Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 2.djvu/191

Rh APOCALYPTIC LITERATURE 177 translated it into German. 1 The original was Hebrew or Aramaean, as all critics allow, except Frankel, who is refuted by Langen. 2 A Greek version existed early, and was subsequently lost. From it the Ethiopia was made. In 1861, Ceriani published from a palimpsest in the Ambrosian library at Milan, considerable fragments of an old Latin version. 3 This has been reprinted in a revised state by Roensch, together with a Latin version of Dillmann s text. The work of this meritorious scholar is accompanied with learned notes and exhaustive disserta tions ; and Dr Sal. Rubin has taken the trouble to translate it into Hebrew, with an introduction and notes, Wien. 1870. See Treuenfels in the Liter aturblatt des Orients, 184G ; Beer s Das Buck der Jubilden und sein Verhaltniss zu den Midraschim, 1856 ; Jellinek, Bet ha-Midrasch Sammlung Jcleiner Midraschim und vermischter Abhand- lunrjen aus der dlteren Judischen Literatur, 1853-1855 ; Frankel in the Monatschrift far Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentkums, 1856 ; Roensch, Das Buck der Jubilcien oder die Heine Genesis, u.s.w., