an instinctive opposition in Christian circles, and so proved a bar to its popularity. Thus the place it would naturally have filled was taken by the sister work 4 Ezra. This latter work, which forms in fact an unconscious confession of the failure of Judaism to redeem the world, was naturally more acceptable to Christian readers, and thus, in due course, our Apocalypse was elbowed out of recognition by its fitter and sturdier rival.

§2. THE VARIOUS BOOKS OF BARUCH.

1° The Book of Baruch in the LXX (i.e. 1 Baruch). On the probability that i. 1-3; ili. giv. 29 of this book are a recast of a lost portion of our Apocalypse, i.e. ‘the Letter to the Two and a Half Tribes’, see § 8. There is no verbal borrowing between our Apocalypse and 1 Baruch, but in the following passages there is a similarity of diction or of thought or of both:

2 BARUCH. 1 Barucu. ixee 7. (lt: ws Ixxvii. Io. ii. 26. Ixxix. 2. ely nos Lexxen5. In lsy Ixxxlv. 2-5. {ty LO uila2s Ibeeaiie at; oe TeebAs

2° 2 Baruch or the present Apocalypse.

3° 3 Baruch or the Greek Apocalypse—a work of the second century, which is dealt with fully in its proper place in this volume. On some points of connexion between this and the preceding work see my Commentary on The Apocalypse of Baruch, pp. xxi. sq.

4° 4 Baruch or the Rest of the Words of Baruch. The book was written in Greek in the second century of our era. It is in part a Jewish work recast. The Greek text was first printed at Venice in 1609, next by Ceriani in 1868 under the title ‘ Paralipomena Jeremiae’ in his Mon. Sacr.v. 11-18, and has been critically edited by Rendel Harris in 1889. This book exists also in the Ethiopic Bible, and was edited from three MSS. by Dillmann in his Chrestomathia aethiopica in 1886. But asthese MSS. are inferior, a new edition is needed, which will take account of the Greek MSS. as well as of the Ethiopic—there are eight still uncollated of the latter in the British Museum—and also of the Jewish matter underlying the book.

5° A Gnostic Book of Baruch is drawn upon in Hippolytus’ Phzlosophumena, v. 24-7.

6° A Latin Book of Baruch is quoted in an MS. of Cyprian’s Testimonia, iii. 29, which is clearly based on our Apocalypse.

7° Another Book of Baruch is mentioned in the <Altercatio Simonis Ludaet et Theophili Christiani, published by Harnack (Texte und Untersuchungen, Bd. I, Heft 3, 1883), but so far as the quotation goes, this book has no connexion with our Apocalypse.

64) PRE SYRIAC MSS.

For chapters i-lxxvii we have only one MS. This MS.—designated ¢ in my edition—was found in the library in Milan. It belongs to the sixth century. In 1871 Ceriani edited the Syriac text from the MS. in his Mon. Sacr. et Prof. V.ii. 113-80. Of chapters Ixxviii-lxxxvi, which form the Epistle of Baruch, many MSS. were known to exist, and three of them, a, 0, d, were collated by Ceriani. In 1871 Fritzsche attempted to form a text on the basis of these four MSS. through the medium of an emended edition of Ceriani’s Latin translation in his Lzbvz Apocryphi V. T. Graece,

The present writer edited the Syriac text of these chapters in his edition of the Apocalypse of Baruch, 1896, in which he made use of the following MSS.

Called A in Ceriani. See p. 167 note.

Milan MS., ff. 265-267». Sixth century.

Cod. Ambrosianus A 145.

Egerton 705, Brit. Mus., ff. 373°-374°. Seventeenth century. Add. 12172 Brit. Mus., ff. 1926-195». Tenth or Twelfth century.

Of these ten befg zk were collated directly by the present writer. In addition to these he found excerpts from the Epistle in 7 Add. 12178, Brit. Mus., f. 111” (ninth or tenth century), in (twefth century). Finally the readings of the Walton and Paris Polyglots were taken account of. As a result of a critical study of these authorities I arrived at certain definite results. Thus while c represents one type of text,abdefghikimn represent another—say a. The latter again fall into two classes ab ¢ 4k (£) being more trustworthy than defz(=y). The originals of these three classes, a, 8, y, have been lost, but they are helpful in showing the interrelations of our authorities. The results finally arrived at (see my edition, pp. xxii-xxx) can best be represented in the following table :

WS. WOR WT AN BS

Original Syriac Translation

—wo—

Here W and P stand for the Walton and Paris Polyglots. It is of no little interest to have traced the sources of the text in the two great polyglots; for, as their editors have given no information on the subject, scholars had hitherto been in the dark in this respect.

$4. DATE OF THE SYRIAC VERSION.

Since the MSS. ¢ and @ referred to in the preceding section both belong to the sixth century, we find that at that date there existed two distinctly developed types of text, both of which must have been for no brief period in existence owing to the variety of readings already evolved. Further, though 4 belongs to the sixth century, many of its readings are decidedly later than c, or even than ah. In fact ah represent the text at an earlier stage than 6. The common parent a0“ therefore, i.e. 8, could not be later than the fifth century. Since, therefore, 8 belongs at latest to the fifth century, the common progenitor of c and a (= the parent of 8 and y) can hardly be sought later than the fourth century. It may be as early as the third.

§ 5. THE SYRIAC—A TRANSLATION FROM THE GREEK.—T7he Oxyrhyuchus Greek Fragment, xii-xiv. 3.

The Syriac Version is a translation from the Greek. The conclusion was already arrived at before the discovery of the Greek fragment of Grenfell and Hunt. 1° For it is so stated in « 2° There are certain corruptions in the text which are only explicable on the hypothesis that the translator misinterpreted the Greek, or found the corruption already existing there. The corrupt readings in iii. 7, xxi. 9, II, 12; xxiv. 2; lxii. 7 are to be explained on this principle. 3° There are frequent transliterations of Greek words as in vi. 4; x. 17; xvii. 4, &c. 4° The Rest of the Words of Baruch preserves important fragments of the Greek Version.

All the above facts and more (see my edition, p. xlii sq.) were known when Grenfell and Hunt discovered an actual fragment of the Greek Version, which they published in the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, iii. 3-7. The papyrus is part of a leaf from a book, and is written in a large slightly sloping uncial hand—possibly as early as the fourth century, and probably not later than the fifth.

This fragment embraces xii. 1-5, xiii. 1-2, 11-12, xiv. 1-3. I have printed this fragment and an English translation of it in parallel columns with the Syriac. The text is poor and defective. In xiv. 2 it read paprupjoayres, but this was by a later hand rightly corrected into Guaprjcavres as we find in the Syriac. Again in xiv. 1 ‘shall be endured by the Gentiles’ is corrupt for ‘ shall come upon the Gentiles’. Here the papyrus reads tmevexOjoerar which seems corrupt for émevexOyoera. At all events the phrase in the Syriac is exactly the same in xiii. 5, ‘ retribution which is coming upon’ and in xiv. 1 ‘the retribution...shall come upon’. In xii. 3 the parallelism which is preserved in the Syriac is wholly lost. ‘Condemn’ cannot be right, if originally there was any parallelism. The fact that the parallelism is preserved in both Greek and Syriac in xii. 2 is in favour that the Syriac has rightly preserved it in xii. 3.

$6. THE GREEK—A TRANSLATION FROM THE HEBREW.

Previous to my edition of Baruch in 1896 an unbroken unanimity prevailed among scholars on the question of a Greek original. Since the discovery of the book by Ceriani not a single serious attempt had been made to grapple with this problem, and yet in nearly every instance scholars spoke with an assurance on the subject that only a personal and thorough study of the subject could have justified. To this strong and unanimous tradition of the learned world I bowed without hesitation at the outset of my studies, but with an awakening distrust and an ever-growing reluctance

during the years in which I was engaged in the preparation of the work which was published in 1896. ‘The necessity for postulating a Hebrew original which was first shown in this work was

subsequently maintained by Wellhausen (Skizzen und Vorarbeiten, vi. 234), Ryssel (Apok. und Pseudepig. A. T., 1900, ii. 411), and Ginzberg (Fewish Encye. ii. 555). As regards the grounds for this conclusion, I will here be as brief as possible, and adduce only the following. 1° What is true of 4 Ezra the sister work, which was written in Hebrew, is true also of our Apocalypse. 2°. The quotations from the Old Testament agree with the Massoretic text except in one case. 3°. There are many paronomasiae which discover themselves on retranslation into Hebrew. 4°. Many passages in the book have been preserved in Talmudic and Rabbinic writings. 5°. Unintelligible expressions in the Syriac can be explained and the text restored by retranslation into Hebrew.

1°. It is now an accepted view that 4 Ezra was written in Hebrew. Since the two books show in nearly every respect the closest affinities it may provisionally be accepted that as the former is derived from a Hebrew original so also is the latter. In my edition of 2 Baruch in 1896 I pointed out (p. Ixxii) the necessity of assuming a Hebrew original for 4 Ezra. Inthe same year Wellhausen (Gott. Gel. Anz., pp. 12-13) insisted on the same necessity, and demonstrated this necessity in his Skiszen u. Vorarbeiten, vi. 234-40, 1899.

2°. See my edition, pp. xlv sq., 169.

3°. In xv. 8 there are two paronomasiae. Thus ‘Labour with much trouble’ = pa dpy and “crown with great glory’ MN|nI AIwy (see notes zx Joc.).

But these need not necessarily postulate a Hebrew original; the following cases undoubtedly do, Thus in xxi. 14 (see note for the Hebrew) we have a stanza of three lines, each line of which contains a rhyme within it. The writer is so fond of the last of these that he repeats it exactly in xlviii. 35 and partially in Ixxxiii. 12. In xlviii. 35 we have another and still more remarkable instance of paronomasia. In this stanza there are three lines, the first, second, and fourth of which respectively contain this rhyming or alliterative character, but not the third. But even a cursory examination makes it clear that the third line is corrupt. It is against the parallelism and structure of the adjoining three lines. In the notes on the passage the reader will find an attempt to restore the original text, in which a paronomasia is recovered and also a parallelism in sense and structure with the adjoining lines. Again, in Ixiii. 3, 4 there were undoubtedly plays in the Hebrew on the names of Hezekiah and Sennacherib. There is probably another instance of this play on words in Ixxxiil. 10, certainly in Ixxxiii. 14, and possibly in Ixxxiv. 2.

The above evidence is of a very convincing character.

4°. Many sections of our book have exact parallels in the Talmudic and Rabbinic writings. Thus in ii, 1-2 Jeremiah is bidden to leave Jerusalem (implicitly) on the ground that it could not be destroyed so long as Jeremiah was in it. This is explicitly stated in Pesikta r.c. 26 (131a@ ed, Friedmann). On the interpolated passage on the heavenly Temple cf. Sakka 41a, Taanith 5a. The account of the destruction of Jerusalem, vi-—viii, is substantiated at times verbally by Pesikta r. (Joc. cit.). The poetical incident in x. 18 is recounted as a literal fact in Taanith 29a, Lev. r. xix. 6 ; Pesikta v. 26. See note zz loc. With the marvel of the burning of the bodies of the host of Sennacherib, Ixiii. 8, cf. Sanh. 94a, while the legend of the brazen horse, Ixiv. 8, is found in Pesikta Rab Kahana, xxv. 162. See Ginzberg in Few. Encyc. ti. 553.

5°. Unintelligible expressions in the Syriac can be explained and the text restored by retranslation into Hebrew. Ne have here the clinching evidence of a Hebrew original. First of all in the following five passages xxi. 9, 11, 12; xxiv. 2; Ixii. 7 I have been able to explain and restore an unintelligible text by retranslation first into Greek and thence into Hebrew. The Syriac in these verses is the stock rendering of d:cavodcGat,and this in turn of pty. Now psy can mean either dccavodcdar or dikavos eivar. In the five passages above cited the context can admit only of the latter meaning ; but the translator, who was probably a Christian and therefore influenced by the Christian doctrine of justification, wrongly adopted the former rendering. Ryssel has accepted without acknowledgement my restoration of these five passages.

Next in vi. 7 ‘ephod’ is undoubtedly corrupt for ‘ark’ (see note). The corruption can have arisen either in the Hebrew or even in the Syriac, i.e. Jya9? corrupt for Jsos/, but the former is more likely.

In xxi. 22 the text can be restored by retranslation into Hebrew. See note. In xliv. 12 we arrive at a very interesting restoration, which Ryssel adopts without acknowledgement. In the Syriac the phrase ‘on its beginning’ is set over against ‘to torment’ as its antithesis. Here the context requires ‘to its blessedness’. Now the Syriac ws3, which is obviously a corruption of yw ‘to its blessedness’. In lvi. 6 ‘boasting’ is out of place, enumerated as it is along with

‘untimely death ’, ‘ grief and anguish’, ‘ pain’, ‘trouble’, and ‘Sheol’. The word xavxnua aban, which seems corrupt for mdm, ‘disease’. In Ixx. 6 the text reads: ‘some... shall be hindered.’ But the parallelism requires a strong expression. Now ‘shall be hindered’ kodAvdjoovtar IND", corrupt for o>» — ‘shall be consumed’. These two verbs are often confused in Hebrew.

Finally, in lxxx. 2, it is said that the sacred vessels of the Temple were hidden ‘lest they should be polluted by the enemy’. But this clause can hardly be right; for Ixxx is simply a concise reproduction of vi-viii. Now in vi. 8 the real reason for the concealment of these vessels is given, i.e. ‘that strangers may not get possession of them’. Furthermore, the vessels were put away with a view to their use in the restored Temple, vi. 7-10. Now if we retranslate the words, ‘lest any should be polluted by the enemy ’, we have D'3»N9 1m 3), which is an easy corruption of oN odny yp ‘lest the enemy get possession of them’.

§ 7. THE DIFFERENT ELEMENTS IN 2 BARUCH.

The composite nature of this book was first recognized by Kabisch in 1891 and the following year by De Faye, and subsequently by the present writer in 1896 and by Beer in Herzog’s Real- Encyc.® art. ‘Pseudepigraphen des A. Testaments’, p. 250. A short summary of the grounds on which it seems necessary to postulate a diversity of authorship may here be given. If we disregard the letter to the tribes in captivity (Ixxviii-Ixxxvi), the book falls naturally into seven sections separated by fasts, save in one case (after xxxv) where the text is probably defective. These sections, which are of unequal length, are (1) i-v. 6; (2) v. 7-viii; (3) ix—xii. 4; (4) xii. 5-xx; (5) Xxi-xxxv; (6) xxxvi-xlvi; (7) xlvii-Ixxvii. These treat of the Messiah and of the Messianic kingdom, the woes of Israel in the past and the destruction of Jerusalem in the present, as well as of theological questions which were debated in the schools, relating to original sin, free-will, works, the number of the saved, the nature of the resurrection body, &c. The views expressed on these subjects are often conflicting. In one class of passages there is everywhere a vigorous optimism: as to Israel’s ultimate well-being on earth ; there is sketched in glowing and sensuous colours the blessedness which awaits the chosen people in the kingdom of the Messiah which is at hand (xxix; XxXxXix—xl ; lxxiii-lxxiv), when healing will descend in dew, and disease and anguish flee away: when strife and hatred shall vanish and gladness march throughout the earth, when childbirth shall entail no pangs, and none shall die untimely, when Israel’s enemies shall be destroyed (xxxix—x] ; Ixx. 7-Ixxii) and God’s own people enjoy a world-wide empire with its centre at Jerusalem (xl. 2 ; Ixxiii-lxxiv). Over against these passages stand others of a hopelessly pessimistic character, wherein, alike as to Israel’s present and future destiny on earth, there is written nothing save ‘lamentation and mourning and woe’. The world isa scene of corruption, its evils are irremediable ; it is a never-ceasing toil and strife, but its end is at hand ; its strength exhausted ; the ship is already come to the port and life to its consummation (Ixxxv). The advent of the new and spiritual world

/is at hand (xxi. 19; xliv. gQ-15; lxxxv). The first to draw attention to the conflicting elements in

our book was, as I have already remarked, Kabisch in the Fahrbiicher fiir protest. Theol., 1891, pp. 66-107. Kabisch shows that we have in Baruch a measureless pessimism and world despair on the one hand, and on the other a vigorous optimism and world-joy. He further points out that the same subjects are treated several times and often without any fresh contribution to the subject at issue. Thus the Messianic kingdom is twice delineated, the advent of the Messiah twice foretold

‘and the Messianic woes as often depicted. On these and other grounds he derives the book from three or four authors. He distinguishes as the groundwork i-xxiv. I; xxx. 2-xxxiv; xli-lii;

Ixxv-lxxxvii written subsequently to A.D. 70 and saturated throughout by the pessimistic temper already referred to. But in this groundwork the order of the text was according to Kabisch originally different ; i.e. i-xx, xxxi. I-xxxii. I, xxxii. 5-xxxiv, xxi. I-xxiv. 2, xxx. 2—5, xli-lii. 7, Ixxv, Ixxvii-lxxxvii. In the remaining sections of the book there is a faith in Israel’s ultimate triumph here, and an optimism that looks for a Messianic kingdom of sensuous delights. These sections which are prior to A. D. 70 are the work of three writers, i.e. the Vine and Cedar Vision xxxvi-xl, the Cloud Vision liii-xxiv, which are preserved unmutilated, and the third a fragmentary Apocalypse xxiv. 3-xxix. Finally these different writings were incorporated into one book by a Christian contemporary of Papias, and to this editor are probably due xxviii. 5, xxx. 1, XxxXli. 2-4, Xxxv, Ixxvi. I.

This analysis of Kabisch is good in regard to the separate visions, but his so-called groundwork is as composite as the whole work is composite. The problem is far more complex than Kabisch conceived it.

1 See my edition of the Apocalypse of Baruch, pp. liii-Ixv.

It is interesting to find that some of Kabisch’s conclusions were reached independently at about the same date bya French scholar, De Faye, Les Apocalypses juives, 1892, pp. 25-8, 76-103, 192-204. De Faye like Kabisch distinguishes xxxvi-xl and liii-Ixxv as distinct works written before A. D. 70. The rest of his conclusions are less satisfactory. i-xxxii. 6 constitute an Apocalypse of Baruch written after A.D. 70; i-v and vi-xxxii. 6, however, being originally derived from two different authors. Another distinct work was the Assumption of Baruch, i. e. xlviii—lii, xliii. 1-2, Ixxvi. 1-4, written after A.D. 70, xxxii. 7-xxxv, xli-xlvii. 2, Ixxvi. 5-lxxxvii are for the most part the work of the final editor, but xliv. 9-15, xlvi. 7 was due to a Christian reviser. On the whole this analysis is less convincing than that of Kabisch.

Since the above solutions of the complex problems before us are inadequate, the present writer addressed himself afresh to the task in 1895-6. From the conclusions then arrived at he has seen no good ground for departing save in a few minor points.

With Kabisch and De Faye I recognize the fact that two distinct types of documents are present in our book, the one of an optimistic character as to Israel’s future on Earth and the other of a pessimistic character in this respect. To the former type I assign the three Messianic Apocalypses xxvii-xxx. I; xxxvi-x] ; liii-lxxiv, which for convenience’ sake I designate A}, A?, A’, and a short original Apocalypse of Baruch B'. In the remaining sections are B?, B®, the contents of which we shall determine presently, the doctrine of a Messianic kingdom is absolutely relinquished.

Different documents behind the Text. Thus A‘, A®, A®, B' agree in presenting an optimistic view of Israel's future and inculcating the hope of a Messianic kingdom: whereas in B*, B® the hopes of the righteous are directed to the immediate advent of the final judgement and the spiritual world. (For

But at this point a difference between A!, A?, A® and B! emerges. The former look for a Messiah at the head of the kingdom, but B’ for a kingdom without the Messiah.

Their relative dates, As we pursue our study we discover further that: 1° In A‘, A*, A% Jerusalem is still standing—hence they were written before A.D. 70; whereas in B!, B?, B® it is already destroyed (though in B? it is to be restored): 2° In A!, A?, A®, it is only to the actual inhabitants of Palestine that the promise of protection is given in the time of the Messianic woes (see xxix. 2; xl. 2; Ixxi. 1)—thus the Jews are still in Palestine; but in B1, B*, B*, they are already in exile. In B! they are ultimately to be restored.

Facts confirming the above conclusions. A cursory examination of the books reveals the scheme of the final editor. According to this scheme the book was divided into seven sections separated by six fasts. Each of the last six of these sections thus opens with or is preceded by a fast: cp. v. 7, ix. 2, Xii. 5, xxi. 1,(mention of fifth fast which should occur after xxxv is,lost), xlvii. 2. In each section a definite movement or order of events is observed. This order briefly is: first a fast, then a divine command or revelation and finally the publication of the command or matter revealed unless accompanied by a prohibition to do so as in xx. 3. In some cases a prayer follows the fast xxi. 3, xviii. 1, and a lamentation the publication of the divine disclosure x. 6 (see the notes in my edition pp. I, 9, 13, 36, 61). This being so, it is significant that in the addresses on xxxi. 2—xxxiv, xlvi. 4-6, Ixxvii. I-17 there is not a single reference to the Messianic Apocalypses Al, A’, A’. From this it follows that A!, A#, A® have no real organic connexion with the rest of the poo BL B?, B®. Their removal serves to restore some cohesion to the text (see my edition xxx. 2 note, xli note, 1xxv-Ixxvi note).

The relations of A}, A*, A® to each other. A is of distinct authorship from A? and As for whereas in A’ the Messiah pursues a passive réle and does not appear till the enemies of Israel are destroyed and the kingdom established, in A’, A® it is the Messiah that destroys the enemies of Israel and establishes the kingdom. A* and A® though differing in some respects may come from the same author. All three Apocalypses were written before A.D. 70.

The relations of B', B*, B® to each other. Since B® consists of a single chapter we shall deal with it first.

b? = lexxv. This chapter agrees with B!, B® in being written after A.D. 70; but differs from B' and agrees with B? in despairing of a national restoration, and in looking only for spiritual blessedness in the world of incorruption. But again it differs from B? also, in that B® was written in Jerusalem or Judaea, whereas B® was written in Babylon or some other land of the dispersion, Ixxxv. 3—in the former most probably ; for it was written in Hebrew. Again whereas, according to B*, Jeremiah was with the captivity in Babylon, it is here definitely stated that the righteous and the prophets are dead, and that the exiles have none to intercede for them, |xxx. 1, 2. Thus B? is a fragment written in Hebrew after A.D. 70 by an exile probably in Babylon.

B B’—thetr extent and characteristics. Even the elimination of the preceding sections does not leave a coherent whole as we have already seen. Thus i-ix. 1, xxxii. 2—4, xliii-xliv. 7, xlv—xlvi,

ixxvii-lxxxii, Ixxxiv, Ixxxvi sq. ( B?) are optimistic and hopeful as to this world, whereas x—xxv, XXX. YJ—XXXil. I, xxxii. 5—xxxv, xli sq., xliv. 8-15, xlvii-lii, Ixxv sq. Ixxxiii ( B®) are decidedly of an opposite character. But the differences are not only of a general but of a detailed character. Thus in B! the dispersion is to return, Ixxvii. 6, lxxviii. 7, but in B? no such restoration is expected. In B? the earthly Jerusalem is to be rebuilt, i. 4, vi. 9, xxxii. 2-4, lxxviii. 7 (see notes in my edition), but not in B?: cf. x. 10, xx. 2. In B! Baruch is to die an ordinary death, xliv. 2, xIvili. 30, Ixxviii. 5, 1xxxiv. I, but to be translated in B? xiii. 3, xxv. 1, lxxvi. 2. In B! Jeremiah is not sent to Babylon, Ixxvii. 12, but in B? he is sent, x. 2, xxxiii.2. In B' Jerusalem is destroyed by angels lest the enemy should boast, vii. 1, xxx. 3, but this idea is foreign to A®*: cf. lxvii. 6-7, and appears to be so to B* as it was to 4 Ezra iv. 30 and the Ass. Mosis iii. 2. Finally though the Law is valued in B!, it is extravagantly glorified in B*. See note on xv. 5 in my edition.

The final editor's use of B' and B*, From B? the editor borrowed materials and used them in a straightforward fashion, as will be seen by referring to the preceding paragraph. But this is not the case with B?. This source the editor mutilated and transposed in a fashion that appears quite incredible to the ordinary reader. But the serious student cannot ignore the present hopeless order of xiii-xxv. In these chapters the original text has been frequently transposed, the original development of thought arrested and inverted, questions are frequently recorded after their specific answers have already been given in full, and passages torn from their original setting in Baruch’s address to the people and inserted in Baruch’s prayers to God, where they have no conceivable meaning. On the note on xili-xxv the question is treated with sufficient fullness for our present contention, and as a result of the facts and deductions there given we might restore provisionally the order of x-xxv as follows: x-xiii. 1-3, xx, xxiv. 2—4, xiii, 3°-12, xxv, xiv-Xix, xxi-xxiv. I.

As regards the remaining sections of B*, they appear to have received the same drastic treatment from the editor as the earlier chapters. Thus the gist of xxxi-xxxii. 6, which contains an address of Baruch to the people, consists of three themes. These should of course have been dealt with in a preceding revelation, since the subject on which Baruch addresses the people is to be found in each instance in the previous divine revelation: cf.v. 5,x. 4. But the themes on which Baruch discourses in XXXi-xxxii. 6 are not made the subject of revelation till later. See note on xxxi-xxxv, where Again, liv. 16-18 is clearly in its wrong context and likewise xlviii. 48—5o, lii. 5-7. These passages seem to belong to an address of Baruch to the people: they form a direct address to the wicked and could not therefore occur in a prayer of Baruch to God. In every case, too, they break the sense of the context. We cannot enter here into the many other dislocations which the original document B* underwent at the hands of the final editor. The reader will find some of these treated in the notes that follow. For a full treatment of the question he can consult my edition pp. lxi sqq. and the notes referred to there.

As a result of the above criticism we may provisionally restore the original order of the source Ixxxili, XXxii. 7—xxxv, Ixxvi.

The solution here offered seems extremely complex, but since the problem is almost incredibly complex, the solution cannot be a simple or obvious one. Further investigation will no doubt modify some of the above conclusions, but I know of no study since my edition in 1896 that gives adequate grounds for any serious departure from the above analysis.

§ 8. THE Lost EPISTLE TO THE Two AND A HaLF TRIBES.

In my edition of 2 Baruch in 1896, pp. lxv-Ixvii, I advanced the hypothesis, which is now steadily gaining acceptance, that a portion of the lost Epistle to the Two and a Half Tribes, which is referred to in lxxvii. 12, 17, 19, has been preserved in 1 Baruch i. 1-3, iii. g-iv. 29. The lost Epistle was addressed to Judah and Benjamin in exile (Ixxvii. 12,17). So was 1 Bar, iii. gQ—iv. 29. The lost Epistle was ‘an epistle of doctrine and a scroll of good tidings’ (Ixxvi. 12). So, too, is 1 Bar. iii. g-iv.29. The lost Epistle was to hold out the promise of return and was written by Baruch to Babylon. So, too, was 1 Bar. iii. g-iv. 29. For the enforcement of these and other grounds for the identification of the lost Epistle, see my edition as referred to above.

§9. THE RELATIONS OF 2 BARUCH AND 4 EZRA.

The affinities of our Apocrypha and 4 Ezra are so numerous (see my edition of the former, pp. 170-1, for some sixty-six passages with such affinities) that Ewald and Ryle assumed identity of authorship. But their points of divergence are so weighty (of. ci¢. pp. 1xix—Ixxi) that this view

cannot be sustained. Three conclusions remain open according as we assume the integrity or compositeness of these books. If on the one hand we assume unity of authorship, either 2 Baruch is earlier or later than 4 Ezra. According to Schiirer, Bissell, Thomson, Deane, Kabisch, De Faye, Clemen, Wellhausen, 2 Baruch is the earlier, while Langen, Hilgenfeld, Renan, Dillmann, Rosenthal, Gunkel are just as strongly convinced that it is the later. Moreover, the arguments of the one side are just as weighty as the counter arguments of the other, and beyond this zmpasse it is impossible, in my opinion, for criticism to advance, until it recognizes the composite nature of both books. The subject cannot be discussed here. The reader can consult an attempt to deal with the chronological relations of the various constituents of the two books in my edition of 2 Baruch, pp. Ixxii—-lxxvi. See also Box’s edition of 4 Ezra, which is about to be published, as well as his Introduction to 4 Ezra in the present volume.

This book presents a vivid picture of the hopes and beliefs of Judaism during the years A.D. 50-100. As it was written at different dates and by different authors, its composition was thus contemporaneous with that of the New Testament. It is, therefore, of great value to the New Testament student, as it furnishes him with the historical setting and background of many of the New Testament problems.

Original Sin and Free-will. Sin in 2 Baruch is the conscious and deliberate breach of the law, Xv. 5-9, xix. 1-2. Man does not fall inevitably into it ; for he does not possess a cor malignum as in 4 Ezra. Jeremiah is ‘ pure from sin’, ix. 1.

Sin, then, being a conscious breach of law, it began with Adam’s transgression. Adam is the starting-point as in 2 Enoch, whereas in 1 Enoch and Jubilees human depravity is traced mainly to the angels that sinned. When Adam fell, his name became symbolical for the power of darkness opposing the power of light, which is the law, xviii. 1-2.

On the fall of Adam certain consequences followed. (a) First of all, physical death. In B?, i.e. Xvii. 3, xix. 8, xxiii. 4, Adam’s sin brought in physical death, otherwise man would have been immortal. This conditional immortality of man appears also in 1 Enoch |xix. 11, Wisdom i. 13, 14, 2 Enoch xxx. 16,17, 4 Ezra iii. 7. But in A®, i.e. liv. 15, lvi. 6, Adam is said to have brought in only premature death. (6) Psychical and physical declension. This consequence appears in many passages but most clearly in lvi. 6, where trouble and anguish, disease and death, sensual passion and the begetting of children are traced to it.

‘For when he transgressed Untimely deaths came into being : Grief was named, And anguish prepared : And pain was created, And trouble consummated : And disease began to be established, And Sheol kept demanding that it should be renewed in blood : And the begetting of children was brought about, And the passion of parents produced : And the greatness of humanity was humiliated, And goodness languished.’

(c) Spiritual evil in that man became a danger to himself, lvi. 10, and to the angels, lvi. 10. In the former passage the text states shortly that man ‘ became a danger to his own soul’. This fact, therefore, that man henceforth became his own worst enemy, implies that by the Fall a hereditary tendency to evil was established in man. In one passage only does spiritual death appear to be traced to Adam, i.e. in xlviii. 42 sq., but even there it does not follow as an inevitable consequence.

Notwithstanding the above penalties that followed on the Fall, man according to 2 Baruch preserves his free-will, his moral nature remains unimpaired, and the spiritual consequences of Adam’s Fall are in the main limited to Adam himself, liv. 15, 19.

‘For though Adam first sinned And brought untimely death upon all, Yet of those who were born from him Each one of them has prepared for his own soul torment to come, And again each one of them has chosen for himself glories to come.

Adam is, therefore, not the cause, save only of his own soul, But each of us has been the Adam of his own soul.’

Thus man remained the captain of his own soul and therefore of his destiny. The issues of right and wrong are placed before him and the power of choice remains in his keeping, xix. 1, 3.

‘“ Behold I have placed before you life and death,” And he called heaven and earth to witness against them . . But after his death they sinned and transgressed, Though they knew they had the Law reproving (them), And the light in which nothing could err, Also the spheres which testify, and Me.’

‘The lamp of the eternal law shone on all those who sat in darkness’, lix. 2: even from the Gentiles the needful knowledge was not withheld and their conscience testified to their guilt: only their pride withheld from them a knowledge of the law. Hence the choice of evil on man’s part is deliberate, li. 16.

‘For then they chose (not) for themselves this time, Which, beyond the reach of anguish, could not pass away: But they chose for themselves that time, Whose issues are full of lamentations and evils . . . So that they shall not come to the honour of which I told thee before.’

Thus in 2 Baruch there is no doctrine of inherited guilt or of total depravity. This differs wholly from the Pauline doctrine. In the latter owing to the Fall man is henceforth dominated by original sin, which makes his fulfilment of the law and therefore his realization of righteousness impossible. He is not, indeed, thereby robbed wholly of free-will, but retains it in a degree just sufficient to justify his condemnation.

The Law. This book is of a strongly Pharisaic character. The writers are assured of their power to fulfil the law, and the self-complacency of Baruch xiii. 3, xxv. 1, xliii. 1 stands out in strong contrast with the self-depreciation that marks 4 Ezra. The importance of the law is emphasized iii. 6, xv. 5. It was the centre round which Jewish thought and life revolved. To a limited extent the Messianic expectation was likewise a centre, and, in proportion the more one is emphasized, the more the other falls into the background. Thus in B! where the restoration of Ferusalem ts looked Sor but no Messiah, the law is spoken of as follows: God gave the law to Israel, 1xxvii. 3; for transgressing it they were sent into exile, xxvii. 4, Ixxxiv. 2; but let not Israel withdraw from the law, xliv. 23, but obey it, xlvi. 5; let them remember it, ]xxxiv. 8; for if they do so, they will see the consolation of Zion, xliv. 7, and a son of the law shall never be wanting, xlvi. 4, nor a lamp nor a shepherd, Ixxvii. 16. In B* where there is no Messiah and no expectation of the restoration of Ferusalem, the law is still further glorified. It will protect those who receive it in their hearts, xxxii. 1, xlviii. 24; by it they will be justified, li. 3; in it will be the hope of the righteous, li. 7; the law is with Israel, and so long as they obey it they will not fall, xlviii. 22,24. They have received one law from One, xlviii. 24. For further treatment of this question see my edition of the Apocalypse of Baruch, pp. \xix, 26-31, 63-4.

‘Here we have decidedly orthodox Judaism. In 4 Ezra on the other hand man trembles before the law: he needs mercy, not the award of the law ; for all have sinned, viii. 35: it has served rather unto condemnation ;’ for only a very few are saved through good works, vii. 77, or the divine compassion, Vii. 139.

Works and justification. In our apocalypse the righteous are saved by their works, li. 7, and

' their righteousness is of the law, lxvii. 6. In the consciousness of their justification by the law, li. 3, they can with confidence approach God, and look to Him for the fulfilment of their prayers because of their works wherein they trust, Ixiii. 3, 5; Ixxxv. 2, and owing to the same ground of confidence they depart from this world full of hope, xiv. 12. But their works are not limited to themselves in their saving effects. So long as the righteous live, their righteousness is a tower of strength to their people, ii. 2, and after death it remains to their country a lasting ground of merit, xiv. 7, lxxxiv. Io.

The Messiah and the Messianic Kingdom. The hope of a Messiah is entertained only in A’, A?*, A’, the hope of the Kingdom without a Messiah in B+, which sections were written before A.D. 70. Since the chief characteristics of these sections have been dealt with in this respect in § 7, we shall touch only briefly upon them. The kingdom of the Messiah is not like that of the centuries preceding 100 B.C., which was to last for ever. According to this Apocalypse the whole present world belongs to the sphere of corruption. Even so does the Messianic kingdom, It forms the end of the world of corruption, x]. 3, and the beginning of the world of incorruption, Ixxiv. 2. Although of temporary duration it is the Golden Age, xxiii. 1, 2, 7.

1. ‘And it shall come to pass when he has brought low everything that is in the world, And has sat down in peace for the age on the throne of his kingdom, That joy shall then be revealed And rest shall appear. 2. And then healing shall descend in dew, And disease shall withdraw, And anxiety and anguish and lamentation pass from amongst men, And gladness proceed through the whole earth .. . 7. And women shall no longer then have pain when they bear, Nor shall they suffer torment when they yield the fruit of the womb. And it shall come to pass in those days that the reapers shall not grow weary, Nor those that build toilworn, For the works shall of themselves speedily advance Together with those who do them in much tranquillity.’

xxiv. 1.

At the close of this temporary kingdom the Messiah will return to heaven and the righteous shall rise to a blessed life, xxx. 1. Then shall the righteous receive their promised reward, lix. 2, and enjoy the glories to come, liv. 15, but the unrighteous shall be cast into the torment of fire, liv. 14, ive Pelix. 2, IO.

In the other sections, B?, B® written after A.D. 70, no period of earthly blessedness is looked for ; the hope of a kingdom of righteousness on earth is abandoned wholly. An extreme note of despair as to this world marks both these sections but especially B® (i.e. Ixxxv), which was written in exile: cp. Ixxxv. 2. According to this latter writer (Ixxxv. Io):

‘The youth of the world is past,

And the strength of the creation already exhausted . . . And the pitcher is near to the cistern,

And the ship to the port:

And the course of the journey to the city,

And life to (its) consummation.’

Resurrection. In xlix. 2-li a view of the resurrection is expounded, which sets forth first the raising of the dead with their bodies in exactly the same form in which they had been committed to the earth with a view to their recognition by those who knew them, and next their subsequent transformation with a view to a spiritual existence of unending duration. In my edition of this book, pp. 83-4, I have shown that the Pauline teaching in 1 Cor. xv. 35-50 is in many respects not an innovation, but a developed and more spiritual exposition of ideas already current in Judaism. In Judaism the same physical body was resuscitated and transformed : in the Pauline teaching, the two bodies were wholly unconnected except in so far as they were the successive organs of the spirit in the material and spiritual worlds. They were so far from being identical in any respect that it was not till the physical body was destroyed that the spiritual body could be assumed. There is no transformation of dead or resuscitated bodies in the Pauline teaching: only of bodies of the faithful who should be alive at the Parousia.

§ 11. RELATION OF THE APOCALYPSE WITH THE NEW TESTAMENT,

The points of contact between this Apocalypse and the New Testament are many in number. The most of these, however, are insufficient to establish a relation of dependence on either side; for the thoughts and expressions in question could be explained from pre-existing literature, or were commonplaces of the time.

Matt. iii. 16: Lo, the heavens were opened.

Matt. ii. 17 (xvii. 5; John xii. 28): A voice from heaven.

Matt. iv. 8.

Matt. xxiv. 7 (Mark xiii. 8; Luke xxi. 11): Famines and... earthquakes.

Matt. xxiv. r1, 24: Many false prophets.

Matt. xxiv. 19 (Luke xxiii. 29).

Matt. xxvi. 24: It had been good for that man, &c.

PARALLELS IN OUR APOCALYPSE.

xxii. 1: Lo, the heavens were opened.

Xill. I; xxii. 1: A voice from the height.

Ixxvi. 3.

SRV ON 7

xlviii. 34 (see note).

x. 13, 14 (resemblance slight). x. 6: Blessed is he who was not born, &c.

PROBABLE SOURCE OF BOTH. Ezek, 1)

Deut. xxxiv. 1-4. Commonplaces of Jewish Apocalyptic.

Commonplaces of Jewish Apocalyptic.

Isa. liv. 1.

Matt. xxiv. 27: For as the lightning . . . so shall be the coming of the Son of man.

Luke xx. 36: Equal unto the

redemption draweth nigh.

Acts xv. 10 (where the law is spoken of as a tyoke’; cp. Gal. v. 1).

The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory, &c.

2 Cor. iii. 18: Reflecting as in a mirror the glory of the Lord are transformed into the same image from glory to glory.

PARALLELS IN OUR APOCALYPSE. ii. g: Now that lightning shone exceedingly so as to illu-

minate the whole earth. (The

lightning here symbolizes the

liatro: t Enoch civ. 4, 6. xxii. 7: My redemption has t Enoch li. 2.

drawn nigh. xli. 3: The yoke of Thy law.

xlvill. 40 (see note).

xv. 8: This world is tothem... a labour with much trouble... and that . . . which is to come, a crown with great glory.

Ixxxiil. 3.

li. ro: And they shall be made like unto the angels, . .. and they shall be changed . . . from beauty into loveliness, and from light into

1 Enoch ix. 5.

PROBABLE SOURCE OF BOTH. A coincidence (?).

A current expression.

1 Tim. i. 2: Mercy and peace. xxi. 1): New heavens and a new

Rey. xx. 12: The books were SEXY mE opened. opened.

the splendour of glory. Ixxviii 2: Mercy and peace.

xxxii. 6: Renew His creation.

The books shall be

A coincidence.

Dan. vii. ro.

In the following passages our text is dependent on the New Testament, or on some lost common

source :—

Matt. xvi. 26: For what shall a man be profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?

Luke i. 43: Blessed art thou among women, &c.

1 Cor. xv. 19: If in this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.

1 Cor. xv. 35: How are the dead raised? and with what manner of body do they come?

James 1. 2: Count it all joy when ye fall into manifold temptations.

Rey. iv. 6: In the midst of the throne, and round about the throne, four living creatures.

PARALLELS IN OUR APOCALYPSE.

li. 15: For what then have men lost their life and for what have those who were on the earth exchanged their soul ?

liv. 10: Blessed be my mother among those that bear, &c. (probably interpolated).

xxl. 13: For if there were this life only . . . nothing could be more bitter than this.

xlix. 2: In what shape will those live who live in Thy day?

li. 6: Rejoice ye in the suffering which ye now suffer.

li 11: The living creatures that are beneath the throne.

For a full bibliography see Charles’ Apocalypse of Baruch with short criticisms of the various works, and

Schiirer, 77 loc.

(2) THE GREEK VERSION. Fragments published in Grenfell and Hunt’s Oxyrhynchus Papyri, iii. 3-7, 1903 ;

reprinted in this volume, p. 487 sqq.

THE SYRIAC VERSION. The entire version in Ceriani’s Wonumenta sacra et profana, V. ii. 113-80, from one MS. ¢; chapters Ixxviii-Ixxxvi. 1-2, the Epistle of Baruch, in the London and Paris Polyglots; Lagarde’s Libra Ved. Test. Syriace, 88-93, 1861, from one MS. ; Charles, Apocalypse of Baruch, 125-67, from ten MSS.

(6) MODERN TRANSLATIONS.

Into Latin by Ceriani, of. czt., I. ii. 73-98, 1866 ; into English by Charles, of. c7z. ;

in German by Ryssel in Kautzsch’s Apok. und Pseud. i. 413-46.

(¢) CRITICAL INQUIRIES,

Langen, De Afocalypsi Baruch, 1867 ; Hilgenfeld, Wessias Iudaeorum, 63-4, 1869 ;

Kneucker, Das Buch Baruch, 190-6, 1879; Rosenthal, Vier apocryphische Biicher, 72-103, 1885; Kabisch, ‘Die Quellen der Apocalypse Baruchs,’ Jahrbiicher f. protest. Theol., 66-107, 1891; De Faye, Les Apocalypses juives, 25-8, 76-103, 192-204, 1892; Ryle, Smith's Dict. of the Bible, i. 361-2; Ginzberg in the Jewish Encyclopaedia, ii. 554-6, 1902, a very valuable article.

(d) Edition of the book. Charles, Apocalypse nee 1896.

mre BOOK OF THE APOCALYPSE OF BARUCH THE SON OF NERIAH

[Translated from the Greek into Syriac. ]

I—IV.1. Announcement of the coming Destruction of Ferusalem to Baruch.

lx And it came to pass in the twenty-fifth year of Jeconiah, king of Judah, that the word of the Lord j-ix. 1 2 came to Baruch, the son of Neriah, and said to him: ‘Hast thou seen all that this people are doing = B* to Me, that the evils which these two tribes which remained have done are greater than (those of) 3 the ten tribes which were carried away captive? For the former tribes were forced by their kings to commit sin, but these two of themselves have been forcing and compelling their kings to commit 4sin. For this reason, behold I bring evil upon this city, and upon its inhabitants, and it shall be removed from before Me for a time, and I will scatter this people among the Gentiles that they may do good to the Gentiles. And My people shall be chastened, and the time shall come when they will seek for the prosperity of their times. 2: For I have said these things to thee that thou mayst bid Jeremiah, and all those that are like you, to retire from this city. 2 For your works are to this city as a firm pillar, And your prayers as a strong wall.’

THE FIRST SECTION. I-V. 6. The first of the seven sections into which, according to the scheme of the final editor, the book was originally divided by fasts, generally lasting seven days. See v. 7, note; ix, note.

In this section the word of the Lord comes to Baruch announcing the coming, though temporary, destruction of Jerusalem (i); Baruch is to bid Jeremiah to withdraw (ii); Baruch then asks, Will this destruction be final? will chaos return ? (ili); God answers that the punishment is temporary (iv. 1). Yet even so, Baruch rejoins, The enemy will boast before their idols over God’s own nation (v. 1). Not so, God replies, the heathen will have no cause to glory, as it is not they who will destroy Zion (v. 2, 3). Baruch assembles the people, and delivers the message (v. 5).

I. [Translated from the Greek into Syriac.] These words occur in the Syriac MS., and the statement is supported by (1) transliterations of Greek words ; (2) renderings explicable only on the hypothesis that the translator followed the wrong meaning of the Greek word before him.

I. 1. in the twenty-fifth year of Jeconiah. The reckoning is by the years of Jeconiah’s life, and not of his reign. He was eighteen years old when he began to reign in 599, and thus his twenty-fifth year would be 592, or two years before Nebuchadrezzar’s approach. In vi. 1 only one day, and not two years, elapses between the prediction and its fulfilment. So, too, the siege of Jerusalem is there represented as lasting but one day, whereas it lasted two years. Moreover, Jeconiah was in captivity when the city fell, and Zedekiah was king, as the author was aware (viii. 5). Accuracy of detail is sacrificed to general dramatic effect.

the Lord. This title of God is found in all sections of the book alike. Baruch, the son of Neriah. Cf. Jer. xxxii. 12; xxxvi. 4; 1 Baruch i. 1.

2. the ten tribes. Elsewhere in this Apocalypse called ‘the nine and a half tribes’. See Ixxviii. 1 note.

3. forced by their kings, e.g. Jeroboam, and other kings of Israel. these two... compelling their kings to commit sin. It was the princes of Judah rather than Zedekiah

that resisted Jeremiah’s teaching and prophecy.

4. for a time. This phrase recurs in iv. 1, vi. 9; xxxii. 3. It is thus peculiar to B. Jerusalem has fallen under the Romans, but the writer of these chapters believes its desolation will be but ‘fora time’. Its future restoration is implied also in Ixxvii. 6, Ixxviii. 7, where the return of the ten tribes is foretold. In B?*, and B% i.e. Ixxxy, no such restoration is looked for; Jerusalem is removed, xx. 2 (see note zz /oc.) in order to usher in the judgement more speedily ; in x. Lo the writer abandons all hope of a restored Jerusalem.

do good to the Gentiles. This seems to mean to make proselytes of the Gentiles. Cf. xlii. 5. My people shall be chastened. Cf. xiii. 10, &c. Pss. Sol. vil. 3, &c. the prosperity of their times, a Messianic kingdom or period of blessedness for Israel on earth.

Il. 1. According to Jer. xxxviii. 13, 28 Jeremiah was a prisoner in the court of the guard till the capture of Jerusalem. those that are like you. This phrase recurs in three of the sections of this book. Cf. 4 Ezra iv. 36, &c. retire from this city. Cf. 4 Baruch (‘The Rest of the Words of Baruch’) i. 1. ‘Jeremiah... go forth from this

city’. The reason for this command appears in the Talmud. In Taanith 19 we are told a house cannot fall so long as a good man is init. In Pesikta 115» (Buber’s edition, 1868) it is said ‘So long as Jeremiah was in Jerusalem it was not destroyed, but when he went forth from it, it was destroyed’.

2. your works are to this city as a firm pillar, cc. Here Jer. vi. 27 is illegitimately applied, ‘I have made thee a tower and a fortress among my people.’ Cf., however, Gen. xvili. 23-33.

your works. On the doctrine of works taught in this book see note on xiv. 7. 4 Baruch omits the reference to ‘works’, as it is of Christian authorship. 7

rt And I said: ‘O Lorpb, my Lord, have I come into the world for this purpose that I might see the 2 evils of my mother? Not (so) my Lord. If I have found grace in Thy sight, first take my spirit 3 that I may go to my fathers and not behold the destruction of my mother. For two things vehemently constrain me: for I cannot resist Thee, and my soul, moreover, cannot behold the evils 5 of my mother. But one thing I will say in Thy presence,O Lord. What, therefore, will there be after these things ? for if Thou destroyest Thy city, and deliverest up Thy land to those that hate 6 us, how shall the name of Israel be again remembered? Or how shall one speak of Thy praises? 7 or to whom shall that which is in Thy Jaw be explained? Or shall the world return toits nature (of 8 aforetime), and the age revert to primeval silence? And shall the multitude of souls be taken away, g and the nature of man not again be named? And where is all that which Thou didst say to Moses regarding us?’ I And the Lord said unto me: ‘This city shall be delivered up for a time, And the people shall be chastened during a time, And the world will not be given over to oblivion.

IV. 2-7. The heavenly Ferusalem.

2 [* Dost thou think that this is that city of which I said: “ On the palms of My hands have I graven 3 thee”? This building now built in your midst is not that which is revealed with Me, that which was

prepared beforehand here from the time when I took counsel to make Paradise, and showed it to

Adam before he sinned, but when he transgressed the commandment it was removed from him, as +also Paradise. And after these things I showed it to My servant Abraham by night among the 5 portions of the victims. And again also I showed it to Moseson Mount Sinai when I showed to him 6 the likeness of the tabernacle and all its vessels. And now, behold, it is preserved with Me, as also 7 Paradise. Go, therefore, and do as I command thee.’]

III. 1. O LORD, my Lord. This title of God is confined, except in one instance (xxxviii. 1), to B? and BL It recurs in xiv. 8, 16; xvi. 1; xxlil, 1; xlviii. 4, 5. While used only of God in this work, in 4 Ezra it is applied to an angel six times (see 4 Ezra iv. 38, &c.), as also ‘JN in Dan. x. 17,19. The words uzx0 |six are to be rendered “O LORD, my Lord’, as above, and not Dominator Domine, as we find in Ceriani. The suffix is not moribund. The Syriac is a translation either of déc7ora kipte pou or Kvpte KUpLe ov; and these in turn would point either to M10" ‘JIN

my mother. Cf. iii. 2, 3, x. 16; 1 Baruch iv. 9-16. This was a very natural term for a Jew to apply to Jerusalem, as Isa. xlix. 21. Cf. Matt. xxiii. 37. The writer here (B') uses it as an earthly Jerusalem, as St. Paul in Gal. iv. 26 of the heavenly.

2. take my spirit. Cf. Ps. xxxi. 13; Jer. xv. 15.

4-IV. 1. Baruch asks God if the end of all things will follow on the delivering up of Jerusalem; will Israel’s name be lost, and students of the law fail? Will chaos return and men die? In iv. 1 God answers that Jerusalem will again be restored, the chastening of its people soon be accomplished, and chaos will not return.

6. to whom shall that which is in Thy law be explained? Answered by Baruch, xlvi. 4.

7. The Syriac word here translated ‘world’ really means ‘ornament’. ‘Thus the translator followed a wrong sense of kéopos.

revert to primeval silence. Cf. 4 Ezra vii. 30 for the doctrine of a thousand years’ Sabbath, which may be referred to here and in xliv. 9 (B’) and denied in iv. 1.

8. shall... be taken away. The MS. reads ams, which Ceriani emends into amyKxs, which I have

rendered. Ryssel proposes Q@aK.s0 = ‘shall be destroyed’,

1V. 2-7. Apparently an interpolation. The earthly Jerusalem is here derided, and contrasted with the one to be revealed. In vi. 9, Jerusalem, though to be delivered up for a time, as in iv. 1, will be again restored, and that for ever. Further in vi. 7-8, he actual vessels of the earthly temple are committed to the earth to be preserved for future use in the restored Jerusalem.

2. ‘On the palms of My hands.’ Quoted from Isa. xlix. 16, Syriac Version, which alone has ‘palms’, This fuller phrase is usual, e.g. I Sam. v. 4.

3. This building . .. is not that which is revealed. The growing transcendence and enlargement of the idea of God, combined with the deepened consciousness of sin, and the consequent sense of the unfitness of Jerusalem as God’s habitation, led to the evolution of the doctrine of a heavenly Jerusalem complete in all its parts. Of heavenly antitypes of the Tabernacle and its furniture we are told as early as the Priests’ Code (Exod. xxv. 9, 40; cf. Heb. viii. 5). The purification or even total renewal of the earthly copies is postulated in Isa, Ix; Ezek. xl-xlviii. The first full emergence of the idea of the heavenly city seems to be in 1 En. xc. 28, 29, where the old Jerusalem is removed, and the new is brought and set up by God Himself, though even there no prior existence is assigned to the latter. This would be about 166 B.C. But the purification of Jerusalem seems sufficient in Pss. Sol. xvii. 25 (70-40 B.C.); 1 En, x, 16-19, xxv. I (180 B.C.), to prepare for the Messianic kingdom. See my Commentary.

took counsel to make Paradise. Which Paradise is this? It may be, like the heavenly Jerusalem, the Paradise kept in heaven, or it may be the earthly counterpart in which Adam was placed at the first.

4. I showed it to My servant Abraham. We are not told so in Gen. xv. 9-21. But in 4 Ezra iii. 13,14 Abraham is said to have been shown ‘the end of the times’, while the Beresh. rabba on Gen. xxviii. 17 tells us that the above vision was accorded to Jacob sleeping at Bethel.

V. Baruchs Complaint and God's Reassurance.

5x And I answered and said:

‘So then I am destined to grieve for Zion, For Thine enemies will come to this place and pollute Thy sanctuary, And lead Thine inheritance into captivity, And make themselves masters of those whom Thou hast loved, And they will depart again to the place of their idols, And will boast before them : And what wilt Thou do for Thy great name?’ 2 And the Lord said unto me : ‘My name and My glory are unto all eternity ; And My judgement shall maintain its right in its own time. 3 And thou shalt see with thine eyes That the enemy will not overthrow Zion, Nor shall they burn Jerusalem, But be the ministers of the Judge for the time. 4 But do thou go and do whatsoever I have said unto thee.’ 5 And I went and took Jeremiah, and Adu, and Seriah, and Jabish, and Gedaliah, and all the honourable men of the people, and I led them to the valley of Cedron, and I narrated to them all 7 that had been said to me. And they lifted up their voice, and they all wept. And we sat there and fasted until the evening.

VI-VIII. Juvasion of the Chaldeans and their Entrance into the City after the Sacred Vessels were hidden and the City’s Walls overthrown by Angels.

6: And it came to pass on the morrow that, lo! the army of the Chaldees surrounded the city,

and at the time of the evening, I, Baruch, left the people, and I went forth and stood by the 2oak. And I was grieving over Zion, and lamenting over the captivity which had come upon 3 the people. And lo! suddenly a strong spirit raised me, and bore me aloft over the wall of 4 Jerusalem. And I beheld, and lo! four angels standing at the four corners of the city, each of 5 them holding a torch of fire in his hands. And another angel began to descend from heaven,

6 and said unto them: ‘ Hold your lamps, and do not light them till I tell you. For I am first sent

to speak a word to the earth, and to place in it what the Lord the Most High has commanded

V. 1. grieve. MS. reads Qa» (‘ guilty’) which I have emended into oo ‘grieve’. whom Thou hast loved, Ixxviil. 3, xxi. 20, 21 ; 4 Ezra iv. 23. what wilt Thoudo. Joshua vii.9. Cf. 4 Ezra iv. 25.

2. My judgement . . . shall maintain its right. Recurs in a slightly different form in xlviii. 27 and Ixxxv. 9.

3. This is carried out in vi. 5; vii.

5. Adu. A priest of this name went up with Zerubbabel (Neh. xii. 4). The Mass. gives Iddo, but the Syriac and Vulgate Addo.

Seriah, brother of Baruch and chief chamberlain of Zedekiah with whom he went to Babylon (see Jer. li. 59, 61).

Gedaliah, son of Ahikam (see Jer. xl. 14).

narrated to them, &c. Baruch usually makes known his revelations to his friends and the elders. He is forbidden to do so in the fourth section, 1. e. xil. 5—xx.

7. fasted until the evening. The other fasts mentioned are of seven days. Of these there are four (ix. 2 ; xii. 5 ; xxl. I; xlviil. 2). The scheme of the final editor is first a fast, then generally a prayer, then a divine message or revelation, then an announcement of this either to an individual (e.g. v. 5) or to the people (e.g. xxxi. 2-xxxiv), followed occasionally by a lamentation. This scheme is broken through in the fifth section only, i.e. in xxi-xlvi, where another fast is required after xxxv. In 4 Ezra there are four fasts of seven days.

THE SECOND SECTION. VI-VIII. This is a short section. After a day’s fast Baruch, while lamenting alone, sees in a vision the sacred vessels committed to the earth for a season and the city destroyed by angels lest the enemy should triumph (vi. 3-vii). The realization of this vision follows.

VI. 1. on the morrow, &c. 4 Baruch (iv. 1) reproduces these words. by the oak. This oak is outside the city, probably near or in the valley of the Cedron, where Baruch and the others had fasted. It cannot be the oak at Hebron. It is noteworthy that no mention of this oak occurs in B®. In B? it is found twice (vi. 1 and Ixxvii. 18). A tree is referred to in A® in lv. I. 4. Cf. Rev. vii. 1 ‘I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth’; 4 Baruch iii. 2. 6. The office of the angel here is executed by Jeremiah in 4 Baruch iii. 8. the Lord the Most High. This full title occurs here only in this book; the ‘Most High’ is found in xvii. 1, &c., Ixxxiii. 1, and 4 Ezra.

Il BARUCH IG! 710 la

7me.’ And I saw him descend into the Holy of Holies, and take from thence the veil, and the holy ark, and the mercy-seat, and the two tables, and the holy raiment of the priests, and the altar of incense, and the forty-eight precious stones, wherewith the priest was adorned and all the holy 8 vessels of the tabernacle. And he spake to the earth with a loud voice: ‘Earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the mighty God, And receive what I commit to thee, And guard them until the last times, So that, when thou art ordered, thou mayst restore them, So that strangers may not get possession of them. 9 For the time comes when Jerusalem also will be delivered for a time, Until it is said, that it is again restored for ever.’ to ~©6And the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up.

7 x And after these things I heard that angel saying unto those angels who held the lamps:

‘ Destroy, therefore, and overthrow its wall to its foundations, lest the enemy should boast and say :

“We have overthrown the wall of Zion,

And we have burnt the place of the mighty God.”’

And tye have seized the placet where I had been standing before.

81 Now the angels did as he had commanded them, and when they had broken up the corners of the walls, a voice was heard from the interior of the temple, after the wall had fallen, saying :

2 ‘Enter, ye enemies,

And come, ye adversaries ; For he who kept the house has forsaken (it).’

+ And I, Baruch, departed. And it came to pass after these things that the army of the Chaldees

5 entered and seized the house, and all that was around it. And they led the people away captive, and slew some of them, and bound Zedekiah the king, and sent him to the king of Babylon.

IX-XII. 4. Furst last of seven Days: Baruch to remain amid the Ruins of Ferusalem and Feremiah to accompany the Exiles to Babylon. Baruch’s Dirge over Ferusalem.

9: And I, Baruch, came, and Jeremiah, whose heart was found pure from sins, who had not been

7. take from thence, &c. In 2 Macc. ii. 4~8 there is a very similar tradition. Jeremiah is warned of Goa to hide in the mountain where Moses climbed up ‘the tabernacle and the ark and the altar of incense’. This place was to remain unknown till God should gather His people again together.

ark. MS.= 75S corrupt for 8. The converse corruption of TDN into /)N is found in 1 Sam. xiv. 18. In 2 Macc. ii. 5 the things hidden are these—rjv oknyny Kal Thy KiBwrov Kal TO OvotacrnpLoy Tod Bupudparos.

According to Bammidbar rabba 15, five things were taken away and preserved on the destruction of Solomon’s temple: the candlestick, the ark, the fire, the Holy Spirit, and the Cherubim.

the altar of incense. The Syriac implies Oupsarnpiov. In the LXX this word = ‘censer’, but in Philo and Josephus it means not ‘censer’ but ‘altar of incense’. Cf. Heb. ix. 1-5 (?), and 2 Macc. as above (rd @vataornpiov rod Ovpudparos) which mention the altar but not a censer. See Appendix to my Commentary, p. 168.

forty-eight precious stones. Why forty-eight? There were twelve on the breastplate (Exod. xxviii. 15-21) and two on the ephod (Exod. xxviii. 9).

8. Earth ... of the mighty God, drawn from Jer. xxii. 29. ‘Earth’ is repeated three times also in Mass., Syr.,

Vulg. of that passage; in LXX only twice.

Mighty God. This title recurs in vii. 1, and xiii. 2, 4. Not in 4 Ezra.

guard them until the last times. Cf. 4 Baruch iii. 8, ‘Preserve the vessels of worship until the coming of the Beloved.’

g. restored for ever. A Messianic kingdom of indefinite duration is looked forward to with Jerusalem as its centre, and likewise the temple in which the sacred vessels of the former temple will again be used. During this kingdom the dispersion will again return to Palestine (Ixxvii. 6 ; Ixxvili. 7, notes).

VII. 2. ye have seized the place. The text is impossible here. Possibly Jo, coms oheae/ is corrupt for Jody (wKSS0/ or) WRAKS? hood ‘the spirit brought me to the place.’ In vi. 3 a strong spirit carried Baruch aloft over the walls for the vision : now he carries him back to the place beside the oak.

VIII. 2. 4 Baruch iv. 1.

He who kept the house has forsaken it. Cf. Tacitus Azs¢. v. 13 ‘Apertae repente delubri fores et audita maior humana yox excedere deos’.

5. The writer knows of Zedekiah and his captivity. See note oni. I.

IX. 1. heart ... pure from sins. In Pss. Sol. xvii. 41 the Messiah is said to be xa@apds dro duaprias.

THE THIRD SECTION. IX. 2-XII. 4. After a seven days’ fast amid the ruins of Zion, the word of the Lord bids Baruch to tell Jeremiah to go to Babylon, and promises a revelation of what should be in the end. Baruch tells Jeremiah the message, and laments before the temple gates for Zion.

2 captured in the seizure of the city. And we rent our garments, we wept, and mourned, and fasted ix. 2-xxv. seven days. = B* 10 1,2 And it came to pass after seven days, that the word of God came to me, and said unto me: ‘ Tell 3 Jeremiah to go and support the captivity of the people unto Babylon. But do thou remain here amid the desolation of Zion, and I will show to thee after these days what will befall at the end of 4,5 days. And I said to Jeremiah as the Lord commanded me. And he, indeed, departed with the people, but I, Baruch, returned and sat before the gates of the temple, and I lamented with the following lamentation over Zion and said:

6 ‘Blessed is he who was not born, Or he, who having been born, has died. 7 But as for us who live, woe unto us, Because we see the afflictions of Zion, And what has befallen Jerusalem.

8 I will call the Sirens from the sea, And ye Lilin, come ye from the desert, And ye Shedim and dragons from the forests :

Awake and gird up your loins unto mourning, And take up with me the dirges, And make lamentation with me.

9 Ye husbandmen, sow not again ; And, O earth, wherefore givest thou thy harvest fruits ? Keep within thee the sweets of thy sustenance.

1o And thou, vine, why further dost thou give thy wine ; For an offering will not again be made therefrom in Zion, Nor will first-fruits again be offered.

IX. 2. The first fast of seven days. ; Fasting was the usual preparation for supernatural communications. Cf, Dan. ix. 3, 20-21; and see note on v. 7.

X. 1. God. This word is found only twice again, i.e. liv. 12; Ixxxii. 9. Its use is more frequent in 4 Ezra.

2. We have here a violation of the true historical tradition. According to Jer. xliii. 4-7, both Jeremiah and Baruch were carried down into Egypt. In 1 Baruch i. 1, Baruch appears in Babylon five years after Jerusalem was taken. In 4 Baruch, too, Jeremiah is taken to Babylon, but by force. The references to Jeremiah in connexion with Babylon probably belong to B®. In Ixxvii. 17-19, &c., Baruch writes to the brethren in Babylon, never to Jeremiah ; while in 4 Baruch he directs his letter to Jeremiah. But later Judaism, according to Pesik. R. 26 (131» ed. Friedmann) held that Jeremiah accompanied the exiles part of the way to Babylon.

support. So I render according to a recognized meaning of the Syriac verb pS. Ryssel thinks that this verb goes back to 2 j'37, and that 35 was to be understood with it. Thus he arrives at his rendering ‘care for’. But this

is most unlikely ; for in xliii. 1 we have the actual Syriac phrase in full which corresponds to the Hebrew ap) Pon, Renae. coh. There we should render as in Hebrew, ‘direct thy heart,’ &c. Now it is noteworthy that the clause in our text ‘ go and support’ recurs practically in xxxiii. 2, but there ooh is used instead of pro/. oh is a Syriac equivalent of 27. Hence there we render ‘make ready’. In Ixxvii. 12 yet another verb, Saw, is used in nearly the

same sense as prof in x. 2. Returning now to xxxiii. 2 we recognize at once that there is a slight corruption in the text ; ‘make ready the rest of the brethren tint Babylon, against whom has gone forth the sentence that they should be led into captivity.’ Here the brethren are first of all said to be already ‘in Babylon’, and then in the next clause to be sentenced to exile to Babylon. Thus ‘in Babylon’ may be corrupt for ‘for Babylon’. It must be confessed, however, that the original standing behind these words is very uncertain.

5. This lament of Baruch prepares for the third fast of xii. 5.

before the gates of the temple. This is the scene of the following lamentation, and also that in xxxv. 1. A passage in the beginning of 3 Baruch seems to be derived from our text: ovrws exd@yro emt ras apaias midas omrou are i Tv dyiwv dya. Mount Zion, on the other hand, is the scene where revelations are accorded to him

6. Blessed is he who was not born, &c. Cf. Eccles. iv. 2-3, from which the text may ultimately have been derived. Cf. 4 Ezra: it is said that it were better man had not been born at all than be born to have to face future torment and judgement (e.g. vii. 66, 116, 117). But it is the present woes of Jerusalem that here are said to make the unborn blessed, and those in Sheol (xi. 7) happy in comparison with the living.

8. Sirens. These are said in 1 En. xix. 2 (Greek version) to have been the wives of the angels who went astray. Here they are sea-nymphs, as in Greek legend. The Greek translators of the O.T. used the term for ostriches and jackals.

Lilin, night-demons. Maleand female demons named Lil and Lilit belong to Assyrian and Babylonian demonology.

The Lilith (nv) are mentioned in Isa, xxxiv. 14, along with the satyr Py¥, Shedim. Male demons, to which various origins were assigned. See my Commentary, 27 doc.

dragons. So, too, Pesh. renders 0°3N in Isa. xiii. 22. But the word may mean ‘jackals’. 10. The writer of x. 6—xii. 4 resigns absolutely all hope of the restoration of Jerusalem, as B® does throughout.

II

Ise)

And do ye, O heavens, withhold your dew, And open not the treasuries of rain : And do thou, O sun, withhold the light of thy rays.

And do thou, O moon, extinguish the multitude of thy light ; For why should light rise again Where the light of Zion is darkened ?

And you, ye bridegrooms, enter not in, And let not the brides adorn themselves with garlands ; And, ye women, pray not that ye may bear.

For the barren shall above all rejoice, And those who have no sons shall be glad, And those who have sons shall have anguish.

For why should they bear in pain, Only to bury in grief? Or why, again, should mankind have sons ?

Or why should the seed of their kind again be named, Where this mother is desolate, And her sons are led into captivity ?

From this time forward speak not of beauty, And discourse not of gracefulness.

Moreover, ye priests, take ye the keys of the sanctuary, And cast them into the height of heaven, And give them to the Lord and say:

“Guard Thy house Thyself, For lo! we are found false stewards.”

And you, ye virgins ; who weave fine linen

And silk with gold of Ophir,

Take with haste all (these) things

And cast (them) into the fire,

That it may bear them to Him who made them, And the flame send them to Him who created them, Lest the enemy get possession of them.’

Moreover, I, Baruch, say this against thee, Babylon: ‘If thou hadst prospered,

And Zion had dwelt in her glory,

Yet the grief to us had been great

That thou shouldst be equal to Zion.

But now, lo! the grief is infinite, And the lamentation measureless, For lo! thou art prospered

And Zion desolate.

Who will be judge regarding these things ? Or to whom shall we complain regarding that which has befallen us ? O Lord, how hast Thou borne (it) ?

13. brides. Syriac gives virgins, who first rightly occur in verse 19, The references here are to marriage. The

text midyna, corrupt for mi5> in the Hebrew original.

14. Cf. Matt. xxiv. 19; Luke xxiii. 29, ‘ Blessed are the barren, &c.’

16. this mother, Jerusalem. See ill. I note.

18. The priesthood are found false stewards and resign charge of the temple. Cf. 4 Baruch iv. 3, 4, where Jeremiah casts up the keys ‘before the sun’, and the Ja/kut Shim. on Isa. xxi, where the flower of the priests cast them up aloft. The same incident is recounted in Taanith 29%; Ley. R. xix. 6, in connexion with the destruction of the first temple. In Ab. R. N. vii the incident is recorded in connexion with the destruction of the second temple.

XI. 1. Babylon stands here for Rome, as in Rev. xiv. 8, &c. re 3. how hast Thou borne (it). Cf. 4 Ezra iii. 30, ‘how Thou dost bear with them that sin.’ Also Pss. Sol. ii. 1, and 4 Ezra iii, 8; Isa. xiv. 6.

4 Our fathers went to rest without grief,

And lo! the righteous sleep in the earth in tranquillity ;

5 For they knew not this anguish, Nor yet had they heard of that which had befallen us.

6 Would that thou hadst ears, O earth, And that thou hadst a heart, O dust: That ye might go and announce in Sheol,

And say to the dead:

7 “Blessed are ye more than we who live.”’

OXYRHYNCHUS GREEK FRAGMENT, from Grenfell and Hunt’s Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. iti. 3-7, 1903.

Verso. Verso. 12: But I will say this as I (2-5) 12. 1. But I will say this as I ( 17 letters adda t)ouro 1 think. think, o1o(v) And I will speak against And speak against thee, the (ovomat epw Kat AadAn)ow thee, O land, which art land that is prospering. Tpos oe THV prospering. 2 The noonday does not 2. Not always does the noon- (nv tnv evodovear oyu always burn. day burn, TAVTOTE [LET EL Nor do the rays of the Nor do the rays of the sun 5 (@pia amoxaen ovd)e To sun constantly give light. constantly give light. Ounvekes at aKte 3 Do notexpect [and hope] (6-8) 3. And do not thou expect to (ves Tov ndtov Aa)uTovew: - that thou wilt always be rejoice, KQL OV MN Tpos prosperous and rejoicing. And be not greatly up- Nor fcondemn} greatly. (doxa Xaupnoew) lifted and boastful. em(u)moAv KaTadiKa. 4 Forassuredly in its own (8-10) 4. For assuredly in its season (Ce adnOws yap «v) Karpw season shall the (divine) shall the (divine) wrath be awake€vnvicOnoetat wrath awake against thee. ened against thee, Which now in long-suf- Which is now restrained by (mpos o€ n Opyn N VUY vTO fering is held in as it were long-suffering as it were by a TNs paKpoOvpde) by reins. rein. XII. 5-XIII. Second Fast. Revelation as to the coming Fudgement on the Heathen. 5 And when I had said (10-16) 5. And having said these t10(as ws xadww karexerar :

these things, I fasted seven days.

4. wenttorest...

things I fasted seven days.

KQL) ELT@Y TATA

sleep in the earth. Cf. xxi.24. Dan. xii. 2, ‘sleep in the dust of the earth.’

5-6. In Berakh 18” there is a long legend narrated, the object of which is to teach that the departed know nothing of what is going on in this world.

6. That ye might go.

XII. 3. [and hope]. DiS e

A duplicate rendering. t .. uplifted xwon. The Greek ‘condemn ’ YWNA, is against the parallelism.

boastful. I have emended eal = ‘do (not) oppress’, into qedoahvel..

The Syriac = ‘and go ye’, a Hebrew idiom, i.e. an imperative used for a jussive : see Driver, Moods and Tenses, p. 82.

THE FOURTH SECTION. XII.5-XX. After a fast of seven days follows a long revelation to Baruch (xiii. 2—xx, 2). The text is very confused. See next note.

XIII-XXV. The text of these chapters is inexplicable as it stands. though this exists, but to a recasting of the original text. contexts and placed in settings which are quite unsuitable. not only were the chapters broken up and rearranged, but also mutilated and interpolated. possible to explain the grounds for such dislocations of the text.

The difficulties are due not to corruption, In this process many passages were torn from their original It appears impossible to restore the original order; for

It is only occasionally

But that they occur not infrequently is indubitable.

We have it on a large scale in 2 Corinthians which is composed of two letters, and where the later in date is placed

before the earlier.

Other instances which can be consulted by the reader occur in this volume: see 1 Enoch xii-xvi ;

where the dislocation and consequent confusion are almost as great as in our text: Ixxviii-Ixxxii; xci-xciii.

But let us return and state the chief grounds for regarding this section as disarranged and confused. ‘those prosperous cities’ are represented as speaking without a single note of introduction.

some reference was made to these cities.

Before xili. 4 probably

2°. The retribution of the Gentiles referred to in xiii. 4, 5 has not been

131 And it came to pass after 13.1. And it came to pass (epnotevoa nueypas € karl3 1 these things, that I, Baruch, after these things that I, Baruch, EVEVETO LE was standing upon Mount was standing upon Mount Zion, (ra Tavta oT. eyw) Bapovx Zion, and lo! a voice came and lo! a voice came forth from iornke” emt To from the height and said the height and said unto me: (opos Liwy Kar wWov pwv)n

2 unto me: ‘Stand upon thy 2. ‘Stand upon thy feet, Baruch, e€ndev €€ t

feet, Baruch, and hear the and hear the word of the mighty (Wous Kat eve pot ava)ara 2 word of the mighty God.’ God.’ €7L TOUS TO

15 (das cov Bapovyx Kat axove) tov Aoyov iaxv (pov Oeov

Because thou hast been astonied at what has befallen Zion, thou shalt therefore be assuredly preserved to the consummation of the times, that thou mayst be for a testimony. So that, if ever

5 those prosperous cities say: ‘Why hath the mighty God brought upon us this retribution?’ Say

mentioned before, though the text presupposes some such mention. It is intelligible if xxv or xxiv.’ 4 precedes where Baruch asks what will befall the enemies of Israel. 3°. In xiv. 1 Baruch replies that God has shown him ‘ the method of the times’, whereas in xx. 6 this zs not yet done; for the promise is there given that Baruch shall receive directions with regard to them. 4° In xiv. 1 it is said that God has shown to Baruch the retribution that shall befall the Gentiles. But this is not done by God till xxv. 3. The Gentile cities in xiii. 4 sq. complain of it after it has come upon them. Hence xxv. should precede xiii. 4-xiv. 5°. In xxiv. 4 Baruch asks what retribution awaits the enemies of Israel and when would the judgement be. Now the answer to the first question has already been given in xiii. 4-12; and the answer to the second question follows in xxv. Hence xxiv. 4 should precede xiii. 3?-12, xxv. 6°. In xiii. 5 the words ‘thou and those like thee who shall have seen this evil’ are unexplained in their present context and are in fact inexplicable, unless xxiv. 2 precedes, in which God tells Baruch that he and many with him should see the judgement of God. But ifxxiv. 2 ‘thou shalt see—and the many that are with thee’ originally preceded xiii. 3°5, then everything i is clear. Hence xxiv. 2-4 should precede xiii. get. 7°, Again, there is no adequate explanation of the ‘therefore’ in xx. I. But if xx is read immediately after xiil. 1-3® the text would at once become clear.

Thus, provisionally, the text might be restored as follows :—xiil. 1-3"; xx; xxiv. 2-4}; xiii. 3>-12; xxv.

Now we have to remark regarding these sections that their interest is at once theological and national. To reassure Baruch, who is plunged in grief over Jerusalem (xili. 32), God declares (xx. 1-2) that the days and years will speed more quickly in order to usher in the judgement, which will right all wrongs, and that even Jerusalem has been removed with this end in view. Baruch is then promised that disclosures shall be made on ‘the method of the times’ (xx. 6) and that ‘ he tand the many that are witht him’ (xxiv. 2) shall witness God’s dealings. Baruch, thereupon, asks two questions (xxiv. 4): (a) What will befall Israel’s enemies? (4) when will this judgement be of which God has already spoken (xx. 2)? The answer to (a) is given in xiii. 3?-12. But the first words of this answer are lost, somewhat to the effect that ‘retribution will come upon the prosperous cities of your enemies’. Baruch, moreover, will be preserved until those last days (xiii. 3) in order to testify together withthe surviving righteous (xiii. 5, xxiv. 2) the reason of the retribution that had befallen those cities, and to answer the remonstrances of the tormented Gentiles. In answer to Baruch’s second question, he is informed (xxv. 1-2) that he shall be preserved till the sign of the last days has come. This sign shall be a stupor that shall seize the inhabitants of the earth (xxv. 3, 4). Baruch, thereupon, acknowledges that God has shown him ‘the method of the times’, and told him of the retribution coming upon the Gentiles (xiv. 1). This verse closes the questions of theological and national interest in xiii-xxv. In xiv. 2—xix, which follows, we have a section that is of a purely ¢heological and individual interest, as will be seen from the summary at the beginning of these chapters (p. 489).

xxi-xxiv. I is mainly of the same theological cast. Their substance, in a word, is that the end cannot come till all souls are born.

_ Thus the original order of xiii-xxv appears to have been: xili. 1-3, xx, xxiv. 2-4, xill. 32-12, xxv, Xlv-xix, xxi- XIV-n

XIII. 1. Mount Zion is the scene of the revelation here; of the prayer in xxi. 4-25; of the revelation in xxii-xxx; of the seven days’ fast in xlvii. 2; and of the prayer and revelation following in xlviii—lii.

3. thou shalt therefore be assuredly preserved, &c. This promise recurs twice again in B?, i.e. in xxv. I and Ixxvi. 2. Thus the assumption and preservation of Baruch till the last judgement is the teaching of BX Cf. also xlviii. 30 and xlvi. 7. In B!, on the other hand, Baruch is to die a natural death (Ixxvili. 5; Ixxxiv. a): and go the way of all the earth (xliv. 2). This conflict of accounts is due to the transference of a distinct Enochic function to Baruch in B’, For in Jub. iv. 24 it is said: ‘Enoch was set as a sigw there (in Eden), and that he should testify against all the children of men’ (Cf. also x. 17), Enoch’s acceptance. among Christians was the ground for his rejection by the Jews. Though he was second only to Daniel in Jewish Apocalyptic prior to A.D. 40 his functions and achievements were in subsequent Jewish literature assigned to others, e.g. Moses, Ezra, or Baruch. By observing this tendency of Jewish thought we are enabled in lix. 4-11 to conclude that a document, seen to be on other grounds prior to A.D. 70, is later than the rise of Christianity.

be assuredly preserved. The Syriac reveals a Hebraism; lit. = owodels cwoOnoet.

4. those prosperous cities. The text preceding these words seems to have been lost ; or preferably (see note on xiii-xxv on p. 487) we should read xiii. 3-12 after xxiv. 2-4. In any case, xiii. 3°-12 gives an answer to xxiv. 4. The cities here mentioned are Gentile cities. ‘A land’ is referred to as prospering in xii. 1, 3.

brought upon us this retribution. Cf. the phrase in regard to Israel in Ixxvii. 4. Here the Gentile cities suffer as there Israel does.

i fe)

thou to them, thou and those like thee who shall have seen this evil: ‘(This is the evil) and retribution which is coming upon you and upon your people in its (destined) time that the nations may be thoroughly smitten. And then they shall be in anguish. And if they say at that time: For how long? Thou wilt say to them:

““VYe who have drunk the strained wine,

Drink ye also of its dregs,

The judgement of the Lofty One

Who has no respect of persons.””’

On this account he had aforetime no mercy on His own sons,

But afflicted them as His enemies, because they sinned,

Then therefore were they chastened

That they might be sanctified.

OXYRHYNCHUS GREEK FRAGMENT.

Recto. Recto.

But now, ye peoples and (19-20) 11. (Ye) peoplesand... omn« nations, ye are guilty

Because ye have always (Ye) have trodden down the ta €Ovn kat 14 letters trodden down the earth, ; earth KataTa

And used the creation And misused thecreated things 20 Tncavres thy (ynv Kat Kaunrighteously. in it. TAX PNTA/LEVOL

For I have always bene- (21-22) 12. For ye were always being Tovs «py avTy KTiop(act fited you. benefited UMELS yap EvEp

And ye have always been But ye were always ungrateful. yeToupevot ae’ nxa(proteungrateful for the bene- LTE Get ficence.

XIV-XIX. The Righteousness of the Righteous has profited neither them nor their City; God's Fudgements are incomprehensible; the World was made for the Righteous, yet they pass and the World remains (XIV). Answer--Man knows Goad’s Fudgements and has sinned willingly. This World is a Weariness to the Righteous but the next is theirs (XV), to be won through Character whether a Mans Time here be long or short (XVI-XVII). Final Weal or Woe— the supreme Question (XVIII-XIX).

And I answered and (23-25) 14. 1. And I answered and Kal ameKkplOny Kat evTo)y Gaiden lo! -Thou ‘hast said: ‘ Behold, thou hast shown Lov amedet shown me the method of me the methods of the times, Eas fot Kaipwv takers’ Kae the times, and that which and that which shall be. TO weAXOv

5. thou and those like thee who shall have seen this evil. ‘those like thee’, i.e. 1 DT, are the same as *tthe many (= 0°20 corrupt for D770) who are witht thee’ in xxiv. 2. All previous translations have wrongly

rendered ,OMs ke as ‘have seen’, whereas the context requires that it should be rendered ‘ shall have seen’. The time referred to is in the future—the end of the world: the evil referred to is not the destruction of Jerusalem in the past, but the retribution which should befall the Gentiles in the last days. To this time of the end Baruch was to be preserved (xiii. 3) to testify to the Gentiles that full retribution had at last come upon them. ;

those like thee. These are the righteous who shall be surviving in the last days, and who shall join with Baruch in his testimony.

5-7. This (is the evil) and retribution, &c. The text in this verse and the next is defective. First of all I have restored with Ryssel ‘this is the evil’, which fell out through hmt., and read ‘retribution’ in the singular, as in v, 4. Next the text reads ‘chastened’. But v. 8 shows that the punishment is not corrective, but vindictive. Text madevddouw, which I take to be corrupt, as in 1 Sam. xxvi. Io, for racOGorv 13°. Next, in v. 6, the text reads ‘ shall expect’, ‘ shall hope ’ éAmicovor yoyny, corrupt for mM = ‘shall be in anguish’. The same confusion is found in Jer. iv. 19, in the Hebrew MSS. Finally, in v. 7, the text reads ‘when’ where we require ‘for how long’, i.e. *ND77Y—not MD alone.

the Lofty One. Here only in this book (see 4 Ezra iv. 34 3 Isa. lvii. 15).

XIV. 1. Baruch has not been shown ‘the method of the times’. Chapter xiii has only told us why the retribution has come on the Gentile cities, and when their punishment will be consummated. Disclosures about the method of the times are promised in xx. 6, and would seem to be given in xxiv. 2-xxv, taken together with xiii, or else in xxvil-xxx.

shall be after these things, (25-27) And thou hast said unto me 25 (ex)erOar Kar euTres pCo)er

and Thou hast said unto that the retribution which was (ort um €Ovev me, that the retribution, spoken of by thee shall be tenyTEevexOnoe ra n vTO cov which has been spoken of duredy} by the nations. Nex Peron by Thee, shall come upon (27-32) 2. And now I know that those mpagis kat vup (oda ote 2 2the nations. And now I who have sinned are many, and BOAO sy ee know that those who have they have lived ..., and de- €loww ov “paprupyoar(res sinned are many, and they parted from the world, but that kat”. Gee have lived in prosperity, few nations will be left in those e(noay’ Kat eropevdn(cav and departed from the times to whom... the words €K KOoLOU world, but that few nations (which) thou didst say. - 30 0Arya be Tepiecrar €Ovn will be left in those times, €V EKELVYOLS to whom those words shall TOUS KOLpOtS” GL Gi enema be said which Thou didst +. . OUS ELTTES 3say. For what advantage (32-33) 3. And what advantage (is Aoyous* Kat Te TAEov ev 3 is there in this, or what there) in this or what worse than TOUTW 1) TLV XEL (evil), worse than what we (these)... pova T(oyu tlw have seen befall us, are we : : :

to expect to see?

4,5 But again I will speak in Thy presence : What have they profited who had knowledge before Thee, and have not walked in vanity as the rest of the nations, and have not said to the dead: “ Give 6 us life,” but always feared Thee, and have not left Thy ways? And lo! they have been carried off, + nor on their account hast Thou had mercy on Zion. And if others did evil, it was due to Zion, that on account of the works of those who wrought good works she should be forgiven, and 8 should not be overwhelmed on account of the works of those who wrought unrighteousness. But who, O LorD, my Lord, will comprehend Thy judgement, Or who will search out the profoundness of Thy way ? Or who will think out the weight} of Thy path? 9 Or who will be able to think out Thy incomprehensible counsel ? Or who of those that are born has ever found The beginning or end of Thy wisdom ? to, 11 For we have all been made like a breath. Foras the breath ascends involuntarily, and again dies, so it is with the nature of men, who depart not according to their own will, and know not 12 what will befall them in the end. For the righteous justly hope for the end, and without fear

come upon the nations. This could also be rendered: ‘be of service to the nations.’ But xiii. 8 is against this rendering.

2. few nations... in those times, to whom, &c. Do these words refer back to xiii. 3? In that case Baruch complains that few of the Gentile nations will be alive to whom the words in xiii. 5, 8-11 are to be addressed.

4-19. What has the righteousness of the righteous profited them or their city, though the latter should have profited by it ? (4-7). Man cannot understand Thy judgement (8,9), for he is but a breath, his end is a mystery (10, 11); though for that end the righteous may hope for they have treasures of works in heaven, but for us there is only woe here and hereafter (12-14). What Thou hast done on behalf of Thy servants, Thou knowest, but we cannot discover. Can the world be made for man? We pass away and the world abides (15-19).

5. have not said to the dead. Cf. Isa. viii. 19: ‘on behalf of the living should they seek unto the dead ?’

6. nor on their account hast thou had mercy on Zion. A great difficulty for a Jew. Ten righteous men would have saved Sodom; why did Zion fall? Moreover, the preservation of the world, according to the Talmud (Weber, 208) depends on Israel. See xiv. 18, note.

7. Cf. Gen. xviii. 23-33. Here, however, the works not the persons of the righteous avail for their city. On the question of good works the thought of the writers in this book, i.e. between A. D. 50 and 80 is: (a) the righteous are saved by their works (li. 7), and justified by the law (li. 3; Ixvii. 6). (@) They trust in them, and are heard of God, as Hezekiah (Ixiii. 3, §), and the prophets (Ixxxv. 2). (¢) These works avail as a defence for their unrighteous fellow citizens (ii. 2), and after their death give merit to Zion (xiv. 7, Ixxxv. 10). (d) These works go before them to the next world, and are there guarded in God’s treasure-chambers, till the final judgement (xxiv. 1); hence the righteous hope for the end, and leave the world without fear (xiv. 12). In 4 Ezra we have no parallels to (4) and (c), and only seeming parallels to (a), as ix. 7, and xiii. 23, where faith is included with works. But to (¢) we have good parallels in vii. 77 (Ezra’s ‘ treasury of works laid up with the Most High’) and in viil. 33. For the doctrine of justification see note on SKIL (9,

8. weight (or ‘burdensomeness’). There is some corruption here. I see no obvious explanation. The text seems in some form to go back to PM }*% J37‘ Thy unsearchable paths’. In this case we should have to suppose that PN was corrupted into 7p) ‘weight’, which led to the omission of YN.

10. Cf. Ps. Ixxviii. 39 ‘a wind that passeth away, and cometh not again’. 11. involuntarily. Literally ‘not from the heart’. Cf. Peshitto on Num. xvi. 28 (Schulthess). depart not according to their own will. Cf. xlviii. 15; 4 Ezra viii. 5. 12. the righteous justly hope, 1 En. cil. 4.

depart from this habitation, because they have with Thee a store of works preserved in treasuries. 4 13 On this account also these without fear leave this world, and trusting with joy they hope to 14 receive the world which Thou hast promised them. But as for us—woe to us, who also are 15 now shamefully entreated, and at that time look forward (only) to evils. But Thou knowest

accurately what Thou hast done by means of Thy servants; for we are not able to understand 16 that which is good as Thou art, our Creator. But again I will speak in Thy presence, O Lorp, 17 my Lord. When of old there was no world with its inhabitants, Thou didst devise and speak 18 with a word, and forthwith the works of creation stood before Thee. And Thou didst say that

Thou wouldst make for Thy world man as the administrator of Thy works, that it might be

_known that he was by no means made on account of the world, but the world on account of him. 19 And now I see that as for the world which was made on account of us, lo! it abides, but we, on account of whom it was made, depart.’ 15x And the Lord answered and said unto me: ‘Thou art rightly astonied regarding the departure of 2 man, but thou hast not judged well regarding the evils which befall those who sin. And as regards 3 what thou hast said, that the righteous are carried off and the impious are prospered, And as 4 regards what thou hast said: “ Man knows not Thy judgement ”—On this account hear, and I will .5 Speak to thee, and hearken, and I will cause thee to hear My words. Man would not rightly have understood My judgement, unless he had accepted the law, and I had instructed him in understand- 6ing. But now, because he transgressed wittingly, yea, just on this ground that he wot (thereof), he shall be tormented. é 7 And as regards what thou didst say touching the righteous, that on account of them has this 8 world come, so also again shall that, which is to come, come on their account. For this world is to them a strife and a labour with much trouble; and that accordingly which is to come, a crown with great glory.’ 161 And I answered and said: ‘O Lorb, my Lord, lo! the years of this time are few and evil, and who is able in his little time to acquire that which is measureless ?’

a store of works, or lit. a‘ supply’. Cf. 4 Ezra vii. 77 (‘a treasure of works’); Matt. vi. 19,20; Pss. Sol. ix. 9.

13. the world which Thou hast promised. Clearly the spiritual world, ‘which does not die’ (li. 3); cf. xliv. 13, 15, xv. 7, 8. B? promises no earthly felicity, but only spiritual blessedness.

14. evils. What these are is given in xliv. 15; Ixxxv. 13.

15. what Thou hast done by means of Thy servants, or the Syriac may = ‘ What Thou hast made out of Thy servants ’, or, without the diacritic point, ‘What Thou hast wrought out of Thy works.’ With the rendering in the text, verse 16 comes better before 15, which then runs on naturally to 17 and 18.

17. speak with a word. Cf. Ps. xxxiil.6; Heb. xi. 3; 4 Ezra vi. 38.

18. Thou wouldst make for Thy world man, &c. Cf. Ps. viii.6; 4 Ezra vi. 54.

the world on account of him. This view of man’s dignity seems to occur first in the first century of the Christian era. Why was the world created? (1) Here and in 4 Ezra viii. 1, 44 we are told ‘ for man’; (2) 4 Ezra vi, 55, 59, vii. 11; Ass. Mosis i. 12 say ‘for Israel’; (3) here in xiv. 19, xv. 7, xxl. 24 ‘for the righteous in Israel’, The real Jewish view from the Christian era onwards is (2) or (3). ‘On Israel stands the world’, Shemoth rabba, XXViii.

19. The ‘us’ and the ‘we’ are the righteous in Israel, as xv. 7, xxi. 24. In Pesikta 200» God is said to have created the world on account of Abraham’s merit.

5. thelaw. The law and the Messianic expectation were the two centres round which Jewish thought and life revolved. The law predominated at all times, and in B1 where there is no Messiah, but Jerusalem’s restoration is expected, it is supremely exalted (e. g. Ixxvii. 15, 16). In B?, which does not look forward to restoration or Messiah, the law is further glorified (e.g. xlviii. 24, 27, li. 3, 7), as also in B® (e.g. Ixxxv. 3, 14). On the other hand, in the Messiah Apocalypses A! and S we find no mention of the law at all, and only once in A? (xxxviii. 2), though in A® it rises again into prominence (esp. lxvii. 6, righteousness by the law). Thus the Messianic expectation tends to eclipse the supremacy of the law, and after the Messiah’s advent there is no allusion to it (Ixx-lIxxiv). For fuller treatment and comparison with 4 Ezra see my Commentary. :

6. transgressed wittingly. Cf. xix. 3, xlviii. 40 (see note 77 /oc.), lv. 2; 4 Ezra vii. 72; cf. Luke xii. 48.

7. as regards ... has this world come. See note on xiv. 18. On the parallel in the short hexaemeron in 4 Ezra vi. 55, see xxix. 4, note.

shall... come. Emended according to Ryssel by reading JLs instead of H?.

8. this world is to them... trouble, &c. Cf. xlviii. 50; li. 14; 4 Ezra vii. 3-14; Ps. xc. 10 ‘ yet is their pride labour and sorrow’; Rom. viii. 18 ; 2 Cor. iv. 17. B? regards this world as a place of trial, discipline, and sorrow unlike B4, There is a still more ascetic tone about 4 Ezra, and above all in 1 Enoch cviii. 7, ‘ the spirits of the humble and of those who have afflicted their bodies.’

crown with great glory. Cf. 1 Pet. v. 4. In Hebrew we have here a paronomasia, as in Isa. Ixii. 3, M34 MSHI mwy.

XVI. 1. years... fewandevil. Gen. xlvii. 9. in his...time. For bo (‘this’) read ot>) ‘his time’. Cf. xix. 2. There is no need to add ‘time’, and render ‘this his little time,’ with Ryssel. Text = ‘in this little’.

17 = And the Lord answered and said unto me: ‘With the Most High account is not taken of much

2 time nor of a few years. For what did it profit Adam that he lived nine hundred and thirty years, 3 and transgressed that which he was commanded? Therefore the multitude of time that he lived 4 did not profit him, but brought death and cut off the years of those who were born from him. Or wherein did Moses suffer loss in that he lived only one hundred and twenty years, and, inasmuch as he was subject to Him who formed him, brought the law to the seed of Jacob, and lighted a lamp for the nation of Israel ?’ 1 And I answered and said: ‘ He that lighted has taken from the light, and there are but few that 2 have imitated him. But those many whom he has lighted have taken from the darkness of Adam and have not rejoiced in the light of the lamp.’ 1 And He answered and said unto me: ‘ Wherefore at that time he appointed for them a covenant and said: | “ Behold I have placed before you life and death,” And he called heaven and earth to witness against them. For he knew that his time was but short, But that heaven and earth endure always.

3 But after his death they sinned and transgressed,

Though they knew that they had the law reproving (them),

And the light in which nothing could err,

Also the spheres which testify, and Me.

Now regarding everything that is, it is I that judge, but do not thou take counsel in thy soul

5 regarding these things, nor afflict thyself because of those which have been. For now it is the consummation of time that should be considered, whether of business, or of prosperity, or of shame,

6 and not the beginning thereof. Because if a man be prospered in his beginnings and shamefully

7 entreated in his old age, he forgets all the prosperity that he had. And again, if a man is shamefully entreated in his beginnings, and at his end is prospered, he remembereth not again his evil

8 entreatment. And again hearken: though each one were prospered all that time—all the time from the day on which death was decreed against those who transgress—and in his end was destroyed, in vain would have been everything.’

XX. Zion has been taken away to hasten the Advent of the Fudgement.

1 ‘Therefore, behold! the days come, And the times shall hasten more than the former, And the seasons shall speed on more than those that are past, And the years shall pass more quickly than the present (years).

Therefore have I now taken away Zion, That I may the more speedily visit the world in its season.

XVII. 3. brought death, &c. See xxiii. 4 (note). 4. brought the law. Cf. 4 Ezra iii. 19. ; lighted alamp. Cf. lix. 2 ‘lamp of the eternal law’; Ps. cxix. 105 ‘Thy word is a lamp’, &c.

XVIII. 1. has taken from the light, i.e. has chosen the light, and not Adam’s darkness. _

2. The law is light, and Adam is darkness, the primary source of human transgression. This passage agrees with 2 Knoch, and like it does not teach the doctrine of original sin, any more than A® (i.e. liv. 15, 16). In 1 Enoch and Jubilees human depravity is traced to the angels who sinned with the daughters of men,

XIX. 1, 2. The choice of light or darkness was the choice of life or death. Later times concluded from Deut. xxx. 19, that the law was to last while heaven and earth should be. Cf. verse 2; Matt. v. 18 Contrast Luke xvi. 17; Mark xiii. 31.

3. the spheres which testify, i.e. heaven, and its unfailing lights. The law is part of the heavenly order.

5. Here the end of all things is looked for—not an earthly felicity in a rebuilt Jerusalem.

6-8. We must consider the end of a man or a matter. Cf. Solon’s saying in Herodotus i. 32.

8. on which death was decreed. Sce xxiii. 4 (note),

XX. 1. Therefore. It is not clear that this word follows upon anything in xix. It might follow on xviii, but better on xiii. 3%. Jerusalem has fallen, and the years intervening before the judgement will therefore be shortened, Cf.

the times shall hasten. Cf. Ixxxiil. 1, 6. é :

2. The fall of Jerusalem prepares the way for final judgement: there is no hope here of its restoration. See

speedily visit, lit. ‘speed and visit’, a Hebraism. Meat ;

visit, in Baruch in a bad sense, of God’s penal visitation. Contrast the N. T. associations of joy, Luke i. 68, &c., and usually in O.T.

3 Now therefore hold fast in thy heart everything that I command thee, And seal it in the recesses of thy mind.

4 And then I will show thee the judgement of My might, And My ways which are unsearchable.

5 Go therefore and sanctify thyself seven days, and eat no bread, nor drink water, nor speak to

6 anyone. And afterwards come to that place and I will reveal Myself to thee, and speak true things with thee, and I will give thee commandment regarding the method of the times; for they are coming and tarry not.’

XXII. 1-11. Fast of seven Days: Baruch’s Prayer: God’s Answer. The Prayer of Baruch the Son of Neriah.

21: And I went thence and sat in the valley of Cedron in a cave of the earth, and I sanctified my soul there, and I eat no bread, yet I was not hungry, and I drank no water, yet I thirsted not, and

2 I was there till the seventh day, as He had commanded me. And afterwards I came to that place 3 where He had spoken with me. And it came to pass at sunset that my soul took much thought, 4 and I began to speak in the presence of the Mighty One, and said: ‘O Thou that hast made the earth, hear me, that hast fixed the firmament by the word, and hast made firm the height of the heaven by the spirit, that hast called from the beginning of the world that which did not yet exist, and

5 they obey Thee. Thou that hast commanded the air by Thy nod, and hast seen those things which 6 are to be as those things which Thou art doing. Thou that rulest with great thought the hosts that stand before Thee: also the countless holy beings, which Thou didst make from the beginning, of

7 flame and fire, which stand around Thy throne Thou rulest with ftindignationt. To Thee only 8 does this belong that Thou shouldst do forthwith whatsoever Thou dost wish. Who causest the drops of rain to rain by number upon the earth, and alone knowest the consummation of the times

9 before they come ; have respect unto my prayer. For Thou alone art able to sustain all who are, and those who have passed away, and those who are to be, those who sin, and those who are ro righteous [as living (and) being past finding out]. For Thou alone dost live immortal and past

4. the judgement of My might. Cf. Ixxxiil. 7. 6. that place. See xiii. 1 (note). method of the times. See xiv. 1 note. are coming and tarry not. Heb. ii. 3. Cf. xlviii. 39.

THE FIFTH AND SIXTH SECTIONS. XXI-XLVI. The words ‘ The prayer of Baruch the son of Neriah’ are found inthe MS. The fifth Section ends with xxxv.

xo. a. Cedron. Seev. 5 2. that place. Probably Mount Zion. Cf. xx. 6; or else the temple, x. 5. 3. the Mighty One. This is the first time this title occurs. It is found in B}, B’, B%, but not in At, A’.

4. by the word JKNsa5, emended by Ryssel from ojlsa> ( ‘in its fullness’). This emendation is justified and necessitated owing to the parallel ‘ by the spirit’ The text, as I pointed out in my Commentary, is dependent on Ps. xxxiii. 6 ‘ By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth.

hast called ... that which did not yet exist. Cf. xlvili.8. We seem to have here creation ex mzhilo. Cf. Philo, de Justitia ; which contradicts his usual doctrine. For creation by the word, cf. Ps. cxlviii. 5; 2 Pet. iii. 5 ; Philo, de sacrif. Abel et Cain. 6. hosts that stand before Thee. Cf. xlviii. 10; 4 Ezra viii. 21°. countless holy beings. Cf. lix. 11; lvi. 14. ; which Thou didst make from the beginning. In Jub. ii. 2 the angels are created on the first day (so Job XXxvlii. 7 is interpreted). 2 En. xxix. 1 says the second day. And so Targ. Jer I. on Gen. i. 26.

twith indignationt. Cf. xlviii. 8. Jha.) ‘indignation’ seems corrupt for JLasasos ‘ reproof’.

ess CXV. 3, OCC: 8. the drops of rain ... by number. Cf. lix.5; Sirachi. 2; 2 En. xlvii. 5 (note). 9. have passed away. Reading with Ryssel 0+ instead of ee2eas = ‘pass away’.

those who sin, and those who are righteous. The Syriac here and in xxiv. 2; xxi. 11, 12; Ixii. 7 follows a Greek mistranslation of the original Hebrew verb P7¥, which in this context meant ‘to be righteous’, i. e. Sékavos eivat, and not ‘to be justified ’, ducavododa, though the LXX rendering is usually the latter. The antithesis in our text is actually found in Job x. 15 and xxxv. 36, 37. Hence in all these passages I have emended the text. Ryssel has accepted this emendation in these five passages, but without acknowledgement.

The doctrine of justification in this Apocalypse differs from that taught in 4 Ezra. (1) In Baruch the law justifies (li. 3; Ixvii. 6; Ixxxi. 7). In Ezra salvation is by works and faith (ix. 7 ; xlii.23). (2) Baruch is absolutely sure of salvation (xiii. 3, &c.). Ezra assumes his future woe till assured otherwise in viii. 47-9, 51-4.

For further treatment see Commentary.

[as living . . . out], bracketed as a dittography of the opening clause of the next verse.

11 finding out, and knowest the number of mankind. And if in time many have sinned, yet others not a few have been righteous.

XXI. 12-18. Baruch’s Depreciation of this Life.

12 Thou knowest where Thou preservest the end of those who have sinned, or the consummation of 13 those who have been righteous. For if there were this life only, which belongs to all men, nothing could be more bitter than this. 14 For of what profit is strength that turns to sickness, Or fullness of food that turns to famine, Or beauty that turns to ugliness. 16 For the nature of man_is always changeable. For what we were formerly now we no longer are, 17 and what we now are we shall not afterwards remain. For if a consummation had not been prepared 18 for all, in vain would have been their beginning. But regarding everything that comes from Thee, do Thou inform me, and regarding everything about which I ask Thee, do Thou enlighten me.

XXI. 19-25. Baruch prays to God to hasten the Fudgement and fulfil His Promise.

19 How long will that which is corruptible remain, and how long will the time of mortals be prospered, and until what time will those who transgress in the world be polluted with much 20 wickedness? Command therefore in mercy and accomplish all that Thou saidst Thou wouldst 21 bring, that Thy might may be made known to those who think that Thy long-suffering is weakness. And show to those who know not, that everything that has befallen us and our city until now has been according to the long-suffering of Thy power, because on account of Thy name Thou hast called

22, 23 usa beloved people. Bring toanend_therefore henceforth mortality. And reprove accordingly

the angel of death, and let Thy glory appear, and let the might of Thy beauty be known, and let Sheol be sealed so that from this time forward it may not receive the dead, and let the treasuries of

Io. knowest the number of mankind. Gen. xxiii. 4, 5.

II. not a few have been righteous. This optimism contrasts strongly with 4 Ezra’s pessimism, e. g. viii. 3 ‘multi quidem creati sunt, pauci autem salvabuntur’. Cf. too viii. 2.

12-13. The balance of this life needs re-adjustment in another life.

13. Quoted from 1 Cor. xv. 19, or else both come from a common source. Life ever changes for the worse (verses

14. We have here a stanza of three lines, in each of which there is either a paronomasia or a rhyme. In the second line

the text reads ‘ food of fullness’. On two grounds I have changed this into ‘ fullness of food’. First we have ond nya in Ezek. xvi. 49, and next the rhyme requires it. The stanza runs thus:

snd yana bon Sy an mond Jana pm paw os saytd Jom) CD IN

Instead of 10M) in the second line we might read nnd with Ginzberg. As I have shown in my edition of this book, the third line of this stanza recurs in xlvili. 35. See Ixxxiii. 11, 12.

19. How long will that which is corruptible remain? The final editors answer this question in xl. 3; B’ answers it in xxiii. 7-xxlv. I. The writers of this book (esp. the writer of B?) are impressed with the corruptibility of this present world, the o/am hazzeh. It all belongs to the sphere of corruption. So too does the Messianic kingdom if it falls within the o/am hazzeh, as in A}, A’, and A’. In A’ it ends corruption, in A’ it ends corruption and begins incorruption (Ixxiv. 2). See my Commentary, 27 Joc.

transgress, or ‘ pass away’, as in verse 9. 20. A prayer for the hastening of the final judgement. 21. The fall of Jerusalem was brought about in God’s mercy to hasten the judgement.

that... has been. So I have emended ojwo (‘and they have seen ’) into Joo. If the text is correct then it represents a Hebraism, the perfect with strong waw as a continuation of the imperative, and so ‘ and let them see’.

22, Bring to an end. Text reads ‘everything’ = > which I take to be a corruption of nd3, Schulthess and

Ryssel, on the other hand, emend the Syriac Yao into wSo = ‘restrain ’, but the next verse supports the emendation in the text. 23. To hasten the finial judgement the writer prays to God to end death, to let his glory appear, and the dead rise.

the angel of death. Cf. Rev. vi. 8. Prominent in later Jewish writings. See Testament of Abraham (ed. James).

be sealed. Cf. Isa. v. 14.

treasuries of souls. To these chambers only the righteous were admitted. After his death a righteous man’s soul was permitted for seven days to behold the seven ways of the righteous, and a wicked man’s the seven ways of the wicked. ‘Then his soul entered these chambers, in Sheol (4 Ezra iv. 35, 41; vii. 101). They were guarded by angels, and were full of rest (1 En.c.5; 4 Ezra vii. 95). At the judgement they were to restore the souls (2 Bar. xxi. 2, 3, xxx. 23 4 Ezra vii. 32). There were also treasuries of righteous works (see xxiv. 1). Note that the souls of the wicked are not mentioned here.

- 24 souls restore those which are enclosed in them. For there have been many years like those that are

desolate from the days of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and of all those who are like them, who

25 sleep in the earth, on whose account Thou didst say that Thou hadst created the world. And now

26 quickly show Thy glory, and do not defer what has been promised by Thee.’ And (when) I had completed the words of this prayer I was greatly weakened.

XXIH-XXIII. God's Reply to Baruch’s Prayer: He will fulfil His Promise: Time needed for its Accomplishment: Things must be judged in the Light of their Consummation (XXII). Till all Souls are born the End cannot come (XXIII).

221 And it came to pass after these things that lo! the heavens were opened, and I saw, and 2 power was given to me, and a voice was heard from on high, and it said unto me: ‘ Baruch, Baruch, 3 why art thou troubled? He who travels bya road but does not complete it, or who departs by sea 4 but does not arrive at the port, can he be comforted? Or he who promises to give a present to 5 another, but does not fulfil it, is it not robbery? Or he who sows the earth, but does not reap its 6 fruit in its season, does he not lose everything? Or he who plants a plant unless it grows till the 7 time suitable to it, does he who planted it expect to receive fruit from it? Ora woman who has 8 conceived, if she bring forth untimely, does she not assuredly slay her infant? Or he who builds a house, if he does not roof it and complete it, can it be called a house? Tell Me that first.’ 231,2 And I answered and said: ‘Not so, O LorD, my Lord.’ And He answered and said unto me: “Why therefore art thou troubled about that which thou knowest not, and why art thou ill at ease 3 about things in which thou art ignorant? For as thou hast not forgotten the people who now are 4 and those who have passed away, so I remember those who are appointed to come. Because when Adam sinned and death was decreed against those who should be born, then the multitude of those who should be born was numbered, and for that number a place was prepared where the living might 5 dwell and the dead might be guarded. Before therefore the number aforesaid is fulfilled, the creature will not live again [for My spirit is the creator of life], and Sheol will receive the dead. 6, 7 And again it is given to thee to hear what things are to come after these times. For truly My redemption has drawn nigh, and is not far distant as aforetime.

24. Read probably after verse 19. 25. what has been promised by Thee, i.e. ‘the world which Thou hast promised them’ (xiv. 13; cf. Ixxxiii. 5). 26. {when}. Inserted with Ryssel.

greatly weakened. Cf. xlvili. 25; Dan. x. 17, &c.

XXII. 1. the heavens were opened andI saw. Ezek.i.1; Matt. iii. 16; Johni. 52; Rev. iv. 1, &c. a voice was heard, i.e. the dath-gol. Cf. xiii. 1; Matt. iii. 17; Rev. iv. 1.

3-8. In xxii. 3, 5 God replies, ‘ What is work without the result, and how can it be judged? So this life requires the consummation for its explanation (xxii. 3, 8 answer xxi. 13-17). Again, God replies ‘all in due time’ to Baruch’s plea for haste (xxii. 6, 7 answer xxi. 19, &c.). Moreover, God is bound by His promise (xxii. 4 answers

7. does . .. assuredly slay. A Hebraism.

XXIII. 1, 2. The future and the end are known only to God, and they alone explain the present. Al] time is alike to God, and he keeps the due proportion. <A reply to xxi.

3. Text reads ells ello Ceo? ‘who are remembered, and those who are to come’, which I have emended

into yolbuy ceresy = ‘ who are appointed to come.’

4. when Adam sinned and death was decreed. There are two different views in this work regarding the physical effect of Adam’s sin on mankind. (1) In B?, i.e. in xvii. 3, xix. 8, xxiii. 4, Adam’s sin brought in physical death, otherwise man would have been immortal. Cf. St. Paul. (2) In A®, i.e. liv. 15, lvi.6, Adam is said to have brought in only premature death.

See my Commentary 2 Joc.

the multitude of those who should be born was numbered. God alone knew this secret (xxi. 10, xlviii. 46). The number was unalterable, and had to be completed before the judgement could come (xxiii. 5 ; 4 Ezra iv. 33-43).

for that number a place was prepared. Cf. 2 Enoch xlix. 2, lvili. 5. In the Tractate Chagiga, fol. 15, col. 1, it is said a place is prepared for every man either in Paradise or hell.

the dead might be guarded, 1.e. the righteous by angels (1 En. c. 5, &c.; the wicked by the guardians of the gates of Hades (2 En. xlii. 1).

5. The resurrection cannot come till mankind’s secret number is fulfilled. In Rev. vi.11; 4 Ezra iv. 36 the consummation comes with the fulfilling of the number of the saints, not of mankind. According to Jebam. 62% the Messiah is not to come till ‘all the souls have gone forth which are in the chambers’ of souls. This chamber is here called ND).

Before. I emend JI) (= ‘unless’ or ‘but’) into Wes.

Pet xxsn. 23 Luke xx..28 +t Pet. ivir7:

XXIV. The coming Fudgement.

24: ‘For behold! the days come and the books shall be opened in which are written the sins of all

a PW

those who have sinned, and again also the treasuries in which the righteousness of all those who have 2 been righteous in creation is gathered. For it shall come to pass at that time that thou shalt see—and tthe many that are with} thee—the long-suffering of the Most High, which has been throughout all generations, who has been long-suffering towards all who are born, (alike) those 3 who sin and (those who) are righteous.’ And I answered and said: ‘ But, behold! O Lord, no one knows the number of those things which have passed nor yet of those things which are to come. 4 For I know indeed that which has befallen us, but what will happen to our enemies I know not, and when Thou wilt visit Thy works.’

XXV-XXVI. 1. Sign of the coming Fudgement.

And He answered and said unto me: ‘Thou too shalt be preserved till that time till that sign which the Most High will work for the inhabitants of the earth in the end of days. This 3 therefore shall be the sign. When a stupor shall seize the inhabitants of the earth, and they 4 shall fall into many tribulations, and again when they shall fall into great torments. Andi it will | come to pass when they say in their thoughts by reason of their much tribulation: “ The Mighty

One doth no longer remember the earth”—yea, it will come to pass when they abandon hope,

that the time will then awake.’

1 And I answered and said: ‘ Will that tribulation which is to be continue a long time, and will that necessity embrace many years?’

WwW Nm

XXVII-XXX. 1. The Twelve Woes that are to come upon the Earth: the Messiah and the temporary Messianic Kingdom.

xxvi = E

x, And He answered and said unto me: ‘Into twelve parts is that time divided, and each one of xxvii-xxx

2 them is reserved for that which is appointed for it. In the first part there shall be the begin- 4 ning of commotions. And in the second part (there shall be) slayings of the great ones. And in 6 the third part the fall of many by death. And in the fourth part the sending of the sword. And

XXIV. 1. the books shall be opened. Dan. vii. 10; 1 En. xc. 20; Rev. xx. 12; 4 Ezra vi. 20, Here the books record the sins of sinners only, as in 1 En. xc and probably Rev. (as cited). 4 Ezra vi. 10 has also ‘another book of life’.

the treasuries in which. Divine storehouses are a familiar idea in the O.T., e.g. of rain (Deut. xxviii. 12). Again, the idea of laying up spiritual things in store is found in the LXX, Prov. i, 18 Oncavpi{ovow éavrois Kaka (cf. Pss. Sol. ix. 9). One may lay up treasures of works or faith (4 Ezra vii. 77, vi. 5); treasures in heaven (Matt. vi. 19, 20); stores of wrath (Rom. ii. 5). “SIN and @ncavpds may mean the treasure itself, and the place where it is stored.

the righteousness of all, &c. The standard of righteousness was the Law. The legalistic wing of the Pharisees held it consisted first and mainly in fulfilling ceremonial observances. See, e.g. the Book of Jubilees. The prophetical wing, from whom emanated most of the Messianic Apocalypses, understood it primarily as the fulfilling of moral duties.

XXIV. 2-4. Probably followed originally on xx. See note on xiii—xxv. tthe many that are witht thee. See xiii. 5 (note). Read ‘those like thee’, i.e. the surviving righteous. 3-4. Baruch objects that no man knows when the end may come, and he knows only that Israel is in distress. What will the Gentiles suffer as the penalty (answered xiii. 3-12). When will they suffer it? (answered xxy). 4. us, Text reads ‘me’. J

XXV. Answers the question ‘When wilt Thou visit Thy works’.

1. the inhabitants of the earth, always in a bad ethical sense in Baruch. See note on 1 Enoch xxxvii. 5 (also note in my Commentary on 2 Baruch).

3. stupor. Cf. lxxx. 2, and excessus mentis 4 Ezra xiii. 30.

4. At the end of the tribulation and torments the time of the judgement has come (cf. xiii. 8). This leaves no room for the Messianic kingdom in xxix, which precedes the judgement.

XXVI. Added by the final editor in order to introduce xxvii-xxx. 1 ; xxv was originally followed by xiv—xix.

XXVII-XXX. 1. A fragment of a Messiah Apocalypse, A’. (1) After terrible tribulation over all the earth, imperilling even the elect, a glorious kingdom of joy and plenty was to be established under the Messiah, who afterwards was to return in glory to heaven. The resurrection was to follow. The outlook is thoroughly optimistic. (2) Palestine was to escape the prevailing woes, and since there is no mention of a restoration of Jerusalem or of the setting up of the New Jerusalem, Jerusalem must still have been standing (Contrast B' and 4 Ezra xiii. 36). Thus the events of A.D. 70 could not have happened as yet. (3) In B+ and B® Jerusalem is destroyed and its people in exile. The law, too, is the centre of interest and expectation in Bt and B’, but the Messiah in A‘, which has no allusion to the law, as B' and B? have no allusion to the Messiah.

XXVII. 1. We have twelvefold divisions in A® (i.e. liiitxxiv) and 4 Ezra xiv. 11, 12, but there of world-history, here only of the tribulations preceding Messiah’s coming. These travail-pains (#dives Matt. xxiv. 8) in the Gospels precede Christ’s second coming, and not His first appearance.

7 in the fifth part famine and the withholding of rain. And in the sixth part earthquakes and

8, 9 terrors. [Wanting.] And in the eighth part a multitude of spectres and attacks of the Shedim.

10,11,12 And in the ninth part the fall of fire. And in the tenth part rapine and much oppression. And in

13 the eleventh part wickedness and unchastity. And in the twelfth part confusion from the mingling

14 together of all those things aforesaid. For {these parts of that time are reserved, and} shall be

15 mingled one with another and minister one to another. For some shall leave out some of their own,

and receive (in its stead) from others, and some complete their own and that of others, so that those

may not understand who are upon the earth in those days that this is the consummation of the times.

28 I,2 ‘Nevertheless, whosoever understandeth shall then be wise. For the measure and reckoning of

3 that time are two parts a week of seven weeks.’ And I answered and said: ‘It is good for a man to

4 come and behold, but it is better that he should not come lest he fall. [But I will say this also:

5 Will he who is incorruptible despise those things which are corruptible, and whatever befalls in the

case of those things which are corruptible, so that he might look only to those things which are not

6 corruptible?] But if, O Lord, those things shall assuredly come to pass which Thou hast foretold

7 to me, so do Thou show this also unto me if indeed I have found grace in Thy sight. Is it in one

place or in one of the parts of the earth that those things are come to pass, or will the whole earth experience (them) ?’

291 And He answered and said unto me: ‘Whatever will then befall (will befall) the whole earth;

2 therefore all who live will experience (them). For at that time I will protect only those who are

3 found in those self-same days in this land. And it shall come to pass when all is accomplished that

|~ 4 was to come to pass in those parts, that the Messiah shall then begin to be revealed. And Behemoth

shall be revealed from his place and Leviathan shall ascend from the sea, those two great monsters

which I created on the fifth day of creation, and shall have kept until that time ; and then they shall

5 be for food for all that are left. The earth also shall yield its fruit ten thousandfold and on each (?)

6, 7. famine . . . earthquakes, as signs of the end. Cf. Ixx, 8; Matt. xxiv. 7, &c.

g. spectres. Or ‘portents’. Cf. 4 Ezra vi. 21.

to. the fall of fire. Cf. Ixx. 8; 4 Ezra v. 8.

14. As Ryssel has observed, this is corrupt. By reading og Sg instead of oo and omitting the following 9 we arrive at the following: ‘these parts which till that time had been reserved (?) shall (then) be mingled’, &c.

15. leave out. Text reads Ghose = ‘leave over’. But the context requires the sense of ‘omitting’, ‘leaving out’.

The error can be explained, if we suppose that mapadetyovor, which has both the above meanings, stood before the translator and that he followed the wrong one here.

XXVIII. 1. Cf. Dan. xii. 10: ‘the wise shall understand’.

2. Interpretation seems impossible.

3. The difficulty of faithfulness during the woes (cf. xli. 1, Ixxv. 5; 4 Ezra xiii. 16-20; Matt. xxiv. 22) and the blessings which await those who endure.

4-5. These verses break the connexion of thought, and no account is taken of them in the context. An answer is given to the question in xliil. 2.

XXIX. 2. I will protect, &c. Here God protects His people who are found in the Holy Land, whereas in A? the Messiah does so (xl. 2), and in A’ the Holy Land itself (Ixx. 1). In B? it is the law that protects the faithful, wherever they dwell (xxxii. 1).

found ...in this land. Cf. last note, and 4 Ezra xiii. 48, 49. A special blessing attached to residence in Palestine. It alone was to escape the woes that should befall all the earth besides. But this thought is found only in the sections of this book written prior to A.D. 70. It first appears in Joel ii. 32 in Apocalyptic literature, though it was before for a time, in the eighth century B.c., the belief of the Jews. For the privileges attached to residence in Palestine see my Commentary 272 oc.

3. The Messiah’s réle here is passive. Cf. 1 En. xc. 37, 38; 4 Ezra vil. 28, 29. Contrast A? and A? (e.g. xl) where the Messiah fights, destroys His enemies, and sets up His kingdom.

The phrase ‘ begin to be revealed’ may be corrected to ‘the principate of the Messiah will be revealed’ (xxxix. 7) or ‘ Messiah the prince shall be revealed’ (Dan. ix. 25).

Whence will Messiah be revealed? Here, and in xxx. I, it seems from heaven; elsewhere, perhaps, from some place on earth. Cf. John vii. 27: ‘When the Christ cometh, no man knoweth whence he is.’ Cf., too, 4 Ezra vii. 28, xiii, 32. The Messiah may be already born and yet not know his calling till Elijah comes and anoints him, in Justin’s Dial. c. Tryph. 8

The Talmud states that the Messiah was born at Bethlehem on the day of the destruction of the temple, was named Menahem, and afterwards suddenly carried away by a storm (Jer. Berachoth, p. 5).

4. And Behemoth shall be revealed, &c. For the full form of this myth see 4 Ezra vi. 49-52. The diction is so similar that both must quote from the same source—a lost short hexaemeron, like that in 4 Ezra vi. 38-54. See my Commentary 77 Joc.

Behemoth ... and Leviathan. See 1 En. lx. 7-9, 24 notes; Targ. Jon. on Gen. i. 21 ‘And God created great beasts Leviathan and his wife which were prepared for the day of consolation’. Also Targum on Ps. l. to.

all that are left. An indefinite statement ; guzbus vis in 4 Ezra vi. 52.

5. We have here another fragment of an old Apocalypse, of which we find a version in Irenaeus, v. 33. Papias is there said to ascribe it to our Lord. Irenaeus preserves a longer and fuller form than our text, and all seeds and fruittrees share in the miraculous fruitfulness in his quotation. 1 En. x. 19 gives a still more fragmentary quotation.

XXViil. 4-5

We have, curiously, three diets provided in our syncretistic text for the members of the Messianic kingdom. In -

vine there shall be a thousand branches, and each branch shall produce a thousand clusters, and each 6 cluster produce a thousand grapes, and each grape produce a cor of wine. And those who have 7 hungered shall rejoice : moreover, also, they shall behold marvels every day. For winds shall go forth from before Me to bring every morning the fragrance of aromatic fruits, and at the close of the 8 day clouds distilling the dew of health. And it shall come to pass at that self-same time that the treasury of manna shall again descend from on high, and they will eat of it in those years, because these are they who have come to the consummation of time. 1 ‘And it shall come to pass after these things, when the time of the advent of the Messiah is fulfilled, that He shall return in glory.

XXX. 2-5. The Resurrection.

2 Then all who have fallen asleep in hope of Him shall rise again. And it shall come to pass at ***- 2- that time that the treasuries will be opened in which is preserved the number of the souls of the aie righteous, and they shall come forth, and a multitude of souls shall be seen together in one suming

3 assemblage of one thought, and the first shall rejoice and the last shall not be grieved. For xxv. 4. | they know that the time has come of which it is said, that it is the consummation of the times.

4 But the souls of the wicked, when they behold all these things, shall then waste away the more.

5 For they shall know that their torment has come and their perdition has arrived.’

XXXI-XXXIII. Baruch exhorts the People to prepare themselves for worse Evils.

rt And it came to pass after these things that I went to the people and said unto them: ‘ Assemble 2 unto me all your elders and I will speak words unto them.’ And they all assembled in the valley 3 of the Cedron. And I answered and said unto them:

‘ Hear, O Israel, and I will speak to thee, And give ear, O seed of Jacob, and I will instruct thee.

xxix. 4 flesh, in verse 5 vegetable, in verse 8 heavenly food, i.e. manna. The second is a return to Adam’s food in Paradise. ; _ As to the ten thousand-fold yield of corn and wine Dr. Rendel Harris gives a probable explanation ina misreading of 1+ ‘plenty’ in the blessing of Isaac (Gen. xxvii. 28) as 2} 10,000. each branch, &c. For ‘each’ the Syriac gives ‘ one’ three times over, following the idiom in the Hebrew original. a cor, about 120 gallons. behold marvels. Cf. 4 Ezra vil. 27, xiil. 50; Matt. xi. 4-6; John vii. 31. 8. the treasury of manna shall again descend. In Sibyll. Or. vii. 149 manna is to be the food of the members of the Messianic kingdom. Cf. Rev. ii. 17 ‘hidden manna’. consummation of time, i. e. the Messianic age. Cf. xxvii.15. Inxxx. 3 the phrase has a different meaning, but there we have the, work of B®.

XXX. 1. when the time of ‘the advent of the Messiah is fulfilled. This seems to mean that after His reign the Messiah will return in glory to heaven. ‘ Advent’ may be rendered ‘ presence’, i.e. visible reign on earth. return in glory, back to heaven, where He was before His revealing on earth. For His pre-existence see 1 Enoch xlvi. 1. 2, xlviii. 3 (note), &c. In 4 Ezra vii. 29, 30 the Messiah and the righteous die at the close of the Messianic kingdom. Then all who have fallen asleep ... shall rise again. The resurrection here follows immediately on the Messiah’s return to heaven: but on his death in 4 Ezra vii. 29, 30. The words ‘of Him’ spoil the sense, and the parallelism to LXX of Ps. xvi. 9 em édmidu. fallen asleep. We are not told the fate of the living, as A’ is fragmentary. 2. Here we return to B®, and resume the text that ended at xxiv. I. 3. they know. Text reads ‘he knows’.

the consummation of the times. Here = the final judgement. Contrast xxix. 8. 4. waste away. Cf. li.5; 4 Ezra vii. 87.

XXXI-XXXV. Baruch assembles and addresses the elders of the people. He exhorts them not to forget Zion and its anguish ; the end of all that is corruptible is coming; the law, if they hold fast to it, will protect them when the whole creation is shaken; they are to grieve for the coming woe more than for the past, when the creation shall be renewed. Thereupon Baruch sends away the people, and when they remonstrate against his forsaking them, he rejoins that he is only going to the Holy Place to seek light from God. There he laments over Zion. (A fast of seven days should follow here.)

The subject of Baruch’s address is to be found in each instance in the preceding revelation (as in V. 5, X. 4), but it will be observed that this address, xxxi. 3-xxxii. 6, is out of relation to all that has gone before. The gist of the address is (a) the end of corruption is at hand; (4) the law will save in the coming crisis ; (¢) the present creation must give place to a new and incorruptible creation. Now these questions are discussed later in the dialogues 16. Thus originally xxxi-xxxv followed lii. Moreover, xliv. 8-15 really concludes Baruch’s address in XXxi, Xxxil ; i.e. it follows xxxii. 6. Thus xlviii-lit originally preceded xxxt-XxXXXU.

XXXI. 1. all your elders. See xliv. I, note.

4 Forget not Zion, But hold in remembrance the anguish of Jerusalem.

5 For lo! the days come,

When everything that is shall become the prey of corruption And be as though it had not been.

//32 1 ‘But as for you, if ye prepare your hearts, so as to sow in them the fruits of the law, it shall pro-

2 tect you in that time in which the Mighty One is to shake the whole creation. [Because after a

3 little time the building of Zion will be shaken in order that it may be built again. But that

building will not remain, but will again after a time be rooted out, and will remain desolate until

4, 5 the time. And afterwards it must be renewed in glory, and perfected for evermore.] Therefore

we should not be distressed so much over the evil which has now come as over that which is

6 still to be. For there will be a greater trial than these two tribulations when the Mighty One will

, renew His creation. And now do not draw near to me for a few days, nor seek me till I come to

g you. And it came to pass when I had spoken to them all these words, that I, Baruch, went my way,

g and when the people saw me setting out, they lifted up their voice and lamented and said : ‘ Whither

departest thou from us, Baruch, and forsakest us as a father who forsakes his orphan children, and departs from them? ;

331 ‘Are these the commands which thy companion, Jeremiah the prophet, commanded thee, and

2 said unto thee: ‘‘ Look to this people till I go and make ready the rest of the brethren tin} Babylon,

3 against whom has gone forth the sentence that they should be led into captivity”? And now if

thou also forsakest us, it were good for us all to die before thee, and then that thou shouldst withdraw from us.’

XXXIV-XXXV. Lament of Baruch.

834 And I answered and said unto the people: ‘ Far be it from me to forsake you or to withdraw from you, but I will only go unto the Holy of Holies to inquire of the Mighty One concerning you

and concerning Zion, if in some respect I should receive more illumination: and after these things I will return to you.’

851 And I, Baruch, went to the holy place, and sat down upon the ruins and wept, and said:

2 ‘QO that mine eyes were springs, And mine eyelids a fount of tears.

3 For how shall I lament for Zion, And how shall I mourn for Jerusalem ?

5. shall become the prey of, lit. ‘shall be taken to’. See xxi. 19, note. XXXII. 1. prepare your hearts. An O.T. phrase, and a favourite expression in B1 and B’; cf. xlvi. 5, hi. 7, &c. the fruits of the law, i.e. good works. Cf. 4 Ezra iii. 20, ix. 32. it shall protect. Cf. xlviii. 22-4, xliv. 13, 14. shake the whole creation, i.e. to prepare for new heavens anda new earth. The thought comes originally from Haggai il. 6; cf. Heb. xii. 26.

2-4. Here it is said that after a little time Zion will be destroyed. But according to xx. I-2, xxxi. 4, xxxil. 5, xxxiil. 2-3, xxxv. I Jerusalem is already overthrown. These verses also break the connexion of thought between xxxii. 1 and xxxii. 5. The people are to prepare themselves by obedience to the law for the end of all things, xxxil.1. Compared with this the evils attendant on the fall of Jerusalem are slight. These three verses are closely akin to Tobit xiv. 4-5. Cf. Ber. R. 2 and Pesikta 145 for a similar hope. These verses are an intrusion here.

2. Zion will be shaken. Apparently ‘after a little time’ = by Nebuchadnezzar in 588 B.C.

be built again, i.e. by Ezra and Nehemiah.

3. again . . . be rooted out, i.e. by the Romans in 4. D. 70.

4. On the heavenly Jerusalem, see iv. 3, note.

5. be distressed. I have here followed Bensly’s emendation of the Syriac, which has the active form instead of passive.

the evil which has now come = Jerusalem’s fall. 6. two tribulations, i. e. those accompanying the destruction of Jerusalem and the renewal of creation. Perhaps ‘than these two tribulations’ is an addition ; the text without them would run ‘For the trial will be great when’, &c. renew His creation, i.e. replace the corruptible by the incorruptible world. See further li and lii. It was a current expectation after the captivity (cf. Isa. Ixv. 17; 1 En. xlv. 4, note; 4 Ezra vii. 75; Matt. xix. 28; 2 Pet. iii. 7. This verse was originally preceded by xliv. 8-15. for a few days, i.e. for the seven days’ fast, omitted in xxxv. Cf. 4 Ezra v. 18, 19.

XXXIII. 1. 2. Seex. 2, note. According to B! Jeremiah does not seem to have gone to Babylon. On ‘make ready’ see note on x. 2. Here the ‘in’ is decidedly corrupt. See note on x. 2.

XXXIV. Holy of Holies. Cf. x. 5, xxxv. 1; the holy place, xxxv. 4, where the altar stood.

peoay. 2. Brom jer. ix. P> cf. i: En. xcv. 7.

4 Because in that place where I am now prostrate, Of old the high priest offered holy sacrifices, And placed thereon an incense of fragrant odours.

5 But now our glorying has been made into dust, And the desire of our soul into sand.’

XXXVI-XXXVII. The Vision of the Forest, the Vine, the Fountain and the Cedar.

36 1,2 And when I had said these things I fell asleep there, and I saw a vision in the night. And lo! xxxvi.-xl a forest of trees planted on the plain, and lofty and rugged rocky mountains surrounded it, and that = A* 3 forest occupied much space. And lo! over against it arose a vine, and from under it there went forth 4a fountain peacefully. Now that fountain came to the forest and was (stirred) into great waves, and those waves submerged that forest, and suddenly they rooted out the greater part of that forest, and 5 overthrew all the mountains which were round about it. And the height of the forest began to be made low, and the top of the mountains was made low and that fountain prevailed greatly, so that it 6 left nothing of that great forest save one cedar only. Also when it had cast it down and had destroyed and rooted out the greater part of that forest, so that nothing was left of it, nor could its place be recognized, then that vine began to come with the fountain in peace and great tranquillity, and it came to a place which was not far from that cedar, and they brought the cedar which had 7 been cast down to it. And I beheld and lo! that vine opened its mouth and spake and said to that cedar: ‘Art thou not that cedar which was left of the forest of wickedness, and by whose means 8 wickedness persisted, and was wrought all those years, and goodness never. And thou didst keep conquering that which was not thine, and to that which was thine thou didst never show compassion, and thou didst keep extending thy power over those who were far from thee, and those who drew nigh thee thou didst hold fast in the toils of thy wickedness, and thou didst uplift thyself always as 9, To one that could not be rooted out! But now thy time has sped and thine hour is come. Do thou also therefore depart, O cedar, after the forest, which departed before thee, and become dust with it, 11 and let your ashes be mingled together. And now recline in anguish and rest in torment till thy last time come, in which thou wilt come again, and be tormented still more.’ 37 And after these things I saw that cedar burning, and the vine growing, itself and all around it, the plain full of unfading flowers. And I indeed awoke and arose.

XXXVIII-XL. Jnterpretation of the Vision.

38:1 And I prayed and said: ‘O Lorn, my Lord, Thou dost always enlighten those who are led by

2, 3 understanding. Thy law is life,and Thy wisdom is tight_guidance, Make known to me therefore

4 the interpretation of this vision. For Thou knowest that my soul hath always walked in Thy law, and from my (earliest) days I departed not from Thy wisdom.’

THE SIXTH SECTION. XXXVI-XLVI. We must insert a seven days’ fast after xxxv to keep the symmetry of the book as constructed by the final editor. The structure of this section is then as follows: first, the omitted fast, then a Messiah vision and its interpretation (xxxvi-xl) with disclosures as to apostates and proselytes (xli. 2—xlii. 8), and an announcement as to Baruch’s coming death (xliii), and finally Baruch’s address to the people (xliv-xlvi). This section is very composite. xxxvi-xl is a Messiah Apocalypse earlier than A.D. 70; xliii-xliv. 7, xlv—-xlvi. 6 belongs to B'; the rest mainly to B%.

XXXVI-XL. The Second Messiah Apocalypse, A?.

(a) Date of A*—before A.D. 70. Unlike B! and B® it has no mention of the Roman destruction of Jerusalem ; nor has it a restoration of the city for the Messiah’s rule, or a return of the dispersion. A? is optimistic as regards this world, unlike B*?; and centres its hope on the Messiah, not the law, unlike B* and B®.

(4) Relation of A? to At. In At the Messiah has a passive réle; here an active one, destroying the wicked and vindicating Israel.

XXXVI. 1. These visions are only found in A? and A’. Elsewhere we have direct revelations.

2. This vision is obviously founded in some respects on Ezek. xvii.

8. rooted out. This word “PY is constantly used in the Talmud with reference to the future fate of Rome. 11. in anguish. See xxx. 5, where the intermediate state involves some degree of happiness or pain.

XXXVII. unfading flowers. Cf. Apoc. Pet.

XXXVIII. 1. God Himself interprets this vision for Baruch: but Ramiel the vision in A® (see lv. 3). 2. Thy law is life. Cf. xlv.2; Sir. xlv. 5. Hillel (Aboth. ii, 7): ‘The more law the more life . . . he who gains knowledge of the law gains life in the world to come.’ Also see John vii. 49. Thy wisdom is right guidance. This is based on the Massoretic text of Eccles. x. 10, where the versions vary. 4. from my (earliest) days. This is the Hebrew idiom "99, as in 1 Kings i. 6. °

“89:1 And He answered and said unto me: ‘Baruch, this is the interpretation of the vision which thou 2 hast seen. As thou hast seen the great forest which lofty and rugged mountains surrounded, this is 3 the word. Behold! the days come, and this kingdom will be destroyed which once destroyed Zion, 4 and it will be subjected to that which comes after it. Moreover, that also again after a time will be destroyed, and another, a third, will arise, and that also will have dominion for its time, and will be 5 destroyed. And after these things a fourth kingdom will arise, whose power will be harsh and evil far beyond those which were before it, and it will rule many times as the forests on the plain, and it 6 will hold fast for times, and will exalt itself more than the cedars of Lebanon. And by it the truth will be hidden, and all those who are polluted with iniquity will flee to it, as evil beasts flee and 7 creep into the forest. And it will come to pass when the time of its consummation that it should fall has approached, then the principate of My Messiah will be revealed, which is like the fountain 8 and the vine, and when it is revealed it will root out the multitude of its host. And as touching that which thou hast seen, the lofty cedar, which was left of that forest, and the fact, that the vine spoke those words with it which thou didst hear, this is the word. 401 ‘The last leader of that time will be left alive, when the multitude of his hosts will be put to the sword, and he will be bound, and they will take him up to Mount Zion, and My Messiah will convict 2 him of all his impieties, and will gather and set before him all the works of his hosts. And afterwards he will put him to death, and protect the rest of My people which shall be found in the place which 3 I have chosen. And his principate will stand for ever, until the world of corruption is at an end, 4 and until the times aforesaid are fulfilled. This is thy vision, and this is its interpretation.’

XLI-XLII. The Destiny of the Apostates and of the Proselytes.

41: And I answered and said: ‘For whom and for how many shall these things be? or who will be xli-xlii 2 worthy to live at that time? For I will speak before thee everything that I think, and I will ask of = B? 3 Thee regarding those things which I meditate. For lo! I see many of Thy people who have with- 4 drawn from Thy covenant, and cast from them the yoke of Thy law. But others again I have seen s who have forsaken their vanity, and fled for refuge beneath Thy wings. What therefore will be to 6 them? or how will the last time receive them? Or perhaps the time of these will assuredly be weighed, and as the beam inclines will they be judged accordingly ?’ 42 1,2 And He answered and said unto me: ‘These things also will I show unto thee. As for what thou didst say—‘ To whom will these things be, and how many (will they be) ?””—to those who have | believed there shall be the good which was spoken of aforetime, and to those who despise there shall | 3 be the contrary of these things. And as for what thou didst say regarding those who have drawn |

XXXIX. 3-5. Of the four world-empires here mentioned undoubtedly the first is Babylon (ver. 3), and the fourth Rome (5-7 ; xxxvi. 5-10). The second and third are probably Persia and the Diadochi. The fourfold division of world-empires is due to Dan. vii, where the fourth kingdom is decidedly different, as 4 Ezra xii. 11-12 admits.

6. the truth will be hidden. Cf. 4 Ezra v. 1, where the same statement is made about Rome.

7. the principate of My Messiah. For o\.ass ‘beginning’, read ohate.d ‘ principate’, as in xl. 3, lxxv. 8. See xxix. 3, note.

XL. 1. Who is this last leader? Probably Pompey, as ‘his impieties’ suggests (cf. Pss. Sol. ii. 24-35).

The Talmud says a single leader, called Armilus, was to unite in himself all hatred and hostility against God’s people. See Weber, 365, 366.

My Messiah. In A! (i. e. xxvii-xxx. 1) God Himself protects Israel and destroys their enemies, and the Messiah only appears after this (xxix. 3). Here the Messiah takes the active part.

convict of ... impieties. So Ezra xii. 32; xili. 37. 2. protect the rest, &c. See xxix. 2, note. 3. for ever, until . . ., or ‘for the age’. Cf. Ixxiii.1. The Messianic kingdom belongs to the o/am hazzeh (see

XLI, XLII. These two chapters belong to B’, and originally followed xxx. As in xx, the times are hastened (li. 6) in order to usher in the end, the resurrection, and the life of incorruption. The chief topics in these chapters are: (1) the ultimate destiny of the apostates ; (2) that of the proselytes.

XLI. 1. Baruch’s question goes back to xxx. 2~5 ; which it originally preceded in B®. For the question cf. Ixxv. 5. 3. These apostates may be Christians, yoke of Thy law. ‘Yoke’ means ‘obligation’. Cf. Sirach li, 26. Cf. for this phrase Pss. Sol. vil. 8, xvii. 32 ; 4. The proselytes, i.e. the O°). Cf. 4 Ezra vii. 133. their vanity, i.e. idols (Deut. xxxii. 21). fled for refuge beneath Thy wings. The writer follows the Hebrew text of Ps. xxxvi. 8, as against the LXX and Syriac. The phrase is used of a proselyte in Ruth ii. 12. Cf. Shabbath 31. 5. the last time, described in xxx. 2-5.

XLII. 2. those who have believed. See liv. 5, note; also xxi. 9, note.

4ncar and those who have withdrawn this is the word. As for those who were before subject, and afterwards withdrew and mingled themselves with the seed of mingled peoples, the time of these was

5 the former, and was accounted as something exalted. And as for those who before knew not but afterwards knew life, and mingled (only) with the seed of the people which had separated itself, the

6 time of these (is) the latter, and is accounted as something exalted. And time shall succeed to time and season to season, and one shall receive from another, and then with a view to the consummation shall everything be compared according to the measure of the times and the hours of the seasons.

7, 8 For corruption shall take those that belong to it, and life those that belong to it. And the dust shall

be called, and there shall be said to it: ‘Give back that which is not thine, and raise up all that thou hast kept until its time”.

XLUI. Baruch told of his Death and bidden to give his last Commands to the People.

431 ‘But, do thou, Baruch, direct thy heart to that which has been said to thee, Ehiceie And understand those things which have been shown to thee ; Ves

For there are many eternal consolations for thee. |

For thou shalt depart from this place,

And thou shalt pass from the regions which are now seen by thee,

And thou shalt forget whatever is corruptible,

And shalt not again recall those things which happen among mortals.

3 Go therefore and command thy people, and come to this place, and afterwards fast seven days, and then I will come to thee and speak with thee.’

XLIV. 1-8, XLV-XLVI. Baruch tells the Elders of his impending Death, but encourages them to

expect the Consolation of Zion.

44; And I, Baruch, went from thence, and came to my people, and I called my first-born son and [the Gedaliahs| my friends, and seven of the elders of the people, and I said unto them:

‘Behold, I go unto my fathers According to the way of all the earth.

4. The apostates have only this world. mingled peoples. Jer. xxv. 20, 24. 5. Of the people. The Syriac reads ‘ peoples’, which does not suit Israel, though it does suit the proselytes. separated itself, i.e. the legalistic Israel by the ‘fence’ of the law (cf. xlviii. 23). The ‘separatists’ are the Pharisees.

the latter. So Kabisch emends. The text reads‘ the former’. Thus the proselytes inherit the world to come.

8. Give back, &c. Cf.1.2. The earth gives back the body ; Sheol the soul, in virtue of its relation to which the body is conceived as persisting, and even sensitive. Job xiv. 22.

XLIII-XLVI. These chapters belong to B!, with the exception of xliv. 8-15. They do not belong to B?, for in xliii, 2, xliv. 2, Ixxviii. 5, lxxxiv. 1, Baruch is to de an ordinary death and forget all the concerns of mortals, whereas in B* he is to be preserved till the last day to testify against the Gentile oppressors of Israel, xiii. 3, xxv. 1, xlvill. 30. Again the people are assured of good tidings in store for them xlvi. 6, as in Ixxvii. 12, and bidden to look for the

restoration of Zion (Ixxxi. 1, 4 taken with i. 4, vi. 9), whereas in B? there is no consolation of any kind for them in this world.

XLIV. 8-15 belongs to B*; for the present world is hopeless—defiled with evil xliv. 9, and with its corruption about to pass away xliv. 8 ; it is, moreover, to be given over to oblivion xliv. g—a statement in flat contradiction with iv. 1. Accordingly all hope is to be directed to the world to come xliv. 15, the promised inheritance xliv. 13, the world of incorruption xliv. 12, Zhe original position of xliv. 8-15 was after xxxil. 6. These verses presuppose xlviii-lii, just as xxxi-xxxv presuppose them ; see note on xxxi-xxxv.

XLIII. 1. Refers probably to some lost passage of B?.

2. thou shalt depart. The word and the context indicate ordinary death here. Cf. xliv. 2.

whatever is corruptible. Cf. xxi. 19, note. 3. command thy people, i.e. impart to them the disclosures just made to Baruch. As Baruch has just been told of his coming death, the word ‘ command’ (Mi¥) is here used in the technical Hebrew sense of giving one’s last command,

this place. This conflicts with xlvil. 1—to Hebron. XLIV. 1. son. Elsewhere only in xlvi. 1. ie ; . : [the Gedaliahs]. Possibly this phrase belongs to the text, but has originated in a corrupt transliteration of p*}730 ‘the great men’. seven of the elders. Seven only, as the city is now destroyed. In v. 5, before its fall, he summons them all. 2. Contrast xiii. 3 (see note).

But withdraw ye not from the way of the law, But guard and admonish the people which remain, Lest they withdraw from the commandments of the Mighty One.

4 |For ye see that He whom we serve is just, “And our Creator is no respecter of persons.

5 And see ye what hath befallen Zion, And what hath happened to Jerusalem. 6 For the judgement of the Mighty One shall (thereby) be made known,

And His ways, which, though past finding out, are right.

7 For if ye endure and persevere in His fear, And do not forget His law, The times shall change over you for good, And ye shall see the consolation of Zion.

8,9 Because whatever is now is nothing, xliv. 8-15

But that which shall be is very great. = B? For everything that is corruptible shall pass away, And everything that dies shall depart, And all the present time shall be forgotten, Nor shall there be any remembrance of the present time, which is defiled with evils.

tr For that which is to be shall be the object of desire, And for that which comes afterwards shall we hope ; For it is a time that passes not away,

12 And the hour comes which abides for ever.

And the new world (comes) which does not turn to corruption those who depart to its blessedness, And has no mercy on those who depart to torment, And leads not to perdition those who live in it.

13 For these are they who shall inherit that time which has been spoken of, And theirs is the inheritance of the promised time.

14 These are they who have acquired for themselves treasures of wisdom, , And with them are found stores of understanding, | And from mercy have they not withdrawn, And the truth of the law have they preserved.

13 For to them shall be given the world to come, But the dwelling of the rest who are many shall be in the fire.’

45 2 ‘Do ye therefore so far as ye are able instruct the people, for that labour is ours. For if ye xlv-xlvi.6 teach them, ye will quicken them.’ = B

461 And my son and the elders of the people answered and said unto me: ‘Has the Mighty One humiliated us to such a degree As to take thee from us quickly ?

3. commandments of the Mighty One. Cf. xlviii. 38. ?

5. These words vividly recall vi—vili. See note on xliii-xlvi above.

6. which, though ... right. The text = ‘ which are past finding out and right’. ( , the consolation of Zion, i.e. its restoration. Cf. lxxxi. 1, 4; for the temple was to be rebuilt, according to B'.

8-15. These verses should be read after xxxii. 6. See note on xliii-xlvi above.

g. corruptible. Cf. xxi. 19, note.

12. the new world. Cf. the new creation (xxxii. 6), and li. 3; lii. 9, 16.

who depart to its blessedness. The text here has ‘on its beginning’, which gives no parallel to ‘to torment’

in the next clause, and no sense in itself. A corruption in the original Hebrew easily explains the difficulty and restores the sense, WN1 for WN. Ryssel reproduces this emendation without acknowledgement.

14. This verse presupposes li. 3, 7. The treasures in xxiv. I are those of righteousness.

XLV. B! reappears here, and the connexion broken at xliv. 7 is resumed. 2. if ye teach, &c. Cf. Ps. cxix. 50, 93. This is the true scribe’s work. Cf. xxxviii. 2, xliv. 7.

7 But with regard to the word that I was to be taken I did not make (it) known to them or to my son.] ~

I

And truly we shall be in darkness, And there shall be no light to the people who are left.

For where again shall we seek the law, Or who will distinguish for us between death and life ?’;

And I said unto them: ‘The throne of the Mighty One I cannot resist ; Nevertheless, there shall not be wanting to Israel a wise man Nor a son of the law to the race of Jacob.

But only prepare ye your hearts, that ye may obey the law, And be subject to those who in fear are wise and understanding ; And prepare your souls that ye may not depart from them.

For if ye do these. things, Good tidings shall come unto you.

[Which I before told you of ; nor shall ye fall into the torment, of which I testified to you before.’ xlvi. 6°-7

And when I had gone forth and dismissed them, I went thence and said unto them : ‘Behold ! xlviizlii.

I go to Hebron: for thither the Mighty One hath sent me.’. And I came to that place where the ~

word had been spoken unto me, and I sat there, and fasted seven days.

XLVIII. 1-47. PRAYER OF BARUCH.

And it came to pass after the seventh day, that I prayed before the Mighty One and said

‘O my Lord, Thou summonest the advent of the times, And they stand before Thee ;

Thou causest the power of the ages to pass away,

And they do not resist Thee ;

Thou arrangest the method of the seasons, And they obey Thee.

Thou alone knowest the duration of the generations, And Thou revealest not Thy mysteries to many.

Thou makest known the multitude of the fire, And Thou weighest the lightness of the wind.

Thou explorest the limit of the heights, And Thou scrutinizest the depths of the darkness.

XLVI. 4. a son of the law = 7)¥10 “3, i.e. one bound to observe the Law. An answer to the question put in iii. 6°. The expression seems to occur here first in existing literature. The verse means: There never should be lacking wise

teachers and obedient servants of the Law. The expression has nothing to do with whan ‘3 as Ryssel suggests.

5. be subject. Obedience to the Rabbis is here enforced.

6c-7. This addition was made by the final editor to adapt the fragment of B+ just given to its new context. Contrast xlvi. I.

6c. the torment. This refers to xliv. 12, 15.

7. I was to be taken. Cf. xiii. 3, note, xlvili. 30. The idea of the ascension into heaven of great heroes in Jewish history was a familiar one. See Commentary zz loc. Also N.T. (Mark xvi. 19; Acts i. 2, 11, 22; 1 Tim. ili. 16).

THE SEVENTH SECTION. XLVII-LXXVII. First we have Baruch’s fast of seven days, followed by his prayer (xlvii. 2-xlviii. 24). Then in the dialogue ensuing various revelations are made to Baruch touching the coming woes and the judgement (xlviii. 26-41), and the resurrection (I-lii). There follows a Messiah Apocalypse (liii-Ixxiv = A$). In Ixxvi Baruch is told of his coming translation, and in Ixxvii he addresses the people.

This section is composite; xlviii-lii is derived from B?; liii-lxxiv from A*%; Ixxv—Ixxvi from B?; and Ixxvii from B}.

XLVII. 1. Why this journey to Hebron? Baruch has received no such command in our text. This verse is probably original to B1 or B*; it seems, moreover, corrupt. After dismissing the people, Baruch addresses them ! The ‘ gone forth’ and ‘went thence’ possibly refer to ‘the cavern in the earth’ in xxi. 1. As chapters xxi-xxiv. I, Xxx, 2-5, xli, xlii belong to B®, and in some sense form a whole, they may be connected with the cavern as their scene, If so, xlvii. 1 belongs to B.

2. Conflicts with verse 1, and is due, like xliii. 3, to the final editor.

Thou carest fcr the number which pass away that they may be preserved, And Thou preparest an abode for those that are to be.

Thou rememberest the beginning which Thou hast made, And the destruction that is to be Thou forgettest not.

With nods of fear and indignation} Thou commandest the flames, And they change into spirits,

And with a word Thou quickenest that which was not, And with mighty power Thou holdest that which has not yet come.

Thou instructest created things in the understanding of Thee, And Thou makest wise the spheres so as to minister in their orders.

Armies innumerable stand before Thee And minister in their orders quietly at Thy nod.

Hear Thy servant And give ear to my petition.

For in a little time are we born, And in a little time do we return,

But with Thee hours are as a time, And days as generations.

Be not therefore wroth with man; for he is nothing And take not account of our works; For what are we?

For lo! by Thy gift do we come into the world, And we depart not of our own will,

For we said not to our parents, “ Beget us,” Nor did we send to Sheol and say, “ Receive us.”

What therefore is our strength that we should bear Thy wrath, Or what are we that we should endure Thy judgement ?

Protect us in Thy compassions, And in Thy mercy help us.

Behold the little ones that are subject unto Thee, And save all that draw nigh unto Thee:

And destroy not the hope of our people, And cut not short the times of our aid.

For this is the nation which Thou hast chosen, And these are the people, to whom Thou findest no equal.

But I will speak now before Thee, And I will say as my heart thinketh.

In Thee do we trust, for lo! Thy law is with us, And we know that we shall not fall so long as we keep Thy statutes.

XLVIII. 6. See xxiii. 4, note. Thou carest for. The text here follows a wrong sense of 7)5 in the Hebrew original, and so gives ‘commandest’. that they may. Text reads ‘and they are’, The Greek translator appears to have rendered 12W") wrongly. 8. tindignationt. See note on xxi. 6. flames ... spirits. Cf. Ps. civ. 4; Heb. i. 7. Io. in their orders. Jews held there were ten orders; Christians nine. 13. We should expect ‘ time is as hours’, &c. i ' 15. depart not. In xiv. 11 men ‘come not of their own will’. In 4 Ezra viil. 5 the two statements are combined. 19. subject unto Thee. Cf. xlii. 4 Jews. that draw nigh. Cf. xli. 4, xl. 3 proselytes. the nation, a necessary emendation (JNsoo/ for the unmeaning )se,%). Ceriani proposes ‘the servant’.

23 [To all time are we blessed at all events in this that we have not mingled with the Gentiles. ] 24 For we are all one celebrated people,

| Who have received one law from One:

| And the law which is amongst us will aid us, ; And the surpassing wisdom which is in us will help us.’

26 And when I had prayed and said these things, I was greatly weakened. And He answered and said unto me:

‘Thou hast prayed simply, O Baruch, And all thy words have been heard.

27 But My judgement exacts its own And My law exacts its rights.

28 For from thy words I will answer thee, And from thy prayer I will speak to thee.

29 For this is as follows: he that is corrupted is not at all; he has both wrought iniquity so far as he 30 could do anything, and has not remembered My goodness, nor accepted My long-suffering. There- 31 fore thou shalt surely be taken up, as I before told thee. For ,that time shall arise which brings affliction ; for it shall come and pass by with quick vehemence, and it shall be turbulent coming in 32 the heat of indignation. And it shall come to pass in those days that all the inhabitants of the earth shall be moved one against another, because they know not that My judgement has drawn nigh.

33. For there shall not be found many wise at that time.

And the intelligent shall be but a few:

Moreover, even those who know shall most of all be silent. 34 And there shall be many rumours and tidings not a few,

And the doings of phantasmata shall be manifest,

And promises not a few be recounted,

Some of them (shall prove) idle,

And some of them shall be confirmed. 35 And honour shall be turned into shame,

And strength humiliated into contempt,

tAnd probity destroyed,}

And beauty shall become ugliness. 36 And many shall say to many at that time:

“Where hath the multitude of intelligence hidden itself,

And whither hath the multitude of wisdom removed itself?”

23. This verse is bracketed as a prosaic intrusion. 24. one law from One. Ixxxy. 14. This is directed against Christians. eae the law... will aid us. Cf. xxix. 2, note; and xxxii.1. Cf, too, De simgularitate cler. 15 (Cyprian, Ed.

Hartel ii, 190) ‘ sicut Esaias ait, legem inquit in adiutorium dedit.’

29. The Syriac text is unintelligible.

31-41. The last woes and the final judgement. Cf. xxvil—xxix. 1; ]xx. 2-10.

32. shall be moved. Text reads ours bins (= ‘shall rest’) which I emended in 1896 into coseshny ‘shall be moved’.

33. Cf. lxx. 5. This verse resembles what Cyprian (Zes¢ém. iii. 29) quotes as from Baruch: ‘ Erit enim sapientia in paucis vigilantibus et taciturnis.’ 2 ; : oe 2

34. Cyprian again seems to quote ‘alii autem sapientes ad spiritum erroris et pronuntiantes sicut Altissim1 et Fortis edicta’. For the many impostors cf. Matt. xxiv. 11, 24. : 5 J

35. Of the four lines in this stanza three give a series of paronomasiae when retranslated into Hebrew, as in xxi. 14. Thus the first, second, and fourth run:

pop> yan N22 na ds sayy As regards the third it is certainly corrupt. The analogy of the other three leads us to expect a paronomasia here also. The Syriac is Jhasoh Joab, where the first word may be corrupt for Jhawbe%. The text would then = ‘and understanding would become foolishness.’ This at once gives a good sense and a paronomasia on the Hebrew, 1.e. bpd nny dow. On the last line cf. xxi. 14; Ixxxiii. 12. BD sa ; Gy es i ; oa ‘ 36. Cf. 4 Ezra v. 9-11. Does Cyprian refer to this in his quotation (Zes¢¢. iii, 29) ?—‘ Quaeretis me et vos et qui post vos venerint audire verbum sapientiae et intellectus et non invenietis.’

37 And whilst they are meditating these things, Then envy shall arise in those who had not thought aught of themselves (?) And passion shall seize him that is peaceful, And many shall be stirred up in anger to injure many, And they shall rouse up armies in order to shed blood, And in the end they shall perish together with them.

38 And it shall come to pass at the self-same time, That a change of times shall manifestly appear to every man, Because in all those times they polluted themselves And they practised oppression, And walked every man in his own works, And remembered not the law of the Mighty One.

39 Therefore a fire shall consume their thoughts, And in flame shall the meditations of their reins be tried ; For the Judge shall come and will not tarry.

40 Because each of the inhabitants of the earth knew when he was transgressing. But My Law they knew not by reason of their pride.

41 But many shall then assuredly weep, Yea, over the living more than over the dead.’

42 And I answered and said : *O Adam, what hast thou done to all those who are born from thee ? And what will be said to the first Eve who hearkened to the serpent ?

43 For all this multitude are going to corruption, Nor is there any numbering of those whom the fire devours.

45 But again I will speak in Thy presence. Thou, O Lorpb, my Lord, knowest what is in Thy

46 creature. For Thou didst of old command the dust to produce Adam, and Thou knowest the number of those who are born from him, and how far they have sinned before Thee, who have

47 existed and not confessed Thee as their Creator. And as regards all these their end shall convict them, and Thy law which they have transgressed shall requite them on Thy day.’

XLVIII. 48-50. Fragment of an Address of Baruch to the People.

48 [* But now let us dismiss the wicked and inquire about the righteous. 49 And I will recount their blessedness And not be silent in celebrating their glory, which is reserved for them. 50 = For assuredly as in a little time in this transitory world in which ye live, ye have endured much labour, So in that world to which there is no end, ye shall receive great light.’ |

aye, Gigiks-aley 38. walked every man, &c. Cf. 4 Ezra iii. 8. the law of the Mighty One. Cf. xliv. 3, 7.

40. knew when he was transgressing. Cf. Ep. Barn. v. 4, and see xv. 6 note, where Israel is referred to as knowing the law. Here all men know when they do wrong. Cf. Rom. ii. 14, 15.

My Law they knew not by reason of their pride. The Talmud says the Gentiles rejected the law, which was designed for all nations. See, too, 4 Ezra vii. 72, 73.

41. The load of sin increases with time, and so will its penalty.

42-50. What havoc Adam and Eve have wrought by the spiritual death and torments they brought upon their posterity! Yet God, as Creator, knows what is in man; the number of men that are to be, and their sins (42-6). The law and the judgement will give all their due, so let us inquire rather about the blessedness to come for the righteous who now awhile endure labour.

42. The mention of fire shows that spiritual death is here traced to Adam and Eve, whereas in xvii. 3, &c., it is only physical death that is so traced. In 4 Ezra both are always traced to Adam (e.g. iii. 21, 22). But this spiritual death is not due to the incapacity of man for righteousness after the fall, but to his following of his own choice in the steps of Adam.

46. command the dust to produce Adam. 4 Ezra iii. 4, 55 vil. 116.

the number... born. See xxiii. 5, note.

48-50. A fragment of an address delivered by Baruch to the people, as verse 50 shows, and not to God, Another fragment of this same address, originally preceding 48-50 here, is given in liv, 16-18, and yet another, following

49. be silent in celebrating. A Hebrew idiom.

XLIX-LII. The Nature of the Resurrection body: the final Destinies of the Righteous and the Wicked.

49 1 ‘Nevertheless, I will again ask from Thee, O Mighty One, yea, I will ask mercy from Him who

made all things.

“In what shape will those live who live in Thy day ?

Or how will the splendour of those who (are) after that time continue ?

Will they then resume this form of the present,

And put on these entrammelling members,

Which are now involved in evils,

And in which evils are consummated,

Or wilt Thou perchance change these things which have been in the world

As also the world ?”’

And He answered and said unto me: ‘ Hear, Baruch, this word,

And write in the remembrance of thy heart all that thou shalt learn.

For the earth shall then assuredly restore the dead,

[ Which it now receives, in order to preserve them].

It shall make no change in their form,

But as it has received, so shall it restore them,

And as I delivered them unto it, so also shall it raise them.

For then it will be necessary to show to the living that the dead have come to life again, and that those who had departed have returned (again). And it shall come to pass, when they have severally recognized those whom they now know, then judgement shall grow strong, and those things which before were spoken of shall come.

‘And it shall come to pass, when that appointed day has gone by, that then shall the aspect of those who are condemned be afterwards changed, and the glory of those who are justified. For the

_ aspect of those who now act wickedly shall become worse than it is, as they shall suffer torment.

Also (as for) the glory of those who have now been justified in My law, who have had understanding

in their life, and who have planted in their heart the root of wisdom, then their splendour shall be

glorified in changes, and the form of their face shall be turned into the light of their beauty, that

' they may be able to acquire and receive the world which does not die, which is then promised to

them. For over this above all shall those who come then lament, that they rejected My law, and stopped their ears that they might not hear wisdom or receive understanding. When therefore they see those, over whom they are now exalted, (but) who shall then be exalted and glorified more than they, they shall respectively be transformed, the latter into the splendour of angels, and the former shall yet

6 more waste away in wonder at the visions and in the beholding of the forms. For they shall first

behold and afterwards depart to be tormented.

XLIX. 2. In what shape, &c. Cf. 1 Cor. xv. 35 ‘How are the dead raised up? and with what manner of body do they come?’ splendour, or perhaps ‘ appearance’; also in li. 3, 5. 3. entrammelling members, lit. ‘members of bonds’.

L-LI. The nature of the resurrection body. The world in its renewal becomes undying (li. 3), incorruptible (Ixxiv. 2)

and invisible to mortal vision (li. 8). This conception of transformation, which is as old as Isa. Ixv. 17-Ixvi, was’

applied in due course to those who were to live in the renewed world. This is done partially in Isa. Ixv. 17-25, but fully in Dan. xii. 2. Also in 1 Enoch civ. 4,6, &c. Thus the spiritual transformation was a familiar idea to the Pharisees before the writers of Baruch lived; while 1 Cor. xv. 35-50 is in one of its aspects the logical sequel of Isa. liv. 17. Paul was not altogether an innovator, but an able and advanced expositor of some current Jewish views. Opposed to this spiritual view of the future life lay the materialistic one prevalent among people and Rabbis

alike, which said the blessed should beget children, and eat the flesh of Leviathan. (Weber 383, 384.) 1

L. 2. See notes on xi. 4; xlii.8; 1 Enoch li.1. The resurrection united soul (from Sheol, its abode, xxi. 23) and body (resting in the earth, xlii. 8). Note that here the earth preserves the body intact, as committed to it.

4. The object for which the dead are raised is for common recognition. So also Beresh. rab. 95 and the later Judaism. Contrast the silence of the N.T.

LI. 1. This transformation of the living also is mentioned in I Cor. xv. 51. aspect. So Ceriani emends the text. 3. justified in My law. See xv. 5, note. 2 their splendour. Their bodies gradually are assimilated to their new environment. 4. rejected, i.e. wicked Gentiles as well as Israelites. stopped their ears, follows Hebrew of Zech. vil. 11; not LXX. 5. waste away, not ‘be annihilated’. Cf. 4 Ezra vii. $7.

7 | But those who have been saved by their works, And to whom the law has been now a hope, _And understanding an expectation,

A And wisdom a confidence, Shall wonders appear in their time.

8 For they shall behold the world which is now invisible to them, And they shall behold the time which is now hidden from them : 9 And time shall no longer age them. to , For in the heights of that world shall they dwell, | And they shall be made like unto the angels, | And be made equal to the stars, ) And they shall be changed into every form they desire, | From beauty into loveliness, ' And from light into the splendour of glory.

tr For there shall be spread before them the extents of Paradise, and there shall be shown to them the beauty of the majesty of the living creatures which are beneath the throne, and all the armies of the angels, who [are now held fast by My word, lest they should appear, and] are held fast by a 12 command, that they may stand in their places till their advent comes. Moreover, there shall then be 13 excellency in the righteous surpassing’ that in the angels. For the first shall receive the last, those whom they were expecting, and the last those of whom they used to hear that they had passed away. 14 For they have been delivered from this world of tribulation, And laid down the burthen of anguish. 15 For what then have men lost their life, And for what have those who were on the earth exchanged their soul ? 16 For then they chose (not) for themselves this time, Which, beyond the reach of anguish, could not pass away: But they chose for themselves that time, Whose issues are full of lamentations and evils,

And they denied the world which ages not those who come to it, And they rejected the time of glory, So that they shall not come to the honour of which I told thee before.’ 521 And I answered and said: ‘How can we forget those for whom woe is then reserved ? 2 And why therefore do we again mourn for those who die? Or why do we weep for those who depart to Sheol ?

3 Let lamentations be reserved for the beginning of that coming torment, And let tears be laid up for the advent of the destruction of that time. 4 [But even in the face of these things will I speak. 5 And as for the righteous, what will they do now? 6 Rejoice ye in the suffering which ye now suffer : For why do ye look for the decline of your enemies ?

7 Make ready your soul for that which is reserved for you, And prepare your souls for the reward which is laid up for you.’]

g. After this verse read probably verses 13 and 14, then Io, 11, and 12 as climax. 10. Note spiritual conception. The risen righteous live in the heights of the invisible world (8, 10), and their glory is more than that of the angels (12). equal to the stars. 4 Ezra vii. 97, 125. 11. living creatures ... beneath the throne. Rev. iv. 6. armies of the angels. Cf. 2 Enoch xvii; Test. Lev. iii. 3. The brackets indicate a gloss or dittograph. 16. I have added a negative in the first clause, as the sense requires it—an addition accepted by Ryssel. lvi. 14, where Ceriani also inserts it. of glory. So Ryssel has emended text which reads ‘and glory’.

LII. 1. we. Text reads ‘I’ which Ryssel has emended.

2, 3. We should weep rather for those destined to torments than those who depart to Sheol.

6. Cf. Ixxxviii.6; James i, 2. The sentiment looks Christian.

So too in

LITI-LXXIV. THE MESSIAH APOCALYPSE.

LIII. Zhe Vision of the Cloud with black and white Waters.

53:1 And when I had said these things I fell asleep there, and I saw a vision, and lo! a cloud was liii-xxiv ascending from a very great sea, and I kept gazing upon it, and lo! it was full of waters white and = A® black, and there were many colours in those self-same waters, and as it were the likeness of great

2 lightning was seen at its summit. And I saw the cloud passing swiftly in quick courses, and it 3 covered all the earth. And it came to pass after these things that that cloud began to pour 4 upon the earth the waters that were in it. And I saw that there was not one and the same like- 5 ness in the waters which descended from it. For in the first beginning they were black and many for a time, and afterwards I saw that the waters became bright, but they were not many, and after these things again I saw black (waters), and after these things again bright, and again 6 black and again bright. Now this was done twelve times, but the black were always more numerous — 7 than the bright. And it came to pass at the end of the cloud, that lo! it rained black waters, and they were darker than had been all those waters that were before, and fire was mingled 8 with them, and where those waters descended, they wrought devastation and destruction. And after these things I saw how that lightning which I had seen on the summit of the cloud, seized 9 hold of it and hurled it to the earth. Now that lightning shone exceedingly, so as to illuminate the whole earth, and it healed those regions where the last waters had descended and wrought

10, 11 devastation. And it took hold of the whole earth, and had dominion over it. And I saw after

these things, and lo! twelve rivers were ascending from the sea, and they began to surround 12 that lightning and to become subject to it. And by reason of my fear I awoke.

LIV-LV. Saruch’s Prayer for an Interpretation of the Vision: Ramiel’s advent for this Purpose.

541 And I besought the Mighty One, and said:

‘Thou alone, O Lord, knowest of aforetime the deep things of the world,

And the things which befall! in their times Thou bringest about by Thy word,

And against the works of the inhabitants of the earth Thou dost hasten the beginnings of the times,

And the end of the seasons Thou alone knowest.

(Thou) for whom nothing is too hard, But who dost everything easily by a nod:

(Thou) to whom the depths fcome} as the heights, And whose word the beginnings of the ages serve:

LIII-LXXIV. The third Messiah Apocalypse, or A*. In date it seems to be prior to A.D. 70 (Ixviii. 5-6), and subsequent to A.D. 50. If this is the date of this section, it is distinct from B* and B*, which were composed subsequently to the fall of the Temple. In B? and B? there is no expectation of the Messiah, whereas in A® the Messiah is the centre of interest. Again, it appears to be distinct from A’; for in Althe Messiah does not appear till the enemies of Israel are destroyed, whereas in A* the Messiah is the agent of their destruction. The relations of A* to A* are doubtful. They could come from the same hand, The warlike character of the Messiah in this section is noteworthy.

LIII. In this vision a cloud rises from the sea with its summit crowned with lightning. After six successions of black and bright waters, comes the blackest shower of all. Then the lightning flashes forth and heals the earth,

I. avery greatsea. Cf. Dan. vii. 2.

5. and many. Here, as the words in the next line ‘not many’ show, we expect ‘and many’. Hence with Ryssel

emend ug into cehiqoos. 6. For the twelvefold division of history see 4 Ezra xiv. 11, 12. 7. These black waters are interpreted in Ixix, lxx. They symbolize the travail pains of the Messiah. 8. The lightning on the cloud symbolizes the Messiah. The imagery is derived from Dan. vil. 13. g. lightning shone ... whole earth. Cf. Matt. xxiv. 27 ‘as the lightning . . . so shall be the coming of the . Son of man’. 12. Are these twelve rivers the Gentiles submitting to the Messiah, or the twelve tribes of Israel ?

LIV. 1. Before this chapter the MS. inserts the words ‘ The Prayer of Baruch’. i 2. I have with Ryssel restored ‘ Thou’ at the beginning of verses 2, 3, 4. The context requires this restoration. for whom nothing is too hard. This is a rendering of the phrase found in Gen. xviil. 14; Jer. xxxii. 17, 27.

4 (Thou) who revealest to those who fear Thee what is prepared for them, That thenceforth they may be comforted.

Thou showest great acts to those who know not ;

Thou breakest up the enclosure of those who are ignorant,

And lightest up what is dark,

And revealest what is hidden to the pure,

Who in faith have submitted themselves to Thee and Thy law.

6 Thou hast shown to Thy servant this vision ; Reveal to me also its interpretation.

7 For I know that as regards those things wherein I besought Thee, I have received a response, And as regards what I besought, Thou didst reveal to me with what voice I should praise Thee, And from what members I should cause praises and hallelujahs to ascend to Thee.

8 For if my members were mouths, And the hairs of my head voices, Even so I could not give Thee the meed of praise, Nor laud thee as is befitting, . Nor could I recount Thy praise, Nor tell the glory of Thy beauty.

9 For what am I amongst men, Or why am I reckoned amongst those who are more excellent than I, That I have heard all these marvellous things from the Most High, And numberless promises from Him who created me?

10 Blessed be my mother among those that bear, And praised among women be she that bare me.

tr For I will not be silent in praising the Mighty One, And with the voice of praise I will recount His marvellous deeds.

12 For who doeth like unto Thy marvellous deeds, O God, Or who comprehendeth Thy deep thought fof lifey.

13. For with Thy counsel Thou dost govern all the creatures which Thy right hand has created, And Thou hast established every fountain of light beside Thee, And the treasures of wisdom beneath Thy throne hast Thou prepared.

x14 And justly do they perish who have not loved Thy law, And the torment of judgement shall await those who have not submitted themselves to Thy power.

15 For though Adam first sinned And brought untimely death upon all, Yet of those who were born from him | Each one of them has prepared for his own soul torment to come, ‘And again each one of them has chosen for himself glories to come.

16 [For assuredly he who believeth will receive reward.

17 But now, as for you, ye wicked that now are, turn ye to destruction, because ye shall speedily be visited, in that formerly ye rejected the understanding of the Most High.

18 For His works have not taught you, Nor has the skill of His creation which is at all times persuaded you. |

4. Thee. So I emend text = ‘Him’.

5. in faith. See note on liv. 21. I have bracketed this line as a later addition.

to, An interpolation? it breaks the connexion. Cf. Luke xi. 27.

15-19. The two doctrines of fate and free-will, though seen to be mutually exclusive, were accepted ¢heoretically as equally imperative by the Pharisees. St. Paul alone develops them into naked antagonism. The general tendency was to insist on free-will as here, and in the Talmud (Weber, /vid. 7heol. 224 sq.). See my Commentary, 77 doc.

15. The effect of Adam’s sin is limited to physical results—the premature death of his descendants. Contrast the pessimism of 4 Ezra.

untimely. See xxiii. 4, note.

16-18. See xlviii. 48-50, note. These verses break the context and are out of place here. They properly precede xIviii. 48-50. A direct address to the wicked could not occur in a prayer to God.

18. God’s law can be learnt in nature. Cf. Rom.i. 20. This argument is as old as the Psalter, Job, and Isaiah

Ke 1g | Adam is therefore not the cause, save only of his own soul, / | But each of us has been the Adam of his own soul.

20 ° But do Thou, O Lord, expound to me regarding those things which Thou hast revealed to me, And inform me regarding that which I besought Thee.

21 For at the consummation of the world vengeance shall be taken upon those who have done

wickedness according to their wickedness, And Thou wilt glorify the faithful according to their faithfulness.

22 For those who are amongst Thine own Thou rulest, And those who sin Thou blottest out from amongst Thine own.’

551 And it came to pass when I had finished speaking the words of this prayer, that I sat there under

2a tree, that I might rest in the shade of the branches. And I wondered and was astonied, and pondered in my thoughts regarding the multitude of goodness which sinners who are upon the earth have rejected, and regarding the great torment which they have despised, though they knew that

3 they should be tormented because of the sin they had committed. And when I was pondering on these things and the like, lo! the angel Ramiel who presides over true visions was sent to me, and he said unto me:

4 ‘Why does thy heart trouble thee, Baruch, and why does thy thought disturb thee ?

5 For if owing to the report which thou hast only heard of judgement thou art so moved,

What (wilt thou be) when thou shalt see it manifestly with thine eyes?

6 And if with the expectation wherewith thou dost expect the day of the Mighty One thou art so overcome, What (wilt thou be) when thou shalt come to its advent ?

7 And, if at the word of the announcement of the torment of those who have done foolishly thou art so wholly distraught,

How much more when the event will reveal marvellous things ?

And if thou hast heard tidings of the good and evil things which are then coming and art erieved, ~ “What (wilt thou be) when thou shalt behold what the majesty will reveal,

Which shall convict these and cause those to rejoice.’

LVI-LXXIV. Interpretation of the Vision. The black and bright Waters symbolize the World's Llistory from Adam to the Advent of the Messiah.

56: ‘Nevertheless, because thou hast besought the Most High to reveal to thee the interpretation

of the vision which thou hast seen, I have been sent to tell thee. And the Mighty One hath assuredly made known to thee the methods of the times that have passed, and of those that are destined to pass in His world from the beginning of its creation even unto its consummation, of those things which (are) deceit and of those which (are) in truth. For as thou didst see a

great cloud which ascended from the sea, and went and covered the earth, this is the duration ~

of the world (= aiév) which the Mighty One made when he took counsel to make the world. 4 And it came to pass when the word had gone forth from His presence, that the duration of the world had come into being in a small degree, and was established according to the multitude of '5 the intelligence of Him who sent it. And as thou didst previously see on the summit of the cloud black waters which descended previously on the earth, this is the transgression wherewith Adam the first man transgressed.

19. See verse 15, note. Man’s guilt and sin are due to his own action, and are not derived from Adam. The evil impulse is not sin unless obeyed. It is placed in man, say the Talmudists, to be overcome (Weber, 217 sq.).

21. the faithful according to their faithfulness. Here ‘faithfulness’ is contrasted with ‘wickedness’, so it ‘righteousness’ or ‘fidelity to the law’; but elsewhere in this work ‘faith’ ‘belief’. Cf. 4 Ezra vi. 5 for the former sense.

LV. 3. Ramiel. Cf. lxiii. 6; 1 En. xx. 7 (Greek); 4 Ezra iv. 36 (Syriac); Sibyll. Or. ii. 215-17. In 4 Ezra Ramiel answers a question, as here. Elsewhere he has charge of souls for judgement.

5. owing ... which. The text is defective. I have added @© after +x, and ? before Kooga, Ceriani adds ¢9 after s«\,. With the latter reading we should render ‘if when thou hast only heard a rumour of His

: ve 3. a great cloud ... this is the duration of the world. The twelve alternate black and bright waters, and the last black water, symbolize the thirteen periods of the world’s history prior to the Messiah’s kingdom, which is foreshadowed by the lightning that shone on the cloud’s summit.

4. was established. So Ceriani has emended.

6 For [since] when he transgressed Untimely death came into being, Grief was named And anguish was prepared, And pain was created, And trouble consummated, And disease began to be established, And Sheol kept demanding that it should be renewed in blood, And the begetting of children was brought about, And the passion of parents produced, And the greatness of humanity was humiliated, And goodness languished.

”,8 What therefore can be blacker or darker than these things? This is the beginning of the black

g waters which thou hast seen. And from these black (waters) again were black derived, and the to darkness of darkness was produced. For he became a danger to his own soul: even to the angels

tr, 12 became he a danger. For, moreover, at that time when he was created, they enjoyed liberty. And

13 some of them descended, and mingled with the women. And then those who did so were tormented 14in chains. But the rest of the multitude of the angels, of which there is (no) number, restrained 15 themselves. And those who dwelt on the earth perished together (with them) through the waters 16 of the deluge. These are the black first waters.

571 ‘And after these (waters) thou didst see bright waters: this is the fount of Abraham, also his

2 generations and advent of his son, and of his son’s son, and of those like them. Because at that time the unwritten law was named amongst them, And the works of the commandments were then fulfilled, And belief in the coming judgement was then generated, And hope of the world that was to be renewed was then built up, And the promise of the life that should come hereafter was implanted. These are the bright waters, which thou hast seen.

581 ‘And the black third waters which thou hast seen, these are the mingling of all sins, which the

nations afterwards wrought after the death of those righteous men, and the wickedness of the land of 2 Egypt, wherein they did wickedly in the service wherewith they made their sons to serve. Nevertheless, these also perished at last. 1 ‘And the bright fourth waters which thou hast seen are the advent of Moses and Aaron and 2 Miriam and Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb and of all those like them. For at that time the lamp of the eternal law shone on all those who sat in darkness, which announced to them that believe the 3 promise of their reward, and to them that deny, the torment of fire which is reserved for them. But also the heavens at that time were shaken from their place, and those who were under the throne of 4 the Mighty One were perturbed, when He was taking Moses unto Himself. For He showed him many admonitions together with the principles of the law and the consummation of the times, as also to thee, and likewise the pattern of Zion and its measures, in the pattern of which the

6. disease. Text ‘boasting’ ndan, corrupt for nbn ‘disease ’, or Jiqdam ‘ boasting’ is corrupt for 9909 = ‘disease’, as in Ixxiii. 2. ‘ Disease’ comes with the Fall, but it disappears on the advent of the kingdom, Ixxiii. 2. Sheol ... demanding. For Sheol’s hunger, cf. Prov. xxvii. 20; Isa. v. 14. io. Man’s physical nature became a danger to his spiritual; because of it the angels fell through lust, and in it resided the evil impulse. 11. they enjoyed liberty, i.e. the angels. Cf. 1 En. vi. 2, note. 14. (no) number. Ceriani restored the negative. LVII. The first bright period is from Abraham to Jacob. 2. This tendency to trace the observance of the law to the patriarchs had already reached its most extreme expression in the Book of Jubilees. the world... to be renewed. In A‘! and A? at the close of the Messianic kingdom, which in A ends this world and begins the next (Ixxiv. 2). LVIII. 1. the service ... serve. The text follows the Hebrew of Exod. i. 4, not the LXX. LIX. 2. the lamp. . . darkness. A Rabbinic application of Isa, ix. 2. the eternal law. Cf. xvii. 6; xv. 5, note. torment of fire, i.e. a material fire to torment the wicked after the resurrection. Cf. xliv. 15, &c.

4. law... times. Text reads ‘laws... time’. the pattern of Zion. Cf. Exod. xxv. qo, &c. in the pattern of which ... made. So by a change of a single letter I have emended the text, which read

‘which was to be made in the pattern of the sanctuary’, &c. This emendation is followed by Ryssel.

5 sanctuary of the present time was to be made. But then also He showed to him the measures of the fire, also the depths of the abyss, and the weight of the winds, and the number of the drops of 6 rain: And the suppression of anger, and the multitude of long-suffering, and the truth of judgement: 8 And the root of wisdom, and the riches of understanding, and the fount of knowledge: And the height of the air, and the greatness of Paradise, and the consummation of the ages, and the beginning 9 of the day of judgement : And the number of the offerings, and the earths which have not yet come: 10 And the mouth of Gehenna, and the station of vengeance, and the place of faith, and the region of 11 hope: And the likeness of future torment, and the multitude of innumerable angels, and the flaming hosts, and the splendour of the lightnings, and the voice of the thunders, and the orders of the chiefs of the angels, and the treasuries of light, and the changes of the times, and the investigations of the 12 law. These are the bright fourth waters which thou hast seen.

GO: ‘And the black fifth waters which thou hast seen raining are the works which the Amorites

wrought, and the spells of their incantations which they wrought, and the wickedness of their 2 mysteries, and the mingling of their pollution. But even Israel was then polluted by sins in the days of the judges, though they saw many signs which were from Him who made them. 1 ‘And the bright sixth waters which thcu didst see, this is the time in which David and Solomon were born.

And there was at that time the building of Zion, And the dedication of the sanctuary,

And the shedding of much blood of the nations that sinned then, And many offerings which were offered then in the dedication of the sanctuary.

3. And peace and tranquillity existed at that time, And wisdom was heard in the assembly :

And the riches of understanding were magnified in the congregations, 5 And the holy festivals were fulfilled in blessedness and in much joy.

6 And the judgement of the rulers was then seen to be without guile,

And the righteousness of the precepts of the Mighty One was accomplished with truth. 7 And the land [which] was then beloved by the Lord,

And because its inhabitants sinned not, it was glorified beyond all lands,

And the city Zion ruled then over all lands and regions.

8 These are the bright waters which thou hast seen.

x1 ‘And the black seventh waters which thou hast seen, this is the perversion (brought about) by the 2 counsel of Jeroboam, who took counsel to make two calves of gold: And all the iniquities which 3 kings who were after him iniquitously wrought. And the curse of Jezebel and the worship of idols 4 which Israel practised at that time. And the withholding of rain, and the famines which occurred 5 until women eat the fruit of their wombs. And the time of their captivity which came upon the nine 6 tribes and a half, because they were in many sins. And Salmanasar king of Assyria came and led

5-11. Here one of Enoch’s functions is for the first time transferred to Moses. Cf. another such transference to Ezra in 4 Ezra xiv. 50. Enoch, like the LXX, was much appealed to by Christians, and like it, therefore, fell into disuse by the Jews. This aggressive attitude of Judaism cannot be earlier than 50 A.D., and therefore places this writing (A‘) after that date. It is prior to A. D. 70 (Ixviii. 5).

5. the depths of the abyss. 1 Enoch xviii. 11; xxi. 7-10, &c; 2 Enoch xxviii. 3.

the weight of the winds. 2 Enoch xl. 11. Cf. 1 Enoch xli. 4.

8. the greatness of Paradise. The measures of Paradise are taken by the angels for Enoch. Cf. 1 Enoch

the beginning of the day of judgement. A definite reckoning is given in 2 Enoch xxxil. 2—xxxiii. 2; Ixv. 7-10; and indefinite measures in 1 Enoch Ixxxili-xc ; xci-civ.

10. the mouth of Gehenna. Cf. Ixxxv. 13; 1 Enoch xxvii. 2, 3, &c.

the station of vengeance. Many places of vengeance are described in the two books of Enoch: 1 Enoch the place of faith, and the region of hope. These seem to be the places of intermediate bliss. Cf. 1 Enoch oe the likeness of future torment. 2 Enoch xl. 12. lightnings ... thunders. 1 Enoch xli. 3, &c. the orders of the chiefs of the angels. The Syriac has ‘chief’ (sing.), Cf, xlviii. 10; 2 Enoch xx. 1, 3.

LX. 1. mingling of their pollution. Cf. Pss. Sol. ii. 15 ev pupye dvapigeas.

2. of the judges. The Syriac has ‘ judgement ’.

LXI. 7. by the Lord. The text = év éxeivp 7G xaip@, where I take xaipd to be corrupt for Kupio, and éxeivo to be a later addition. I have bracketed the ‘ which ’.

6. i.e. Shalmaneser, 2 Kings xvii. 3,6. Cf. 4 Ezra xiii. 4o.

~ » them away captive. But regarding the Gentiles it were tedious to tell how they always wrought 8 impiety and wickedness, and never wrought righteousness. These are the black seventh waters which thou hast seen. 31 ‘And the bright eighth waters which thou hast seen, this is the rectitude and uprightness of 2 Hezekiah king of Judah and the grace (of God) which came upon him. +For when Sennacherib was stirred up in order that he might perish, and his wrath troubled him in order that he might thereby 3 perish, for the multitude also of the nations which were with him.| When, moreover, Hezekiah the king heard those things which the king of Assyria was devising, (i.e.) to come and seize him and destroy his people, the two and a half tribes which remained: nay, more he wished to overthrow Zion also: then Hezekiah trusted in his works, and had hope in his righteousness, and spake with 4the Mighty One and said: “ Behold, for lo! Sennacherib is prepared to destroy us, and he will be boastful and uplifted when he has destroyed Zion.” 5 And the Mighty One heard him, for Hezekiah was wise, And He had respect unto his prayer, because he was righteous. 6, 7 And thereupon the Mighty One commanded Ramiel His angel who speaks with thee. And I went forth and destroyed their multitude, the number of whose chiefs only was a hundred and 8 eighty-five thousand, and each one of them had an equal number (at his command). And at that .time I burned their bodies within, but their raiment and arms I preserved outwardly, in order that the still more wonderful deeds of the Mighty One might appear, and that thereby His name might 9 be spoken of throughout the whole earth. And Zion was saved and Jerusalem delivered: Israel also to was freed from tribulation. And all those who were in the holy land rejoiced, and the name of the 11 Mighty One was glorified so that it was spoken of. These are the bright waters which thou hast seen. 641 ‘And the black ninth waters which thou hast seen, this is all the wickedness which was in the days 2 of Manasseh the son of Hezekiah. for he wrought much impiety, and he slew the righteous, and he wrested judgement, and he shed the blood of the innocent, and wedded women he violently polluted, and he overturned the altars, and destroyed their offerings, and drove forth their priests 3 lest they should minister in the sanctuary. And he made an image with five faces: four of them looked to the four winds, and the fifth on the summit of the image as an adversary of the zeal of the 4 Mighty One. And then wrath went forth from the presence of the Mighty One to the intent that 5 Zion should be rooted out, as also it befell in your days. But also against the two tribes and a half 6 went forth a decree that they should also be led away captive, as thou hast now seen. And to such a degree did the impiety of Manasseh increase, that it removed the praise of the Most High from 7 the sanctuary. On this account Manasseh was at that time named “the impious”, and finally his 8 abode was in the fire. For though his prayer was heard with the Most High, finally, when he was cast into the brazen horse and the brazen horse was melted, it served as a sign unto him for the 9 hour. For he had not lived perfectly, for he was not worthy—but that thenceforward he might to know by whom finally he should be tormented. For he who is able to benefit is also able to torment. 651 ‘Thus, moreover, did Manasseh act impiously, and thought that in his time the Mighty One would 2 not inquire into these things. These are the black ninth waters which thou hast seen.

LXIII. 1. the grace. The MS. originally read ‘bounty’. I have with Ryssel added ‘of God’. Ryssel emends and reads ‘ the benignity of God’.

2. This verse is very corrupt.

3. Hezekiah trusted in his works. See xiv. 7, note. There is a play on Hezekiah’s name in the words when

retranslated into Hebrew dy priand mMpIn. Cf. Sirach xlviii. 22, and 17. 4. There is a play again on ‘ Sennacherib’ and ‘ destroy’ in Hebrew aannd any snp. 7. In 2 Kings xix. 35 ; Isa. xxxvii. 36, 185,000 is the complete number of the slain. In 2 Chron. xxxii. 21, only the slaughter of the chiefs is mentioned. The text combines the two accounts. 8. Cf. Sanh. 94%, where it is said that the souls were burnt up but the bodies preserved.

LXIV. 3. he made an image with five faces: four of, &c. 2 Chron. xxxiii. 7 says ‘ he set the graven image of the idol’. The Syriac version, however, gives ‘afd he set the four-fronted image’. Cf. the Arabic, and also the Talmud, Sah. 103” ‘at first he made for it one face, and in the end he made for it four faces that the Shechinah might see and be provoked’.

6. removed the praise. Sanh. 103? says Manasseh erased the divine name and overturned the altar.

7. 2 Chron, xxxili. 11-19, on the other hand, implies that Manasseh was really forgiven on his repentance.

8. his prayer. 2 Chron. xxxiii. 19 ; The Prayer of Manasseh in the Apocrypha.

the brazen horse. Cf. the Targum of Chronicles on 2 Chron. xxxiii. 11. Also Apost. Const. ii.22; Anastasius on Ps. vi; Suidas (under Mavavojjs).

9g. Text corrupt.

LXV. The writer holds thus that Manasseh, though he prayed, did not really repent. Cf. Sanh. tor, and Sanh. 10, and contrast Debarim rabba 2, where Manasseh is to be saved at the last.

5S Eis

66: ‘And the bright tenth waters which thou hast seen: this is the purity of the generations of Josiah

king of Judah, who was the only one at the time who submitted himself to the Mighty One with all 2 his heart and with all his soul. And he cleansed the land from idols, and hallowed all the vessels which had been polluted, and restored the offerings to the altar, and raised the horn of the holy, and exalted the righteous, and honoured all that were wise in understanding, and brought back the priests to their ministry, and destroyed and removed the magicians and enchanters and necromancers from the land. And not only did he slay the impious that were living, but they also took from the sepulchres the bones of the dead and burned them with fire. [And the festivals and the sabbaths he established in their sanctity], and their polluted ones he burnt in the fire, and the lying prophets which deceived the people, these also he burnt in the fire,and the people who listened to them when they were living, he cast them into the brook Cedron, and heaped stones upon them. And he was zealous with zeal for the Mighty One with all his soul, and he alone was firm in the law at that time, so that he left none that was uncircumcised, or that wrought impiety in all the land, all the days of 6 his life. Therefore he shall receive an eternal reward, and he shall be glorified with the Mighty One 7 beyond many at a later time. For on his account and on account of those who are like him were 8 the honourable glories, of which thou wast told before, created and prepared. These are the bright

waters which thou hast seen. 1 ‘And the black eleventh waters which thou hast seen: this is the calamity which is now befalling

Zion.

a WwW

2 Dost thou think that there is no anguish to the angels in the presence of the Mighty One, That Zion was so delivered up, And that lo! the Gentiles boast in their hearts, And assemble before their idols and say,

“ She is trodden down who ofttimes trod down, And she has been reduced to servitude who reduced (others) ” ?

3 Dost thou think that in these things the Most High rejoices, Or that His name is glorified ?

4 [But how will it serve towards His righteous judgement ? |

5 Yet after these things shall the dispersed among the Gentiles be taken hold of by tribulation, And in shame shall they dwell in every place.

6 Because so far as Zion is delivered up And Jerusalem laid waste, Shall idols prosper in the cities of the Gentiles, And the vapour of the smoke of the incense of the righteousness which is by the law is extinguished in Zion, And in the region of Zion in every place lo! there is the smoke of impiety.

But the king of Babylon will arise who has now destroyed Zion, And he will boast over the people, And he will speak great things in his heart in the presence of the Most High.

8 But he also shall fall at last. These are the black waters.

2 ‘And the bright twelfth waters which thou hast seen: this is the word. For after these things a time will come when thy people shall fall into distress, so that they shall all run the risk of 3 perishing together. Nevertheless, they will be saved, and their enemies will fall in their presence.

LXVI. 2. necromancers, i.e. TN. Cf. 2 Kings xxi. 6.

4. The words bracketed might come after ‘ to their ministry ’ in verse 2.

6. Therefore. Here I have emended ? ge? aso (‘now’, to wit, ‘he who’) into woo ‘therefore’, But the original is doubtful.

73 Ch SIV ho.

LXVII. 2. assemble. The Syriac reads }as5 (‘ crowds’) corrupt for aas9 (‘assemble’).

6-7. With Jerusalem’s destruction godlessness is everywhere triumphant. A*is unaware of the divine interposition to save the sacred vessels and destroy Zion by angels which B! narrates (vi. 4-10; Ixxx. 1-3). Here in A%, too, the Gentiles (Ixvii, 2) and the King of Babylon (Ixvii. 7) boast over the fall of Zion. Contrast the ideas of B* in vii. 1 and Ixxx. 3, where such boasting is provided against.

6. righteousness which is by the law. See xv. 5, note. '

LXVIII. 2, 3. The danger of the Jews according to the book of Esther and their deliverance. This.is the second earliest allusion to this O.T. book. The first is in 2 Macc. xy. 36.

, 5 And they will have in (due) time much joy. And at that time after a little interval Zion will again

be builded, and its offerings will again be restored, and the priests will return to their ministry, and

6, 7 also the Gentiles will come to glorify it. Nevertheless, not fully as in the beginning. But it will

g come to pass after these things that there will be the fall of many nations. These are the bright waters which thou hast seen. 1 ‘For the last waters which thou hast seen which. were darker than all that were before them, those 2 which were after the twelfth number, which were collected together, belong to the whole world. For 3 the Most High made division from the beginning, because He alone knows what will befall. For as to the enormities and the impieties which should be wrought before Him, He foresaw six kinds of 4them. And of the good works of the righteous which should be accomplished before Him, He foresaw six kinds of them, beyond those which He should work at the consummation of the age. 5 On his account there were not black waters with black, nor bright with bright; for it is the consummation. 1 ‘Hear therefore the interpretation of the last black waters which are to come [after the black]: this 2isthe word. Behold! the days come, and it shall be when the time of the age has ripened, And the harvest of its evil and good seeds has come, That the Mighty One will bring upon the earth and its inhabitants and upon its rulers Perturbation of spirit and stupor of heart. 3. And they shall hate one another, And provoke one another to fight, And the mean shall rule over the honourable, And those of low degree shall be extolled above the famous.

4 And the many shall be delivered into the hands of the few, And those who were nothing shall rule over the strong, And the poor shall have abundance beyond the rich,

And the impious shall exalt themselves above the heroic.

5 And the wise shall be silent,

And the foolish shall speak,

Neither shall the thought of men be then confirmed, Nor the counsel of the mighty,

Nor shall the hope of those who hope be confirmed.

6 And when those things which were predicted have come to pass, Then shall confusion fall upon all men, And some of them shall fall in battle, And some of them shall perish in anguish, 7 And some of them shall be destroyed by their own. Then the Most High will reveal those peoples whom He has prepared before, And they shall come and make war with the leaders that shall then be left.

8 And it shall come to pass that whosoever gets safe out of the war shall die in the earthquake, And whosoever gets safe out of the earthquake shall be burned by the fire, And whosoever gets safe out of the fire shall be destroyed by famine.

6. The second temple was less esteemed. See Mal. i-ii; 1 En. Ixxxix. 73, 74; Ass. Mos. iv. 8. This temple then was standing when liii-lxxiv was written.

LXIX. 1. last. Syriac ‘ other’. the last waters, &c. See liii. 7. 2-4. This division recalls Sirach xlii. 24. 3. and. So I emend the Syriac (‘ of’) with Ryssel. kinds: or ‘methods’. 4. beyond those which. The travail-pains of the Messiah are developed in lxx~Ixxii.

LXX. 1. The words bracketed spoil the scheme of the writer. In Ixviii the last black waters come after the bright twelfth waters. 2. harvest ... spirit. In both cases in the plural in the MS. 5. the mighty. I have here changed the singular into the plural ; in Ixx. 2 the plural into the singular. 6. destroyed by their own. Cf. Mic. vii. 6; Matt. x. 35, 36. The Syriac ‘hindered’ is due to a corruption in the original Hebrew, aNdD for a2). 7. whom He has prepared before. Are these the hosts of Gog and Magog? shall be destroyed. So Ceriani «mends text, which =‘ shall add’. famine. Cf. xxvii. 6.

g [And it shall come to pass that whosoever of the victors and the vanquished gets safe out of and

10 escapes all these things aforesaid will be delivered into the hands of My servant Messiah.] For all

the earth shall devour its inhabitants. 1 ‘And the holy land shall have mercy on its own, And it shall protect its inhabiters at that time.

3. This is the vision which thou hast seen, and this is the interpretation. For I have come to tell thee these things, because thy prayer has been heard with the Most High. 1 «Hear now also regarding the bright lightning which is to come at the consummation after these 2 black (waters): this is the word. After the sigtis have come, of which thou wast told before, when the nations become turbulent, and the time of My Messiah is come, he shall both summon all the 3 nations, and some of them he shall spare, and some of them he shall slay. These things therefore 4 shall come upon the nations which are to be spared by Him. Every nation, which knows not Israel 5 and has not trodden down the seed of Jacob, shall indeed be spared. And this because some out of 6 every nation shall be subjected to thy people. But all those who have ruled over you, or have known you, shall be given up to the sword.

1 ‘And it shall come to pass, when He has brought low everything that is in the world, And has sat down in peace for the age on the throne of His kingdom, That joy shall then be revealed,

And rest shall appear. 2 And then healing shall descend in dew, And disease shall withdraw, And anxiety and anguish and lamentation pass from amongst men, And gladness proceed through the whole earth. 3 And no one shall again die untimely, Nor shall any adversity suddenly befall. 4 And judgements, and revilings, and contentions, and revenges,

And blood, and passions, and envy, and hatred, And whatsoever things are like these shall go into condemnation when they are removed.

For it is these very things which have filled this world with evils, And on account of these the life of man has been greatly troubled.

6 And wild beasts shall come from the forest and minister unto men,

And asps and dragons shall come forth from their holes to submit themselves to a little child.

And women shall no longer then have pain when they bear, Nor shall they suffer torment when they yield the fruit of the womb.

1 ‘And it shall come to pass in those days that the reapers shall not grow weary, Nor those that build be toilworn ;

For the works shall of themselves speedily advance

Together with those who do them in much tranquillity.

For that time is the consummation of that which is corruptible,

And the beginning of that which is not corruptible.

Therefore those things which were predicted shall belong to it:

Therefore it is far away from evils, and near to those things which die not.

4 This is the bright lightning which came after the last dark waters.’

g. An interpolation? Verse 10 is the natural sequel to verse 8. The appearance of the Messiah and the extermination of the Gentiles are at least anticipated if not premature here.

LXXI. See xxix. 2, note. By c@he alive

LXNII. 1. the bright lightning. The Syriac has ‘the bright waters’, which contradicts the vision in hii. 7-11. The same emendation is necessary in lxxiv. 4. The verb must be read in the sing. to agree with its subject.

4-6. The Messiah was to extend his dominion over the Gentiles (Ps. Ixxii. 11,17; Isa. xiv. 2; Ixvi, 12, 19-21; Zech. xiv; 1 En. xc. 203 Pss. Sol. xvii. 32). A harsher view grew up in the first century B.C. In 1 Enoch xxxvii-lxx and Assumpt. Mos. x the Gentiles are to be annihilated; so in 4 Ezra xiil, 37, 38, 49, and later Judaism. The Messiah here, as in xxxix. 7-xl; 4 Ezra xii. 32, is a warrior who slays Israel’s enemies with his own hand. Cf. Isa. xi. 4. Contrast His passive réle in xxix. 2 of this book.

LXXV. Baruch’s Hymn on the Unsearchableness of Gods Ways and on His Mercies through which the Faithful shall attain to a blessed Consummation.

And I answered and said :

‘Who can understand, O Lord, Thy goodness ? For it is incomprehensible.

Or who can search into thy compassions, Which are infinite ?

Or who can comprehend Thy intelligence ?

Or who is able to recount the thoughts of Thy mind ?

Or who of those who are born can hope to come to those things, Unless he is one to whom Thou art merciful and gracious?

Because, if assuredly Thou didst not have compassion on man, Those who are under Thy right hand,

They could not come to those things,

But those who are in the numbers named can be called.

But if, indeed, we who exist know wherefore we have come,

And submit ourselves to Him who brought us out of Egypt,

We shall come again and remember those things which have passed, And shall rejoice regarding that which has been.

But if now we know not wherefore we have come,

And recognize not the principate of Him who brought us up out of Egypt, We shall come again and seek after those things which have been now, And be grieved with pain because of those things which have befallen.’

LXXVI. Baruch bidden to instruct the People for forty days and then to hold himself ready for his Assumption on the Advent of the Messiah.

And He answered and said unto me: [‘Inasmuch as the revelation of this vision has been in- , terpreted to thee as thou besoughtest], hear the word of the Most High that thou mayst know what ” is to befall thee after these things. For thou shalt surely depart from this earth, nevertheless not

3 unto death, but thou shalt be preserved unto the consummation of the times. Go up therefore to

the top of that mountain, and there shall pass before thee all the regions of that land, and the figure of the inhabited world, and the top(s) of the mountains, and the depth(s) of the valleys, and the g cepths of the seas, and the number of the rivers, that thou mayst see what thou art leaving, and + whither thou art going. Now this shall befall after forty days. Go now therefore during these days and instruct the people so far as thou art able, that they may learn so as not to die at the last time, but may learn in order that they may live at the last times.’

LXXV-LXXVI. Here B? returns. Baruch addresses God and not Ramiel, who in ly. 4-Ixxiy. has been explaining the vision in liii.

LXXV. 1. understand. Syriac reads hxoyhs ‘ be likened to’, which I have emended into wos ‘ understand ’, omitting the following >.

2, The mercies of God are not much dwelt on in this book. The righteous are fully conscious of their own merit

6. who are under Thy right hand. Cf. Ps. Ixxx, 17.

7, 8. We shall come again, i.e. we shall rise and meet with our fate according as we are obedient and righteous or not.

LXXVI. 1. The words bracketed are inserted by the final editor.

hear the word of the Most High. Cf. xiii. 2; xxv. I.

. thou shalt be preserved until the consummation of the times. The Syriac here has ‘ unto the preservation of fie times’. From xxv. I we see we must read ‘thou shalt be preserved unto the times’, or rather the fuller form we find in xiii. 3 ‘ thou shalt be preserved unto the consummation of the times’. Ryssel has adopted this suggestion.

LXXVII. Baruch’s Admonition to the People and his writing of two Letters—one to the nine and a half tribes in Assyria and the other to the two and a half in Babylon.

And I, Baruch, went thence and came to the people, and assembled them together from the Ixxviigreatest to the least, and said unto them: ‘ Hear, ye children of Israel, behold how many ye are who hoxxii =

remain of the twelve tribes of Israel. For to you and to your fathers the Lord gave a law more excellent than to all peoples. And because your brethren transgressed the commandments of the Most High,

He brought vengeance upon you and upon them,

And He spared not the former,

And the latter also He gave into captivity: And He left not a residue of them, But behold! ye are here with me.

If, therefore, ye direct your ways aright, Ye also shall not depart as your brethren departed, But they shall come to you.

For He is merciful whom ye worship, And He is gracious in whom ye hope, And He is true, so that He shall do good and not evil.

Have ye not seen here what has befallen Zion ? Or do ye perchance think that the place had sinned, And that on this account it was overthrown ?

Or that the land had wrought foolishness, i And that therefore it was delivered up?

And know ye not that on account of you who did sin,

That which sinned not was overthrown,

And, on account of those who wrought wickedly,

That which wrought not foolishness was delivered up to (its) enemies ?’

And the whole people answered and said unto me: ‘So far as we can recall the good things which the Mighty One has done unto us, we do recall them; and those things which we do not remember He in His mercy knows. Nevertheless, do this for us thy people: write also to our brethren in Babylon an epistle of doctrine and a scroll of hope, that thou mayst confirm them also before thou dost depart from us.

For the shepherds of Israel have perished, And the lamps which gave light are extinguished, And the fountains have withheld their stream whence we used to drink.

LXXVII-LXXXVI. These chapters belong to B! with the exception of Ixxxiii and Ixxxv. The chief differences between B! and B?are: in B1 an earthly felicity is looked for, the dispersion is to return, and the earthly Jerusalem to be rebuilt; in B? none of these things are expected. In B! Baruch is to die, in B? to be translated; in B* Jeremiah is not sent to Babylon, in B* he is.

LXXVII. 1. from the greatest to the least. This order belongs to the later books; cf. 2 Chron. xxxiv. 30; 4, upon you, i.e. the two and a half tribes ‘ the former’ in the next line. upon them, i.e. the nine and a half tribes ‘ the latter’. left not a residue. This denies the Samaritan claim. 5. here with me. Cf. 4 Ezra xiv. 33. Ryssel misunderstands and tries to emend. _ 6. they shall come to you. Seems to include the nine and a half tribes. Cf. Ixxviii. 7. 7. do good and not evil. Cf. Jer. xxi, 10; Amos ix. 4. d g. The place itself had not sinned, therefore the angels, instead of the king of Babylon, had destroyed it. Ch. v—-vill; Ixxx. io. Note that Jerusalem’s fall is attributed here not only to the sins of the two and a half tribes, but also of the 12. to our brethren in Babylon, i.e. the two and a half tribes. Cf. verse 19. In 4 Baruch the letter is addressed to Jeremiah ; not so here. See x. 2, note. This letter is lost. depart, i.e. die (xliii. 2, note).

14 And we are left in the darkness,

And amid the ftrees of the forestt, _ And the thirst of the wilderness.’

15 And I answered and said unto them:

| ‘Shepherds and lamps and fountains come from the law: || And though we depart, yet the law abideth.

16 Iftherefore ye have respect to the law,

And are intent upon wisdom, A lamp will not be wanting, And a shepherd will not fail, And a fountain will not dry up.

17 Nevertheless, as ye said unto me, I will write also unto your brethren in Babylon, and I will send

by means of men, and I will write in like manner to the nine tribes and a half, and send by means of

18 a bird.’ And it came to pass on the one and twentieth day in the eighth month that I, Baruch,

came and sat down under the oak under the shadow of the branches, and no man was with me, but

19 I was alone. And I wrote these two epistles: one I sent by an eagle to the nine and a half tribes ; 20 and the other I sent to those that were at Babylon by means of three men. And I called the eagle 21 and spake these words unto it: ‘ The Most High hath made thee that thou shouldst be higher than 22 all birds. And now go and tarry not in (any) place, nor enter a nest, nor settle upon any tree, till

thou hast passed over the breadth of the many waters of the river Euphrates, and hast gone to the

23 people that dwell there, and cast down to them this epistle. Remember, moreover, that, at the time

of the deluge, Noah received from a dove the fruit of the olive, when he sent it forth from the ark.

25 Yea, also the ravens ministered to Elijah, bearing him food, as they had been commanded. Solo-

mon also, in the time of his kingdom, whithersoever he wished to send or seek for anything,

26 commanded a bird (to go thither), and it obeyed him as he commanded it. And now let it not

weary thee, and turn not to the right hand nor the left, but fly and go by a direct way, that thou mayst preserve the command of the Mighty One, according as I said unto thee.’

LXXVIII-LXXXVI. THE EPISTLE OF BARUCH THE SON OF NERIAH WHICH HE WROTE TO THE NINE AND A HALF TRIBES.

78 «These are the words of that epistle which Baruch the son of Neriah sent to the nine and a half

2 tribes, which were across the river Euphrates, in which these things were written. Thus saith Baruch 3 the son of Neriah to the brethren carried into captivity: ‘Mercy and peace. I bear in mind, my brethren, the love of Him who created us, who loved us from of old, and never hated us, but above 4 all educated us. And truly I know that behold all we the twelve tribes are bound by one bond, 5 inasmuch as we are born from one father. Wherefore I have been the more careful to leave you the words of this epistle before I die, that ye may be comforted regarding the evils which have come upon you, and that ye may be grieved also regarding the evil that has befallen your brethren; and again, also, that ye may justify His judgement which He has decreed against you that ye should be

14. left in the darkness: xlvi. 2; 4 Ezra xiv. 20. ttrees ‘SY, possibly corrupt for "A¥¥ ‘toils’. But whether this is so or not, the general sense is clear. In

verse 13 three things have been lost: shepherds to guide the people, lamps to give light to them, and fountains to satisfy their thirst. Now, owing to the loss of the lamps, the people are ‘ left in ‘darkness’ , owing to the loss of the fountains they suffer from the ‘thirst of the wilderness’. Hence the second line must deal with the evils that followed on the loss of the shepherds, and its restoration must satisfy this requirement. Accordingly I offer the following suggestion : that 9 Meos> is corrupt for § wS> ¢* =‘ without pasture’, or ‘ without a shepherd ’.

16. shepherd. So Ceriani emends WX%5 =‘ mind’, into Jas).

17. by means of men. In 4 Baruch an eagle carries Baruch’s letter to Jeremiah at Babylon.

21. Cf. 4 Baruch vii. 3: ‘Elect above all the birds of heaven.’

LXXVIII. 1. The nine and a half tribes. In this book the tribes of Israel carried away by the king of Assyria are always so designated, except ini. 2. Cf. John Malalas 158. In 4 Ezra xiii, 4o they are called ‘ the ten tribes’ in the Latin version, ‘ the nine and a half tribes’ in the Syriac and Arabic versions, and ‘the nine tribes’ in the Ethiopic version.

2. Mercy and peace + ‘unto you’c. Cf. 1 Tim. i. 2.

3. In the genuine parts of B! Baruch speaks frequently in the first person singular, but not in the interpolated portions.

5. justify. See xxi. 9, note. Cf. Ps, li. 4.

carried away captive—for what ye have suffered is disproportioned to what ye have done—in order that, at the last times, ye may be found worthy of your fathers. Therefore, if ye consider that ye have now suffered those things for your good, that ye may not finally be condemned and tormented, then ye will receive eternal hope; if above all ye destroy from your heart vain error, on account of which ye departed hence. For if ye so do these things, He will continually remember you, He who always promised on our behalf to those who were more excellent than we, that He will never forget or forsake us, but with much mercy will gather together again those who were dispersed.

Now, my brethren, learn first what befell Zion: how that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up against us. For we have sinned against Him who made us, and we have not kept the commandments which he commanded us, yet he hath not chastened us as we deserved. For what befell you we also suffer in a pre-eminent degree, for it befell us also.

And now, my brethren, I make known unto you that when the enemy had surrounded the city, the angels of the Most High were sent, and they overthrew the fortifications of the strong wall, and they destroyed the firm iron corners, which could not be rooted out. Nevertheless, they hid all the vessels of the sanctuary, lest the enemy should get possession of them. And when they had done these things, they delivered thereupon to the enemy the overthrown wall, and the plundered house, and the burnt temple, and the people who were overcome because they were delivered up, lest the enemy should boast and say: ‘ Thus by force have we been able to lay waste even the house of the

4 Most High in war.’ Your brethren also have they bound and led away to Babylon, and have caused 6 them to dwell there. But we have been left here, being very few. This is the tribulation about

which I wrote to you. For assuredly I know that (the consolation of) the inhabitants of Zion consoleth you: so far as ye knew that it was prospered (your consolation) was greater than the tribulation which ye endured in having to depart from it.

But regarding consolation, hear ye the word. For I was mourning regarding Zion, and I prayed for mercy from the Most High, and I said:

‘ How long will these things endure for us ?

And will these evils come upon us always?’

And the Mighty One did according to the multitude of His mercies,

And the Most High according to the greatness of His compassion,

And He revealed unto me the word, that I might receive consolation,

And He showed me visions that I should not again endure anguish,

And He made known to me the mystery of the times.

And the advent of the hours he showed me.

Therefore, my brethren, I have written to you, that ye may comfort yourselves regarding the multitude of your tribulations. For know ye that our Maker will assuredly avenge us on all our enemies, according to all that they have done to us, also that the consummation which the Most High will make is very nigh, and His mercy that is coming, and the consummation of His judgement, is by no means far off.

5. the last times, i.e. the Return, verse 7. 7. those who were more excellent. The patriarchs. with much mercy. In 4 Ezra xiv. 34, 35, after death the righteous obtain mercy. Here Israel obtains it in their Return, gather together ... dispersed. Cf. Ixxvii. 6; Ixxxiv. 2, 8, Ic. For the Return spoken of in the O.T. and elsewhere, see my Commentary, zz doc. The return in Bt accords well with the rebuilding of Jerusalem expected in

LXXX. This chapter resembles and implies vi-vili, but conflicts with Ixvii.

2. all the vessels. Syr. ‘the vessels of the vessels’ = 20 ods, corrupt for 55 55.

lest the enemy should get possession of them. Syr. reads ‘lest they should be polluted by the enemy’ = psn in {, corrupt for DI4S oibma {D, as in vi. 8.

4. Jeremiah not mentioned. Sce x. 2, note.

pe iopadhte 2

7. {the consolation of) the inhabitants of Zion consoleth, &c. Jaro requires a subject. In Ixxvil. 12 the people ask Baruch to send to their brethren in Babylon ‘a scroll of hope’. Hence some such word is needed here, i.e. Jhkas =‘ consolation’ as in Ixxxi. 1, 4. Ryssel proposes most extraordinarily to insert ‘tribulation’ where I have added ‘consolation’. The tribulation of the Jews in Zion is to comfort the exiles in Babylon !

LXXXI. As in Ixxx. 7 the nine and a half tribes were consoled when Jerusalem prospered and were grieved at its downfall, Baruch has now a word of consolation for them touching Zion; for God has comforted him by a revelation regarding it.

I. consolation, i.e. Zion’s restoration. Cf. xliv. 7.

4. mystery. ch read ‘ mysteries.’

LXXXII. I am doubtful whether Ixxxii. 2-9 belongs to B’ or B?; perhaps the latter.

For lo! we see now the multitude of the prosperity of the Gentiles, Though they act impiously, But they shall be like a vapour:

And we behold the multitude of their power, Though they do wickedly, But they shall be made like unto a drop:

And we see the firmness of their might, Though they resist the Mighty One every hour, But they shall be accounted as spittle.

And we consider the glory of their greatness, Though they do not keep the statutes of the Most High, But as smoke shall they pass away.

And we meditate on the beauty of their gracefulness, Though they have to do with pollutions, But as grass that withers shall they fade away.

And we consider the strength of their cruelty, Though they remember not the end (thereof), But as a wave that passes shall they be broken.

And we remark the boastfulness of their might, Though they deny the beneficence of God, who gave (it) to them, But they shall pass away as a passing cloud.

[For the Most High will assuredly hasten His times, And He will assuredly bring on His hours.

And He will assuredly judge those who are in His world, And will visit in truth all things by means of all their hidden works.

And He will assuredly examine the secret thoughts, And that which is laid up in the secret chambers of all the members of man. And will make (them) manifest in the presence of all with reproof.

Let none therefore of these present things ascend into your hearts, but above all let us be expectant, because that which is promised to us shall come. And let us not now look unto the delights of the Gentiles in the present, but let us remember what has been promised to us in the end. For the ends of the times and of the seasons and whatsoever is with them shall assuredly pass by together. The consummation, moreover, of the age shall then show the great might of its ruler, when all things come to judgement. Do ye therefore prepare your hearts for that which before ye believed, lest ye come to be in bondage in both worlds, so that ye be led away captive here and be tormented there. For that which exists now or which has passed away, or which is to come, in all these things, neither is the evil fully evil, nor again the good fully good.

| For all healthinesses of this time are turning into diseases, And all might of this time is turning into weakness, And all the force of this time is turning into impotence, And every energy of youth is turning into old age and consummation.

5. accounted as spittle. The text here and in 4 Ezra vi. 56 agrees with LXX against the Hebrew.

LXXXIII. This chapter seems to belong to B?. The times are to be hastened (Ixxxiii. 1, 6) and everything brought to judgement (2, 3, 7) ; let them attend not to the present but to the end and its joys (4, 5), and hold to their old faith, to avoid torment in the world to come (8), for this world is passing away with its strength, its virtues and its lusts (9-23). There is a close connexion between Ixxxiii and xx. This chapter seems to have formed originally part of Baruch’s address to the people, and to have followed on xliv. 8-15.

4. Let none therefore, &c. ‘Cf. Col. lii. 2 ra dv@ dpoveire. promised. See xiv. 13, note. 8. prepare your hearts. See xxiii. 1, note. that which before ye believed, refers to apostates, i.e. Christians who had left Judaism. Cf. xli. 3

1o. Probably we have here a play on words mynd Jan Any NaI.

Ixxxili =

And every beauty of gracefulness of this time is turning faded and hateful, 13 And every proud dominion of the present is turning into humiliation and shame, 14 And every praise of the glory of this time is turning into the shame of silence, And every vain splendour and insolence of this time is turning into voiceless ruin.

15 And every delight and joy of this time is turning to worms and corruption, 16 And every clamour of the pride of this time is turning into dust and stillness.

17 And every possession of riches of this time is being turned into Sheol alone, 18 And all the rapine of passion of this time is turning into involuntary death, And every passion of the lusts of this time is turning into a judgement of torment.

19 And every artifice and craftiness of this time is turning into a proof of the truth, 20 And every sweetness of unguents of this time is turning into judgement and condemnation, 21 And every love of lying is turning to contumely through truth.

22 Since therefore all these things are done now, does anyone think that they will not be avenged? But the consummation of all things will come to the truth.]

841 Behold! I have therefore made known unto you (these things) whilst I live; for I have said (it) Ixxiv = that ye should learn the things that are excellent; for the Mighty One hath commanded me to} instruct you: and I will set before you some of the commandments of His judgement before I die.

2 Remember that formerly Moses assuredly called heaven and earth to witness against you and said; | 3 ‘If ye transgress the law ye shall be dispersed, but if ye keep it ye shall be kept.’ And other | 4 things also he used to say unto you when ye the twelve tribes were together in the desert. And after

his death ye cast them away from you: on this account there came upon you what had been

5 predicted. And now Moses used to tell you before they befell you, and lo! they have befallen you :

6 for ye have forsaken the law. Lo! I also say unto you after ye have suffered, that if ye obey those

things which have been said unto you, ye will receive from the Mighty One whatever has been laid

7 up and reserved for you. Moreover, let this epistle be for a testimony between me and you, that ye

may remember the commandments of the Mighty One, and that also there may be to me a defence

8 in the presence of Him who sent me. And remember ye the law and Zion, and the holy land and

9 your brethren, and the covenant of your fathers, and forget not the festivals andthe sabbaths. And

deliver ye this epistle and the traditions of the law to your sons after you, as also your fathers 10 delivered (them) to you. And at all times make request perseveringly and pray diligently with your whole heart that the Mighty One may be reconciled to you, and that He may not reckon the 11 multitude of your sins, but remember the rectitude of your fathers. For if He judge us not according to the multitude of His mercies, woe unto all us who are born.

851 [Know ye, moreover, that baxv = In former times and in the generations of old our fathers had helpers, Righteous men and holy prophets:

2 Nay more, we were in our own land [And they helped us when we sinned],

12. beauty ... hateful. Cf. xlviii. 35. 14. glory ... shame. Again a play on words in the Hebrew 1135... pop.

LXXXIV. 1. learn... instruct you. So bdghilWP. c reads ‘above all things learn the commandments of the Mighty One wherein I should instruct you’.

2. See xix. 2, note. In this verse we get several traces of the Hebrew original: the idiom TY TY; the play on ‘keep’ and ‘kept’; and perhaps a paronomasia in ‘ transgress’ and ‘ be dispersed’ 1))0N and NN.

be kept. So all MSS. but c which reads ‘be planted’.

6. The nine and a half tribes must endure chastisement before they could attain to the promised happiness. This chastisement was for their well-being (Ixxviii. 6) ; was less than they deserved (Ixxix. 2), and was intended to make them worthy of their fathers in the last days (Ixxviii. 5).

10. that the Mighty One may be reconciled to you. Cf. 4 Ezra x. 24. The return to Palestine is to follow the reconciliation (Ixxvili. 7).

the rectitude of your fathers. For their merit see xiv. 7, note; and contrast this next verse.

LXXXV. An interpolation, B’. The restored Jerusalem and the return expected in B! is here implicitly denied, as in B*, This world is lost, and only spiritual blessedness is looked for in the world of incorruption. B* is more individualistic than B?, and moreover was written outside Palestine (Ixxxv. 2, 3), whereas B? seems to have been written in Jerusalem. B* is the most pessimistic part of this book.

1-3. In these verses we have a strophe of five lines and an antistrophe. I have bracketed two clauses in verse 2 as interpolations.

1. Jeremiah’s generation seems far in the past.

2. The writer is among the Dispersion.

they helped us. Cf. 4 Baruch ii. 3.

And they interceded for us with Him who made us, [Because they trusted in their works], And the Mighty One heard their prayer and forgave us.

3 | But now the righteous have been gathered

i) And the prophets have fallen asleep,

-)- | And we also have gone forth from the land,

| And Zion has been taken from us,

| And we have nothing now save the Mighty One and His law.

4 If therefore we direct and dispose our hearts, We shall receive everything that we lost, And much better things than we lost by many times.

5 For what we have lost was subject to corruption, And what we shall receive shall not be corruptible.

6 [Moreover, also, I have written thus to our brethren to Babylon, that to them also I may attest these very things. |

7 And let all those things aforesaid be always before your eyes, Because we are still in the spirit and the power of our liberty.

8 Again, moreover, the Most High also is long-suffering towards us here, And He hath shown to us that which is to be, And hath not concealed from us what will befall in the end.

9 Before therefore judgement exact its own, And truth that which is its due, Let us prepare our soul That we may possess, and not be taken possession of, And that we may hope and not be put toshame, And that we may rest with our fathers, and not be tormented with our enemies.

10 |For the youth of the world is past, ‘And the strength of the creation already exhausted, And the advent of the times is very short, Yea, they have passed by ; And the pitcher is near to the cistern, \And the ship to the port, ‘And the course of the journey to the city, And life to (its) consummation.

ir And again prepare your souls, so that when ye sail and ascend from the ship ye may have rest 12 and not be condemned when ye depart. For lo! when the Most High will bring to pass all these things,

There shall not there be again [a place of repentance, nor] a limit to the times, Nor a duration for the hours,

Nor a change of ways,

Nor place for prayer,

Nor sending of petitions,

Nor receiving of knowledge,

Nor giving of love,

trusted in their works. The dead righteous avail not, only the living. See xiv. 7, note; Ixiii. 3.

3. we have nothing now save the Mighty One and His law. The law was Israel’s everlasting and unconditional possession. Cf. Josephus, c. Apzon. ii. 38. The land, the sanctuary, and the kingdom of David were conditional (Mechilta, 68). Cf. xlviii. 22. With the law Israel could not fall.

6. This verse is due to the final editor.

7. the power of our liberty, i.e. enjoy free-will. Cf. 4 Ezra ix. 11 ; 1 Cor. vii. 37; Actsi.7; v.43; Pss. Sol. ix. 7. On the doctrine see liv. 15, note.

8. hath shown to us. In B? Baruch does not use the plural ‘ we’ and ‘us’ in this connexion. See Ixxviii. 3 note.

g. that we may possess, &c. Probably corrupt.

rest with our fathers. Cf. xi. 4.

12. [a place of repentance nor]. This phrase is a dittograph of what follows later. The idea is here inits wrong context, whereas it is in its right context later. Finally it is against the parallelism.

Nor place of repentance for the soul, Nor supplication for offences, Nor intercession of the fathers, Nor prayer of the prophets, Nor help of the righteous. 13 There there is the sentence of corruption, The way of fire, And the path which bringeth to Gehenna.

14 On this account there is one law by one, One age andan end for all who are in it. 15 Then He will preserve those whom He can forgive, And at the same time destroy those who are polluted with sins. ]

86 1,2 When therefore ye receive this my epistle, read it in your congregations with care. And meditate 3 thereon, above all on the days of your fasts. And bear me in mind by means of this epistle, as I also bear you in mind in it, and always. Fare ye well.

LXXXVII. The Dispatch of the Letter to the Nine and a Half Tribes.

871 And it came to pass when I had ended all the words of this epistle, and had written it sedulously to its close, that I folded it, and sealed it carefully, and bound it to the neck of the eagle, and dismissed and sent it.

HERE ENDS THE BOOK OF BARUCH THE SON OF NERIAH.

nor place of repentance. 4 Ezra ix. 12. This is the universal teaching in the Books of Enoch and 4 Ezra.

intercession of the fathers. Cf. 4 Ezra vil. 102-15; 2 Enoch liii. 1. 14. one law by one. Moses is meant; in the Ass. Mos. ili. 12, he is called the mediator of the law. Thus this

verse is directed against Christians. It seems out of place. LXXXVI. 3. Fare ye well (abdefghiWP). >c.

LXXXVII. “This chapter is found only in c, but it belongs to the book. Cf. Ixxvii. 17, 20-6. bound it to the neck of the eagle. 4 Baruch vii. 8.

fet GREEK APOGAEYPSE OF BARUCH OR II] BARUCH

UNTIL the end of the last century this apocalypse was unknown. Its existence was surmised from a passage in Origen (de Princip. ii. 3. 6), ‘ Denique etiam Baruch prophetae librum in assertionis huius testimonium vocant, quod ibi de septem mundis vel caelis evidentius indicatur.’ About 1896 the Rev. E. C. Butler, O.S.B., drew the attention of Dr. M. R. James to a manuscript in the British Museum of a Greek apocalypse which answered in part to Origen’s description. It contains an account not of seven heavens but of five, but the conclusion is evidently incomplete, and the existence of other heavens is implied. This text was edited and published by Dr. James in 1897. A Slavonic version of the book had been known previously, and was published in the Szariue, vol. xviii, pp. 205-9, by Novakovic in 1886. This version, however, is less complete than the Greek, and mentions only two heavens.

Neither the Greek nor the Slavonic represents more than a condensation of the original.

In its present form the work is a composite production, belonging to the second century A. D. The Jewish original has been worked over by a Christian redactor, whose purpose it is to sound a note of stern warning to the unconverted Jews, and also to instil into the minds of Christians the need of patience and forbearance in dealing with them (see $ 8 below).

San0 DHE. TITLe.

There are two superscriptions to the book. The first begins Aujynots cal amoxdduis Bapovy KTA.; the second ’AzoxdAvis Bapov>x xtA. Dr. James names it Apocalypsis Baruchi Tertia Graece, and it is referred to as 3 Baruch in this edition.

Saas: MSS.

The only known Greek manuscript of this apocalypse is that numbered Add. 10073 in the British Museum, which contains in addition several other works and fragments. It is a minuscule MS. on Italian paper, of the beginning of the sixteenth century. The Slavonic text published by Novakovic was found in a manuscript which possibly dates from the sixteenth century. This version is more abridged than the Greek. The main points of contact and difference between the two versions are indicated in the notes.

$4. RELATION TO OTHER BARUCH LITERATURE.

1. The apocryphal book of Baruch (1 Baruch). There is no point of contact between this book and 3 Baruch save that both raise the problem of the sufferings of Israel (cf. 1 Bar. iii. 1-8 and

2. The Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch (2 Baruch). There are several similarities of expression in this apocalypse and our text. They are indicated in the notes. The parallelisms are not so close as to imply the necessary dependence of our apocalypse upon the Syriac. In 2 Baruch lxxvi. 3, Baruch is promised certain cosmical revelations, but the book contains no record that the promise was fulfilled. It has been contended that 3 Baruch was written to supply the deficiency in 2 Baruch. Ginzberg (Fewzsh Encyclopaedia) holds it to be questionable whether the author of 3 Baruch used 2 Baruch, and thinks that 2 Bar. Ixxvi. 3 makes against rather than for such a supposition. ‘The assumption is untenable that the Gk. apoc. was written to show the actual fulfilment of the promise. The critical point in the Syr. apoc. lies in this chapter, when Baruch before leaving the earth obtains a full survey of it, that he may see what he is leaving, and whither he is going. This idea is based upon an opinion held by Akiba b. Joseph (.Szfre Nam, 136) and others, that God allowed not only

Moses, but other favoured pious men, to behold before their death the whole world and all the mysteries of nature. Now if the Gk. apoc. was complementary to the Syriac, the author of the former would not have failed to join his story of Baruch’s passage through the heavens to that of his last act on earth,’

3. The Rest of the Words of Baruch (4 Baruch), In the Christian interpolation as to the vine in 3 Bar. iv occurs 7d muxpov rovtov peraBrnOjoerar eis yAvkd, which recalls ra yAvkéa Bata GAuupa yevnoovrat in 4 Bar. ix. 16. But this cannot be held to be a very close parallelism. In ch. xi of our apocalypse Michael is called 6 kAewWodxos ths BaciWelas Tov otpavGv and in 4 Bar. ix. 5 (Aeth.) he is described as the archangel who holds open the gates of righteousness until the righteous enter in. The closest references to 4 Baruch in 3 Baruch are in the superscription, in which mention is made of the long sleep of Abimelech in the Garden of Agrippa (cf. 4 Bar. iii. g-v. 30). But it is impossible to avoid the suspicion that the superscription is a later addition, especially as it is in the third person, whereas ch. i is in the first.

§ 5. RELATION TO OTHER APOCALYPTIC LITERATURE.

1. Slavonic Enoch. There is a very close connexion between 2 Enoch xi-xv and 3 Bar. vi-ix. In each case there is a reference to the chariot of the sun and of the moon, the attendant angels, the renewing of the sun’s crown. 2 En. contains the only reference in literature to the existence of more than one phoenix at a time, and associates with them other birds called chalkydri. In 3 Baruch there is only one phoenix, and it, in language like that of the birds in 2 En. xv. 1 f., sings ‘ Lightgiver, give to the world radiance.’

2. Apoc. Pauli. The reference to the defilement of the sun by the unrighteousness of men (3 Bar. viii) finds a parallel in Apoc. Pauli 4 ‘Multum etenim sol quidem, luminare magnum, interpellauit dominum dicens : Domine deus omnipotens, ego prospicio super impietates et iniusticias hominum: permitte me et faciam eis (quae) sunt virtutes meae, ut cognoscant quia tu es solus deus. Et facta est uox ad eum dicens: Haec omnia noui; oculus enim meus uidit et auris audit, sed paciencia mea sustinet eos, dum ad usque conuertentes peniteantur. Sin uero non reuertuntur ad me omnes ego iudicabo.’

Chs. xii and xiii of our apoc. find a close parallel in chs. 7-10 of Apoc. Pauli (see note below under ch. xii). James thinks it likely that Agfoc. Pauli is a pasticcio of a rather late date. The relation of the two books to each other is not clear. It is not likely that 3 Baruch has been altered to bring it into conformity with Apoc. Paul, for as we shall endeavour to show (see § 8 below), the three classes of angels with their respectively full, half-full, and empty baskets were essential to the purpose of the Christian redactor. It is not improbable that the motive which induced him to work over this apocalypse to give it a Christian form is to be found in the didactic use he could make of this incident. Either then the passage in Apoc. Pauli is derived from 3 Baruch, or both are taken from a common source.

3. A few points of contact with the Story of Zosimas (Apoc. Anecdota 1) are indicated in the notes. They are not such as to imply necessary dependence.

$6. COMPOSITE NATURE OF THE TEXT.

The framework of this apocalypse is characteristically Jewish. The story that the vine was the forbidden tree, the cosmic revelations, showing kinship with the Enoch literature, and the angelology —all mark it out as a work of Jewish origin. The hand of a Christian redactor can be traced in certain interpolations. In ch. iv a long passage is introduced to reconcile the story that the vine was the forbidden tree with the use of wine in the Eucharist. This section is full of Christian phrases (see notes). The Editor’s influence is most evident in the concluding chapters (xi—xvii). The original conclusion is missing from our text, and these chapters probably represent a somewhat drastic treatment of the groundwork. It is probable that we have to deal here not merely with interpolations, but with a partial reconstruction of the text. So far as possible the influence of the redactor is indicated in the notes.

James attributes the lists of sins in chs. iv, viii, xiii to Christian influence, and compares them with Matt. xv. 19 and Gal. v. 21 (cf. also Rom. i. 29-31). It may of course be so, but it is not a necessary assumption. The lists are by no means the same. Our apocalypse does not reproduce the order of either Matt. or Paul, and it omits some of the sins enumerated by them. It must be admitted, however, that all included in the lists of 3 Baruch occur in some form in the Pauline Epistles (except pavrefa). But on the other hand it must be remembered that such lists were part of the stock-in-trade of the Jewish, and indeed of other ancient writers. Zhe Tests. of the Twelve Patri-

archs speak of spirits of wopvetas, amAnotelas yaortpds, waxns, apeckelas Kal payyavelas, drepnpavelas, Wevdous, ddixias (T. Reub. iii. 3-6) ; rod GjAov kal rijs aXaCovetas (T. Dan. i. 6); rhs mAdvys Kal Tod POdvov (T. Sim. iii. 1) ; rod Ovpod (T. Dan. ii. 4); émiOvpias, mupdcews, dowrlas, aloxpoxepdias (T. Jud. xvi. 1). There are also similar lists in Wisd. xiv. 25 f. aiua kal pdvos, kAomH Kal dddos, POopd, amioria, Tdpaxos, émuopkia . . . porxela xal avéAyera; and in 2 En. x. 4, sodomy, witchcraft, enchantments, devilish magic, stealing, lying, calumnies, envy, evil thoughts, fornication, and murder.

Deissman (Light from the Ancient East, pp. 320 ff.) contends that the Primitive Christian lists of virtues and vices were based on Jewish and pagan series. He refers to counters used in an ancient game, which have been discovered, upon which are inscribed a large number of popular names of vices and virtues. ‘ Although we have not yet recovered all the counters necessary for the game . .. the parallels with St. Paul strike us immediately. Take for instance the list of vices in 1 Cor. vi.9,10. With the exception of ‘‘ covetous’’, which is rather colourless, and “ idolaters”’, which is not to be expected in a pagan list, all these will be found substantially word for word on the counters,’ He also points to some striking parallels between the lists in St. Paul and Plautus.

§ 7. THE AUTHOR.

Ginzberg (Fewzsh Encyc.) is of opinion that the author was a Jewish Gnostic of the beginning of the second century, ‘ when gnosis was at its height both among Jews and Christians’. He bases his view upon the mediatorial functions ascribed to Michael and his angels, and upon the traces of Greek and Oriental mythology found in the Apocalypse. But it is difficult to discern Gnostic influences in the teaching as to mediation, since it shows little advance on Tobit and T. Levi (see § 10 below, and note on ch. xii). But if there is not sufficient evidence to show that the author was a Gnostic, it is clear that his Judaism was tempered by a Hellenic-Oriental syncretism.

§ 8. THE CHRISTIAN REDACTOR.

Apart from the interpolation as to the vine, the hand of the Christian redactor is most evident in the concluding chapters. It is said of the men committed to the charge of the angels who bring empty baskets, that they will not enter the Church, nor among spiritual fathers (ch. xiii) ; they are to be ‘ provoked against a people that is no people, a people that has no understanding’; they are ‘despisers of God’s commandments, and insolent towards the priests who proclaim God’s words to them’ (ch. xvi). The Slavonic says: ‘They donot gather together in the church of God for the sake of prayer, and instead of prayer they bring cursings.’ It is difficult to avoid the suspicion that in each case the reference is to the Jews. Their provocation ‘against a people that is no people’ when read in the light of Rom. x. 19 can only refer to the anger of the Jews against the Gentile Christians. To whom is the phrase ‘ instead of prayer they bring cursings’ so applicable as to the Jews ?

4 Baruch like 3 Baruch seems to be in part at any rate a Jewish work recast by a Christian editor. According to Dr. Rendel Harris the former was issued in its present form soon after A.D, 136 as an eirenicon to the synagogue after Hadrian’s edict banishing the Jews from Jerusalem. It was in effect an invitation to the Jews to evade that edict by submitting to baptism and joining the church, since the edict did not apply to Christians. According to Dr. Harris the book reflects a conflict between the old school of Jews and the Gentile Christians for the possession of the intermediate party, the Judaeo-Christians of various types. ‘What makes one a little more confident in this interpretation that it was an appeal on the part of the Gentile Christians, or at least of the Gentilizing Christians to the more conservative, half-convinced among their Jewish brethren, is that we find from the account that some undecided people in the middle ground came part way to Jerusalem, and then returned ; and that on their returning to Babylon they were received with an intimation that as they had secretly departed from them, they would not be received again: Babylon would have none of them. This, according to the story, leads to the formation of a new colony which is derisively called Samaria. Now this is not difficult of interpretation, if we imagine that there were those who had gone so far from Judaism as to provoke an edict against their being received again into ecclesiastical fellowship, and yet had not come so near to Christianity as to be able to pass the baptismal standards. In this case, then, one result of the Hadrian edict is the formation of a new Ebionite movement in Palestine. This exactly agrees with the statements of Epiphanius and Jerome as to the origin of Ebionism ; they attempted to be both Jews and Christians, and ended by being neither’ (Res¢ of the Words of Baruch, p. 15).

There were therefore three parties in the writer’s mind, the Jews who stubbornly resisted the Gospel, the middle party of waverers, and the Christians. It seems to me that the same parties are reflected in 3 Baruch. The angels with the full baskets represent the Christians (ch. xii); those with

the half-full baskets the half-converted Jews (ch. xii); and those with the empty baskets the Jews who stubbornly resisted and opposed the Gospel (chs. xiii, xvi). Ch. xvi (especially in the Slavonic) exhorts the angels to be patient with Israel, and at the same time announces terrible judgements against the people if they continue unrepentant. The purpose of the Christian redactor was therefore to appeal to the church for patience and long-suffering in their endeavour to convert the Jews, and also to utter a note of stern warning to the Jews themselves.

§9. THE DATE.

The limits within which our Apocalypse must have been written are, on the one hand, 2 Enoch (A.D. 1-50), of whose influence it bears traces, and, on the other hand, Origen, who describes it. If the reference to Abimelech’s long sleep, in the superscription, occurred in the original, then it must be dated subsequent to 4 Baruch (A. D. 136). But as we have seen, it is possible that the superscription is a later addition. We shall probably not err in dating the original 3 Baruch near the beginning of the second century, especially as its syncretism harmonizes with the tendency of that age.

The data for determining the date of the Christian redaction are even fewer, for as the Apocalypse which Origen saw contained an account of seven heavens, the passage in de Princip. does not fix a terminus ad quem for our form of the text. But since (as shown in § 7 above), like 4 Baruch, its motive seems to be the conversion of Jews and Ebionites, it is probable that the same circumstances called it forth, and that it was written soon after A.D. 136. The suggestion may be hazarded that the superscription referring to Abimelech was added by the Christian redactor as a result of his acquaintance with 4 Baruch.

On the other hand, it must be admitted that tvevyatixods marépas and tepeds, as applied to a Christian minister, are undoubtedly later expressions, but it is possible that a later editor or scribe is responsible for them.

§ 10. THEOLOGY OF THE BOOK.

1. The Seven Heavens. Traces of the belief in a plurality of heavens are to be found in the O.T. (Deut. x. 14, 1 Kings viii. 27, Ps. cxlviii. 4), and more clearly in the N.T. (2 Cor. xii. 2, Eph. i. 3, 20, ii. 6, iii, 10, vi. 12; Heb. iv. 14, vii. 26). The conception is found in Babylonian, Parsee, and Greek thought, as well as in apocalyptic and Rabbinic literature. It also appears in early Christian writings. The subject is treated at length in its relation to Greek, Oriental, Jewish, and Christian literature in Charles’s Book of the Secrets of Enoch (pp. xxx—xlvii), and by Salmond in Hastings’ D. B. (ii. 321-3). It will suffice here to indicate the teaching of apocalyptic and Rabbinic literature on the subject.

The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs. The account is found in T. Levi ii. 7-iii. 8, which contains several redactions of the original text. Charles is of opinion that the original description of three heavens has been transformed into a description of the seven.

The First Heaven. The waters above the firmament, and the treasuries of fire, ice, and snow. It is a gloomy place and contains the instruments for the punishment of wicked men (a).

The Second Heaven. Characterized by brightness. Abode of the angels who are to destroy the hosts of Belial (a). Treasuries of fire, snow, and ice (Aa, 8, A B, S!).

The Third Heaven. Angelic armies who are to destroy the hosts of Belial (8, A 8, S?).

The Fourth Heaven. ‘Thrones and dominions’ who sing praise to God.

The Fifth Heaven. Angels who carry up men’s prayers to the angels of the presence.

The Sixth Heaven. Archangels who make propitiation to God for the sins of men.

The Seventh Heaven. The abode of God.

The First Heaven. Great sea. Rulers of the stars. Treasuries of snow, ice, clouds, and dew and their guardians (iii—vi).

The Second Heaven. Darkness. Imprisoned angels awaiting judgement (vii).

The Third Heaven, Paradise prepared for the.righteous; and, on the north, Hell for the wicked (viii-x). Cf. 2 Cor. xii. 2-4.

The Fourth Heaven, Sun, moon, and attendant angels; phoenixes and chalkidri. An armed host of angels praising God (xi-xvii).

The Fifth Heaven. The Watchers whose brethren are imprisoned in the Second Heaven (A). Great hosts (B).

The Sixth Heaven. Seven bands of angels, set over the works of creation, and the souls of men (xix).

The Seventh Heaven. Abode of God and the archangels (xx).

Ascension of Isaiah. Sammael and his angels are located in the firmament. Then follow six heavens, each with a throne and angels increasing in glory with each successive heaven. Isaiah is transfigured as he ascends from heaven to heaven. The seventh heaven is the abode of God and all the righteous. Here too are stored the garments of the saints (vii-xi; cf. iv. 14 ff.).

3 Baruch.

The First Heaven. A plain. The builders of the Tower of Babel.

The Second Heaven. A plain. The designers of the Tower of Babel.

The Third Heaven. A great serpent. Hades. Sun, moon, and attendant angels. The Phoenix.

The Fourth Heaven. Plain. A pool. Birds (= souls of the righteous) singing praise to God.

The Fifth Heaven. Michael receives men’s prayers from the angels. There is a suggestion of other heavens beyond.

Chagigah 12. The Seven Heavens are enumerated according to name.

Vilon serves no purpose whatever, save that it enters in the morning and goes forth in the evening, and renews every day the work of creation.

Rakia is that in which are set sun and moon, stars and constellations.

Shechakim is that in which the millstones stand, which grind manna for the righteous.

Zobul contains the heavenly Jerusalem and the Temple. The altar is built there, and Michael offers sacrifice upon it. ;

Makhon contains the treasuries of hail, the high dwelling-place of harmful dews, the chamber of the whirlwind and of the storm, and the retreat of noisome vapour. And their doors are made of fire.

Araboth is that in which are righteousness, judgement, and grace; the treasuries of life and peace and blessing ; the souls of the righteous; the spirits and souls which are about to be created; and the dew with which the Holy One is about to quicken mortals. There are also celestials and sefaphs, and holy beings and ministering angels, and the throne of glory and the King, the Living God.

2. Doctrine of the Mediation of Angels. Perhaps the most characteristic doctrinal feature of this Apoc. is its teaching as to the mediation of Angels (xi—xvii). There are traces of this doctrine in the O.T. (Gen. xvi. 7 ff., xxi. 17 ff., xxviii. 12). There was a great development in Israel’s angelology in post-exilic days (Is. Ixiii. 9, Dan, x. 13, 21, xii. 1). This was due to three causes: (2) Advancing ideas of the Divine transcendence, and a growing feeling against anthropomorphic conceptions of God. (4) ‘A tendency to personify abstract conceptions such as the “spirit” of a nation, and a further tendency to locate these personified forces in the supersensible world, from whence they ruled the destinies of men’ (Davidson). (c) The stimulus of contact with Persian thought. The seven archangels, e.g., are connected with the Zoroastrian Amesha Spentas. It is important to notice, however, that there is only one clear instance in the O.T. of angels interceding on behalf of men (Zech. i. 12). They are the messengers of God to man, not of man to God.

But the belief in the mediation of angels was not by any means universally accepted in postexilic times. P never mentions angels, nor do they play a prominent part in the Apocrypha. Tobit, a book which bears evident marks of Persian influence, refers to the intercession of Raphael (iii. 16f, xii. 12, 15). The mediation of a supernatural being is referred to in 2 Macc. xv. 12-15, but he is not called an angel. There is a marked dearth of references to angels in the other apocryphal books. In 4 Ezra (vii. 102 ff.) mediation of any kind is explicitly denied. It is only when we turn to the Pseudepigrapha that we find a highly developed doctrine of angels. Among the passages which explicitly teach angelic mediation are Eth. En. ix. 3 ff, xv. 2, xl. 6, xlvii. 2, xcix. 2,16, civ.1; T. Levi iii.5; Test. Abraham xiv. The subject is treated at length in Oesterley, Fewish Doctrines of Mediation, pp. 37-44. See, too, notes below on chs. i, ii, xi, xii.

According to A. xxxiii. 8 the Sadducees denied the existence of angels. It is difficult to know how this is to be interpreted, since they received the written Scriptures. It may be, as Davidson suggests, that ‘they interpreted the angelophanies of the written Scriptures received by them in a rational way as personified natural forces.’ The Essenes held exaggerated doctrines on the subject. The Pharisees appear to have held a middle position, but it must be remembered that Pharisaism is a wide term, and that in all probability Eth. En. (in part), and the Zests. of the Twelve Patriarchs emanated from Pharisaic circles.

The N.T. reflects the current angelology, but its whole tendency is opposed to the conception of the mediation of angels. This idea occurs, however, in Rev. viii. 3. Swete is of opinion that the reference is the same in Heb. i. 14.

The only advance in our Apocalypse is in the introduction of the three classes of angels, who

HY BARVGH

intercede for three classes of men. In other respects its doctrine does not differ from that of 1 Enoch, Tobit, and Test. Levi, and it cannot therefore be said that it marks an advance in the direction of Gnosticism. It is true that underlying 3 Baruch there is an advanced conception of the divine transcendence. At no point in the narrative is the veil that hides God lifted, and we are not permitted to behold even Michael’s communion with Him. In 1 Macc. God is even more remote, for His transcendence is modified by no angelic mediation. Doctrines of the mediation of angels owed their origin in part to a feeling that such teaching was one-sided, and closed the door to communion with God. Gnosticism was an elaborate attempt to bring a transcendent God into some sort of touch with the world, through a hierarchy of mediators. But such teaching as appears in 3 Baruch does not go beyond beliefs that were current in some Jewish circles.

3. The Fall. The forbidden tree was the vine, which the angel Sammael planted (see notes below on ch. iv). As in Wisd. (ii. 24) and 2 En. (xxxi. 3) Adam’s disobedience is due to the Devil, who is prompted by envy. Too much must not be deduced from a writer’s silence, but it may be noted that 3 Baruch does not enumerate inherited depravity and death among the consequences of the Fall, Adam ‘obtained condemnation, and was divested of the glory of God’. His descendants suffer in so far as they are participators in the same sin, and. those which spring from it, ‘the men who now drink insatiably ... transgress worse than Adam, and are far from the glory of God, and are surrendering themselves to the eternal fire.’ This is not unlike the teaching of 2 Baruch, ‘Adam is therefore not the cause save only of his own soul, but each one of us has been the Adam of his own soul’ (liv. 19).

The Greek text is edited (with an introduction) by Dr. M. R. James in Cambridge Zexts and Studies, vol. v, No. 1, Apocrypha Anectota, iii, 1897. A German translation, with introduction and notes by Ryssel, is included in Kautzsch, Die Apok. und Pseudep. des A. T. ii. 446-57, 1900. The Slavonic version was published in the S¢avzne, vol. xviii,

p- 205-9, 1886, and a German translation (with introduction) by Prof. Bonwetsch appeared in 1896 in the Vachrichten der K. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Gottingen, Heft i. An English translation of this version, by Mr. Morfill, appears in Cambridge Zexts and Studies, v. 1.

The article of Ginzberg on this Apocalypse in the Jewish Encyclopaedia, and that of Zenos in Hastings’ D, C.

and G. (i. 86f.), should be read.

DARGA hs APOC ACY PS oO VBaiew Cid OR II] BARUCH

Prologue.

1 <A narrative and revelation of Baruch, concerning those ineffable things which he saw by command of God. Bless Thou, O Lord.

2 A revelation of Baruch, who stood upon the river + Gel + weeping over the captivity of

3 Jerusalem, when also Abimelech was preserved by the hand of God, at the farm of Agrippa. And he was sitting thus at the beautiful gates, where the Holy of holies lay.

1 Verily I Baruch was weeping in my mind and sorrowing on account of the people, and that

2 Nebuchadnezzar the king was permitted by God to destroy His city, saying: Lord, why didst Thou set on fire Thy vineyard, and lay it waste? Why didst Thou do this? And why, Lord, didst Thou not requite us with another chastisement, but didst deliver us to nations such as these, so that they

3 reproach us and say, Where is their God? And behold as I was weeping and saying such things, I saw an angel of the Lord coming and saying to me: Understand, O man, greatly beloved, and trouble not thyself so greatly concerning the salvation of Jerusalem, for thus saith the Lord God,

4the Almighty. For He sent me before thee, to make known and to show to thee all (the things)

5, 60f God. For thy prayer was heard before Him, and entered into the ears of the Lord God. And

when he had said these things to me, I was silent. And the angel said to me: Cease to provoke

7 God, and I will show thee other mysteries, greater than these. And I Baruch said, As the Lord God liveth, if thou wilt show me, and I hear a word of thine, I will not continue to speak any longer.

8 God shall add to my judgement in the day of judgement, if I speak hereafter. And the angel of the powers said to me, Come, and I will show thee the mysteries of God.

PROLOGUE. 2. Gel. James suggests that Kedron is meant. ‘Part of the word has gone and KEA- has passed ito MRA.” Cf. 2 Bar. v.53 XXis 13 XXxxI.2.

Abimelech was preserved. See 4 Bar. iii. g-v. 30, where it is recorded that Abimelech fell asleep in the garden of Agrippa at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem, and did not awake for sixty-six years.

the farm of Agrippa. Rendel Harris (Rest of the Words of Baruch, p. 12) identifies this with the fertile valley below Solomon’s Pools, known as Solomon’s Gardens. See Josephus, Azz. viii. 7. 3, ‘There was a certain place about fifty furlongs distant from Jerusalem, which is called Etham, very pleasant it is in fine gardens, and abounding in rivulets of water; thither did he (Solomon) use to go out in the morning.’ Cf. Eccles. ii. 5 f.

3. the beautiful gates. Cf. 2 Bar.x.5; also Josephus, 2. /. v. 5. 3, ‘There was one gate that was without [the inward court of] the holy house, which was of Corinthian brass, and greatly excelled those that were only covered with silver and gold.’ Cf. Acts iii. 2.

where the Holy of holies lay. James holds that the words émov ¢xerto ra tay ayioy aya allude to the hiding of the sacred vessels (2 Macc. ii. 1-8; 2 Bar. vi. 7-10; 4 Bar. ili. 7f.). It is better, however, to translate it as above. Cf. 2 Bar. xxxiv ‘I will . . . go unto the Holy of Holies to enquire of the Mighty One concerning you, and concerning Zion, if in some respect I should receive more illumination.’

I. 1. sorrowing. Ryssel (in Kautzsch) reads wevOdy for ¢xov. Cf. 2 Bar. vi. 23 X. 53 XXXV. I.

3. O man, greatly beloved, dvep émiOusrdv. The phrase occurs in Dan. x. 11 f. (Theodot.).

6. other mysteries. Either some previous revelations have dropped out, or, as James suggests, the phrase is an assimilation to the words of the angel in chapters ii and v.

7. I will not continue to speak. The Slavonic forbids Baruch to add a word to the revelation, but the context makes it clear that rpoo6jow is here to be translated as above.

the day of judgement. 1 *uépa tis Kpicews is not necessarily a Christian phrase. It occurs in T. Levi iii. 3; xi. 34 (dies tudiciz). Ginzberg (/E) says that }°77 Ov is an expression which occurs more frequently in Rabbinic literature than in the N.T.

8. angel of the powers. This phrase occurs in 1 En. (G8') xx.13; cf. 1 En. Ixi. ro. Michael is called dpxtatpatnyos tév dive Svvdyewv in Test. Abraham xiv. In 2 Thess. 1. 7 we find ayyéAwy duvdpews, which is taken by some to refer to the angels set over the cosmic forces, There is a striking passage in Philo which seems to throw light on the subject. ‘There is only one God, but this one God has about Him innumerable powers as helpers and saviours of all created existences. Among them are punitive powers. . . . By these powers the incorporeal intelligible world was built. . . . There is, moreover, in the air a high and holy choir of incorporeal souls in attendance upon the heavenly powers—angels as the prophetic Scriptures are accustomed to call them. ... The King communes with His powers, and uses them as His servants, for the performance of such duties as are not appropriate to God Himself’ (De Confus. ling. xxxiv). The six highest powers are Divine Logos, Creative Power, Sovereign Power, Mercy, Legislation, and Punitive Power (Ve profugis, xviii. See Pfleiderer, Prim. Christianity, iii. 41 f.). As Philo identifies

The First Heaven.

t And he took me and led me where the firmament has been set fast, and where there was a river

2 which no one can cross, nor any strange breeze of all those which God created. And he took me and led me to the first heaven, and showed me a door of great size. And he said to me, Let us enter

3 through it, and we entered as though dorne on wings, a distance of about thirty days’ journey. And he showed me within the heaven a plain; and there were men dwelling thereon, with the faces of

4 oxen, and the horns of stags, and the feet of goats, and the haunches of lambs. And I Baruch asked the angel, Make known to me, I pray thee, what is the thickness of the heaven in which we journeyed,

5 or what is its extent, or what is the plain, in order that I may also tell the sons of men? And the angel whose name is }Phamael} said to me: This door which thou seest is the door of heaven, and as great as is the distance from earth to heaven, so great also is its thickness; and again as great as is the distance (from North to South, so great) is the length of the plain which thou didst see. And again the angel of the powers said to me, Come, and I will show thee greater mysteries. But

7 I said, I pray thee show me what are these men. And he said to me, These are they who built the tower of strife against God, and the Lord banished them.

The Second Heaven.

1 And the angel of the Lord took me and led me to a second heaven. And he showed me there 2 also a door like the first and said, Let us enter through it. And we entered, being borne on wings 3 a distance of about sixty days’ journey. And he showed me there also a plain, and it was full of 4 men, whose appearance was like that of dogs, and whose feet were like those of stags. And I asked 5 the angel: I pray thee, Lord, say to me who are these. And he said, These are they who gave

Michael and the Logos (Quzs rer. div. haeres, xlii), it is probable that the Philonic powers correspond with the archangels,

Pfleiderer (of. cit., p. 43) thinks that the six Philonic powers are ultimately derived from ‘the six Amesha Spentas which surround the throne of Ahura Mazda, among whom the three chief are Vohu Mano, the Divine Logos; Asha Vahista, the Highest Righteousness; and Kshathra Vairya, the kingdom of Good-will—representatives, that is, of creative intelligence, power, and goodness, just as the highest Powers of Philo are.’

II. 1. where the firmament has been set fast. Cf. 1 En. xviii. 5 ; xxxiii. 2. ariver. According to James this river is the Ocean (Apoc. Pauli xxi; xxxi; Test. Abr. B viii; 1 En. xvii. 5 f.).

But Ginzberg (/Z) holds that it is ‘SPOYA OD (the upper waters), and quotes in support Gen. R. iv. 3 and Chag. I5 a.

no one can cross. Cf. Zos. ii od Sivacai dueAOeiv dv epod’ od yap Suvara 6 dvOpamos ra VSara pov Sraxdur . . . Kal civev ) vepedn’ Zooe .. . St euod ov Siépyerar merewoy €k TOD Kdcpov TovTOV, OSE MYO avé“ou OSE avTds 6 HALOS, OvSE 6 metpatav ev TO Kdope@ TOLT@O Svvarar StehOeiv Ov emod. :

breeze. The above passage from Zos. makes it likely that mvoy is to be translated ‘ breeze’ here, and not ‘living creature’ as in-ch. viii, and in Ps. cl. 6 (LXX).

2. the first heaven. See Introd. § 10 (1). adoor. Cf. Ps. lxxvili.23; Rev.iv.1. In 2 En. xiii. 8 the gates through which the sun goes forth are mentioned. as though borne on wings. Cf. Zos. ii; 1 En. xiv. 8. 3. a plain. Cf. Zos. iii.

men... lambs. Ginzberg (/Z) says this means they were transformed into demons (Sanh. Icga). For

this reason they are not in the place of torment, which is in the third heaven, but at the entrance to heaven

5. Phamael. This is corrupt. The Slavonic preserves the true reading ‘ Phanuel’. According to 1 En. xl, he is one of the four angels of the presence who stand on the four sides of the Lord of Spirits, Michael, Raphael, Gabriel, and Phanuel. He is ‘set over the repentance and hope of those who inherit eternal life’. But in 1 En. (Giz, Gk.) ix. 1 Uriel is mentioned in place of Phanuel. James thinks there is the bare possibility that he is to be identified with Ramiel, who appears in 1 En. (Giz. Gk.) xx. 7, and in 2 Bar. lv. 3 is described as presiding over true visions, which agrees with the description of Baruch’s angel in 3 Bar. xi, as ‘the interpreter of the revelations, to those who pass through life virtuously’. Ramiel is also mentioned in 4 Ezra iv. 36 (Lat. Hzeremihel); and in Sib. Or. ii. 215-17 he is said to be one of the five angels who know all the evils that men have wrought, and ‘ shall from dark gloom then lead to judgement all the souls of men, before the judgement-seat of the great God immortal’. Ryssel points out that the form Eremiel appears in the Apoc. of Sophonias.

the distance from earth to heaven. Cf. Chag. ‘And is not from the earth to the firmament a journey of five hundred years, and so too the interspace of the firmaments ?’

(from ... great). James supplies dd Boppa éws vdrov, rocovrov.

length of the plain. Cf. Apoc. Pauli 32.

7. James points out a parallel to this story in the Book of Jashar (Migne, Dict. des Apocryphes, ii. 1107 f.). There were three classes of builders. One said, ‘Let us ascend and fight against heaven’; these were dispersed. The second said, ‘ Let us go up and set our gods in heaven’ ; these were changed into monkeys and baboons. The third said, ‘ Let us go up and smite heaven with our bows and arrows’; these slew each other.

III. 1. asecond heaven. See Introd. § Io (1). 5. gave counsel. Cf. Mark iii. 6, where ovpBotAcov didovac = ‘ to take counsel’.

counsel to build the tower, for they whom thou seest drove forth multitudes of both men and women, to make bricks ; among whom, a woman making bricks was not allowed to be released in the hour of child-birth, but brought forth while she was making bricks, and carried her child in her apron, and 6 continued to make bricks. And the Lord appeared to them and confused their speech, when they 7 had built the tower to che height of four hundred and sixty-three cubits. And they took a gimlet, and sought to pierce the heaven, saying, Let us see (whether) the heaven is made of clay, or of 8 brass, or of iron. When God saw this He did not permit them, but smote them with blindness and confusion of speech, and rendered them as thou seest.

The Third Heaven.

4:1 And I Baruch said, Behold, Lord, Thou didst show me great and wonderful things; and now 2 show me all things for the sake of the Lord. And the angel said to me, Come, let us proceed. (And I proceeded) with the angel from that place about one hundred and eighty-five days’ 3 journey. And he showed me a plain and a serpent, which appeared to be two hundred plethra 4in length. And he showed me Hades, and its appearance was dark and abominable. And I said, 5 Who is this dragon, and who is.this monster around him? And the angel said, The dragon is he 6 who eats the bodies of those who spend their life wickedly, and he is nourished by them. And this is Hades, which itself also closely resembles him, in that it also drinks about a cubit from 7 the sea, which does not sink at all. Baruch said, And how (does this happen)? And the angel said, Hearken, the Lord God made three hundred and sixty rivers, of which the chief of g all are Alphias, Abyrus, and the Gericus ; and because of these the sea does not sink. And I said, I pray thee show me which is the tree which led Adam astray. And the angel said to me, It is the vine, which the angel Sammael planted, whereat the Lord God was angry, and He cursed him and his plant, while also on this account He did not permit Adam to touch it, and therefore

a woman... child-birth. Ginzberg (/£) refers to a similar Rabbinic legend about a woman in Egypt (Pirke R. El. xlviii).

IV. 2. let us proceed. There is no mention here of entry into a third heaven, and when the next heaven is entered in ch. x, the scribe has changed its number from fourth to third, as is evident from the fact that in ch. xi the fifth heaven is mentioned. At what point in the narrative is the entry made into the third heaven? In ch. vii the angel says to Baruch, ‘All that I showed thee is in the first and second heaven, and in the third heaven the sun passes through, and gives light to the world.’ It would harmonize with this to place the entry into the third heaven at the commencement of ch. vi. But against this is the fact that Hades (ch. iv) is usually located in the third heaven (cf. 2 En.). It seems best therefore to follow James in placing the transition here. It should be noted that the Slavonic account of the third heaven shows fewer signs of mutilation than the Greek.

3. aserpent. The relation of the dragon to Hades is not clear. Here they seem to be separate, but in ch. v they are united. The closest parallel is to be found in the Pistis Sophia, p. 319, which says ‘ caligo externa magnus dpdkey est, cuius cauda in suo ore est extra kéopov totum, et circumdat xkéopoy totum’. There are said to be within this dragon twelve places of chastisement, where souls are tormented (James, p. Ixi). The Slavonic reads ‘So the angel took me to the light, a journey of thirty-two days, and showed me a great field; the mind of man could not comprehend it; and in that field there was a very great mountain, and on it lay a serpent as from the East to the West, and it bent down, drinking from the sea every day a cubit, and ate the earth like grass. And I Baruch said to the angel: My Lord, why does this serpent drink from the sea a cubit during the day, and how is it that the sea does not become scanty? And the angel said to me: Listen, Baruch, God made three hundred three and thirty great rivers ... There are many other great rivers, and they all go into the sea, and the sea is filled. On account of this God made this serpent, and ordered it to drink of the sea a cubit a day, so that the sea should not increase nor diminish’,

4. this monster around him. tis 6 epi avrov amnyns; James thinks this may be corrupt and that the dragon encircled Hades, and not vice versa.

5. Cf. Greek goblin Eurynomus.

6. which does not sink at all. Lit. ‘and nothing is lacking from it’.

7. the Gericus. James suggests that Gericus yupikds the Ocean; but this is hardly likely in view of the fact that it is mentioned as one of the rivers which supply the sea. The Slavonic speaks of three hundred and thirty-three rivers, and mentions Aphia, Avaria, Agorenik, Dunav, Ephrat, Asavat, Zietnust, Ineus, Tigris.

8. the tree which led Adam astray. The transition is sudden, but there may be a hiatus in the narrative. Baruch is still in the third heaven where Paradise was placed, and by now the angel may have shown him it. In the Slavonic the story of the vine does not break into the description of the dragon, but comes after it.

the vine. For the conception of the vine as the forbidden tree cf. Sanh. 70a; Gen. Rabb. xix. 8. (See art. ‘Vine’, JE.) It is related of Shamdon (Asmodeus) that at the planting of the first vine by Noah, he helped with the work and said to Noah: ‘I want to join in your labour and share with you; but take heed that I take not of your portion, lest I do you harm’ (Gen. R. xxxvi. 3; see art.‘ Demonology’, /£). The story does not occur elsewhere in the exact form of that of the text.

the angel Sammael (i.e. by19b), Greek Sapound. Slavonic reads ‘ Satanil’ (cf. 2 En. xviii. 3, xxix. 4f., xxxi. 4). For Sammael cf. Asc. of Isa.i.8 et assim. He was originally one of the chief archangels, but tempted Eve with a view to making the earth his kingdom. Thenceforth he is the chief of the Satans, the angel of death, and Israel’s special foe (v. Charles’ Asc. of Zsa. p. 6. Cf. also Deut. Rabb. xi and Pirk. R. El. xiii, quoted in /£).

whereat. For dri in text read grim.

9 the devil being envious deceived him through his vine. [And I Baruch said, Since also the vine has been the cause of such great evil, and is under judgement of the curse of God, and was the 10 destruction of the first created, how is it now so useful? And the angel said, Thou askest aright. When God caused the deluge upon earth, and destroyed all flesh, and four hundred and nine thousand giants, and the water rose fifteen cubits above the highest mountains, then the water entered into paradise and destroyed every flower; but it removed wholly without the bounds the shoot 11 of the vine and cast it outside. And when the earth appeared out of the water, and Noah came out 12 of the ark, he began to plant of the plants which he found. But he found also the shoot of the vine ; and he took it, and was reasoning in himself, What then is it? And I came and spake to 13 him the things concerning it. And he said, Shall I plant it, or what skal/ J do? Since Adam was destroyed because of it, let me not also meet with the anger of God because of it. And saying 14 these things he prayed that God would reveal to him what he should do concerning it. And when he had completed the prayer which lasted forty days, and having besought many things and wept, 15 he said: Lord, I entreat thee to reveal to me what I shall do concerning this plant. But God sent his angel Sarasael, and said to him, Arise, Noah, and plant the shoot of the vine, for thus saith the Lord: Its bitterness shall be changed into sweetness, and its curse shall become a blessing, and that which is produced from it shall become the blood of God; and as through it the human race obtained condemnation, so again through Jesus Christ the Immanuel will they receive in Him the 16 upward calling, and the entry into paradise]. Know therefore, O Baruch, that as Adam through this very tree obtained condemnation, and was divested of the glory of God, so also the men who now drink insatiably the wine which is begotten of it, transgress worse than Adam, and are far from the 17 glory of God, and are surrendering themselves to the eternal fire. For (no) good comes through it. For those who drink it to surfeit do these things: neither does a brother pity 4zs brother, nor a father zs son, nor children ¢kezr parents, but from the drinking of wine come all evz/s, such as murders, adulteries, fornications, perjuries, thefts, and such like. And nothing good is established by it.

5 1,2 “And I Baruch said to the angel, Let me ask thee one thing, Lord. Since thou didst say to me

3 that the dragon drinks one cubit out of the sea, say to me also, how great is his belly? And the angel said, His belly is Hades; and as far as a plummet is thrown (by) three hundred men, so great is his belly. Come, then, that I may show thee also greater works than these.

And he took me and led me where the sun goes forth ; and he showed me a chariot and four, under which burnt a fire, and in the chariot was sitting a man, wearing a crown of fire, (and) the chariot (was) drawn by forty angels. And behold a bird circling before the sun, about nine cubits away. And I said to the angel, What is this bird? And he said to me, This is the

nO He

the devil being envious. Cf. Wisd. ii. 24; 2 En. xxxi. 3. 9-15. The passage in brackets is clearly an interpolation by the Christian redactor, who felt it necessary to modify the condemnation of wine, on account of its use in the Eucharist. 15. Sarasael. Perhaps to be identified with Saraqael, ‘one of the holy angels, who is set over the spirits who sin bitterness . . . sweetness. Cf. 4 Bar. ix. 16 ra yhukéa Udara dhpupa yernoorrat. the blood of God. Cf. Acts xx. 28. the upward calling. Cf. Phil. iii. 14. 16. drink. Text reads dpavres. The emendation xpavres will not do, as ypwpevor is required. It is perhaps best (with Ryssel) to read rivovres. are surrendering themselves. spo&evovour. 17. (no). ov, which the sense clearly requires, has dropped out of the text. drinking. For rrecews in text read récews (James). murders, &c. Cf. Introd. § 6. See Matt. xv. 19; Gal. v.21; Apoc. Pauli 6; Did. iii and v.

V. 3. His belly is Hades. Slavonic reads ‘ As great as is the bottom of hell, so great is his belly’. sate (by). James translates ‘a plummet of 300 men’, but it seems best, with Ryssel, to insert ird. The meaning Is then, as far as a plummet can be thrown by the strength of 300 men.

VI. 1. where the sun goes forth. The courses of the sun and moon are placed in the fourth heaven in 2 En. a chariot and four. Slavonic says that the horses were winged angels. a crown of fire. This conception prevailed among the Greeks, as may be seen from the monuments. It occurs in Rabbinic lit. Cf. Pirk. R. El. vi; Num. R. xii. 4 (Ginzberg, /£). drawn by forty angels. Cf. 2 En. xi. 4f. ;

2. about nine cubits away. Text reads as dpe: evvéa. James reads dpn for dper, but that leaves the meaning obscure. It is possible that the original reading was as épedav, where dpevw is to be translated ‘guard’. But there is very little support for the use of the word in this sense ; LS only mentions Hesychius. Dr. J. H. Moulton has drawn my attention to the fact that in Petrie Papyri i, p. 78 &kaoros réy dpav is taken to be ‘each of the watchers’ by Mahaffy on Bury’s suggestion, with the admission that the word exists nowhere else, except in its compounds. Perhaps it is best to adopt as dmd mnyav evvéa from the Disputation of the Panagiote, a very late document which is clearly based on our text (James, p. Ixv). I am indebted to Dr. Moulton for this suggestion.

The BARC H 6) U7 3

4, 5 guardian of the earth. And I said, Lord, how is he the guardian of the earth? Teach me. And the angel said to me, This bird flies alongside of the sun, and expanding his wings receives its fiery 6 rays. For if he were not receiving them, the human race would not be preserved, nor any other 7 living creature. But God appointed this bird tHeveto. And he expanded his wings, and I saw on his right wing very large letters, as /arge as the space of a threshing-floor, the size of about four 8 thousand modii; and the letters were of gold. And the angel said to me,Read them. And I read, 9 and they ran thus: Neither earth nor heaven bring me forth, but wings of fire bring me forth. And 101 said, Lord, what is this bird, and what ishis name? And the angel said to me, His name is called 11 Phoenix. (And I said), And what does he eat? And he said to me, The manna of heaven and 12the dew of earth. And I said, Does the bird excrete? And he said to me, He excretes a worm, and the excrement of the worm is cinnamon, which kings and princes use. But wait and thou shalt 13 see the glory of God. And while he was conversing w7th me, there was as a thunder-clap, and the place was shaken on which we were standing. And I asked the angel, My Lord, what is this sound ? And the angel said to me, Even now the angels are opening the three hundred and sixty-five gates 14 of heaven, and the light is being separated from the darkness. And a voice came which said, Light- 15 giver, give to the world radiance. And when I heard the noise of the bird, I said, Lord, what is this 16 noise? And he said, This is ze d¢rd who awakens from slumber the cocks upon earth. For as men do through the mouth, so also does the cock signify to those in the world, in his own speech. For the sun is made ready by the angels, and the cock crows.

1,2 And I said, And where does’ the sun begin its labours, after the cock crows? And the angel said to me, Listen, Baruch: All things whatsoever I showed thee are in the first and second heaven, and in the third heaven the sun passes through and gives light to the world. But wait, and thou

3 shalt see the glory of God. And while I was conversing with him, I saw the bird, and he appeared

4. this bird. Cf. 2 En. xii, xv, which speaks of several phoenixes. According to Jewish authorities, the Phoenix is referred to in Job xxix. 18. Charles (2 En. p. 12) mentions the following references to this bird among the Greeks and lV. H.x.2. There are also several references in patristic writers. According to Pliny (JV. &. x. 2) there is only one phoenix at a time, who, at the close of his long life, builds himself a nest with twigs of cassia and frankincense on which he dies. From his corpse is generated a worm, which grows into a young phoenix. Pliny says that the young bird buries his father on the altar in the City of the Sun, but Tacitus (4mm. vi. 28) has it that he burns him there. There are traces of a similar tradition both in Egyptian and in Indian literature. A writer in the Avcyc. Brit. thinks that the prototype of the phoenix is a bird called bennu, mentioned in the ‘ Book of the Dead’, and other Egyptian texts. This bird was one of the sacred symbols of the worship of Heliopolis, and according to Wiedemann (Ztsch. f. Aeg. Sprache, xvi, p. 89 f.) was a symbol of the rising sun, and is called ‘ self-generating’, ‘the soul of Ra’, and ‘the heart of the renewed sun’. Further, this writer points out that it is significant that both ‘bennu’ and otmé mean ‘palm-tree’. James mentions a parallel in Indian literature—the bird Gadura, who carried Aruna on his back, and placed him in front of the sun, where he acted as charioteer and screened the world from the sun’s consuming rays (Mahabarata Adi Parva xvi-xxxiv, especially xxiv). In none of these references is the phoenix represented as the sun’s daily companion. That tradition appears only in 2 En. text A (there is no reference to the phoenix in B), in 3 Bar., and in the Disputation of the Panagiote.

7. modii. A modius 2co dpyuai (dpywa the length of the outstretched arms, usually estimated at about 6 ft.).

8. wings of fire. Slavonic reads ‘son of the Father’, which is evidently due to Christian influence.

12. a worm, &c. In other accounts the worm develops into a new phoenix.

13. the place was shaken. Cf. Acts iv. 313; 4 Ezra vi. 29.

the three hundred and sixty-five gates. This is evidently intended to correspond with the number of days in the year. 2 En. speaks of twelve gates, six on the east and six on the west (chs. xili, xiv). 1 En. says that there are twelve portals with twelve windows each to the right and left of each of them (ch. Ixxii. 3, 7).

14. Light-giver ... radiance. Cf.2En.xv.1f. ‘Then the elements of the sun called Phoenixes and Chalkidri break into song, therefore every bird flutters with its wings, rejoicing at the giver of light, and they broke into song at the command of the Lord. The giver of light comes to give brightness to the whole world.’

15. the bird who awakens from slumber the cocks upon earth. It is doubtful whether there is not here a confusion between the tradition of the phoenix and that of the heavenly cock. As a sun-bird the Greeks made the cock attend on Helios and Apollo. According to an Armenian tradition the heavenly cock first crows, and the angelic choirs begin their hymns of praise. These are heard by the cock on earth, who then awakens mankind, and himself lauds the Creator (Hastings, Dic. R. & E. iii. 694 ff.). Dr. J. H. Moulton has kindly drawn tny attention to a passage in the Vendidad, Farg. xviii (S. B. E. iv, p. 193), where Sraosha, the angel who sets the world in motion, is likened to ‘the bird named Parédas [fore-seer] which ill-speaking people call Kahrkatas, the bird that lifts up his voice against the holy dawn’, and calls men to worship and firelighting, lest Biishyasta, the long-handed demon of procrastination, come upon them.

16. as men do through the mouth. os ydp 7a Sicroya is difficult and probably corrupt. James conjectures that the meaning is ‘For as articulate-speaking beings do, &c.’, but admits there is no such usage of dioropos elsewhere. I have adopted Ryssel’s emendation 7a dua ordpatos, the rad being taken to represent of dvOpw7oe or something similar.

the cock. Cf. Ber. 60 b. ‘Blessed be He Who has given the cock intelligence [to distinguish between day and night]. In the Fragments of the Apoc. of Adam (Afoc. Anec. i. 144) it is said that the cock crows when the seraphim clap their wings.

VII. 1. begin its labours. dmooyxoXcira.

4 in front, and grew less and less, and at /ength returned to his full size. And behind him I saw the shining sun, and the angels which draw it, and a crown upon its head, the sight of which we were 5 not able to gaze upon, and behold. And as soon as the sun shone, the Phoenix also stretched out his wings. But I, when I beheld such great glory, was brought low with great fear, and I fled and 6 hid in the wings of the angel. And the angel said to me, Fear not, Baruch, but wait and thou shalt - also see their setting. 1 And he took me and led me towards the west; and when the time of the setting came, I saw again the bird coming before z¢, and as soon as he came I saw the angels, and they lifted the crown 3 from its head. But the bird stood exhausted and with wings contracted. And beholding these things, I said, Lord, wherefore did they lift the crown from the head of the sun, and wherefore is 4 the bird so exhausted? And the angel said to me, The crown of the sun, when it has run through the day—four angels take it, and bear it up to heaven, and renew it, because it and its rays have been defiled upon earth ; moreover it is sorenewed each day. And I Baruch said, Lord, and where- 5 fore are its beams defiled upon earth? And the angel said to me, Because it beholds the lawlessness and unrighteousness of men, namely fornications, adulteries, thefts, extortions, idolatries, drunkenness, murders, strife, jealousies, evil-speakings, murmurings, whisperings, divinations, and such like, which are not well-pleasing to God. On account of these things is it defiled, and therefore is it renewed. 6 But thou askest concerning the bird, how it is exhausted. Because by restraining the rays of the 7 sun through the fire and burning heat of the whole day, it is exhausted thereby. For, as we said before, unless his wings were screening the rays of the sun, no living creature would be preserved. rt And they having retired, the night also fell, and at the same time came the chariot of the 2 moon, along with the stars. And I Baruch said, Lord, show me it also, I beseech of thee, how 3 it goes forth, where it departs, and in what form it moves along. And the angel said, Wait and thou shalt see it also shortly. And on the morrow I also saw it in the form of a woman, and sitting on a wheeled chariot. And there were before it oxen and lambs in the chariot, and a multitude of 4 angels in like manner. And I said, Lord, what are the oxen and the lambs? And he said to me, 5 They also are angels. And again I asked, Why is it that it at one time increases, but at another 6 time decreases? And (he said to me), Listen, O Baruch: This which thou seest had been. written 7 by God beautiful as no other. And at the transgression of the first Adam, it was near to Sammael when he took the serpent as a garment. And it did not hide itself but increased, and God was 8 angry with it, and afflicted it, and shortened its days. And I said, And how does it not also shine always, but only inthe night? And the angel said, Listen: as in the presence of a king, the courtiers cannot speak freely, so the moon and the stars cannot shine in the presence of the sun; for the stars are always suspended, but they are screened by the sun, and the moon, although it is uninjured, is consumed by the heat of the sun.

3. grew less and less. The bird Gadura in Mahabharata Adi Parva (xxiv) diminishes its size. 4. which drawiit. Lit. ‘ bearing along with it’. 6. their setting. i.e. of the sun and the Phoenix.

VIII. 1. before it. i.e. the sun.

2. exhausted. This is the meaning which the context demands for rerarevvwpevov.

4. Cf. 2 En. xiv. 2 (B) ‘When it goes out from the Western gates, four angels take the crown and carry it up to the Lord, and the sun turns its chariot, and goes out without light. And they put the crown on it again at the Eastern gates.’ See also Eliyahu R. ii (Ginzberg, /£).

5. because it beholds. T. Levi iii. 1 says that the lowest heaven is dark because it beholds ‘all the unrighteous deeds of men’. Cf. Lat. Apoc. Pauli 4 ‘Multum etenim sol quidem, luminare magnum, interpellauit dominum, dicens : Domine deus omnipotens, ego prospicio super impietates et iniusticias hominum’.

fornications, &c. Cf. Introd. § 6. :

7. unless .. . no living creature would be preserved. The language is similar to that of Matt. xxiv, 22 and Mark xiii. 20, but that does not necessarily imply dependence. The writer has chosen the most natural form of words to express his idea.

IX. 1. they. The sun and the phoenix. along with the stars. Text reads cal dua ravry Kal pera Tis ceAnvys Kal pe{ra) Tay dorépov. I have adopted Ryssel’s emendation kai dua ravty, ro dppa (or 7 Gaga) ths oednuns KT). P

3. Slavonic reads ‘the moon is like a woman sitting gn a chariot, and [like] oxen drawing her chariot are forty angels’. The idea of the chariot drawn by oxen and lambs is Greek.

7. shortened its days. The Slavonic attributes the fall of the moon to the fact that it laughed at the fall of Adam and Eve. R. Simeon b. Pazzi declared that at the time of the creation the moon was of the same size as the sun. The moon then objected that it would not be decorous for two kings to use one crown, whereupon God diminished her size (Hul. 60b; see art.‘ Moon’, JZ), For other versions of the story see Shebuot 9 a, and Gen. R. vi. 3 (Ginzberg JE".

8. shine ... only in the night. Cf Apoc. Mosis xxxvi.

The Fourth Heaven.

Ox And when I had learnt all these things from the archangel, he took and led me into a fourth

23 heaven. And I saw a monotonous plain, and in the middle of it a pool of water. And there were

in it multitudes of birds of all kinds, but not like those here oz earth. But I saw a crane as great as 4 great oxen; and all the dirds were great beyond those in the world. And I asked the angel, What 5 is the plain, and what the pool, and what the multitudes of birds around it? And the angel said, Listen, Baruch: The plain which contains in it the pool and other wonders is the place where the 6 souls of the righteous come, when they hold converse, living together in choirs. But the water is 7 that which the clouds receive, and rain upon the earth, and the fruits increase. And I said again to the angel of the Lord, But (what) are these birds? And he said to me, They are those which 8 continually sing praise to the Lord. And I said, Lord, and how do men say that the water which 9 descends in rain is from the sea? And the angel said, Ze water which descends in rain—this also is from the sea, and from the waters upon earth; but that which stimulates the fruits is (only) from 10 the latter source. Know therefore henceforth that from this sowrce is what is called the dew of heaven.

The Fifth Heaven.

11:s,2 And the angel took me and led me thence to a fifth heaven. , And the gate was closed. And

I said, Lord, is not this gate-way open that we may enter? And the angel said to me, We cannot enter until Michael comes, who holds the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven; but wait and thou shalt see 3 the glory of God. And there was a great sound, as thunder. And I said, Lord, what is this sound ? 4 And he said to me, Even now Michael, the commander of the angels, comes down to receive the 5 prayers of men. And behold a voice came, Let the gates be opened. And they opened ¢hem, and 6 there was a roar as of thunder. And Michael came, and the angel who was with me came face to 7 face with him and said, Hail, my commander, and ¢Aaz of all our order. And the commander Michael said, Hail thou also, our brother, and the interpreter of the revelations to those who pass through life 8 virtuously. And having saluted one another thus, they stood still. And I saw the commander

X. 1. afourth heaven. Text reads rpirov. See note on ch. iv.

2. a pool of water. As James indicates, this is probably the ’Ayé€povoa Nip referred to in Apoc. Mosis xxxvii and Apoc. Pauli 22.

3-5. For the idea that the souls of the righteous are transformed into birds, see Sanh. 92 b, ‘And the soul may say : The body has sinned ; for since I am separated from it, I fly in the air like a bird.’

7. said again to. )éyo is used here and in ch. xv with an acc. without a prep., in the sense of the dative of the person addressed.

8. how do men say, &c. Slavonic reads: ‘ How do men say that the clouds go out of the sea and rain on the earth? And the angel said to me: The race of man is deceived knowing nothing. All the water of the sea is salt, for if the rain came from the sea, no fruit would grow on the earth.’ The meaning of the Greek seems to be that while the rain is derived in part from the sea, those elements which are responsible for the dew and for the growth of fruit are derived from the other waters upon earth.

XI. 2. Michael. Michael, one of the archangels, was commonly regarded as Israel’s special protector. See Dan. x. 13, 21, xii. 1; 1 En. xx. 5; 2 En, xxil. 6, xxxiii. 10. In Ass. Moses x. 2, it is said that, he will avenge Israel on its enemies at the end of the world. In T. Levi v. 6f., he is the angel ‘ who intercedeth for the nation of Israel, and for all the righteous’, and in T. Dan vi. 2 he is ‘a mediator between God and man’, specially concerned for ‘ the peace of Israel’. He is mentioned in N.T. in Jude 9, Rev. xii. 7-9, and according to Charles (Hastings D. Z. iii. 362 b) he is referred to in Acts vii. 38. In Targ. Caz/. viii. 9, he is called ‘Israel’s chief’. In Yalkut Shimeoni, Berveshith 132, he is described as the prince over all the angels, and as Israel's representative and portion in the presence of God. In Chag. 12b, he is called ‘the Advocate of the Jews’ (Oesterley, Jewish Doctrines of Mediation, p. 84). In Test. Abraham xiv, Michael appears as intercessor on behalf of Abraham, and the combined intercession of Michael and Abraham wins a sinner’s entry into paradise.

who holds the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. In 4 Bar, ix. 5, Michael is called the archangel of righteousness who leads the righteous to heaven; and in the Ethiopic version it is added that he holds open the gates of righteousness, until the righteous enter in.

the Kingdom of Heaven. This phrase is not necessarily a Christian interpolation. Cf. Ps. ciii.19; Dan. iv. 34; Test. Ben. ix. I (7) BaowAeia kupiov), Ass. Moses x.1 (‘And then His kingdom will appear throughout all His creation’), Sib. Or. iii. 47 f. (rére 5) Bacidela peyiotn abavarov Baoidgjos em’ avOpe@mo.cr davetrat).

4. Michael comes down. According to Chag. 12b the altar upon which Michael offers up sacrifice stands in the fourth heaven.

5. the gates. Slavonic says that the names of those men who may enter the gates are written on them (cf. Apoc. Pauli 19).

opened. The idea that the gates of heaven are opened at a fixed time to receive the prayers of men is found in the fragments of the Apoc. of Adam, where it is stated that at the tenth hour ‘the gate of heaven opens in order to let in the prayers of every living thing. . . . At this hour all that a man asks of God is granted him’ (Afoc. Anecdota,

fT BARU CHEE oS = prez

Michael, holding an exceedingly great vessel ; its depth was as great as the distance from heaven to 9 earth, and its breadth as great as the dzstance from north to south. And I said, Lord, what is that which Michael the archangel is holding? And he said to me, This is where the merits of the righteous enter, and such good works as they do, which are escorted before the heavenly God. : 121 And as I was conversing with them, behold angels came bearing baskets full of flowers. And 2 they gave them to Michael. And I asked the angel, Lord, who are these, and what are the things 3 brought hither from beside them? And he said to me, These are angels (who) are over the 5 righteous. And the archangel took the baskets, and cast them into the vessel. And the angel 6 said to me, These flowers are the merits of the righteous. And I saw other angels bearing baskets which were (neither) empty nor full. And they began to lament, and did not venture to draw near, 7 because they had not the prizes complete. And Michael cried and said, Come hither, also, ye 8 angels, bring what ye have brought. And Michael was exceedingly grieved, and the angel who was with me, because they did not fill the vessel. 13: And then came in like manner other angels weeping and bewailing, and saying with fear, Behold how we are overclouded, O Lord, for we were delivered to evil men, and we wish to depart from 2them. And Michael said, Ye cannot depart from them, in order that the enemy may not prevail to 3 the end; but say to me what ye ask. And they said, We pray thee, Michael our commander, transfer us from them, for we cannot abide with wicked and foolish men, for there is nothing good 4 in them, but every kind of unrighteousness and greed. For we do not behold them entering [into Church at all, nor among spiritual fathers, nor] into any good work. But where there is murder, there also are they in the midst, and where are fornications, adulteries, thefts, slanders, perjuries, jealousies, drunkenness, strife, envy, murmurings, whispering, idolatry, divination, and such like, 5 then are they workers of such works, and of others worse. Wherefore we entreat that we may depart from them. And Michael said to the angels, Wait till I learn from the Lord what shall come to pass. 14: And in that very hour Michael departed, and the doors were closed. And there was a sound as 2 thunder. And I asked the angel, What is the sound? And he said to me, Michael is even now presenting the merits of men to God. 15 1,2° And in that very hour Michael descended, and the gate was opened ; and he brought oil. And as for the angels which brought the baskets which were full, he filled them with oil, saying, Take

8. an exceedingly great vessel. Cf. Rev. v. 8, ‘Golden bowls of incense which are the prayers of the saints’ (cf. viii. 3). The cabalistic work Zohar (thirteenth century A.D.) says that the angel Sundelfon forms of the prayers a crown for the Almighty.

XII. 1. angels. The function of presenting the prayers of men to God is not limited to Michael in Jewish literature. Tob. xii. 5 reads ‘I am Raphael, one of the seven holy angels, which present the prayers of the saints, and go in before the glory of the Holy One’. T. Levi iii. 5 ff. reads ‘In [the heaven next to] it, are the archangels, who minister and make propitiation to the Lord, for all the sins of ignorance of the righteous: offering to the Lord a sweet-smelling savour, a reasonable and bloodless offering’. Then follows a reference to the subordinate angels mentioned in our text, ‘And [in the heaven below this] are the angels who bear answers to the angels of the presence.’ Apoc. Pauli in the Greek mentions the coming of three classes of angels, two joyful and the third dejected. The first are the guardians of the godly, the second of the ascetics, and the third of the worldly. The last class desire to be relieved of their charge, but their request is not granted. The first of these classes is omitted in Latin and Syriac. For the significance of the three classes of angels in our text, see Introd. § 8.

baskets, ra xavioxia. This form, which occurs three times in our Apoc., is regular. But 6 kdyioxos and 7 kavicKos (xv) do not appear to occur elsewhere.

flowers. The Spanish text of 4 Ezra adds to a list of names in i. 40 ‘et angelos duodecim cum floribus’ (Cambridge Texts and Studies, iii. 2, p. 85).

3. who are over the righteous. Text reads oi émi tay e£ovo1ay, which hardly harmonizes with the context. As Slavonic reads ‘ These are they who wait upon righteous men’, it is perhaps best to follow Ryssel and read dtkaiwy for eEovctav.

6. (neither) empty nor full. Text reads ceva od yéuovra. From the context it is evident that the baskets were partly filled. It is therefore necessary to read (ot/re) xeva oU (re) yéeporra.

the prizes. Cf. Phil. iii. 14; 1 Cor. ix. 24.

XIII. 4. entering [into Church... nor], cicedOeiv [ev exxAnota more, ovd€ eis mvevparixods matépas ovde] els dyabdv ev. The clause in brackets is a Christian interpolation. The construction cice\Oety év is clumsy, the original sequence being evidently e’s. The expression mvevparixol marépes is distinctively Christian. It is possible that eis arépas stood in the original, as the official title ‘father’ was in use among the Scribes (Matt. xxili. 8 ff.). If the whole phrase is an interpolation it is later than the Christian redactor. At the martyrdom of Polycarp the mob shouted, ‘This is the Christians’ father’ (Mart. Polyc. 12), but there is no evidence that at this time Christians themselves applied the term to their bishops. In the West, in Cyprian’s time, the bishop was known as fafa. It is not till the fourth century that we find teachers of a past generation described as ‘fathers’ (Ath. EZ. ad Afros 6). See Swete, Patristic Study, p. 5.

fornications, &c. See Introd. § 6.

XV. 2. which were full, wAjpys. Ryssel reads tAnpy, but it is more probable that mAnpys is used indeclinably (cf. Moulton, Prolegomena, p. 50). filled them. i.e. the baskets.

it away, reward our friends an hundredfold, and those who have laboriously wrought good works. 3 For those who sowed virtuously, also reap virtuously. And he said also to those bringing the half-empty baskets, Come hither ye also; take away the reward according as ye brought, and 4 deliver z¢ to the sons of men. [Then he said also to those who brought the full and to those who brought the half-empty baskets: Go and bless our friends, and say to them that thus saith the Lord, Ye are faithful over a few things, I will set you over many things; enter into the joy of your Lord. I a turning he said also to those who brought nothing: Thus saith the Lord, Be not sad of 2 countenance, and weep not, nor let the sons of men alone. But since they angered me in their works, go and make them envious and angry and provoked against a people that is no people, a 3 people that has no understanding. Further, besides these, send forth the caterpillar and the unwinged locust, and the mildew, and the common locust (and) hail with lightnings and anger, and 4 punish them severely with the sword and with death, and their children with demons. For they did not hearken to my voice, nor did they observe my commandments, nor do ¢hem, but were despisers of my commandments, and insolent towards the priests who proclaimed my words to

171,2 And while he yet spake, the door was closed, and we withdrew. And the angel took me and

3 restored me to the place where J was at the beginning. And having come to myself, I gave glory

4 to God, who counted me worthy of such honour. Wherefore do ye also, brethren, who obtained such a revelation, yourselves also glorify God, so that He also may glorify you, now and ever, and to all eternity. Amen. ;

3. he said also to. éye is used with the simple accusative of the person addressed. half-empty. Text reads droxévovs. The context makes it clear that the angels referred to are those bearing the baskets which were neither full nor empty. We must therefore read trokévous, somewhat empty. 4. The words in brackets are a Christian interpolation, as is evident not only from the quotation from Matt., but also from the fact that the re-enumeration of the first two classes of angels destroys the symmetry of the passage. half-empty. For dmoxeva read trdkeva. over afew things. Text reads emi ddiyn. It should probably read emi ddlya. Cf. Matt. xxv. 20. I will set you. For cataorjoe: in text read xaraorjow (Ryssel).

XVI. 1. Slavonic reads ‘ But Michael said: Listen. ye angels of God; it is not ordered that you should depart from sinful men, but you are ordered to labour for them till they repent and return. I will judge them, saith the Lord. And again there was a voice from the heavens: Attend upon the sinners till they repent ; for if they do not repent, then ye shall inflict upon them a cruel disease and sudden death, and locusts and caterpillars, frost and thunder and hail and demons and the destruction of cities; and ye shall strangle their children, because God is not feared [among them] and they do not gather together in the Church of God for the sake of prayer, and instead of prayer they bring cursings’. Cf. Apoc. Pauli Io.

3. punish them severely, Stxorounoare. Cf. Matt. xxiv. 51.

4. The Greek text has nothing to say as to the future destiny of the righteous and of the wicked, but the Slavonic reads ‘The angel said to me: Look, servant of God, and see the resting-place of the righteous, and their glory and joy and delight : and again see the resting-place of the wicked, their tears and sobs and worms that never sleep. The sinners call to heaven: O just judge, have pity upon us. And I Baruch said to the angel: Who are these, my Lord? And he said to me: These are the sinners. And I said to the angel: Bid me, my Lord, that I may weep with them so that the Lord may hear my voice and pity them. A voice came from heaven saying: Take Baruch to the earth, that he may tell to the sons of men all the secrets of God, which he has seen and heard.’ The absence of any parallel to this passage is further evidence of the free treatment of the concluding sections of the original by the editor of the Greek text in its present form.

the priests who proclaimed my words to them. The term izpevs does not seem to have been applied to the Christian ministry till the end of the second century.

XVII. 2. restored... beginning. See 2 Bar. vii. 2 (note). Ba Clas 2 bar liv. ot

yA Roan

GENERAL IN EFRODUCTION

THE Fourth Book of Ezra (or 2 Esdras) is extant in a number of translations, all of which have been made, apparently, from a lost Greek version ; and this, there is reason to believe, was itself made in the first instance from a Hebrew original. The extant translations are in the following languages: Latin, Syriac, Ethiopic, Arabic (two independent versions), and Armenian. The most important of the versions is the Latin ; and it is through this version, incorporated in many important Latin Biblical MSS., that the book has passed first into the Latin Bible (the Vulgate), as an appendix ; and thence into our Bibles as one of the Deutero-canonical books, or official Apocrypha. The Ezra-Apocalypse proper corresponds to chapters 3-14 of the 2 Esdras of our Apocrypha (or the Fourth Book of Ezra of the Vulgate). Chapters 1 and 2 and 15 and 16 belong only to the Latin form of the book; the Oriental versions recognize only chapters 3-14. The chief conclusions reached by the present Editor regarding the Ezra-Apocalypse are the following: (a) The work is of composite character. In its present form it is a compilation made by an Editor or Redactor (R), and was published by him about the year A. D. 120, in the early part of the reign of Hadrian. The sources utilized by R were—

(1) a Salathiel-Apocalypse (S) which was originally published in Hebrew in the year A. D. 100, and is almost wholly embodied in our book. It is contained in chapters 3-10 mainly (= the first four visions), together with a certain amount of interpolated material.

(2) To this have been appended three independent pieces, extracts from other apocalypses, viz. the Eagle-Vision ( ch. 11-12), denominated A ( Adlergesicht), the Son of Man Vision ( ch. 13), denominated M ( Menschensohn), and the Ezra-legend (= ch. 14 mainly), denominated E2.

(3) Extracts from another source have also been utilized by R and interpolated in S. These are from an old Ezra-Apocalypse (denominated E), and detail the signs which precede the End of the world (iv. 52-v. 13a and vi. 11-29). This source may also have been utilized by R in his compilation of the passages vii. 26-44 and viii. 63-1x. 12.

The whole has been compiled in its present form by R, the different material being welded together by redactional links and adjustments. But the distinctive features of the sources have not been seriously affected. The purpose of the compilation appears to have been to commend the apocalyptic literature to certain Rabbinical circles which were hostile, and to secure for it a permanent place within orthodox Judaism. With this end in view the Redactor invested the whole composite work with the name of Ezra—a name specially honoured in the Rabbinical Schools—and ~ took care to select material in which the cruder elements of the older apocalyptic had been largely refined away. The compilation thus represents a fusion, to some extent, of the Rabbinical and Apocalyptic types of thought of a novel kind. Its importance for the history of Rabbinical doctrine and for the elucidation of the earlier (pre-Talmudic) phases of Judaism is very great. Together with the twin- Apocalypse 2 Baruch, which may have been edited in its final form somewhat later, it may be regarded as the product of a school of writers; in the one case—4 Ezra—we have a writing which reflects the influence of the School of Shammai; in the other—2 Baruch—one that reflects the work of a school of writers under the influence of Aqiba.

§ 2. TITLE OF THE BOOK.

In most of the Latin MSS. the additional chapters (1-2 and 15-16) are distinguished from the Apocalypse proper by a separate enumeration, and are marked off as separate books. A common arrangement is the following :

1 Esdras = Ezra-Nehemiah of the Canon.

2, Esdras = 4 Ezra, chapters 1-2 (2 Esdras i-ii of our Apocrypha).

3 Esdras = 1 Esdras of our Apocrypha (3 Esdras of the Vulgate).

4 Esdras = 4 Ezra, chapters 3-14 (our Apocalypse).

TW EZRA

5 Esdras = 4 Ezra, chapters 15-16 (2 Esdras xv—xvi of our Apocrypha).

According to this enumeration :

2 Esdras = chapters 1-2.

4 Esdras = 5» 3-14 (our Apocalypse).

This is adopted by James (BF, p. xxvii).?

The prevailing usage of the Latin MSS. (including the important codices SA) is to designate chapters 3-14 (= our Apocalypse) as the Fourth Book of Ezra (4 Ezra). (See also Vol. I, pp. 2-3 of this work on this question.—Gen. Edit.)

The Oriental versions are also inconsistent in the titles they employ. In Ar.! and Ethiop. the Apocalypse (= chapters 3-14) is called Zhe First Book of Ezra. The Syr. and Ar.” attach no number to the title. It seems probable that the title prefixed to the lost Greek version was "Eodpas 6 mpopyrns, as Clement of Alexandra quotes from our Apocalypse as from "Esdpas 6 rpodirns (cf. Clem. Alex., S¢vomateis, iii. 16), while St. Ambrose also uses the name propheta Ezra (cf. also the opening words of 4 Ezra i liber Ezrae prophetae secundus). Another possible form (suggested by Westcott) is "AmoxdAvwis "Eodpa.

§ 3. THE ANCIENT VERSIONS.

(2) THE LATIN. The text‘of the Old Latin version reproduced in the Vulgate rests upon late MS. authority, and is full of corruptions and inaccuracies. The first serious contribution towards the formation of a critical text was made.by Sabatier in the eighteenth century, who noted the variants of the Codex Sangermanensis (Codex S) in his great corpus of the Latin texts of the Bible.” A further advance was made by Volkmar in 1863, who published a Latin text, adding the variants of a Ziirich MS. (Codex Turicensis, thirteenth century), in his edition of our Apocalypse.* A few years later Hilgenfeld in his Messtas [udaeorum (Leipzig, 1869), and Fritzsche (Lzbrz Vet. Test. pseudepigraphi selecti, Leipzig, 1871) published critical editions of the Latin text embodying readings from other MSS. But all previous work in this direction was dwarfed into insignificance when Bensly in 1875 published his epoch-making contribution to the critical study of 4 Ezra—The missing fragment of the Latin translation of the Fourth Book of Ezra (Cambridge). Up to this time all known MSS. of the Latin text yielded a defective text of chapter 7: a long passage (some 70 verses) was missing between verses 35 and 36 of this chapter, as was shown clearly by the Oriental versions which attest the missing verses. In 1875 Bensly had the good fortune to discover the Latin text of the missing fragment in a ninth-century MS. which was then in the possession of the communal library of Amiens. The discovery was without delay communicated to the world in a splendid edition of the text of the fragment, enriched with a valuable introduction and commentary. Bensly’s Wissing Fragment (MF) is valuable not only for the text of the fragment itself, but for the textual study of the whole book. It abounds with notes, remarks, and accurate information which make it indispensable for the serious student of the Latin Bible. The curious lacuna in chapter 7 which characterizes all known Latin MSS. (except the few enumerated below) is due to the mutilation of the great Codex S (preserved in the Bibliothéque Nationale of Paris).* In 1856 Prof. Gildermeister, in collating this MS., discovered that a leaf (which had originally contained the missing fragment) had been (no doubt purposely) cut out in early times. ‘From this and other indications he drew the indisputable and highly important conclusion that a// MSS. of 4 Esdras which do not contain that passage were ultimately derived from the Codex Sangermanensis.... Codex S is the oldest known manuscript of 4 Esdras and is the parent of the vast majority of extant copies.’ ®

Besides (1) Codex S the following are among the most important MSS. for text-critical purposes :

(2) Codex A (i.e. Codex Ambianensis). This is the MS. in which Prof. Bensly discovered the missing fragment. It was apparently written in the ninth century, and, though closely related to S, has an independent value by the side of it.

(3) Codex C (Codex Complutensis, formerly at Complutum) known as the Bible of Alcala. It is now in the Library of the Central University at Madrid. The text is independent of S and A; date ninth to tenth century. This MS. contains the missing fragment, and curiously enough the text of the latter had been transcribed by Prof. Palmer in 1826, but never published by him. After the publication of J7F in 1875 this transcript was found among Prof. Palmer’s papers, and was printed in the Journal of Philology in 1877

1 The Latin MSS. vary considerably in the enumeration: see for further details the present writer's Ezra- Apocalypse, p. iv; Bensly, JZ/, pp. 85-86; and B/, pp. xxvi foll.

2 Bibliorum sacrorum latinae versiones antiguae, tom. iii (Rheims, 1749). The date of Codex S is 822.

8 Das vierte Buch Esra (Tiibingen, 1863), pp. 3-213.

4 Fonds latins, 11505. iB} pecs.

(4) Codex M (Codex Mazarinaeus): in the Bibliothtque Mazarine at Paris. The existence of this MS. was made known by M. Berger in 1885. Its text (which includes the missing fragment) is of the same type as that of C (eleventh century).

To these—the principal MS. authorities—must now be added :

(5) Codex V (= Codex Adulensts) now in the Biblioteca Nacional at Madrid. It is known as the Bible of Avila. Its text is unmutilated, and appears to be a copy of Codex C (early thirteenth century). It was discovered by M. Berger.

(6) Codex L (Codex Legionensis) in the Library of San Isidro de Leon at Leon. This Codex (in 3 vols.) contains a remarkable text of 4 Ezra, which diverges from that of all other authorities. According to Violet these peculiarities are largely due to deliberate revision by a late transcriber. Its date, according to the same scholar, is probably about 1300. See further Violet, pp. xxii—xxiv.

(7) The latest discovered unmutilated text is a MS. which is denoted N (Codex N) by Violet. It is preserved at Brussels, and its existence was first made known in October, 1906 (by D. Donatien de Bryne, O.S.B.). It is part of a Bible in 4 vols.; the writing is of the twelfth century. According to Violet its text is closely related to that of M (hence the choice of the symbol N).

For the special MS. evidence that exists for chap. viii. 20-36 (the so-called Confessio Esdrae) see the introductory section to that passage in the present writer’s edition of the book (ZA, p. 176); and cf. further the introductions of #7 and Violet for this point, and for the MS. evidence generally: also Bensly JZ7,

The critical edition of the text of the whole book, which Bensly was prevented from completing by death, was finally edited and published, with a valuable introduction, by Dr. M. R. James, in 1895.1 A splendid critical edition of the Latin text, with a full apparatus criticus, and with German translations of the Oriental versions (also provided with an apparatus criticus) in parallel columns has been edited by Dr. Bruno Violet for the Royal Prussian Academy of Science, and recently published.?

Both Bensly (with James) and Violet agree in the conclusion that broadly the MSS. yield two types of text: the one, represented by the group SA, may be styled the French recension ( Violet’s ¢); the other, the Spanish recension, represented by the group CMNVL ( Violet’s y). On the whole the former group (¢) yields a decidedly superior text to that of the latter (w).

See further on this point Violet, § 12. Violet also (p. xxvi) calls attention to the existence of a number of Latin MSS. containing the unmutilated text of our book, which are in existence at various libraries, but have not as yet been utilized for the criticism of the text.

The Latin translation of the book, which, like the Oriental versions, was made from the lost Greek version, is undoubtedly very early. It was well known to Ambrose of Milan, who cites freely from it (see BF, pp. xxxii-xxxiv). Possible but doubtful citations are made by Tertullian (4 Ezra viii. 20) and Cyprian (4 Ezra-v. 54, 55). It has also been supposed that Commodian the Christian poet of the third century, cites 4 Ezra xiii. 4of. It is interesting to note in this connexion that it seems fairly probable that in the time of Ambrose the Latin text of the additional chapters 15-16 was already current ‘in the version in which we possess them and... that they were also attached to chapters 3-14’.° The Latin version as a whole is singularly faithful and literal, and it is not difficult to arrive at the Greek text underlying it. It has itself suffered a certain amount of internal corruption in transmission ; but this, with the aid partly of new MS. evidence, and partly of the ~ other versions, can often be corrected successfully. From every point of view it is the most valuable of the versions that have come down to us,

Of the Oriental versions the most valuable is (4) THE SyrtIAc. This is far more faithful and less paraphrastic than the other Oriental versions. The Syriac text of the book is unfortunately only known to us in a single MS. authority—the great Ambrosian (sixth century) Bible-Codex at Milan, which has been made available for scholars by the Italian scholar A. Ceriani. In this Codex 4 Ezra follows the Baruch-Apocalypse, and precedes the canonical books of Ezra and Nehemiah (here reckoned as one book: viz. the second Book of Ezra): 4 Ezra has no number attached to it. A printed edition of the Syriac text has been published by Ceriani in his Monumenta sacra et profana (vol. v, fasc. i, 1868) ; and it is also included in the photo-lithographic reproduction of the Ambrosian Codex. Ceriani’s Latin translation of the Syriac text of 4 Ezra is reprinted, with some improve-

1 The Fourth Book of Ezrain Texts and Studies (vol. iii, no. 2): Cambridge. 2 Die Esra-Apocalypse (4 Esra): Erster Teil: Die Ueberlieferung. Leipzig, 1910. (A second volume is to

follow.) 8 BJ, p. xiii. For the whole subject of the ancient quotations of 4 Ezra cf. the full discussion (with the passages

set out in full) in B/, pp. xxvii f.

ments, in Hilgenfeld’s Messias Judacorum, pp. 212 ff. Like all the Oriental versions the Apocalypse in the Syriac text consists of chapters 3-14 of the Latin only. A translation (in German) with critical notes is printed in Violet, vol. i.

(c) THE ETHIoPIc. This version was first published in 1820 by the famous Orientalist Richard Laurence (afterwards Archbishop of Cashel; editor of z Eumoch and. of The Ascension of Tsaiah). Waurence’s Latin translation of the Ethiopic text, revised by Praetorius, is printed in Hilgenfeld’s Messias Iudaeorum (pp. 262 ff.). A critical text of this version, based upon the collation of several MSS., was prepared by Dillmann and published after his death." A French translation, based upon Dillmann’s critical text, was published by Basset in 1899. The Ethiopic version is not so valuable as the Syriac. It is much more paraphrastic and free in its handling of the text, but it sometimes attests interesting and important readings, and is important for the criticism of the Greek text underlying it. A German translation, based upon Dillmann, is printed in Violet, vol. i (with critical notes).

(2) THE ARABIC VERSIONS. Two independent Arabic versions of the book are in existence which (following Gunkel) we may designate Ar.1 and Ar.*. Of the first Arabic version (Ar.') two MSS. are known to be in existence—the original MS. in the Bodleian Library at Oxford (part of the Laudian collection), and a transcript of this preserved at the Vatican. An English translation was made by Simon Ockley from the Oxford MS., and appeared in William Whiston’s Primitive Christianity reviv'd (vol. iv, 1711), and a Latin version, made from Ockley’s English, and corrected by Steiner from the Arabic text, is given in Hilgenfeld (of. cz¢. pp. 323 ff.). The Arabic text was first published by Ewald in Abhandlungen d. Konigl. Gesellsch. d. Wissenschaften zu Gottingen.”

In this MS. our book appears as 1 Ezra; then follows Ezra-Nehemiah as 2 Ezra, succeeded by the Book of Tobit. A curious fact concerning the Oxford MS. is that there is a lacuna in the text of one page, which is supplied by the Vatican transcript. There are two other lacunae common to both MSS. In 1898 Violet, however, found in the Oxford MS. itself (but displaced) the missing page, which is given in the Vatican transcript in its right place (see further Violet, pp. xxxi-xxxvi). This version, which is exceedingly free, was also made from a Greek text; whether it—or the Greek text underlying it—has been revised is uncertain. A German translation, with critical notes, is given in Violet.

The Second Arabic Version (Ar.*) is an independent version made directly from the Greek. It exists in a complete form in a Vatican MS. (Arab. 462) which has been edited and published, with a Latin translation, by Gildemeister (Esdrae liber quartus arabice e cod. Vat., Bonn 1877). Extracts from this version are contained in an Oxford (Bodleian) MS. 260; and a fragment containing ch. vii. 75-91 has been found in a Paris MS. by Violet.

This version contains some interesting and valuable readings which have led Gunkel to postulate the existence of a second Greek version, made from the Hebrew original, which he supposes to have been the basis of this version.

Gunkel supports this view by citing chap. viii. 23 where Ar.’, alone among the versions, renders ceaseless

(eternal) Heb. syd: the other versions imply for a witness ( “y). Evidently there were two Greek readings, representing two renderings of a single Hebrew text. One has been followed by Ar.’; the other by the other versions. Again, in xiv. 3 Ar.? has Sizaz ( 9D) where the other versions have dush ( 3D)— phenomena which point to different readings in the Greek, due to a difference of reading the Hebrew. But it is not necessary to infer from such instances (which, in any case, are few) that two different recensions of the Greek existed. The readings more probably represent marginal variants or corrections in the Greek exemplar used. In any case, as Violet has shown, both Ar.’ and Ar.” go back to one recension of the Greek, which is characterized by a lacuna in the text, viii. 50-ix. 1 being omitted. It is probable that different MSS. of this Greek recension (if it may be so called) were used by the translators of Ar.’ and Ar.’.

Thus Ar.’, though it is very free and paraphrastic on the whole, is often an important textual witness, and must never be neglected.

It is interesting to notice that Ar.? agrees with the Syr. in omitting the first half of xi. 30 ( et vidi qguomodo complexa est), and again with the Syr. in attesting (in xi. 43) a clause which has fallen out in all the other versions ( ¢hat thou shouldst forsake us also).

Two further fragments of an Arabic version independent of Ar.’ and Ar.* are also known; but these seem to be of secondary importance, depending, as they not improbably do, on the Latin

1 Veteris Testamenti Aethiopict tomus v (Berlin, 1894, pp. 152-93). 2 1863, vol. xi (also reprinted separately).

version. [See further Violet, xxxi-xxxix: Violet gives a German translation of both Ar.! and Ar. with critical notes. |

(e) THE ARMENIAN. This version was first printed in the Armenian Bible of 1805 (Venice), and again in the Armenian edition of the Apocrypha of the Old Testament (Venice, 1896). A Latin translation (by J. H. Petermann) is given in Hilgenfeld (of. cz¢. pp. 378 ff.), and a German one by Violet. The version is exceedingly free, and possesses little or no value for the criticism of the text. It may have been made from the Syriac.

(f) FRAGMENTS AND TRACES OF OTHER VERSIONS. An important discovery of some fragments of a Sahidic version of our book was made known in 1904.! The fragment in question covers chap. xiii. 29-46; but the leaf containing it is unfortunately much damaged. The recovery of other parts of this version, which is not impossible, would probably afford valuable help in reconstructing the underlying Greek text, if, as is likely, the Sahidic was made directly from the Greek. The Sahidic translation would certainly embody many of the original Greek words as loan-words.

Traces also exist of an old Georgian version of our book. [See further Violet, pp. xl ff.]

$4. THE LOST GREEK VERSION.

The dependence of all the versions (with the possible exception of the Armenian) upon a lost Greek version hardly needs any detailed proof. The differences between the versions can constantly be explained by corruptions of a Greek text underlying them.

To select a few instances out of many: in v. 28 the Latin has pracparasti ( yToacas) unam radicem super alias ; but the Oriental versions rightly render ‘thou hast dishonoured ( ytacas) the one root’, &c. Again in vii. 26 the Latin has ef apparebit sponsa [et| apparescens civitas ‘and the bride shall appear even the city appearing’ (so Syr. substantially) ; but the true text, represented by the Ethiopic and Armenian runs: then shall the city that now 1s invisible appear Kar pavnoetar n vey pn patvopevn zodts which was misread by the Latin ka: davnoerar n vupdy fawomevyn ods. In x. 28, again, the true text represented by the Latin and the Oriental versions, with the exception of the Ethiopic, runs: for he tt 7s who has caused me to fall into this great bewilderment (exoracw) ; but the Ethiopic has search for dewz/derment, misreading exoraow as e€eraow.

Further, the internal evidence of the versions singly often clearly demonstrates dependence upon a Greek underlying text. Thus the Latin sometimes reproduces Greek constructions (e. g. the genitive absolute, v. 55), and Greek genders unknown to Latin (e.g. x. 23 signaculum Sion... resignata est: ‘seal’ being treated as fem. as in Greek=n ogpayis). See further on these points WF, pp. 17 f.; 4A, pp. xi, xviii (see also Index V of the latter work under Greek constructions and Greek words).

Positive evidence of the existence of such a Greek version as is desiderated by the evidence of the secondary versions is afforded by actual citations in the early patristic literature, as well as by the existence of Greek works which have been based upon, or imitated from, the lost Greek version. The most certain of the citations are the citation of v. 35 in Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis, iii. 16; and of viii. 23 in Const. Apost. viii. 7; while Const. Apost. ii. 14 contains a passage, the language of which is strongly reminiscent of vii. 103 (fathers for sons, sons for parents, brothers Jor brothers, kinsfolk for their nearest, friends for their dearest). The passage in question runs as

Ei @ tarépes tréep Téxvwv od Timwpodvrat, ovTE viol Urep TaTépwv, ShAov as obre yuvaikes brep avdpov, ovte olkérat Umep SeomoTGv, ovTE ovyyevels bmep cvyyevOr, OTE Hiro. tréep Pirwr, ovTe dSikaror (v. 2. Sikaros) tmep adlkwv. GAN Exacros bTép Tod olkelov Epyou Tov Adyov anaitnOjoeTar.

A knowledge of the Greek 4 Ezra appears to be presupposed, also in the Hippolytean fragment mepl tod mavtds.2 The alleged citations in our book of the Apzstle of Barnabas are, however, more than doubtful (see the notes on v. g below). or a full discussion of these points reference must be made to SF, pp. xxvii-xxx; cf. also HA, p. xii. For later Greek works which have imitated the Greek 4 Ezra (viz. the Apocalypses of Esdras and Sedrach), see Violet, pp. l-lix.

The reconstruction of the lost Greek text from the Latin version of our book has been carried out with a considerable amount of success by Hilgenfeld (with the assistance of Lagarde and Hermann Ronsch). It is printed in Messtas Iudaeorum (pp. 36-113), and is a most valuable piece of work. Volkmar, also, in his edition of our book (Das wierte Buch Esra, 1863) has constantly suggested Greek renderings which are often important for this purpose; while in Gunkel’s commentary some

1 In the Zeitschrift fiir dgyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde (Band 41, Heft 2, pp. 138-40). 2 Also cited sometimes as ‘ Hippolytus Against Plato’.

VO EZRA

useful notes of a similar character by Wilamowitz are occasionally cited. An elaborate reconstruction is promised by Violet.

A specimen of the Greek translation of part of the additional chapters, which do not strictly belong to the Ezra-Apocalypse, viz. 4 Ezra xv. 57-59, has been discovered (1909) among the Oxyrhynchus papyri, and been published with other papyri in the collection of Grenfell and Hunt. This important find encourages the hope that parts, or even the whole, of the lost Greek version of the Apocalypse proper may yet come to light.

Gunkel (af. Kautzsch) has propounded a theory that two independent Greek translations of a Hebrew original were made; while the Lat., Syr., Ethiop., Ar.’ (and possibly the Armenian) rest upon one of these, Ar.’, he thinks, rests upon a mixed Greek text, made up of the edition used by the other versions, and a second made independently and later. The evidence adduced for this view is, however, very slight, and has already been dealt with above in § 3d (in connexion with Ar.?). The textual phenomena are susceptible of an alternative and simpler explanation, viz. that Ar.? has embodied marginal variants occasionally ; while, in other respects, it has handled its Greek text rather freely, omitting considerable portions. [For Volkmar’s theory of a second Greek recension see £A, p. xiii. |

§ 5. THE ORIGINAL HEBREW TEXT.

The most recent investigators of the textual problems of our book are agreed in postulating a Hebrew text as the original form in which 4 Ezra was composed. These scholars include Wellhausen, Charles, Gunkel, and Violet.1_ The opposite view (of a Greek original) has been championed by Liicke, Volkmar, and Hilgenfeld.

The fullest discussion of the grounds for assuming a Hebrew original is that of Wellhausen.? It may be said, without qualification, that judged by any of the properly applicable tests, the

-phenomena point to a Semitic original. THE SYNTAX REFLECTS CHARACTERISTICALLY HEBREW FEATURES. Thus the sentences are co-ordinated with rather than subordinated to each other, and in consequence it is sometimes difficult to determine exactly where the protasis of a hypothetical sentence ends, and the apodosis begins.

Cp. e.g. ii. 12 (e¢ factum est cum cocpissent multiplicari . . . et multiplicaverunt filios . . . et coeperunt

. tmptetatem facere, Sc.) ; ili. 17 f. (e¢ factum est cum educeres semen eius ex Aegypto et adduxisti eos... Et

transit gloria tua, &c.); il. 29f.; v. 4 ff.; v. 31; vi. 18f In some of these cases the punctuation of the editors is not certainly correct—the sentences should, perhaps, be run on.

Note also turns of expression as e¢ factum est et and et erit et, which are essentially Hebrew modes of expression, as also are e¢ ecce (very frequent in chapters 10 and 11), and e¢ widi et ecce (iv. 48, xi. If.) or et audivi et ecce (vi. 18). All these, as Wellhausen points out, are characteristically Hebrew, and not Greek.

THE FOLLOWING ARE EXAMPLES OF STRONGLY MARKED HEBRAISMS: the complement of the relative by a demonstrative pronoun, e. g. de quibus si mihi renunciaveris ex his (iv. 4), de quo me interrogas de co (iv. 28), in quo stas super eum (vi. 14), super quem stabam super eum (vi. 29), gut per semet ipsum liberabit creaturam suam (xiii. 26).

The last instance cited is an excellent example of the ambiguity which may arise from the misunderstanding of the Hebrew relative and its complement (the Heb. relative particle "Wx does not distinctly express either number or case). Similar instances of misunderstanding also occur in ix. 20 ( propter cogitationes quae im eo advenerunt should be fp. ¢. eorum qui in eo, &c.); and in xill. 40 (guem captivum duxit Salmanassar should be guwas or guos captivos duxit, &c.).

The construction of the Hebrew infinitive absolute with the finite verb is of extraordinarily frequent occurrence. It is usually rendered by a particle or by an abstract substantive.

The following are illustrative of numerous examples: excedens excesstt cor tuum (iv. 2); festinans festinat saeculum pertransire (iv. 26); mensura mensuravit tempora et numero numeravit tempora (iv. 37); odtens odisti populum tuum (vy. 30). The number of these examples might be somewhat increased if the instances could be added where the Syr. attests the same construction without the support of the Latin.

One of the characteristic features of Hebrew, which it shares with other old Semitic languages, is the paucity of its adverbs. The language, consequently, is forced to adopt other modes of speech in order to express the adverbial idea. The infinitive absolute often does duty in this way (expressing intensity or iteration: surely, much, often, &c.). But sometimes cther methods are resorted to. Thus repeated action ( agazz) is expressed in Hebrew by such phrases as ¢o add to do (DIN + another verb). This usage is reflected in our text by such un-Greek expressions as adictam (dicere)

1 Among earlier scholars Ewald (His¢. of Zsraed, vol. 7) held this view ; earlier still Jo. Morinus.

coram te (v. 32); superdixerunt ve 23); noli ergo adicere inquirendo (viii. 55); adiciam dolorem (ix. 41); adposui adhuc loqui (x. 19).

The usage of prepositions is often Hebrew rather than Greek (see the examples cited in ZA, pxvf.). The characteristic features of Hebrew style are marked throughout all sections of the book, Thus in the dialogue between the seer and the angel the expression ke answered (I answered) and

said constantly recurs; cf. also ask... and say, v. 46, 50. Before the oratio recta saying (= spn) is constantly prefixed, dzxit dicens even occurring (xi. 37, xii. 40). Such diffuseness is a well-known feature in Hebrew composition. Another characteristic feature in the dialogue is the self-designation of the human speaker as ¢hy servant, while the angel is addressed as domine (cf. v. 45-56, vi. 12,

The title of address O dominator domine (O Lord that bearest rule, R.V.) which occurs several times is properly applicable only to God = Agomora ktpié pou (Heb. *378 Ay or ANN 1958).

Characteristically Hebrew, again, is the artless simplicity with which sentences (esp. imperative forms of speech) are constantly expanded by the use of redundant expressions.

The following examples are cited by Wellhausen: vade pondera mihi (iv. 5); venite e¢ eamus (iv. 14) ; ventte ascendentes debellemus (iv. 15); vade et interroga (iv. 40), &c. The materializing of the action is detailed by the side of the description of the action itself : e.g. Respext oculis mets et vidi (ix. 38); apertum est os meum et inchoavi dicere (ix. 28). Especially frequent is the somewhat similar use of ézctpere (= Heb. ollowing are also examples of expanded descriptions of simple actions, which are characteristically Hebrew : surge super pedes tuos . 153 Vi. 13, 173 X. 30; xi. 7); capax est tibt visus oculorum videre (x. 55); torquent me renes met (Vv. 31); cogitationes meae ascenderunt super cor meusm (iii. 1); conturbatus est sensus cordts tut (x. 31); me expavescat cor tuum (x. 55); vultus tuus tristis (v. 16); amara animo (ix. 41); figmentum manuum twarum (ill. 53 vill. 7); Plantavit dextera tua (iii. 6). The bare mention of the person who is the instrument or object of an action is not sufficient; the organ through which the action is performed must also be

mentioned. ‘Thus the writer says ¢hy vig: cht hand has planted for thou hast planted, thy countenance is sad for thou art sad, &c.

Further examples of genuine Hebraisms are the following: dzxz in corde meo (iii. 28) ; accepisti in corde tuo (vii. 16) ; reddere animam suam (vii. 75); non dirigentur viae corum (evodotcbat v. 12) ; dare vocem suam (=p jna v. 5,7); nomen uni vocasti (vi. 49); nomen tuum invocatum est super nos (iv. 25, X. 22); fiebat species coruscus (x. 25); factus est tn uno casus eorum (iii. 10); factus est Lacob in multitudine magna (iii. 16); factus est in vano (iv. 16); concupiscentia gustus multiformis

A number of words are used also in a sense that can only be explained by Hebrew usage: cf. e.g. confractio (vii. 108 and note), cor marts (iv. 7), flumen ( the River sc. Euphrates, xiii. 40), “gnwm tree (iv. 13; v. 5 Heb. yy both wood and ¢ree), multus for magnus (Heb. 37, x. 38, &c.), nationes ( NWI or mn i iil. 7 and note), xomina (names individuals, persons, iii. 36), opus ( Heb. nbyp reward vii. 35, cf. lil. 33 note 7m), proximus ? Heb. 317p (v. II interrogabit regio proximam suam), radix used in a technical

sense (v. 28, in another technical sense viii. 53 note 7), a saeculo ( nbdiyn ix. 7, 18), sermo 37 (vil. tor wt —

videant gui predictt sunt sermones), cf. also x. 5, spiritus intellectus (v. 22), unicus ( 1M v. 28), vas bellicosum among verbs the following, which reflect Hebrew usage, may be noted: vincere and vinct ( Heb. not and AWN, iil. 21, vi. 28, vil. 115, 128), confortare ( pin v. 15, &c.), congregari ( *DNI vil. 33), mguirere iustitiam ab 1 WT vi. 19 and note), sfernere used absolutely, like ieredporee ( 3b2 vin 7659 7G, ac.)

It would, no doubt, be possible to explain isolated examples in the lists given above without recourse to the hypothesis of a Hebrew original; but the cumulative effect of the whole evidence creates a presumption which amounts to a certainty that the Greek text which underlies the extant versions was itself a translation from a Hebrew original. The whole book is coloured by Hebrew diction, Hebrew modes of thought and characteristic modes of expression.

This conclusion is in no way weakened by the fact that Graecisms are of not infrequent occurrence. As Wellhausen remarks, Graecisms occur in the LXX. Attention has already been called to the fact of the occurrence of Greek usages and constructions in the Latin text. These merely reflect the Greek text on which the Latin translator worked. Of Graecisms proper in the Greek translation itself a good instance is in co quod misereatur (vii. 132) = év 7@ oixre(pew, several examples of which occur (év 7$+infin.). Occasional word-plays in the Greek may also be explained as due to the translator.’

1 For a full and detailed list see Volkmar, pp. 313 ff. * A good example of this occurs in xil. 24-5.

One other criterion exists by which the hypothesis of a Hebrew original may be tested: viz. whether the hypothesis will explain, or is compatible with, the variations that exist in the versions. A certain number of these are due to internal corruptions in the versions themselves.!_ But a large number of cases remains where divergent readings of the Greek can best be explained by the hypothesis of corruption in the original Hebrew text (for examples see the notes in the following commentary).

Again ex hypothest it ought to be possible throughout to arrive at an approximation to the underlying Hebrew text. This has been constantly borne in mind by the present editor, and it can confidently be asserted that, all through, the textual phenomena are compatible with a Hebrew original.

An apparent exception to this rule occurs in vi. 56 where the LXX of Isa. xl. 15 (dike unto spittle) is followed against the Masoretic Hebrew text. But this can be explained without violence to the hypothesis of a Hebrew original (cf. notes ad /oc.). The word-play in the Greek of xii. 24-25 has already been referred to.

In the previous discussion it has been assumed throughout that a Hebrew original is postulated. The textual phenomena certainly point to this rather than Aramaic. The constant use of such expressions as et factum est, et ertt, et ecce, and, above all, the recurring use of the infinitive absolute, point to a Hebrew rather than an Aramaic original.

It remains to add a word on the relation of the Hebrew original to the versions. The extant versions are, as has already been pointed out, translations directly from the lost Greek version (with the possible exception of the Armenian, which may have been made from the Syriac). The original Greek version was itself a translation of the Hebrew text which embraced the Apocalypse proper (i.e. chapters iii-xiv of 2 Esdras in the Vulgate form). To this original Greek version were appended (in the third century) the additional chapters (i-ii and xv—xvi of the Vulgate and our own official Apocrypha). They were composed in Greek and are of Christian origin. In the time of Ambrose apparently the Latin version of chapters xv-xvi was already current, and it is probable that these chapters were already attached to chapters iii—xiv (see further BY, p. xliii; and for the whole subject of this section ZA, pp. xiii-xix).

§ 6. THE COMPOSITE CHARACTER OF THE TEXT.

Is the present form of 4 Ezraa compilation, made by an editor from different sources ? Or is it, on the whole, a uniform composition which in a real sense goes back to a single author? The latter alternative is accepted by (among modern scholars) Gunkel? and F. C. Porter *; the former is upheld by Kabisch and Dr. Charles.

At the outset we are confronted with a datwm that strongly suggests the use by an editor of an independent source. In the very first verse we read: J Salathiel who am also Ezra (iii.1). This strange identification of Salathiel with Ezra cannot be justified historically, nor can it be explained as due to defective historical knowledge on the part of the original writer of this section of the book. The only adequate explanation is that an editor or compiler is using an independent writing in which the seer who is the recipient of the revelations that follow, spoke in the name of Salathiel, and that the compiler who utilized this written source was anxious, for some reason, to connect it with the name of Ezra; accordingly he inserted the words who am also Ezra.

What other explanation is possible? If it be assumed that the author wrote the words, then we must suppose that he thought of himself sometimes as Ezra, sometimes as Salathiel. But such an assumption is surely far-fetched, and in the highest degree unnatural. If the author had wished to speak throughout in the name of Ezra it would have been perfectly easy for him to do so. The importation of Salathiel would in that

case be perfectly gratuitous. On the other hand, if the identification be due to a compiler who is using sources, all is explained,

We may assume, then, that the present form of our book reveals unmistakably the hand of a Compiler or Redactor (R) who has used as asource an originally independent Salathiel-apocalypse (S). It remains to determine what arethe limits of S, so far as it is embodied in our own book, and what are its relations to other parts of the book.

§7. THE SOURCES OF THE BOOK.

No question arises in connexion with regard to chapters 3-10 which, apart from the eschatological passages, may be assigned as a whole toS. The Redactor (R) will, of course, be in evidence

1 A good example of internal corruption in the Latin is vii. 4 (a/¢wm for latum), 2 In Kautzsch. 8 The Messages of the Apocalyptical Writers (1909), p. 336. * See further the discussion of this point in £4, p. xxif.

occasionally ; but there will be little difficulty in assigning limits to his work after the more important question as to what other main sources, if any, are embodied in our own book has been discussed.

This resolves itself into the question whether the author of S can have embodied in his work the 5th, 6th and 7th visions of the book (chapters xi—xiv), or whether these are to be regarded in the light of appendices, drawn from independent sources, and inserted in their present position by R.

The famous Eagle-vision (chapters xi—xii) has all the appearance of an independent writing. It has a style and form of its own. But the all-important fact about it is that it reveals eschatological conceptions which are radically opposed to those of S._ The latter holds strongly to a dualistic and transcendental view. There are two ages; one the present corruptible age, and the other the glorious incorruptible age that is to succeed the present one, after the Final Judgement. The hopes of S are fixed on the latter ; he gives up the present as hopeless (see further § 10 (1)). On the other hand, in the Eagle-vision a strongly political view is held. The writer’s hopes are fixed on the annihilation of the Eagle (i.e. the Roman Empire). It is this that will mark the decisive moment ; the Day of Judgement will dawn, according to this writer’s conception, when the Roman Empire is annihilated by the Messiah, and the Rule of God becomes a reality upon the earth. The two conceptions are difficult to harmonize. Doubtless the compiler (R) did try to harmonize them by combining them in thought; he doubtless anticipated that the world, even after the victory of the Messiah over Rome, would still come to its predestined end which would usher in the final Day of Judgement. But can such a conception be attributed to S? If anything is certain about this writer it is that he wrestles with real difficulties, and strives to reach a real solution. He is not a mere collector of opposed opinions. The conviction that dominates the whole thought of S is that the evil which reigns in the present order is so deep-rooted that nothing less than the dissolution of the present world and the ushering in of the future and better world (or age) will suffice to eliminate the wrongs and unrighteousness that now exist.1 Is it conceivable that S can at the same time have held the view that the annihilation of the oppressive world-power by the Messiah will usher in a new age in the present world, which will bring felicity to those who live on into it, and justify the ways of God by making the divine rule a reality upon the earth? No. This older view was doubtless well known to S, and had failed to satisfy him. In his agonizing struggle for fresh light he implicitly repudiates the. older eschatology, with its political hopes and somewhat materialistic aspirations, and takes refuge in a transcendental view. Consequently we are justified in treating the Eagle-vision (A) as an independent source which owes its position in the book to R.2 The general theme of the Son of Man vision (ch. xiii)—viz. the annihilation of hostile powers and the setting up of the Messianic kingdom—is identical with that of the Eagle-vision. For the reasons already advanced it cannot, therefore, belong to S. Its eschatology also is different from that of the Eagle-vision, as will be shown later. Consequently it must be regarded as an independent writing. Though in tone and in some of its characteristic conceptions the final chapter (xiv) of our Apocalypse is much more akin to S than the two independent sources already referred to, it. yet cannot be regarded as belonging to the Salathiel-apocalypse. The situation presupposed throughout this

chapter (with the exception of some interpolations due to R) is that of the historical Ezra, living in the fifth century B.c.; it cannot, therefore, be brought into accordance with the situation of Salathiel (who lived a century earlier) as this is implied in S.?

Thus, as a result of our discussion, so far, we have reached the conclusion that the Salathielapocalypse (S) is contained within chapters iii-x of our book; while outside of and independent of this at least three other independent sources have been used, viz. the Eagle-vision (chapters xi—xii A), the Son of Man vision (ch. xiii M), and an Ezra-piece (ch. xiv=E”).

The combination of these elements into the present whole of the Ezra-apocalypse will have been the work of the compiler (R). In the process of redaction the hand of R will naturally be evident especially in fitting together the diverse material, and in the work of harmonization. It becomes important, therefore, to determine the extent and limits of R’s work.

But before this is attempted the question of the possible existence of another source within our book remains to be discussed. | Within the chapters which contain S there are four eschatological passages, marked by special features, the relation of which to S it is important to determine. These In general they contain eschatological descriptions, of a well-known traditional type, which set forth the ‘signs’ that are to precede the end of the world, and usher in the Final. Judgement.

Thus (1) describes the ‘signs’ that precede the End as follows: it will be a time of commotions, and the general break up of moral and religious forces (v. 1-2) ; the heathen world-power (= Rome) will be destroyed

1 Cf. especially iv. 26-43 (which should be carefully read). * See further the discussion in A, pp. 246 ff.

(v. 3); there will be portents in nature, general chaos in society, monstrous and untimely births, the failure of the means of subsistence, and internecine strife (v. 4-8, cf. vi. 21-22), and wisdom and understanding will have perished from the earth (v. ro-12). In (2) the description of the signs that precede the End is taken up again and interwoven with another which has for its subject the End of the world itself. It also contains a description of the felicity of those who survive the Messianic ‘ woes’ (vi. 13-28). In (3) a description is given of the sudden revelation of the Messiah, his 400 years’ reign on the earth and death, and finally a vivid delineation of the dissolution of the world interwoven with a description of the Judgement itself (vii. 26-44). In (4) the signs of the End are again reviewed (vill. 63-ix. 12).

Are these passages integral parts of S? Or can S have been responsible for their insertion in their present contexts? The traditional character of the passages as a whole is generally conceded ; they belong to a type which has many parallels elsewhere. Is it conceivable, then, that S took up this widely current traditional material, and embodied it in his own work ? An examination of the first of the passages (iv. 56-v. 12) mentioned discloses unmistakable marks of interpolation. Its awkward insertion in its present context cannot be due to S; it was doubtless interpolated by R. The second passage is parallel to and depends upon the first. If (1) is an interpolation, it follows that (2) must be also. The source from which R excerpted them was, Kabisch thinks, an old Ezraapocalypse, containing eschatological descriptions of the ‘ signs’ preceding the End, and of the End itself. It may be denominated E (=Ezra-apocalypse; so Kabisch). For similar reasons the third and fourth passages {vii. 26-44 and viii. 63-ix. 12) cannot belong to S or have been inserted in their present contexts by S. Kabisch believes that both these passages have been drawn from E. The present writer, however, thinks that in their extant form both are the work of R, who may have drawn upon E, but has also utilized other material. They are in fact a compilation of diverse elements (cf. the discussion in &A, pp. 108 ff. and 199 ff.).

The results thus reached may be stated as follows: the present form of our apocalypse is due to a Redactor (R) who used the following sources:

(1) S, A SALATHIEL-APOCALYPSE which (so far as it has been utilized) is embodied in iii. 1-31, xii. 40-48 and xlv. 28-35 are probably misplaced pieces which belong to S (see the introductory sections ad /oc.).

(2) E, AN EZRA-APOCALYPSE, from which iv. 52-v. 13a and vi. 13-29 are extracts. Their present position is due to R, who has also drawn upon this source in vii. 26-44 and viii. 63-ix. 12.

(3) A, THE EAGLE-VISION, contained (with revision by R) in chapters xi-xii.

(4) M, A SON OF MAN VISION, contained (with much revision and insertions by R) in chapter xiii.

(6) R is responsible for the compilation of the book as a whole. By means of redactional links and adjustments he has fitted the different elements of the book together; the following passages (redactional links) are due to his hand: iv. 52 (as for the signs concerning which thou askesi me, I may tell thee of them in part but) introducing the extract from E which follows: (v. I-13 a), vi. 11-12 (introducing the second extract from E which follows in vi. 13-28), vi. 29, x. 58-9 (transition to the Fifth vision), xii. 49-51 (transition to the Sixth vision), xiv. 49-50 (conclusion of the book). In the process of adjustment R has also, apparently, misplaced certain sections of S. Besides the two sections already mentioned (xii. 40-8 and xiv. 28-35) the following also fall under this category: v. 14-15 and xiii. 57-8. The following are the longer insertions which were probably compiled in their present form, as well as inserted by R: iii. 32-6, vii. 26-44, viii. 63-ix. 12, and xiii. 13 b-24: R is also responsible for a certain amount of revision in the fourth and following visions (especially in the interpretation) : x. 45 (¢ eo altered in the original Heb. to zz ea) and x. 46 (David altered into Solomon), xi. 12 (on the right side), xi. 20 (upon the right side), xii. 8 (completely), xii. 9, Xli. 14, xii. 15 (the twelve), xii. 26 b-28. are with him). For minor adjustments made by RK reference must be made to £4, p. xxvii.

The above analysis agrees, in the main, with the results of Kabisch’s masterly discussion in his essay on our book.!_ The present editor, however, differs from Kabisch in assigning rather more to R—in particular the sections vii. 26-44 and viii. 63-ix. 12 which appear to be compilations by him.

Thus the book as a whole is a compilation from different sources. In the case of EA and M we have only extracts from larger works (see further ZA, p. 244 f.,285f.). In the case of E* we have also a piece which was extracted from a larger source (cf. ZA, pp. 301). Only

1 Das vierte Buch Esra auf seine Quellen untersucht (1889).

in the case of S, which forms the groundwork of the whole book, have we a source which is substantially preserved in its entirety—though even here there are some curtailments. With S the compiler interwove extracts from other (Ezra) apocalypses, and then invested the whole with the name of Ezra (cf. the case of 1 Enoch, which is a compilation of extracts from a number of Enochic apocalypses interwoven with fragments of a Noah-apocalypse).!

§ 8. THE DATE OF THE SOURCES AND OF THE FINAL REDACTION.

Fortunately in the opening verse of the book we have a precise statement which points definitely to an exact date for the original appearance of the Salathiel-apocalypse (S). Itis stated in iii. 1 that it was 7x the thirtieth year of the downfall of the city that Salathiel was in Babylon and underwent the experiences detailed in the visions that follow; and this statement is confirmed in iii. 29 (these thirty years). This date, which probably is intended to refer to the original publication of S, points to the year A. D. 100 (i.e. thirty years after the destruction of Jerusalem in A. D. 70) as the time when S originally appeared or was completed as an independent work. or reasons supporting this view reference must be made to ZA, p. xxviii f. The place of composition of S was probably Palestine, and not Rome as Kabisch supposes (ibid.).

With regard to the dates of the other sources embodied in our book, E is marked by traditional features which suggest that it was current long before it was utilized by R, who has handled it with considerable freedom.? From the absence of any clear indication that the horrors of the struggle which culminated in A.D. 70 have coloured the delineation of the Messianic ‘woes’ in these passages it may be inferred that E had assumed literary form some time before A.D. 70.3 Kabisch suggests as a possible date about 30 B.C.

The date of the original composition of the Eagle-vision (A) may be more definitely determined. The one usually favoured is some time in the reign of Domitian (A. D. 81-96); but a date in the reign of Vespasian (A. D.69-79) is quite possible, and not improbable (see the point fully discussed FA, p. 249).

In the case of the Son of Man vision (M) the interpretation of the vision presupposes a time for its composition before A. D. 70 (cf. ZA, p. 286). As the Christology of M is more advanced than that of E it is probable that it was reduced to written form at a later date than the latter, though it must be remembered that the actual vision in M (4 Ezra xiii. 1-13 a) embodies traditional elements that are much older.

On the other hand, E? (ch. xiv) clearly implies a date subsequent to A.D. 70, The emphasis laid upon the representation of Ezra as the restorer of the Law that has been burnt (xiv. 21) points unmistakably to this. Kabisch regards this source as of contemporaneous origin with S, and this is quite possible ; in tone it occasionally resembles S. But all that can be said with certainty is that it must have been composed some time between A. D. 70 and the time of the Redactor (? ¢c. A.D. 120) ; it is probable that some considerable time elapsed between the Fall of Jerusalem and the time of ifs composition ; consequently a date at or about A.D. 100 is not improbable.

The limits within which the final redaction of our book must have taken place may be fixed as A.D. 100-135. It is clear that the book cannot have been published in its present form before the former date in view of the explicit reference in iii. 1 to the thirtieth year after the downfall of the city ; and on the other hand, it would have been impossible for a Jewish book of this kind to have found its way into Christian circles after the Bar-Kokba revolt, when Church and Synagogue had become hopelessly alienated. Sufficient time must be allowed before A. D. 132-135 for the Hebrew original to have been translated into Greek, and for the Greek version to have won its way into Christian circles. The date of the original publication cannot, therefore, be placed much after A.D. 120. Can it be placed any earlier ?

We have already seen reason to believe that the explicit time-determination given in iii. 1 marks the date of the publication of S—not that of the whole book. If that be so, sufficient time must be allowed for S to have become well known in the circles to which R belonged, and for the work of compilation to have taken place. A number of indications suggest that at the time when the Redactor compiled the work feeling towards Rome on the part of Jewish circles in Palestine had become embittered.t This was the case after the suppression of the Jewish rebellions in A. D. 116-117 ;

1 For later apocalyptic literature circulating under Ezra’s name cf. pp. 470 seq. of this vol.; B/, pp. Ixxxvi ff.

2 We have extracts from E, probably in v. I-12, vi. 12-28; while it has, apparently, been utilized by R in

5 The reference to the humiliation of Sion in vi. 19” is probably a later interpolation; see £A, p. xxx.

The insertion of the Eagle-vision by R is evidence of this.

TV EZRA

and though with the accession of Hadrian a better feeling manifested itself, this was of short duration, and the old spirit of hostility soon re-asserted itself. These various indications point to a date about A. D. 120 as the time when the Redactor wrote and completed his work. It may have been somewhat later. ;

A similar date (between A. D. 120-130) is suggested by Charles as the time when 2 Baruch was edited in its final form (in Hebrew and then translated into Greek).

§ 9. THE RELATION OF 4 EZRA TO 2 BARUCH.

It is evident from a comparison of parallel passages! that a relation exists between 4 Ezra and 2, Baruch of the closest and most intimate description. To determine the exact details of this relationship is not possible here in view of the complex critical problems involved by the composite character of the text of each book. All that can be attempted is to set forth some of the data that will, serve to indicate the lines of a solution.

The composite character of 4 Ezra has already been indicated in the former part of this Introduction (see above §§ 6and 7). In the case of 2 Baruch also the editor (Dr. Charles) finds it necessary to analyse the book into a number of sources, which are denominated A’, A*, A® (i.e. the three Messianic apocalypses, which look for a personal Messiah, being chapters xxvii—-xxxi, xxxvi-xl, and liii-lxxiv) ; as in these sections Jerusalem is represented, according to Dr. Charles, as still standing it may be concluded that they assumed literary form before A. D. 70: another set of passages, denominated B? ( i-ix. 1, xxxii. 2-4, xliii-xliv. 7, xlv—xlvi, lxxvii-]xxxii, lxxxiv, lxxxvi f.), which are optimistic as to.the future of the present world-order, but do not expect the advent of a personal Messiah, may be grouped partly with A?, A*?, A*; but the date of composition of B' must be subsequent to A. D. 70 as the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile are presupposed. Dr. Charles also distinguishes two other sources, viz. B? ( x-xxv, Xxx. 2-xXxxli. I, xxxli. 5-xxxv, xli-xlii, xliv. 8-15, xlvii-lii, Ixxv sq., 1xxxiii) and B® (= Ixxxv): both B? and B? are pessimistic in their view of the present worldorder, and do not look for a Messianic kingdom; their hopes are fixed on the advent of the final judgement and the spiritual world; they also presuppose the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile, and therefore assumed literary form subsequent to A. D. 70.

The broad results of this critical analysis suggest that 2 Baruch is a compilation from diverse elements similar, in many respects, to 4 Ezra. In both cases older documents, containing the national eschatology, have been combined with later elements which reveal a fundamentally different outlook. The elements B*, B® in 2 Baruch are comparable with S in 4 Ezra, while A! has affinities with the E source of 4 Ezra, and the date of its composition may be much the same. As to the date of composition of A* and A® the present writer must confess to some doubts. The former of these, A?, i.e. the fountain and cedar vision, is a vision of the fall of the Roman power, and may be compared with the Eagle-vision (A) of 4 Ezra. Like the latter it is a dreamvision, and may very well be of much the same date (some time in the reign of Vespasian or Domitian). May it not have formed one of the collection of dream-visions from which the Eaglevision of 4 Ezra was excerpted? The possibility must of course always be allowed for that the actual material of the vision is older than its interpretation. In A®* (the cloud and water vision) there is apparently a fusion of early and later elements. It has several points of contact with E? of 4 Ezra, and in its present form may well be of much the same date as regards literary composition (some time between A.D. 70 and 100, or even later); its reflective and theological tone harmonizes with this view. The material of the vision is probably one of the older elements, as also is the eschatological scheme of the Messianic ‘ woes’ in ch. xx.

The numerous points of contact between B!, B? in 2 Baruch and S in 4 Ezra may be seen from the list of parallel passages in Dr. Charles’s edition of 2 Baruch (pp. 170-1; cf. also pp. lxix—Ixx in HA). It looks sometimes as if one were actually citing the other.

In each book we apparently have the work of a school of apocalyptists. The schools are, it would seem, rival schools. One is answering the other. The present writer believes that 4 Ezra represents the work of a somewhat earlier school of apocalyptists who were under the influence of Shammaite teachers (such as Eliezer b. Hyrqanos) ; while 2 Baruch embodies the work of a rather younger school, who were under the influence of Aqiba. The latter work answers the former; and, on the whole, it gives answers decidedly more in accordance with what later became orthodox Judaism. Thus whereas in 4 Ezra vii. 119 (O thou Adam, what hast thou done! For though it was thou that sinned, the fall was not thine alone, but ours also who are thy descendants ! a passage belonging to S) Adam is charged with being the cause of the perdition of the whole race, this teaching

1 See the list printed in Charles’s edition of 2 Baruch, pp. 170-1.

is expressly refuted in 2 Baruch (cf. liv. 19: Adam is therefore not the cause, save only of his own soul, but each one of us has been the Adam of his own soul, a passage which belongs to A® according to Dr. Charles’s analysis).

It seems probable that 2 Baruch in its final form was edited and put forth soon after the appearance of 4 Ezra in its present form; i.e. some time between A. D. 120 and 135, perhaps very soon after A.D. 120. Like 4 Ezra it was originally written in Hebrew, and soon after its appearance in this language was translated into Greek.

§ 10. THE THEOLOGY AND ESCHATOLOGY OF THE BOOK.}

The book as a whole presents, as Gunkel has pointed out, two kinds of material: ‘(1) properly apocalyptical and especially eschatological mysteries ; this material is to be compared with Dan. vii. ff. or Revelation iv ff.; (2) religious problems and speculations which relate to eschatology and find in it either their answer or their occasion; this material is comparable with the speculations of the Pauline letters. The author put these problems in general before the mysteries, as being of greater importance, an order which can be compared with that of Revelation”? In the light of the critical analysis given in §$6 and 7 above by ‘author’ here we must understand, for the purposes of our discussion, Redactor. The latter, in compiling our book, must have placed the discussion of the religious problems, which is embodied in S, first, because this discussion was felt to be concerned with one of the burning subjects of the day—the religious significance of the Fall of Jerusalem. The appendices to S (chapters xi—xiv) were intended to supplement the Salathiel-apocalypse by setting forth some classical expressions of the older eschatology. As will be seen, the eschatology of S, both explicit and implicit, is in many respects of a fundamentally different character.

(1) The theology and eschatology of S. The author of S appears to have been in close touch with the circles of the Teachers of the Law, and may have actually been a member of the scribal class (cf. viii. 29). Like many Pharisees of the time he valued and practised an ascetic mode of life (cf. vi. 32, and the frequent references to fasting in the first four visions). As a Jew he postulates the fundamental beliefs of Judaism. He insists on God’s unity and uniqueness ; God and God alone, without the intervention of any mediatorial agency, is responsible for creation, and God alone will exercise the functions of Judge at the final judgement (vi. 1-6). Israel is God’s elect people (v. 27 ; cf. the whole passage v. 23-30; vi. 58; viii. 16, &c.), with whom God entered into a special covenant-relation (iii. 14 f.), and for whose sake the world was made (vi. 55, vii. 11). The Law is a special divine gift to Israel (iii. 19 f., ix. 31 f.). It had indeed been offered to the other nations of the world but deliberately rejected by them (cf. vii. 23, 24, vii. 72); Israel, on the other hand, had accepted it, and had thereby acknowledged the divine sovereignty. In consequence Israel is the true representative of humanity before God—the other nations are ‘nothing’; by rejecting the divine gift they have put themselves outside the pale (vi. 56, vii. 23 f.). The apocalyptist glorifies the Law (cf. esp. ix. 29-37), but is perplexed by the problems presented by it in its relation to Israel. These problems are debated in the first part of the book. Why is the chosen people given up as a prey to the heathen? Because of its sins? But the sins of the godless heathen far outweigh those of Israel; why, then, should the former be allowed to lord it over and oppress the latter? (cf. v. 29, iii 28). To these questions no satisfactory answer can be found in the Law alone. The Law is impotent to redeem and save the sinner (ix. 36 ; cf. Rom. iii. 20). To a race doomed to sin the promises of the Law are a mockery (vii. 116-31). The utmost that the seer can hope from the Law is that while the many are born to perish, but few shall be saved. The answers to the problem of the nation to which the apocalyptist struggles in the debate are the following:

(a) God’s ways are inscrutable. Man cannot understand or fathom the most ordinary elements of the material world: how, then, can he hope to comprehend the things of the incorruptible world ?

(b) Human intelligence is finite and limited. The angel enforces the point that the human intelligence must keep within its own prescribed bounds by a parable taken from the sea and the forest (iv. 12-21). The seer protests that he has no desire to explore heavenly secrets, but that his perplexities are occasioned by the daily experiences of earth, and is told that the New Age which is about to dawn will solve all difficulties (iv. 22-32).

(c) The course and duration of the present world has been pre-determined. Evil must run its course ; the harvest of evil must first be gathered before the good can take its place (iv. 28-31); but everything has been pre-determined—the number of the righteous elect, and the duration of the present

1 For a fuller discussion cf. £A, pp. xxxiv—lvii. 2 Cited\iby i. Gy Porters ofnc7z., p. 330:

IWOEZERA

age—and things as they are will not be moved nor stirred “2// the measure appointed be fulfilled. But when the predestined moment shall have come nothing will be able to delay its consummation (iv. 33-43). That moment, it is hinted, will soon arrive (iv. 44-50).

(d) Lz spite of all appearances to the contrary God loves Israel now and always. The apocalyptist never wavers in his conviction that God’s love for Israel exceeds all other, and finds in this thought a source of supreme consolation (v. 31-40; cf. viii. 47).

The one positive result reached in the discussion so far is an eschatological one. The future age will solve all difficulties. This is a fundamental conviction of our apocalyptist. The present age, in his view, is hopelessly involved in evil: it is fall of impotence and sorrow. The contrast between the two ages—the present and the future—is emphasized in the strongest possible manner throughout. The corruptible world, and all that is mortal, will dissolve and be succeeded by the incorruptible world and immortality. It will thus be seen that the apocalyptist’s view of the present world-order is extremely pessimistic. He gives up the old hope of a renovation and purification of the present world, and fixes his gaze and his hopes on the future world or age—the age of true life and immortality wherein

corruption ts passed away, qeakness 1s abolished, infidelity is cut off,

while righteousness 18 grown,

and faithfulness ts sprung up (vii. 114).

But having won his way to this position the apocalyptist still finds himself baffled and perplexed with sore difficulties.

In answer to the difficulty that the coming age shall bring delight to few, but torment unto many (vii. 47) the angel can only say that the few are precious and the many worthless (vii. 49-61). This naturally fails to satisfy the seer, who protests that man had better not have been created at all (cf. vii. 62-9) or at least been restrained from sinning (vii. 116-26). Against the logical result of pure legalism the seer confidently appeals to the divine compassion (vii. 132-40). Moreover, he is answered by the angel that his love for creation comes far short of the divine love.

It will have become apparent from the previous discussion that the author of S realizes the inherent weakness of the Law as a redemptive power. He thus approaches to the attitude of mind of St. Paul (cf. Rom. viii. 3 f.); and it is clear that this attitude of mind was by no means so rare and isolated a phenomenon in contemporary Judaism as is sometimes supposed. ‘This becomes even more apparent when we examine the doctrine of sin as it emerges in our Apocalypse together with the related doctrine of salvation by faith and works.

It is important to remember that in the theology of S it is the acceptance of the Law that is the standard by which men must be judged at the last, not the observance of it. True, the Law, once given, ought to have been observed. But so far is this from being the case that very few, ifany, even in Israel have lived up to the divine requirements as set forth in the Law:

For in truth There is none of the earth-born that has not dealt wickedly, And among those that exist who has not sinned (viii. 35).

So conscious is the apocalyptist of this that he reckons himself among the sinners (cf. vii. 48, Vii. 64, vii. 118, 126, viii. 17, viii. 31). Thus, according to S, sin is conceived as consisting essentially in unfaithfulness to the Law (cf. ix. 36: we who have received the Law and sinned must perish). The result has been alienation and estrangement from God (vii. 48); and this result is due, in some way, to the sin of Adam which has involved the fall of the entire human race (cf. vii. 118). Man’s infirmity is to be traced to the evdl heart (cor malignum) which was developed in Adam and transmitted to his descendants (cf. iii. 20-2 and iii. 25-6). The effect of the Law was nullified because of the eval germ (root iii. 22) or grain of evil seed (granum seminis mali) which was sown in the heart of Adam from the beginning (iv. 30). This evil root or grain of evil seed doubtless corresponds to ¢he evil impulse (yeser ha-ra‘) of Rabbinic theology. Adam clothed himself with the cor malignum by yielding to the suggestions of the evzl zmpulse. The evil heart, thus developed, inevitably led to sin and death. The evil seed sown in the heart of Adam was transmitted to his descendants (iv. 30) with the result that the infirmity became inveterate (iii. 22). All men have fallen into sin (viii. 35), and, as a consequence, dis age [the present world-order] zs full of sorrow and impotence (iv. 27); the ways of this world have become narrow and sorrowful and painful (vii. 12). The evil heart has estranged from God and brought into destruction... not a few only, but wellnigh all that have been created (vii. 48); for all the earth-born are defiled with iniquities,

full of sins, laden with offences. At the most, judged by the standard of the Law, only a few can hope to be saved (vii. 45).

Exactly how the fall of Adam and the universal state of sin are connected is nowhere explicitly stated. That the two things are connected is certainly implied in vii. 118. It is true Adam’s descendants share his responsibility for what has happened in that they have deliberately followed his example in clothing themselves with the evz/ heart (iii. 26); the moral responsibility of each individual member of the race is not denied. Probably at the back of the apocalyptist’s thought lies the idea that Adam by his transgression lost much of his power of resisting the evé/

tmpulse or thought, and transmitted this weakness to his descendants. It is noteworthy that the fall

of man is nowhere in our apocalypse attributed to external agency (demonic incitement).

The corruption of the human race is regarded as due to a development of something inherent in man’s nature (yeser ha-ra of Rabbinic theology) ; but by representing the Law as powerless to prevent the evil element in man’s nature from gaining the entire mastery (iii. 22), our apocalyptist directly contradicts the orthodox Rabbinic view, according to which the evz/ yeser could be—and as a matter of fact has been by the pious in Israel generally—successfully resisted by the study of the Law and the practice of good works. In S also the entry of physical death into the world is directly connected with the Fall. Thus, according to this teaching, both physical and spiritual death are a legacy from Adam. For a comparison of these positions with that of St. Paul see ZA, p. xlii.

In fact the doctrine of our apocalyptist ultimately resolves itself into a pure and _ lofty individualism. His view of sin as universal, owing to its root in the evil heart which is also universal, leads him to manifest a certain compassion for and sympathy with the perishing masses of mankind :

But what is man that thou shouldst be wroth with him ?

Or what is a corruptible race that thou canst be so bitter towards it? For in truth

There is none of the earth-born who has not dealt wickedly,

And among those that exist who has not sinned (viii. 34, 35).

Where all are involved in a state of unrighteousness before God there is little room for selfgratulation. One of the most striking features in S is the absence of the note of self-confidence, based upon Israel’s possession of the Law, which is so prominent in 2 Baruch! The Law in S rather brings terror by its condemnation than hope of salvation. The universal need is mercy rather than the award of the Law; and so the apocalyptist is driven to appeal, against the Law, to the divine attributes of compassion and forgiveness (cf. vii. 132—Vviii. 3, viii. 36).

Nowhere is the individual note more clearly sounded than in what may be described as our apocalyptist’s eschatology of the individual. This is set forth, with great wealth of detail, in vii. 75-101, which gives a long description of the state of the soul after death and before the judgement. It is further stated (vii. 102-15) that no intercession will be allowed on the Day of Judgement :

The Day of Fudgement is decisive, and displays unto all the seal of truth ... none shall pray for another on that Day, neither shall one lay a burden on another ; for then every one shall bear his own righteousness or unrighteousness (vii. 104-5).

While the theology of S recognizes the Day of Judgement and an intermediate state for the soul between death and judgement, it knows of no resurrection of the body. In the description of the state of the soul after death it is made clear that the soul enters at once into a state of blessedness or the reverse, according as it is righteous or wicked. The souls of the righteous are guarded in chambers, and there, in great tranquillity and happiness, await the final judgement; the souls of the wicked, on the other hand, move about restlessly in torment. These conditions—though they will be intensified—are not to be essentially altered on the Day of Judgement itself. This practically means that judgement sets in immediately after death, and that a man’s fate is virtually determined by the present life—which is the doctrine of the Book of Wisdom and of Hellenistic Judaism.?

It has already been pointed out that the writer of S discards, implicitly, the older eschatology of the nation. He does not look forward to a restoration of the Jewish State, or a rebuilding of Jerusalem ; nor to a renewed and purified earth under the conditions of the present world-order. His hopes are fixed on the advent of the new and better world which is to follow the collapse of the

1 In this book (especially in the section written after A.D. 70) ‘the Law is everything; it protects the righteous (xxxii. 1), justifies them (li. 3), is their hope (li. 7), and so long as it is with Israel, Israel cannot fall (xlviii. 22, 24)’. (Charles’s note on Af. Bar. xv. 5, p. 31.)

For a fuller discussion of the position of S regarding the resurrection-belief see ZA, p. xlviii f.

IVE ZRA

present world. Consequently he ariticipates merely the catastrophic end of the present world-order —his theology does not allow of any intermediate Messianic Age. The new Jerusalem which is to come willbe the Heavenly City, which is shown to Salathiel in his final vision (x. 25 f.), and which belongs to the future incorruptible age. As to the precise time when the end of the present order is to come the apocalyptist has no definite knowledge; but he is made to understand that the decisive moment is not far distant (cf. iv. 41, iv. 44-50) ; the appointed time has been pre-determined by God (iv. 36 f.), as well as the number of the righteous elect, and till this number shall have been completed the promised salvation cannot come (iv. 36). God’s purpose is fixed, but it is beyond the power of the human mind to fathom it (cf. v. 34-40, vi. 6, vii. 11, vii. 20). There is thus a strong element of determinism in S; but the freedom of the human will is also emphatically asserted—the two truths are set side by side.

The theology of S is essentially other-worldly. The writer’s dualism is emphatic and pronounced. The present age and the future, above and below, are in fundamental opposition. The same violent contrast characterizes the material and the spiritual (cf. iv. 11). The body, regarded as the prison-house of the soul, is described as ¢his corruptible vessel (vii. 88). It is significant that in S there is no resurrection of the body ; what is anticipated is practically a pure immortality of the soul. According to S the human heart, which has received the Law, is essentially a corruptible vessel, which belongs to the present order and will perish (ix. 36). In contrast to the present world-order, which zs full of sorrow and impotence (iv. 27), and the ways of which, owing to man’s sin, have become zarrow and sorrowful and painful (vii. 12), the ways of the future world are broad and safe, and yield the Sruit of tmmortality (vii. 13). “In the future age, which is already prepared:

The (evil) root ts sealed up from you, L[nfirmity from your path extinguished ; And Death ts hidden, Hades fled away ; Corruption forgotten, Sorrows passed away ; And in the end the treasures of immortality are made manifest (viii. 53, 54).

The pessimistic view of the present world-order which is characteristic of S naturally harmonizes with the ascetic tendencies to which reference has already been made. Taken together all these various tendencies—which are also marked in other apocalyptic literature—suggest, perhaps, the influence of Alexandrine rather than specifically Palestinian thought. But it must not be forgotten that Palestine was saturated with Hellenistic influence at this period, and that Palestinian Judaism was profoundly affected by it. The partial elimination of Greek elements, and the hardening and crystallization of the Rabbinic type of thought, was only effected later. The religious significance of S has been well set forth by Dr. Maldwyn Hughes in a sentence. Our apocalyptist, he says, ‘despairs of a life of absolute obedience to the Law, even by Israel, not to speak of the world. The unconscious and unexpressed cry of the book is for a moral dynamic, which legalism could not supply.’ ?

(2) The theology and eschatology of the other original sources. Of the remaining original sources of our Apocalypse apparently the oldest is E. The contents of this source, so far as it is embodied in our book, are purely eschatological in character. The themes with which it deals are (t) the Messianic ‘ woes’, i.e. the signs and portents that are to usher in the End of the world (iv. 56-v. 13 a, vi. 21-2); (2) the End of the world (this is announced by the Voice of God, but not actually described: vi. 13-20, 23-4); (3) the felicity of those who survive the Messianic ‘woes’ and live on into the Messianic Age (vi. 25-8). It seems probable that E in its original form regarded the age of felicity, that was to follow the judgement, as a Messianic kingdom, of indefinite duration, set up on a purified earth ; but, apparently, there was no Messiah, though certain heralds of the Messianic Age were to appear—the men who have not tasted death from their birth—whose task it was to convert the surviving members of the human race to a different spirit (vi. 26-8). This eschatological scheme is of the older type, common in the prophetic books of the Old Testament and in the older apocalypses (e.g. 1 Enoch i-xxxvi). As has been pointed out in a former chapter, E has probably been utilized by R in vii. 26-44 and viii. 63-ix. 12, and, in any case, only appears in our book in fragments. This fact makes it difficult to determine its theological positions precisely. It is possible that one of the missing portions contained an account of the resurrection, the place of which has been taken in R’s compilation by vii. 31. The description of the Messianic ‘woes’ has many traditional features which find close parallels in similar descriptions elsewhere

1 The Ethics of Jewish Apocryphal Literature, p. 240.

In the case of the Eagle-vision (ch. xi-xii) the dominating eschatological conception is a political one. Wickedness is concentrated in godless imperial Rome? and the judgement will be effected when Rome is destroyed by the Lion of Judah, i.e. the Messiah... who shall spring from the seed of David (xii. 32). The overthrow of the Roman Empire is to be followed by the setting up oz earth of the theocratic kingdom under the direct rule of God. The author was apparently a zealot (see these points fully discussed in LA, pp. 246 f.). The Messiah appears in a very active rdle here as the instrument for overthrowing the Roman Empire.

Very different eschatological conceptions emerge in the Son of Man vision (M=ch. xiii). These have been fully discussed in ELA (pp. 282-6), to which the reader must be referred. One feature, however, that comes out in the interpretation of the vision calls for special mention here. This is the emphasis that is laid on ¢he Law. The heavenly Messiah destroys his enemies without labour by the Law (xiii. 38). Further, in the legend of the Ten Tribes, which is given in the same context, their deliverance and ultimate return are represented as due to a return on their part to the observance of the Law. In order to do this they leave their heathen surroundings and migrate to a land further distant, where the human race had never dwelt, there at least to keep the statutes which they had not kept in their own land (xiii. 41 f.). In other words, to the author of this apocalyptic piece the Law is the standard of piety, and he can only conceive of the restoration of the lost Tribes as due to a whole-hearted acceptance of the ‘ yoke of the Law’.

In the last of the original sources embodied in our book, viz. E? (i.e. the Ezra-legend given in ch. xiv) the most outstanding doctrinal feature is the conception of the Messiah (God’s Son) as preexisting in heaven, surrounded by a community of elect ones. This agrees with the representation of the heavenly Son of Man of the Parables of 1 Enoch (xxxvii-Ixxi). Just as in the Parables Enoch is removed to heaven to dwell with the Son of Man (1 Enoch Ixx. 1 f.), so here Ezra’s assumption to remain henceforth with God’s Son, in company with other elect ones, wztil the times be ended, is described (cf. 4 Ezra xiv. 9). So too, as in the Parables, the heavenly Messiah is not to appear until the End and the coming of the Judgement (cf. xiv. 9,10 and notes). The world history is divided into twelve parts, nine and a half of which have already passed in the time of the historical Ezra (i.e. the middle of the fifth century B.C.). This suggests that the apocalyptist conceives the world to have already entered upon the last period of tribulation (the last three and a half years of woe of Dan. ix. 27), and regards the approach of the final consummation as imminent (cf. xiv. 11, 12 and notes). Another feature of E? is its pessimistic outlook on the present world-order. It also assigns a high place to the Law and the other Scriptures, but by the side of the apocalyptic books (cf. L.A, pp. 304-7).

(3) The theology and eschatology of the Redactor (R). The Redactor who is responsible for the present form of our Apocalypse has impressed a certain unity on the book, which, though it involves the combination of conceptions essentially disparate, yet serves to reveal a whole which he contrived to combine (by the insertion of connecting links and supplementary matter at different points) into one system in his own thought.

The groundwork of his compilation is the Salathiel-apocalypse. But evidently he felt it necessary to supplement this with extracts from other apocalypses which represent very different points of view. From the position and bulk of S in R’s compilation it may be inferred that he was specially interested in its main theme—a discussion of the religious problems involved in the fall and destruction of Jerusalem. The element in S which is concerned with the eschatology of the individual, involving, as it does, the discussion of the problem of the origin and prevalence of sin, to which the misery of the world is due, would doubtless have appealed to R with special force. On the other hand, R was not prepared to discard the older hope of the coming of Messianic redemption for the nation, and so found it necessary to append the Eagle and Son of Man visions (ch. xi-xiii). The combination of these elements results in the following eschatological scheme, which was adopted by R:

(1) The period of ‘ woes’ preceding the advent of the Messiah (iv. 56-v. 13a, vi. 11-28) will first occur.

(2) The Messiah and his immortal companions (Enoch, Elijah, &c.) will then suddenly be ‘revealed ’, the new Jerusalem will appear and a temporary Messianic kingdom, lasting 400 years, set up in which those who have survived the Messianic ‘ woes’ are destined to enjoy a period of felicity (vii. 26-8 R). In ch. xii. (M) the active work of the Messiah is described more fully. There, a principal part of his mission is to destroy the assembled enemies of the divine rule (= ‘the wars of Gog and Magog’), and gather together the lost Ten Tribes who are to be brought back to the Holy Land. Apparently the destruction of the hostile forces is conceived as closing the period of ‘ woes’,

1 Cf. the ‘ Beast’ of the Johannine Apocalypse.

IVO EZRA

After the annihilation of the last enemies has been effected, the ‘ survivors’, who are defined as those that are found within my holy border (xiii. 48) shall be defended by the Messiah (xiii. 49, cf. xiii. 26 b), and see very many wonders. Presumably the rule of the Messiah here indicated was conceived by R to synchronize with the 400 years’ reign referred to in vii. 28, though this was not its significance in the original vision.

(3) The temporary Messianic kingdom and the rule of the Messiah will terminate in his death and that of all human beings, and creation will revert to primaeval silence for seven

(4) This will be followed by the Resurrection and the Final Judgement (vii. 31-44).

It should be noted that the Eagle-vision (ch. xi-xii), which depicts the destruction of the Roman Empire by the Lion of Judah (i.e. the Messiah), has no logical place in this scheme. The eschatological drama, as outlined above, was inherited by R from tradition, which was too firmly rooted to be ignored. But in the Eagle-vision we ought probably to see an expression of the real hopes which animated our compiler. Living at a time when Israel had suffered—and was still suffering—so much at the hands of Rome his hopes for the Messianic deliverance were naturally concentrated on the prospect of the annihilation of the oppressive world-power, and the incarnation of all wickedness.

Such is the scheme of the national eschatology as it was combined in the mind of R. How essentially incompatible the diverse elements of which it is composed really are needs no further demonstration.

In combination with and. supplementing this our compiler accepted the eschatology of the individual as set forth in S. In contrast with S, R has much greater confidence in the Law as such as a protective power to the Jew (cf. ili. 26-36, and see further ZA, pp. lv—Ivii).

§ 11. RELATION OF THE APOCALYPSE WITH THE NEW TESTAMENT.!

A number of resemblances in thought, and (occasionally) of diction, with the New Testament occur in 4 Ezra; but nothing which suggests direct dependence.

Gunkel, it is true, thinks that 4 Ezra xii. 42 (Zor of all the prophets thou alone art left tous ... as a lamp in a dark place) is cited in 2 Pet. i. 19 (And we have the word of prophecy more sure; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a lamp shining tn a dark place). But the common use of such a figure may be explained as due to its currency, possibly in apocalyptic circles, before the writing of 4 Ezra and 2 Peter.

In 4 Ezra iv. 28 the idea of sowing, reaping, and harvest is applied metaphorically to evil, and it is stated that the harvest of evil must first be reaped before the good can take its place; the thought here is parallel with that of the parable of the Sower (Matt. xiii); cf. in particular Matt. xiii. 39: the enemy that sowed ... 1s the devil, and the harvest is the end of the world, and the reapers are the angels.

In 4 Ezra iv. 36 the seer is reminded by the angel that he cannot know the duration of the time that must elapse before the End (though elsewhere it has been revealed to him that the End is imminent); in other words the exact moment cannot be fixed—it is known to God alone. The passage runs:

Number me the days that are not yet come (the implication being—you cannot); cf. Mark xiii. 32 and parallels: Butof that day or that hour knoweth no one, not even the angels in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.

There is a certain amount of literary contact between the Johannine Apocalypse and 4 Ezra, which, however, does not amount to direct literary dependence, but, probably, points to a common source or sources ; thus 4 Ezra ix. 35 and Rev. vi. 9-11 seem to be related in this way?; so in 4 Ezra iv. 41 the underworld (infernum= Sheol) is used as in Rev. i. 18, &c., as the place where the wicked dead remain in the intermediate state.

An abundance of resemblances in thought or diction has been pointed out in the notes on the text. One or two examples may be given here: in 4 Ezra vii. 88 the body is called chis corruptible vessel; cf. 1 Cor. xv. 53 this corruptible; in 4 Ezra ix. 37 the Law, it is said, perishes not but abides in tts glory (i.e. the Law is heavenly and divine); cf. Rom. vii. 14 (the Law is spiritual),

The close parallels in thought as to the origin and prevalence of sin between S and St. Paul have already been pointed out in § 10 (1).

’ For the affinities of the Book with other early literature cf. LA, pp. Ixx-Ixxiv. * Cf. Bousset, Ofenbarung Johannis, pp. 272 f. 8 The passages cited in this connexion in the writer’s larger work are registered in Index IV of ZA, pp. 375-8.

- Besides the works already referred to in this Introduction, the following are also important for the study of

(a) EDITIONS OF TExT. Syr. (Cer.) = The Syriac Text of 4 Ezra, printed in Ceriani’s Wonumenta sacra et profana, Tom. v (pp. 41-111).

(6) TRANSLATIONS WITH NOTES, ETC.

Gunkel Das vierte Buch Esra; edited by Prof. Gunkel in Kautzsch'’s Die Apokryphen und Pseudepigraphen des Alten Testaments, vol. ii (Tiibingen, 1900), (contains a valuable introduction, critical translation, and notes). Ball critical notes on 2 Esdras in The Variorum Apocrypha, by C. J. Ball.

Rosenthal Vier Apokryphische Biicher, aus der Zeit und Schule R. Akibas, von Dr. F. Rosenthal (Leipzig, 1885). Kabisch Das vierte Buch Esra auf setne Quellen untersucht, von Richard Kabisch (Gottingen, 1889). Vaganay Le Probléme eschatologique dans le [V¢ livre ad’ Esdras, par Léon Vaganay (Paris, 1906). Wellhausen Skizzen und Vorarbeiten, von J. Wellhausen ; sechstes Heft (Berlin, 1899). F. C. Porter = The Messages of the Apocalyptical Writers, by F. C. Porter (London, 1909).

[Cf. also Charles’s discussion in the introduction to his edition of Zhe (Syriac) Apocalypse of Baruch; also articles in the Bible Dictionaries (D4 and ZA) and in /Z.]

(dz) OTHER WORKS REFERRED TO.

Bousset, R/? = Die Religion des Judentums im neutestamentlichen Zeitalter (2nd ed.), von D. Wilhelm Bousset

Charles, Eschatology = A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life, by R. H. Charles (London, 1899).

Derenbourg = Lssaz sur histoire et la géographie de la Palestine, par J. Derenbourg (Paris, 1867).

Drummond, /M = The Jewish Messiah, by James Drummond (London, 1877).

Kohler = Grundriss einer systematischen Theologie des Judentums auf geschichtlicher Grundlage (Leipzig, 1910).

KG6berle = Szinde und Gnade im religiosen Leben des Volkes Israel bis auf Christum (Minchen, 1905).

RWS = The Religion and Worshtp of the Synagogue, by W. O. E. Oesterley and G. H. Box (2nd ed., 1911).

Schechter, Asfects = Some Aspects of Rabbinic Theology, by S. Schechter (London, 1909).

Volz = fiidische Eschatologie von Daniel bis Akiba, von Paul Volz (Tiibingen und Leipzig, 1903).

Weber = Jiidische Theologie, von F. Weber; 2nd ed. (Leipzig, 1897).

Also the following editions of ancient works :—

Ps. Sol. = The Psalms of the Pharisees (or Psalms of Solomon), edited and translated by Ryle and James

Mekilta = the early Jewish Midrash so called (on Exodus) ; Hebrew text edited by Friedmann.

Sifra, Sifre = the early Jewish Midrashim so called (on Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy).

ABBREVIATIONS EMPLOYED.

EB = Encyclopaedia Biblica (4 vols.).

DB = Dictionary of the Bible,

DCG = Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels (ed. Hastings, 2 vols.).

JE = Jewish Encyclopaedia (12 vols.).

JOR = Jewish Quarterly Review (vols. i-xx).

TB = Talmud of Babylon.

TJ = Talmud of Jerusalem.

OL = Old Latin.

PBH = Post Biblical Hebrew.

Bensly, MF = The Missing Fragment of the Latin Translation of the Fourth Book of Ezra, discovered and Edited with an Introduction and Notes, by Robert L. Bensly, M.A. (Cambridge, 1875).

B] ( Bensly and James) The fourth Book of Ezra: the Latin version edited from the MSS. by the late Robert L. Bensly, M.A., with an introduction by Montague Rhodes James, Litt.D. (Zerts and Studies, vol. iii, no. 2,

Hilg. = Messias Iudaeorum (containing the Latin text and Latin translations of the Syriac, Ethiopic, Arabic, and Armenian texts, and a reconstruction of the lost Greek text underlying them, with critical notes), Leipzig, 1869.

Violet = Die Esra-Apokalypse (IV. Esra), Erster Teil: Die Ubertieferung, herausg. von Lic. Dr. Bruno Violet (contains a critical edition of the Latin text, and carefully edited German translations of the Oriental Versions and valuable critical notes), Leipzig, 1910.

Volkmar = Das vierte Buch Esra (being Part II of the Handbuch der Einlettung in die Apokryphen), herausg. von Dr. Gustav Volkmar (contains Latin text, commentary, German translation and elaborate Introduction; the critical notes are often useful), Tiibingen, 1863.

Gunkel = Das vierte Buch Esra in Kautzsch’s Die Apokryphen und Pseudepigraphen des Alten Testaments, vol. ii (Tiibingen, 1900).

Kabisch = Das vierte Buch Esra auf seine Quellen untersucht (Gottingen, 1889).

EA = The Ezra-Apocalypse (critical translation with Commentary and Introduction), edited by G. H. Box (London,

IV BZRA

THE FIRST VISION. (I. iii, 1-3) INTRODUCTION (S). In the thirtieth year after the downfall of the City I, Salathiel—[who am also Ezra]—was in Babylon,

THE FIRST VISION (iii. I-v. 19). (1) CONTENTS. In the person of Salathiel (Ezra) the writer, bewailing, some thirty years after the event, the

desolation of Sion and the continued prosperity of Babylon, gives vent to his grief and despair on account of the ruin which has befallen Jerusalem at the hands of her Roman conquerors in A.D. 70. He finds it difficult to understand the meaning of this appalling catastrophe. How can it be reconciled with God’s providence and justice? It is true the human race is corrupt and steeped in sin; but the reason why all men have sinned is that sin goes back to Adam, and Adam sinned because the root of sin was inherent in his nature (cf. iii. 20f.). God had chosen Israel and given them His Law, but so long as the evil germ remained in man’s nature, the Law was powerless to produce righteousness (cf. iii. 19, 20). Hence perfect righteousness could not justly be expected even from Israel. On the other hand, nations far more godless and faithless than Israel are allowed to remain in prosperity, and trample underfoot the chosen people.

The seer’s protests are answered by the angel Uriel. The most serious part of the charge levelled by the seer against the justice of God’s providence had been the implication that God, as Creator, was ultimately responsible for the inherent evil of man’s nature, and hence cannot justly punish men for sin. To this indictment the angel replies (cf. Job xxviii) that the seer cannot understand the simplest things that are bound up with his daily life; how, then, can he hope to understand the ways of the Most High? God’s ways are inscrutable (iv. 1-11). The seer rejoins despairingly : ‘It would have been better that we had never been created, than having come [into the world] to live in sins and suffer, and not know why we suffer.’ The angel replies that it is foolish and senseless to seek to know what is beyond nature. Man belongs to the earth; his vision is bounded by the finite; therefore it is vain for him to seek to comprehend what is heavenly and infinite (iv. 12-21). The seer, disclaiming any desire to be curious about the ways above, protests that what perplexes him most of all is a fact of daily experience, viz. that Israel, God’s chosen people, should be given up as a prey to the godless heathen. This is answered as follows: the present age is hastening fast to its close; the new age that is about to dawn will solve all difficulties. God’s remedy for the present state of things will not be consummated within the present order, but will be realized in the future world. The present state of things must go on for atime. The harvest of evil must first be reaped before something better can take its place (iv. 22-32). If the solution lies in the future the question naturally arises at this point, how soon will it come? This question is asked impatiently by the seer. The answer is: till the predestined number of the righteous has been completed the judgement cannot come ; but when the moment has arrived nothing (not even men’s sins) can delay its consummation (iv. 33-43). The seer again inquires more particularly as to the time of the End. Is the present age more than half gone? He is shown, by a vision, that by far the greater part of the present age has run its course (iv. 44-50). In reply to a further question the angel states that he cannot tell whether the End will come within the seer’s own lifetime (iv. 51-52). An interpolated passage (from E) narrates the signs of the near approach of the End (v. I-13). The first vision thus falls into the following divisions :

i. Zntroduction (iii. 1-3) (S). ii. Zhe first questions (the seer’s difficulties stated) (iii. 4-36) (mainly S). iii. The divine reply (iv. 1-v. 13): iv. Conclusion of the Viston (v. 14-19) (S).

(2) THE MISSING INTRODUCTION TO THE VISION. As Kabisch has pointed out, a number of indications suggest that in the original form of S the present vision was preceded by an introductory piece, explaining the preparation of the seer for what follows. It is probable that a command to fast seven days preceded the first vision in its original form (cf. vi. 35, where the ‘three weeks’ of fasting mentioned implies this). It may, therefore, be concluded that before the prayer of Salathiel (iii. 4 f.) there stood originally an introductory section detailing the appearance of the angel Uriel, the command to the seer to fast seven days, and the fulfilment of thiscommand. Then followed a dreamvision the conclusion of which has been misplaced by R, and now stands in v. 14-15. This again was probably followed by some such statement as: ‘So I fasted seven days, mourning and weeping as the angel commanded me. And it came to pass after seven days’ (cf. v. 20). Here followed the words ‘my mind was preoccupied with my thoughts ’, &c. (iii. 1 ff.). The whole of this introductory section has been cut out by R, apparently, as unimportant

1. In the thirtieth year. The thirtieth year after the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar is primarily meant, i.e. 556 B.C. But typically this was designed, doubtless, to suggest the thirtieth year after the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus in A.D. 70, i.e. A.D. 100; this probably fixes the date of the publication of S (see Introduction, § 8). For the opening of the book in this way cf. Ezek. i. 1.

Salathiel. The Hebrew form of the name is S/é’a/¢z’el. Shealtiel is mentioned as the father of Zerubbabel in Ezra iii. 2, v. 2; Neh. xii. 1; but in 1 Chron. iil. 17 as his uncle.

[who am also Ezra]. The identification of Ezra and Salathiel is, of course, impossible chronologically. Ezra appears first in history a century later (459-458 B.C.) than the date here presupposed (556 B.C.). The words are doubtless a gloss due to R (see Introduction, §§ 6 and 7).

and as I soe upon my bed I was disquieted. °. . * and my mind was preoccupied with my thoughts ; because I saw Sion’s “desolation on the one hand (matched) with the abundant wealth of Babylon’s 3 inhabitants on the other. And my spirit was stirred profoundly, and in my agitation I began to address the Most High.

II. iii. 4-36. THE FIRST QUESTIONS: WHENCE ARISE THE SIN AND MISERY OF THE WORLD? How cAN ISRAEL’S CONTINUED AFFLICTION BE RECONCILED WITH THE DIVINE JUSTICE?

4 And I said: »O Lord my Lord,° was it not thou who in the beginning, when ° thou didst form the 5 earth—and that thyself alone—didst speak and commandedst the dust, so that it gave thee Adam °, a lifeless body? But yet it was both itself the formation of thy hands and thou breathedst into 6 him the breath of life, so that he was made living before thee. And thou leddest him into Paradise, 7 which thy right hand did plant before ever the earth came forward ; and to him thou commandedst 4 one only observance of thine“, but he transgressed it. Forthwith thou appointedst death for him ®and for his generations °, and from him were born nations and tribes, peoples and clans innumerable. 8 And every nation walked after their own will, and behaved wickedly before thee, and were ungodly 9 = but thou didst not hinder them. Nevertheless again in (due) time thou broughtest the Flood tof upon the earth and‘ upon the inhabitants of the world, and destroyedst them. And & their fate 8 II was one and the same; as death (overtook) Adam, so the Flood (overwhelmed) these. Nevertheless one of them thou didst spare—Noah with his household (and with him) all the righteous his 12 descendants. And it came to pass that when the inhabitants upon the earth began to multiply, and »there were born" children also and peoples and nations many, that they began to practise 13 ungodliness more than former (generations). And it came to pass that when they practised 14 ungodliness before thee, thou didst choose thee one from among them whose name was Abraham : him 15 thou didst love, and unto him only didst thou reveal ‘the end of the times i secretly by night; and with him thou didst make an everlasting covenant, and didst promise him that thou wouldst never 16 forsake his seed. And thou gavest him Isaac, and to Isaac thou gavest Jacoband Esau. And thou 17 didst set apart Jacob for thyself, but Esau thou didst hate; and Jacob became a great host. And it came to pass that when thou leddest forth his seed out ‘of Eg gypt, and didst er them to the Mount Sinai, 18 Thou didst bow down the heavens, didst make the earth quake

a—a For the lacuna here see the discussion on the previous page. b-b #: O dominator Domine (#.V. O Lord that bearest rule) Acorora kupte (Hilg.): 70" IN ce reading plasmasti terram .. . et imperasti pulveri et dedit tibi Adam wth B/ and Paes so & (cf. Ethiop. Ar): Laz. MSS. plantasti terram .. . et imperasti

populo (so SA: orbi CM) tuo et dedisti Adam (so SA: of the rendering of A.V.) %4 ¥& diligentiam unam tuam: Zhe Oriental Versions render commandment (for this sense of diligentia of. Bensly, Missing Fragment’ » Pe 50) aes, & (cf. other Oriental Versions): % et in nationibus eius ff so S and Ethiop.; & Ari s-s © casus eorum:

S their destruction (cf Ethiop.) h-h so Ethiop.: & Paiiplicaverant (so 3) fA ee temporum finem wth C

4. in the beginning. Cf. Gen. ii. 7 f. In accordance with the wide philosophic outlook of the apocalyptists the writer begins his survey with Creation. On the other hand, the prophets characteristically begin with the Exodus from Egypt, which marked the birthday of Israel asa nation. Cf. Jer. ii. 2; Hos. xi. 1.

6. before ever the earth came forward. According to one view current in later Jewish circles Paradise ( the Garden of Eden) was one of seven things created before the world (viz. Torah, Repentance, the Garden of Eden, Gehenna, the Throne of Glory, the Temple, and the Messiah; cf. Pesah 54a, Nedar. 394, Ber. rab. xx). For this view, as regards Paradise, our text here is the earliest literary evidence. It was deduced from Gen. ii. 8 (where the Hebr. word mzggedem, understood as ‘from the beginning ’ [not ‘ eastward ’] was interpreted to mean “ before’ the creation of the world). According to the earlier view ; the Garden of Eden was one of the things created on the third day: cf. Book of Jubilees, ii. 7, and Charles’s note on the passage. Paradise has varying meanings in apocalyptic literature. The conception of an earthly and heavenly paradise is oak to be noted. Here Eden as man’s primitive home of blessedness is meant. See further the discussion in £4, 105 ff.

1o. And their fate was one and the same. A like fate pbertnel both Adam and the generation of the deluge. Note that the survey begins with Adam; contrast 2 Pet. ii. 4.

13. thou didst choose thee one, &e. Ch Genrsitiae

14. unto him only didst thou reveal the end of the times secretly by night. The vision described in Gen. xv. 9 f. was later invested with an extended significance; it was supposed to give an intimation of Israel’s later captivity and subjection to the four oppressive world-powers of the Book of Daniel, which are interpreted to be Babylon, Media, Greece, and Rome (cf. Targums ad /oc.).

16. Jacob became a great host. Cf. Gen. xxxil. 1of.

18. Thou didst bow down the heavens, &c. The whole description is of a theophany, and may be compared with Ps. Ixviii. 7 ff. The particular theophany referred to is described in Exod. xix. 16 f.

1 So the Targums (cf. also the Syriac and Latin versions, and Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion). According another view, however, the expression means ‘ before the creation of man’: cf. Gez. vad, xv.

and convulsedst the world— Thou didst cause the deeps to tremble and didst alarm the spheres. 19 And thy glory went through the four gates of fire, earthquake, wind, and cold, To give Law to Jacob’s seed and Commandment to the generation of Israel. 20 And yet thou didst not take away from them the evil heart, that thy Law might bring forth fruit 21inthem, For the first Adam, clothing himself with the evil heart, transgressed and was overcome ; 22 and likewise also all who were born of him. Thus the infirmity became inveterate ; the Law indeed was in the heart of the people, but (in conjunction) with the evil germ ; so what was good departed, 23 and the evil remained. So the times passed away and the years came to an end; and (then) thou 24 didst raise up for thyself a servant whose name was David ; and thou commandedst him to build the 25 City (which is called) after thy name, and to offer thee * oblations therein of thine own*. And after 26 this had been done many years, the inhabitants of the City committed sin, in all things doing even as Adam and all his generations had done: for they also 'had clothed themselves with! the evil 27, 28 heart: and so thou gavest thy city over into the hands of thine enemies. Then I said in my heart: 29 Are their deeds any better™ that inhabit Babylon? Has he for this "rejected" Sion? It came to pass when I came hither and saw ungodly deeds innumerable, and myself saw many sinners ° these 30 thirty years °, that my heart ? was perturbed”: for I have seen how thou dost suffer the sinners and dost spare the ungodly, how thou hast destroyed thy people and preserved thine enemies ; (vii. 31 and hast not made known at all unto any how this course of thine shall be abandoned. Have the 2-6) 32 deeds of Babylon been better than those of Sion? [Has any other nation known thee beside Israel ? 33 Or what tribes have so believed thy covenants as those of Jacob ?—whose reward (nevertheless) hath not appeared nor their labour borne fruit! For I have gone hither and thither through the nations 34 and seen them in prosperity, although unmindful of thy commandments. Now, therefore, weigh thou our iniquities, and those of the inhabitants of the world, in the balance and so shall be found

(SA >): cf. % Ethiop. j 3+and a house k-k yeading in ea de tuis oblationes so CM 8: cf. Ar.)? (thus et oblationes, of A.V. and Vulg., is a corruption) El so 3 Ethiop.: & utebantur (emend to induebantur wth Filg.) m Lthiop. +than ours (cf. Av.) nn so ZAr): L£ corrupt: dominabit SA (? vead damnavit with Violet, or abominavit with Gunkel) °° so Ar# (Ethiop.) : © hoc tricesimo anno (a mzsvendering of original Hebrew) p—p & excessit ( efeorn)

19. thy glory went through the four gates of fire, earthquake, wind, and cold. The writer, in accordance with the developed Jewish conceptions of Jahveh’s majesty and transcendence, pictures God as appearing in theophany on earth (at Sinai) in a gradual descent from His throne in the highest of the heavens through the lower heavens by their successive ‘gates’. The idea of a plurality of heavens is implied. In the earlier form of this doctrine there were three, in the later form (which was already current in the first century A.D.; cf. 2 Enoch) there were seven heavens. The ‘gates’ alluded to in our text are apparently those of the four lowest heavens. See further ZA, p. 14.

20. the evil heart, Lat. cor malignum. In this and the following verses (21-22, 25-26) the subject of Adam’s transgression and the hereditary tendency to sin (created by his lapse) in all his descendants is introduced. It is pursued in iv. 30-31, and in vii. 118 Adam is charged with being the cause of the perdition of the human race (O thou Adam, what hast thou done? For though it was thou that sinned the fall was not thine alone but ours also who are thy descendants’). The inherent infirmity of human nature is a dominating idea in the apocalyptic writer’s mind, and a characteristic note of his pessimism. In the stress he lays on Adam’s sin he reminds us of St. Paul (cf. Rom. v. 12f.). The cor malignum is regarded as the result of Adam’s yielding to the evil impulse (the yeser ha-ra@ of Rabbinic theology, called the ‘ grain of evil seed’ [granum seminis mali| in iv. 30. In vii. 92 it is called ‘the evil thought (cogztamentum malum) which was fashioned with them’).

that thy Law might bring forth fruit in them. Cf. Rom. vil. 5; v. 20.

21. clothing himself with the evil heart. Adam ‘clothed himself’ with the cor malignum by yielding to the suggestions of ‘the evil impulse’. The ‘evil heart’ thus developed inevitably led to sin and death,

22. the Law indeed was in the heart of the people. Cf. the conflict described in Rom. vii. 7 f., and especially

what was good departed. i.e. the good tendency (the yeser ha-tob) was entirely overcome. The Law was powerless to prevent the evil element in man’s nature from gaining the entire mastery. This is clean contrary to Rabbinic theology, which emphasizes the power of the Law to keep the evil tendency in check and overcome it: cf. the dictum: ‘ The Law wears away the evil yeser as water wears away stone’ (7. B. Suk. 52 4). 24. thou commandedst him to build. David is regarded as the founder of the Holy City; cf. x. 46. oblations therein of thine own. The supreme glory and unique distinction of the divine city consists in its being the place where sacrifice and oblation were properly and regularly offered to God.

31. how this course of thine (lit. this way) shall be abandoned. God’s course of action is meant. S&S renders: “how thy way may be comprehended.’

32-36. For the reasons for assigning these verses to R see ZA, p. 6f.

4 which way the turn of the scale inclines4. Or when was it that the inhabitants of the earth did not sin before thee ? Or what nation hath so kept thy precepts? * Individual men of note* indeed thou mayst find to have kept thy precepts; but nations thou shalt not find.]

III. THE DIVINE REPLY; GOD’S WAYS ARE INSCRUTABLE. (a) iv. 1-11. The human spirit can only hope to understand dimly and in part {S).

Thereupon the angel answered me who had been sent to me, [and whose name was Uriel]; and he said to me: Thy heart hath utterly failed thee regarding this world; and thinkest thou to comprehend the way of the Most High?

Then said I: Yes, my Lord.

And he answered me, and said: Three ways have I been sent to show thee, and three similitudes to set before thee: if thou canst declare me one of these I also will show thee the way thou desirest to see, and teach thee * whence comes § the evil heart.

And I said: Speak on, my Lord.

Then he said unto me:

Come, weigh me the weight of the fire ; Or measure me tthe measure * of the wind, Or recall me the day that is past.

Then answered I and said: Who of the “earth-born" could Ydo so’ that thou shouldst ask me about such matters ?

And he said to me: Had I asked thee

How many dwellings are in the heart of the sea?

Or * how many springs in the source of the deep?

Or how many * ways * above the firmament ?

Y Or where are the portals of Hades¥?

Or where the paths of Paradise ? a-a # momentum (zzferzor AZSS,. nomen tuum) puncti ubi declinet rr Z% homines per nomina 8-8 yeading unde sit (with one Codex); quare sit SACMS8% Ethiop. Ar. t-t reading satum. 3 (cf Ethiop. Ar+) for flatum SC M u-u # natorum VY reading hoc facere (A* *); cf 3 Ethiop. Ar Arm.; other Latin MSS. > hoc w-w so Ar} Ethiop. & quantae venae x-x emending venae of & Zo viae (cf. S Ethiop. Arm.) ¥-¥ so S and other Oriental VSS. 4% > (by homoioteleuton ; cf. next clause) 2-2 so Oriental

36. Individual men of note. Such as Job, regarded as a non-Israelite of conspicuous piety: cf. St. Paul’s treatment of the theme of the law-abiding Gentile in Rom. ii. 26 f.

(a) iv. 1-11. The angel (or rather archangel ; cf. iv. 36) Uriel is sent to the seer, and propounds three problems to him which he is unable to answer. If these are beyond his capacity, how can he presume to challenge the inscrutable ways of God? The general character of the passage is similar to parts of Job (cf. especially Job xxviii). For the dialogue between the angel and Salathiel cf. e.g. Zech. i-vi, Dan. x, &c. 2%

1. Uriel. Uriel (=? ‘the fire of God’, Heb. ’#r-’é/) is mentioned again in verse 36, v. 20, and x. 38 (not again in the Bible). He was one of the four chief angels\(Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel), of whom Michael was the highest (cf. Lueken, Afichael, p. 32 f.). According to 1 En. xx. 2 Uriel was ‘the angel over the world and over Tartarus’.! In 1 En. x. 1 (Greek) he is the divine messenger who is sent to warn the son of Lamech. So here. The problems he propounds to Ezra accord with the character assigned to him and his name. The first (‘weigh me the weight of the fire’) is suggested by the meaning of the name Uriel—‘ Fire of God’. The others are concerned with the waters of the deep (¢éhém), and with the underworld. Uriel is thus designated, therefore, as being ‘the archangel of fire and of Gehenna, where flame is the chief element’ (cf. /Z, xil. 383). Later he became (mistakenly) associated with light (Heb. ’ér), and was regarded as the enlightener (‘he who brings light to Israel’, Mum. rabd. ii. 10). In 1 En. xl, Fanuel, one of the four ‘ presences’ (Michael, Rufael, Gabriel, Fanuel), is, apparently, Uriel under another aspect. For Uriel as propounder and answerer of questions as here, cf. 1 En. xxi. 5, 9; XXVll. 2; Xxxill. 3, 4.

2. Thy heart hath utterly failed thee, &c. For the sentiment cf. John iii. 12.

5. fire... wind. For the conjunction of ‘fire’ and ‘wind’ cf. iii. 19, viii. 22, Wisd. xiii. 2. The four winds were regarded as having their dwelling-places in the four corners of the earth. Here they were detained in ‘ treasuries’ and issued forth from time to time through ‘portals’ (cf. 1 En. xxxv f., where the portals which open into heaven from the ends of the earth are spoken of; cf. also 4 Ezra vi. 1). According to Rev. vii. 1 the four storehouses of the winds are guarded by four angels. As their dwelling-place was fixed at the extremities of the earth the winds would be under the supreme rule of Uriel, ‘the angel over the world and over Tartarus’. To the ancients the wind was a supremely mysterious agent (cf. Eccles. xi. 5, ‘as thou knowest not the way of the wind’, and John iii. 8).

measure me the measure of the wind. Cf. Job xxviii. 22 for the similar idea of ‘ weighing’ the wind ; and for 7. How many dwellings are in the heart of the sea. Cf. Job xxviii. 16-17. paths of Paradise, i.e. leading to Paradise ; the heavenly Paradise is meant.

1 ¢ Over thunder and earthquake’, according to the Eth. text; the Greek gives as above. [Probably the clause ‘and whose name was Uriel’ was added by R.]

8 Perchance thou wouldst have said to me: Into the deep I have not descended, nor as yet *gone down” into Hades; Neither to heaven have I ever ascended, * nor entered Paradise *. But now I have only asked thee of the fire, the wind, and the day ” that is past *,—things without which thou canst not be; and yet thou hast vouchsafed me no answer about them! 10 ©He said moreover unto me: ° What belongs to thee “—the things that have intermingled with thy rr growth—thou art incapable of understanding ; how then should thy vessel be able to comprehend the way of the Most High? ¢ For the way of the Most High has been formed without measure‘, * how, then, should it be possible for a mortal in a corruptible world to understand the ways of the Incorruptible ° ?

(0) iv. 12-21. The dialogue continued : tt ts foolish and senseless to demand what 1s against nature (S).

12 ‘{And when I heard these things I fell upon my face]‘ and said unto him: It would have been better * that we had never been created § than having come [into the world] to live in sins and suffer, and not »to know ® why we suffer.

13. And heanswered me and said: ! Once upon a time the woods of the trees of the field went forth,

14 and took counsel, and said : Come, let us go and make war against the sea, that it may retire before

15 us, and we will make us Jmore woods). In like manner also the waves of the sea took counsel, and said: Come, let us go up and wage war against the wood of the field, that there also we may win us

17 more territory. The counsel of the wood was in vain, for the fire came and consumed it ; likewise,

18 also, the counsel of the waves of the sea, for the sand * stood up* and stopped them. If thou, now,

19 hadst been judge between them whom wouldst thou have justified or whom condemned? I answered and said: Both have taken a foolish counsel; for to the wood the land has been assigned, and ! to the. sea a place! to bear its waves.

20 Then he answered me and said: Thou hast judged aright ; but why hast thou not given judgement

21 in thine own case? For just as the earth has been assigned tothe wood, and ™ the place of the sea to bear its waves™; even so the dwellers upon earth can understand only what is upon the earth, » and they who are above the heavens” that which is above the heavenly height.

(c) iv. 22-32. The dialogue continued: The seer protests that his perplexities are occasioned by the daily expertences of earth. He is told that the new age which ts about to dawn will solve all

difficulties (S). 22 Then answered I and said: I beseech thee, O Lord, wherefore have I been endowed with an

VSS. £ > a-a so Ethiop. Arm. (cf. Ar.2); LS b-> so Ethiop. (cf Ar): £ per quae ( S; v. 2. quem) transisti e-e @ quae tua sunt: 3 Lthiop, (one Mina) Arm. > d-d 50 % eed (gf: Ar. Arm.) : LL > (by homoioteleuton) 8° so & substantially (nor is it possible, &c.): cf Ethiop. Ar1: & et iam exteritus corrupto saeculo intellegere incorruptionem ? ff so Oriental Versions: & corrupt es so Ethiop. : i nos non adesse hh yeading intellegere ( 3 Ar} Arm): nee intellexi (S A C) i so 3 (ff. Ethiop.): & ts corrupt J-i @ alias silvas: 3 E¢thtop. a new wood “* so & stetit ( eorn) 3 Ar.'; but Ethiop. and Arm. stayed ( eornce) Vl yeading mari locus (C, &c.); du¢ S A maris locus $ m-m s9 3; £# et mare fluctibus suis n—n 7 qui super coelos: Av? Arm. interpret as plural (they who are above the heavens): 3% as simg. (he who is above, &c.)

g. things without which thou canst not be. Man cannot live apart from wind, warmth, and the passing day ; cf. for the thought Wisd. ix. 16. to. What belongs to thee—the things ... thy growth. The ‘things’ referred to include fire and wind, two of the four primal elements (fire, wind, earth, and water) ; for these cf. Wisd. vil. 17, xill. I, xix. 18 (rad orotyeia). There may be an allusion, as Gunkel suggests, to man’s living organism (the microcosm) being compounded of the elements (cf. viii. 8). This view is of Oriental origin. thy vessel. The body is the ‘ vessel’ of the soul or understanding.

(4) iv. 12-21. In answer to Salathiel’s despairing interjection the archangel further enforces the point of the preceding paragraph by a parable, taken from the sea and the forest. The idea of the sea being held in check and kept within prescribed bounds by the divine power is an ancient one, and forms the motive of some early mythological Creation myths (cf. Job, vii. 12, xxxviii. 8f.). The application of the idea to the wood seems to be original to the apocalyptist so Gunkel).

12. It would have been better that we had never been created, &c. The seer here takes the pessimistic view of the school of Shammai on the question whether it would have been better for man never to have been created. According to 7. B, Evub. 13 6 the controversy lasted two and a half years.

27. the sand stood up and stopped them. Cf. Jer. v. 22.

(c) iv. 22-32. Disclaiming any desire ‘ to be curious about the ways above’, the seer protests that his difficulties are very real and rooted in daily experience. He is above measure perplexed because the chosen race—the people that bear God’s sacred name of Israel—should be given up as a grey to the godless heathen (vv. 22-25). He is assured in

23 understanding to discern? For I meant not to ask °about the ways above ° but of those things we daily experience ; Why is Israel to the heathen given over for reproach, . thy beloved people to godless tribes given up ? The Law of our fathers ? has been brought to destruction”, the written covenants exist no more ; 24 We vanish from the world as locusts, our life is 21as a breath %, 25 We indeed are not worthy to obtain mercy ; but what will he do for his own name whereby we are called? It is about these things that I have asked.

The Answer.

26 Then he answered me and said: "If thou survive* thou shalt see, and if thou livest long thou shalt marvel; for the age is hastening fast to its end.

27; Because it is unable to bear the things promised * in their season * to the righteous ; for this age is full of sorrow and impotence.

28 For the evil ‘concerning which* thou askest me is sown, but "the ingathering of it" is not yet

29 come. Unless, therefore, that which is sown be reaped, and unless the place where the evil is sown

3o Shall have passed away, the field where the good is sown cannot come. For a grain of evil seed was sown in the heart of Adam from the beginning, and how much fruit of ungodliness has it produced unto this time, and shall yet produce until the threshing-floor come!

31 Reckon up, now, in thine own mind: Vif’ a grain of evil seed has produced so much fruit of

32 ungodliness, when once the ears “of the good seed shall have been sown without number, how great a floor shall they be destined to fill ?

(d) iv. 33-43. The dialogue continued. In reply to his question, When shall these things be ? the seer receives the answer— When the number of the righteous 1s complete (S).

33. Then Ianswered and said: * How long and when* shall these things (be coming to pass)? ¥ For our years are few and evil.

34 And he answered me and said: Thy haste may not exceed that of the Most High; for thou art hastening 2 for thine own self %, but the Exalted One on behalf of many.

°-° veading de superioribus viis (C) % Ethiopf. Ar’: de superioribus tuis S A P-P reading in interitum (S A); C M in inritum (so B/) 9-4 yveading ut vapor S Ethiop.: ut pavor SAM rx so Ethiop. ( eav pevys): L si fueris ( cay pev ns) s-s #/ in temporibus: 3 Lthiop. > t-t reading de quo .. . de eo (cf % Ethiop.) : de

quibus SA uu reading destrictio ipsius (S A*): v. 2. destructio VY so Ethio~.: £2 > wow so S Ethiop. : x > xX yeading usquequo et quando ( $ Lthiof. Arm.): quo (for usquequo) SA IY so & Ethiop.: x quare 2-8 yeading propter temetipsum % Ethiop. L corrupt. a-a so & Ethiop.: & usquequo spero sic

reply that the present age is hastening to its close, and that the new age which is about to dawn will solve all difficulties (v. 26). It is further explained to him why the present state of things must go on for a time. The harvest of evil must first be reaped before something better can take its place (vv. 27-32). Cf. the reference in a similar connexion to the harvest of good and bad seed in 2 Baruch Ixx. 2.

23. the written covenants. The expression is a synonym for the Law (Scriptures). In 7. B. Berak 48 6 the Law (Torah) is said to have been given ‘ by three covenants’, viz. those with Israel at Sinai, at Gerizim, and in the plains of Moab; cf. Rom. ix. 4, and Sir. xliv. 11, Wisd. xviii. 22. For the destruction of the Law cf. xiv. 21 f.

25. what will he do for hisown name. Cf. Isa. Ixiii. 19; 2 Baruch v. 1; also 4 Ezra x. 22.

whereby we are called. lit. ‘which is called upon us’. The expression implies ownership. Cf. Isa. xliil. 7; 2 Chron. vii. 14; James ii. 7. Israel’s election is appealed to.

27. this age is full of sorrow and impotence. It is characteristic of the apocalyptic writer’s pessimism that he gives up the present age entirely. It must be destroyed absolutely, and an entirely new order take its place. The older view that the present world should be renewed in a purified form is abandoned.

28. the ingathering of it. For the idea of sowing, reaping, and harvest applied metaphorically to evil, cf. the parable of the Sower (Matt. xiii), and in particular Matt. xiii. 39.

32. be destined to fill. The harvest of good, when once it has been sown (immediately after the end of the present evil age), will in the golden future far surpass the previous harvest of evil. The argument @ mnori ad maius is characteristically Jewish. :

(d) iv. 33-43. The seer’s impatient question—‘ How long? when shall these good things come to pass ?’—is rebuked. Everything has been predetermined. Till the predestined number of the righteous has been completed the judgement cannot come. But when the moment has arrived nothing can delay its consummation. The point is further enforced by a similitude. On the whole passage cf. Charles, Eschatology, p. 293 f.

34. Thy haste may not exceed that of the Most High. ‘The seer is rebuked for selfish impatience. The Most High is no less ready to ‘haste’ than himself, but determines His action in accordance with the interests of all (many) ; cf. v. 33. As Gunkel remarks, such admonitions to be patient are a standing feature of apocalyptic writings. Acquiescence in the divine will was the highest virtue in a time when even the most pious sighed for the end of the present world.

Were not these questions of thine asked by the souls of the righteous in their chambers ?

How long are we (to remain) here?* When cometh the fruit upon the threshing-floor of our reward ?’

And to them the archangel Jeremiel made reply, and said: Even when the number ° of those like yourself” is fulfilled !

For he has weighed the age in the balance, And with measure has measured the ¢ times °, And by number has numbered the ° seasons °: Neither will he move nor stir things, till the measure “appointed @ be fulfilled.

Then I answered and said: O Lord my Lord, ° but behold ® we are all full of ungodliness. ‘Is it, perchance,‘ on our account that * the threshing-floor of the righteous is kept back ’—on account of the sins of the dwellers upon earth ?

So he answered me and said: Go and ask the woman who is pregnant, when she has completed her nine months, if her womb can keep the birth any longer within her?

Then said I: No, Lord, it cannot. And he said to me: ® The underworld and the chambers of

bb yeading similium vobis % Ethiop. Ar.?: seminum SA CM (corrupt) e-c (ec) # tempora . . . tempora: S times... hours (changing expression, prob. rightly) d-a % praedicta ®-© so Ethiop. (and 3 by an easy emendation): & sed et (? read ecce for et) ff so Ethiop.: & et ne forte (? ead num forte) 8-8 reading prohibeatur iustorum area (C M) Ethiop. (gj. 3): v. /. impleatur (S A), non impleantur (iustorum areae) b-h sg & Ethiop. (hence Violet emends & infernum et promptuaria animarum): % (MSS.) in inferno promptuaria animarum

35. by ... the righteous. i.e. the righteous dead.

in their chambers. Lat. 77 promptuariis suis = év rois rapeiors adtov. The word promptuaria recurs in iv. 41, vil. 32, 95 (cf. v. 9, 27, vi. 22); also in Ps. cxliv. 13, and apparently not again in the Vulgate. These ‘chambers’ are the ‘ treasuries of souls’ referred to sometimes in apocalyptic books (cf. 2 Bar. xxi. 23, ‘And let the treasuries of souls restore those which are enclosed in them’; 1 En. xxil. 3 f.). These ‘treasuries’ or ‘ habitations’ (Aadétacula, 4 Ezra vii. 80) were reserved for the righteous only (vii. 80), who entered them at death, and there enjoying ‘ great quietness’ and ‘guarded by angels’, they awaited the final judgement (vii. 95). Then the ‘ chambers’ were to restore the souls committed to them (vii. 32, cf. iv. 42; 2 Bar. xxi. 3,xxx.2). According to the Talmud (7. 2. Shabbath 1526) the souls of the righteous dead are beneath the throne of God (cf. Rev. vi. 9 f., where the souls of the righteous who have suffered martyrdom are represented as being ‘ beneath the [heavenly] altar’). Ina few passages in the Rabbinical literature the word ¢veasury (Heb. ’osar) is used in this connexion: cf. e.g. M/zdr. rab. on Qoheleth (iii. 21), where the souls of the righteous are said to be ‘placed in the treasury’, which is located in the heavenly ‘height’. According to 4 Ezra vii. 41, however, these ‘ treasuries’ or ‘chambers’ are placed in Sheol (the lower world). But the alternative reading is better (see ad /oc.).

36. Jeremiel. Gk. ‘Tepesund ( Heb. Sxnn). This archangel may confidently be identified with “Peper (note that the Syr. of our verse actually reads Ramze/), who appears in the Greek (Gizeh) text of 1 En. xx. as the seventh of the seven archangels (1, Uriel; 2, Raphael; 3, Raguel; 4, Michael; 5, Sariel [ Eth. Saraq4él]; 6, Gabriel ; 7, Remiel [ Jeremiel]). In the Ethiop. text the first six only are mentioned; but, doubtless, the Greek is right in enumerating seven. The last ( Jeremiel) is described as ‘one of the holy angels whom God appointed to be over those who rise [from the dead]’ (emt rév avictapérwv). This agrees admirably with the réle assigned to him here as the archangel who has charge of the souls of the righteous who are guarded in the ‘ treasuries’, and await the final judgement and resurrection. [Only two of the seven archangels are mentioned in 4 Ezra, viz. Uriel and Jeremiel.]}

those like yourself is fulfilled. The end of the age and the ‘ regeneration’ can only take place when the number of the saints has been completed. This is also the view represented in Rev. vi. 11 (‘until their fellowservants . . . should be fulfilled’) ; Swete, ad /oc., aptly cites from the Anglican Burial Service, ‘that it may please thee . . . shortly to accomplish the number of thine elect, and to hasten thy kingdom.’ According to Rey. vii. 4 the number of the ‘ sealed’, i.e. the elect, is 144,000. In 2 Bar. xxiii. 5 the number that is to be fulfilled is of mankind as a whole (all who should be born)—a view which is referred to in Rabbinical literature (see the references cited by Charles on Af. Bar., loc. cz¢.), This number was a secret known only to God Himself (2 Bar. xxi. 10, xlviii. 46).

36-37. weighed . .. measured ... numbered. ‘The times and periods of the course of the world’s history have been predetermined by God. The numbers of the years have been exactly fixed. This was a fundamental postulate of the apocalyptists, who devoted much of their energy to calculations, based upon a close study of prophecy, as to the exact period when history should reach its consummation. One scheme especially favoured divided history into a world-week of seven millenniums, corresponding to the week of Creation (cf. vii. 30, 43; according to 2 Pet. iii. 8 [cf. Ps. xc. 4] a day = 1,000 years). Here, however, as in the case of the number of the righteous (elect), no definite number is mentioned. The categories of ‘weight’, ‘measure’, and ‘rule’ (or ‘number’) are also applied to Creation generally ; cf. Zest. Twelve Patr. Naph. ii. 3; Wisd. xi. 20 (‘ by measure, number, and weight thou didst order all things’) Philo, Som. ii. 29 (‘God . . . measures, weighs, and numbers all things, and circumscribes them with bounds and limits’). In the O.T. similar expressions are occasionally met with; thus in Job xxviii. 25 the winds are said to be ‘weighed’ and the waters ‘measured’; in Isa. xl. 12 the mountains and hills; cf. 1 En. xliii. 2 (the stars); also 4 Ezra iv. 5. The underlying idea is predestinarian (cf. Charles on 1 En. xlvii. 3).

41. the underworld and the chambers of souls. For the text cf. crit. note. The treasury of the souls of the righteous dead is, no doubt, meant. Gunkel, indeed, and some other scholars take the ‘ chambers of souls’ here to refer to unborn souls, not to those of the righteous dead. In this case an antithesis is intended between Aromptuaria animarum and infernum ; the latter (= Sheol) is the place where all the dead are received, the abode of all departed souls ; the former the abode of souls yet unborn (cf. 2 Bar. xxiii. 5 [same antithesis between abode of unborn and

42 souls" are like the womb: for just as she who is in travail makes haste to escape the anguish of the 43 travail; even so do these places hasten to deliver what has been entrusted to them from the beginning. Then to thee it shall be showed concerning those things that thou desirest to see.

(e) iv. 44-50. The dialogue continued. In reply to a further question, the seer is shown by a similitude that the End will come soon (S).

44 Then I answered and said: If I have found favour in thy sight, and if it be possible, and if I be

45 sufficient, show me this also: whether there be more to come than is past, or whether the more part

46 is already gone by us? For what is gone by I know, but what is to come I know not.

47 And he said to me: Stand to the right, and I will explain the meaning of a similitude unto thee.

48 So I stood, and saw, and lo! a blazing furnace passed by before me; and it happened that when the flame had gone by I looked and lo! the smoke remained still.

49 Thereupon there passed by before me a cloud full of water, and sent down much rain with a storm ; and when the rain-storm was past the drops remained therein still.

5° Then said he unto me: Consider for thyself; for as the rain is more than the drops, and as the fire is greater than the smoke, so has the measure of what is past exceeded by far; but there are still left over—the drops and the smoke !

(f) iv. 51-v. 13. The signs which precede the End (E) (R).

51. Then I made supplication, and said: Thinkest thou that I shall live until those days? Who! shall be (live) in those days? 52 He answered me, and said: [As for the signs concerning which thou askest me, I may tell thee

(so BJ) ii # vel quis; so S$: but Ethiop. Ar Ar2 What [shall happen in those days] Ji reading in excessu

departed spirits]; xlviii. 16, lii. 6, lvi. 6). But in v. 35 the promptuaria are undoubtedly the chambers containing the souls of the righteous dead. It would be strange if a few verses later the same expression were used, without any limiting phrase, to denote something else. In this case the zfermum (underworld, Sheol) will be a general term for the abode of the souls of the wicked dead, where they await the final judgement. This is the meaning of Sheol (Hades), apparently, in the Johannine Apocalypse, where Hades and Death are always combined, and (like the wicked) are consigned to the lake of fire (cf. Rev. i. 18; vi. 8; xx. 13, 14; and see Charles, Eschatology, p. 352).

(e) iv. 44-50. The seer now asks, but in a more subdued and less impatient manner, whether more of the drama remains to be enacted than what is already past. He is shown a vision of fire and storm, of which nothing remains, after they have gone by, but the smoke and the rain-drops, and is told that in a like manner the greater part of the world’s history that precedes the End is already past.

47. Stand to the right. The Arabic renders: ‘Turn thyself towards the right side and look’; but the expression may mean upon the right side of the speaker. The seer is bidden to stand upon the right side of the angel in order that both (now facing one way) may watch the spectacle as it passes; presumably before this they had been standing face to face.

(/) iv. 51-v. 13. In reply to a further question as to whether he shall live to see ‘those days’ and as to what will then happen, the seer is given a description of the signs of the End. These are set forth in detail (v. 1-12). It will be a time of commotions and the general break up of moral and religious forces (vv. 1-2); the heathen worldpower (= Rome) will be destroyed (v. 3); there will be portents in nature, general chaos in society, monstrous and untimely births, the failure of the means of subsistence, and internecine strife (vv. 4-9, vi. 21-22) ; wisdom and understanding will have perished from the earth (vv. 10-12). There is a further reference to these ‘ signs’ in 1x. 3 f.

A close examination of the passage makes it clear that the section detailing the ‘signs’ (v. 1-12) cannot belong to S. In iv. 51 the seer asks: ‘ Thinkest thou that I shall live in those days? Or who (v. 2. what) shall be in those days ?’—the ‘ days’ = the time of the End. The answer that follows (in the present form of the text) is: [‘ As for the signs concerning which thou askest me, I may tell thee of them in part, but] concerning thy life I have not been sent to speak to thee, nor have I any knowledge thereof. Only the latter part of this verse (the words outside the brackets) is an answer to Salathiel’s question. He had not said a word about the ‘signs’. The attempt to evade this difficulty in some of the versions (Ethiop. and Arab., cf. Vulg.) by substituting ‘what’ for ‘ who’ (against the Latin and Syriac) in the second half of the question only complicates matters by introducing another (and totally different) question. It is no answer to Salathiel to tell him some of the signs that shall precede the End. He desires to know whether he himself shall live to see the End. Moreover, the description of the ‘ signs’ that follows (v. I-12) is in tone and style alien to S. It is in any case much older, and bears marks of being traditional. Of course it is conceivable that S may have used such older material; but if he had done so he would have invested it with some of the marks of his own style. He cannot have been responsible for its awkward introduction here. No doubt the passage has been inserted by R from E. The original sequence of S here (the inserted passage being ignored) will have been as follows: ‘ Then I made supplication and said: Thinkest thou that I shall live until those days? Or who shall be in those days? He answered me, and said: Concerning thy life I have not been sent to speak to thee, nor have I any knowledge thereof. If, however, thou wilt pray again, and weep as now, and fast [again] seven days, thou shalt hear yet greater things than these’ (iv. 51, 52, v. 13 0).

The passage is really a descriptive list of the Messianic ‘ woes’, and bears a general likeness to other eschatological descriptions of the signs that precede the End. See further ZA, p. 41, and the literature there cited.

52. the signs concerning which thou askest me. To the instructed the events which were to precede and herald the End were a ‘sign’; cf. ix. 1 f. (Matt. xxiv. 15; Mark xili. 14).

(R)S of them in part ; but] concerning thy life I have not been sent to speak to thee, nor have I any knowledge (thereof). E 51 Concerning the signs, however: Behold, the days come when the inhabitants of earth shall be seized i with great panic, And the way of truth shall be hidden, and the land be barren of faith. 2 And iniquity shall be increased above that which thou thyself now seest or that thou hast heard of 3 long ago. And the land that thou seest now to bear rule * shall be a pathless waste*; and men 4 shall see it forsaken: if the Most High grant thee to live, thou shalt see it after !the third (period) in confusion |. . Then shall the sun suddenly shine forth by night and the moon by day: 5 And blood shall trickle forth from wood, and the stone utter its voice: The peoples shall be in commotion, ™the outgoings (?) (of the stars) ™ shall change. 6 And one whom the dwellers upon earth do not look for shall wield sovereignty, and the birds shall take to general flight, 7 andthe sea” shall cast forth its fish. Nag one °whom ° the many do not know will make his voice heard by night; and all shall hear 1S VOICE. i

multo 3 (ff. Ethiop.); Lat. MSS. incensu multo k-k yeading erit incomposita [et sine] vestigio with B/J (bracketed words not in Lat. MSS.): Violet reads et erit incomposito vestigio, ‘2 unordentlichen Triimmern’: & unstable and untrodden ll yeading post tertiam turbatam (C) [tubam A] m-m 9 gressus (egressos S): S aépes (so Ar} Ar’): Ethiop. = dorépes non % mare Sodomiticum (corrected text): so Oriental VSS.; but Sodomiticum J70b. to be deleted °° yeading quem for quam

in part. The description here is supplemented in vi. 11-28.

v. 3. the land, &c. The Roman Empire is, of course, meant.

shall be a pathless waste. Lit. ‘ shall be disordered and pathless’ (corrected text ; see crit. note).

4. after the third (period) in confusion. For the text cf. crit. note (probably nuépay has fallen out), Some noun of time must be supplied (Ethiop., ‘after the third month’; but Arm., ‘after the third vision’). Gunkel (Schipfung, pp. 268, 269, notes) has shown how significant a réle the number 3% plays in the eschatological tradition, The mystic number has been applied to periods, years, months, and days (in Daniel the 3} years are variously 4 Ezra xiv. 11 f, according to one form of the text 24 world-periods remain (93 of the 12 parts having passed already) ; and there, as in our passage, the number (24) denotes part of the period that is to elapse before the final destruction of the evil and oppressive world-power, i.e. Rome. So here ‘after the third [day, i.e. period]’ means more exactly towards the end of the 3} ‘days’ which remain before Rome’s dominion comes to an end. [Hilg. and others understand the land after the third (cf. Syr.), i.e. the fourth kingdom of Daniel (cf. 4 Ezra xil. 11, where ‘the fourth kingdom that appeared in vision to thy brother Daniel’ is identified with Rome). The Arab. interprets: ‘thou shalt afterwards see these three signs,’ i.e. those of the sun and moon, the blood, and the stones that follow.]

sun... shine forth by night, &c. Cf. 1 Enoch Ixxx. 4, 5 for emended text.

5. blood shall trickle forth from wood, and the stone utter its voice. Cited in Lf. Barnabas xii. 1 as from a prophetic writing (probably not 4 Ezra): see further £4, p. 44.

the outgoings (?) (of the stars) shall change. For text see crit. note. The textual evidence suggests that the Oriental Versions read ‘stars’, or something like it, in their Greek text (ayp, dépes, confused with dornp, dorépes), while the Lat. simply represents some word like ¢éod0. Possibly a combination of these readings may produce an approximation to the original text; such as, ‘the outgoings of the stars are changed’ or ‘ the stars change their outgoings’ [D337 IND |. Cf. Ps. Ixv. 8 (9): ‘Thou makest the “ outgoings” of the morning and evening to rejoice.” These ‘ outgoings’ or ‘ exits’ (cf. extws, vi. 1) were the portals through which the stars proceeded and the winds blew ; cf. 1 En. xxxiv-xxxvi. See further £A, p. 45.

6. one whom ... shall wield sovereignty. i.e. the Antichrist (the wicked tyrant of the last days).

and the birds... flight. Birds, possibly as creatures which soar aloft, were regarded in antiquity as possessing supernatural knowledge. They could foresee impending events.

7. and the sea shall cast forth its fish. So Wellhausen (S£7zzem, vii. 246) and Charles. The Lat. and all the versions have ‘sea of Sodom’. If this be right the portent will consist in the Dead Sea casting out fish, as no fish can live there; cf. Ezek. xlvii. 8 f., where the bitter waters of the Dead Sea are pictured as sweetened and made full of life by the stream issuing from the Temple. Local features are, however, out of harmony with the context, which depicts a convulsion of nature on the largest scale. Hence ‘of Sodom’ is probably to be deleted as an incorrect gloss, which was already present in the original Heb. text (suggested by ‘salt waters . ... in the sweet’ inv. 9?). [‘Sea of Sodom’ is one of the names given to the Dead Sea in the Talmud.] For the general conception cf. Isa. |. 3.

And one whom the many do not know will make his voice heard by night; and all shall hear his voice: et dabit vocem noctu guem {emended from guam] non noverunt multi, omnes autem audient vocem eius: so Wellhausen, Charles. The Latin erroneously refers the relative (WN) to voice, thereby depriving the sentence of a subject. With this emendation the clause xox moverunt multi becomes more intelligible. A mysterious personage is indicated by a voice which all can hear: cf. Josephus’ account of the mysterious voice heard in the Temple saying ‘Let us

8 P And the earth o’er wide regions shall open? and fire burst forth for a long period: The wild beasts shall desert their haunts, 4and women bear monsters 4. vi. 2x (And one-year-old children shall speak with their voices; pregnant women shall bring forth

22 untimely births at three or four months, and these shall live and *dance*. And suddenly shall the sown places appear unsown, and the full storehouses shall suddenly be found empty.)

v-9 Salt waters shall be found in the sweet ; friends shall attack one another * suddenly &.

10 Then shall intelligence hide itself,

and wisdom withdraw to its chamber— by many shall be sought and not found.

11 And unrighteousness and incontinency shall be multiplied upon the earth. One land shall also ask another and say: Is Righteousness—that doeth the right—passed through thee? And it shall answer, No.

12 And it shall be

In that time men shall hope and not obtain, shall labour and not prosper.

13 Such are the signs I am permitted to tell thee ; but if thou wilt pray again, and weep as now, and fast seven days, thou shalt hear again greater things than these.

IV. v. 14-19. CONCLUSION OF ‘THE VISION (S).

14 [Then I awoke, and my body trembled greatly; my soul also was wearied even unto fainting.

15 But the angel who came and spake with me took hold of me, strengthened me, and set me up upon my feet. ]

16 And in the second night Phaltiel, the captain of the people, came unto me, and said: Where hast

17 thou been? And why is thy countenance sad? Or knowest thou not that Israel has been entrusted

18 unto thee in the land of their exile? Rouse thyself, then, and eat a morsel of bread, and do not desert us as a shepherd does (who leaves) his flock in the power of noxious wolves!

19 Then said I unto him: Depart from me, and come not nigh me for seven days; then thou mayst come unto me tand I will explain matters unto thee‘. And when he heard what I said he left me.

P-P S (xaopa or xacpara for xaos): & et chaus fiet per loca multa 4-4 50 & (cf. Ethiop.): & et mulieres parient menstruatae monstra (menstruatae a corrupt doublet of monstra) 1% veading scirtiabuntur (C)

depart eae ’, which he relates as a portent (/ewzsh War, vi. 5. 3 [299]; in the same context he relates other similar ‘portents ’).

Pe. The earth o’er wide regions shall open, lit. ‘a fissure (reading yaopa for xaos: see crit. note) shall arise over wide regions’; cf. Zech. xiv. 4. The Armenian also supports this reading. The fissure starts and spreads over a widening area (fer loca multa).

vi. 21-22. And one-year-old children, &c. These verses, which are obviously out of harmony with their present context in chapter vi, find an appropriate place here. For the feature referred to cf. Matt. xxiv. 19.

v. 9. friends shall attack one another suddenly. Cf. vi. 24.

13. fast seven days. Cf. 2 Bar. xx. 5,6; and Charles’s note on 2 Bar. v.2. In 4 Ezra four fasts of seven days’ duration, followed by a revelation, are referred to (v. 20, vi. 35, 1x. 26, 27, xii. 51), and probably one preceded the first vision (cf. iii. I and notes).

v. 14-19. CONCLUSION OF THE VISION. In their present position the opening verses of this section (v. 14-15)— which clearly form the conclusion of a dream-vision—are misplaced. They have, presumably, been transferred from their proper position (at the conclusion of the lacuna in iii. 1) to their present place by R, so as to form the conclusion of the first vision.

The following verses (v. 16-19) in narrative form belong to the original framework of S, and imply an earlier passage (in the missing introduction after iii. 1), giving the command to the seer to repair to a certain spot in the neighbourhood of Babylon, and there by a seven days’ fast prepare for the reception of further direct revelations. The section should be compared with the parallel passage, xii. 30-48 (also from the framework of S). 14. I awoke, viz. from sleep. Clearly this is the sequel of a dream-vision.

16. Phaltiel. Lat. Phalthiel, Gk. ®adtindk = Heb. Cyonbp, [This name occurs in 2 Sam. iii. 15 as that of Michal’s husband ; in Numb. xxxiv. 26 of a prince of Issachar; cf. Pz/¢az in the list Neh. xii. 17 (a representative of a priestly house in the time of Zerubbabel). Violet suggests that the Phaltiel of our text may originally have been the Pelatiah

( m5) who is mentioned as one of the ‘ heads of the people’ in the time of Nehemiah, in the list Neh, x. 22 the Pe/atiah of 1 Chron. vi. 21). This would suit the time of Ezra but not Salathiel. The historical reference must remain uncertain.] The variants in the Lat. Codd. include Sa/athiel (so Vulg., A. V.), Psalthiel, Spalthiel; the Ethiop. has Phelteyal; Syr. Psaltiel; Arm. Phanuel. 17. that Israel has been entrusted unto thee. Salathiel is the last of the prophets left to the exiles in Babylon, 18. asa shepherd, &c. For the image cf. Matt. x. 15.

THE SECOND VISION. I. v. 20-22. INTRODUCTION.

320,21 Sol fasted seven days, mourning and weeping, even as the angel Uriel commanded me. And

22 after the seven days the thoughts of my heart began to oppress me again grievously ; then my soul recovered the spirit of understanding, and I began once more to address the Most High.

II. v. 23-40. THE PRAYER AND ITS ANSWER.

23 And I said: O Lord my Lord, "out of all the woods" of the earth and all the trees thereof thou

24 hast chosen ‘thee’ one “vine”; out of all the lands of the world thou hast chosen thee one

25 planting-ground ; out of all the flowers of the world thou hast chosen thee one lily; out of all the depths of the sea thou hast replenished for thyself one river ; out of all the cities that have been built

26 thou hast sanctified Sion unto thyself; out of all birds that have been created thou hast called for thyself one dove; out of all the cattle that have been formed thou hast provided thee one sheep ;

27 and out of all the peoples who have become so numerous thou hast gotten thee one people: and the law * which thou didst approve out of all (laws) * thou hast bestowed upon the people whom thou didst desire.

28 And now, O Lord, why hast’ thou delivered up the one unto the many, and dishonoured the one root above the rest, and scattered thine only one among the multitude ?

29 And (why) have ¥ they who denied thy promises been allowed to tread under foot those that have

30 believed thy covenants’? If thou didst so much hate thy people they ought to have been punished with thine own hands. uu so % (of. Art): Hex omni silva (= E£¢hzop.) V-V so Oriental VSS.: £> w-w so Oriental VSS.: # vineam (vineyard) xx so Ethiop.: & ab omnibus probatam legem ¥-Y reading conculcaverunt qui contradicebant sponsionibus tuis eos qui tuis testamentis credebant (Za¢. MSS. have quique for eos qui): so Oriental VSS. (see B/)

THE SECOND VISION (v. 20-vi. 34). After a further fast of seven days the seer (Salathiel) again makes complaint to God. Why has God’s chosen and beloved people Israel been given up to oppressors? (v. 20-30). The angel answers, as before, by showing that man is unable to comprehend the things nearest to himself; how then can he hope to fathom the judgements of God, or compass God’s love? (v. 31-40). The dialogue is continued by the seer asking what the lot of those shall be who have died before the End comes, and is told that their lot will not be worse or better than that of those who survive. The place of successive generations in the divine plan of the world is set forth in a series of striking analogies. The feebleness of age is, the angel declares, manifested in Mother Earth (v. 41-55). In the section that follows (v. 56—vi. 6) the prophet is assured that the End of the present age and the inauguration of the new order shall come by the agency of God alone. The present age of heathen (Roman) oppressors shall be succeeded by the glorious incorruptible age (vi. 7-10). A long passage detailing the signs of the last time and the End follows (vi. 11-28) and the vision concludes (vi. 30-34).

The vision thus falls into the following divisions—

ii. The seer’s prayer and its answer (v. 23-40), viz. (a) The prayer (v. 23-30) and (b) ¢he answer (v. 31-40) (S). iii. The place of successive generations in the divine plan of the world (v. 41-55). iv. The End of the age shall come by God alone (v. 56-vi. 6). v. The parting asunder of the times (vi. 7-10) (S). vi. The signs of the last time and the coming of the End (vi. 11-28 (29)) (E). vii. Conclusion of the vision (vi. 30-34).

v. 23-40. This section falls into two parts, viz. (a) the prayer of Salathiel (Ezra) (v. 23-30); and (4) the answer conveyed in a dialogue by the archangel Uriel (v. 31-40).

(a) v. 23-30. THE PRAYER OF SALATHIEL (Ezra). Following on a carefully constructed exordium, which emphasizes in a variety of well-chosen figures Israel’s unique position as the chosen people of God, Salathiel (Ezra) appeals to God once more with the question, Why has the beloved people been given up to heathen oppressors? Why has it been allowed to go into exile and be scattered?

23. out of all the woods, &c. The figures illustrating Israel’s choice that follow have largely been drawn from the Old Testament. For the vine cf. Isa. v. 7, Ps. Ixxx. 9 (10) ; for the lily cf. Canticles li, 2 (interpreted allegorically of Israel), and Hos. xiv. 5 ; for the stream, Isa. viii. 6, Canticles iv. 15 ; for the dove, Ps. Ixxiv. 19, Canticles ii. 14; for the sheep, Isa. liii. 7, Ps. lxxix. 13 (‘sheep of thy pasture’), cf. Ps. xxiil and Ixxx. 1 (2) ; and for the root, 1 En. xciii. 8 (‘race of the elect root’); cf. also Rom. xi. 17f. It is well known that the allegorical interpretation of Canticles is very old ; in fact the book was only admitted into the Canon on this interpretation. Gunkel aptly notes that our passage already implies such an interpretation of the book.

25. thou hast sanctified Sion. Cf. e.g. Ps. cxxxii. 13.

26. one dove. The dove is a favourite emblem of Israel, especially of Israel unjustly persecuted (cf. Widrash rabba to Canticles i. 15, iv. 1); so here.

27. out of all (laws). For the idea of the superiority of the Mosaic Law above the laws of other nations cf. Deut.

30. with thine own hands, i.e. by famine, pestilence, or earthquake (cf. 2 Sam. xxiv. 13), but not by the hand of foreign foes.

(4) The answer: in spite of all God loves Israel now and always (v. 31-40).

S 3:1 Now when I had spoken these words the angel who had before come to me on the previous night

32 was sent unto me: and he said to me: Hear me, and I will instruct thee: Attend unto me, and I will speak again before thee. 33 And I said: Speak on, my lord. And he said: Art thou in sore perplexity of mind touching Israel? Lovest thou him better than he that made him? 34 And I said: No, lord: but of very grief have I spoken; for every hour I suffer agonies of soul in striving to comprehend the way of the Most High, and to seek out 7 the decree of his judgement’. 35 And he said unto me: Thou canst not. And I said: Wherefore, Lord? Why then was I born? Wherefore did not my mother’s womb become my grave that I might have been spared the sight of Jacob’s misery, and the distressful toil of the stock of Israel ? 36 =And he said unto me: Number me * the days that are not yet come, gather me the rain-drops that are scattered, make me the withered flowers bloom again ; ayy Open me the chambers that are closed and bring me forth ’ the spirits” shut up in them ; [° Show me the image of faces thou hast never seen °] or show me the image of a voice; and then I will display to thee “the objective’ thou askest to see. 38 And I said: O Lord my Lord, why who is able to understand such matters save he who has not his dwelling among men?

39 As for me, I am unwise °and powerless®: how then should I essay to speak of these things of

which thou questionest me ? 40 Then said he unto me: Just as thou art unable to do even one of these things that have been

mentioned, even so thou art powerless to discover my judgement or the goal of the love that I have declared unto my people.

III. THE PLACE oF SUCCESSIVE GENERATIONS IN THE DIVINE PLAN OF THE WORLD

(a) v. 41-49. The succession of generations accords with the Divine plan ; God's judgement reaches all alike.

41 And I said: But lo, O Lord, ‘thou art ready to meet (with blessing)‘ those who survive in the end; but what shall our predecessors do, or we ourselves or our posterity ?

Ethiop. Ar.): & > If reading praees rpopbawes (DIPN): S thou hast promised (cf Lthzop.): Violet emends z~2 J partem iudiciieius: cf. viii.18. %-? so Ethiop. Ar.’: &@ qui necdum venerunt (those who are not yet come) (cf. 2) : prob. ras npepas had fallen out of the text rendered by & > so Ethiop. Ars: & flatos () °° so B (supported by Ethiop. Ar+): £ > d-d X& laborem (= xomov: prob. a mistake for cxonoy: cf. Ar: so Hilg.) ee 501% (CG.

(6) v. 31-40, THE ANSWER TO THE PRAYER. The archangel Uriel is again sent to reason with him in answer to his complaint. As in iv. 1-11, Uriel, by a series of hard questions, demonstrates to the seer his inability to fathom God’s judgements or comprehend the ‘goal’ of the divine love for the chosen people. The dialogue form is here resumed.

33. Lovest thou him better, &c. The apocalyptist never doubts that God’s love for His people exceeds all other, and finds in this thought a source of supreme consolation ; cf. viii. 47. .

35. Wherefore did not my mother’s womb, &c. Cited in Clem. Alex. Stvomatets, iii. 16; cf. Job ili. 11; x. 18, 19;

; 36. ean that are not yet come. For text see crit. note. The apocalyptist is reminded that he cannot know whether the days that remain to the present order shall be few or many. ;

37. the spirits shut up in them. Or ‘winds’ (see crit. note). If winds are meant the reference will be to storehouses where the winds are shut up, and only let loose by angelic agency; cf. 1 En. xli. 4, Ixxvii, and Rev. vil, I.

Cite this text

The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament in English, volume II: Pseudepigrapha, part 2 of 3. Oxford, 1913. Hermetic Cloud, https://hermeticcloud.com/library/charles-apocrypha-and-pseudepigrapha-2-part-2/. Public-domain text reproduced in full; markup only.

Transcription

Machine-read text of the Internet Archive scan apocryphapseudep0002rhch_w1w3; the reading is uncorrected apart from the removal of page numbers, running heads, line-end hyphens and the scan's own marks.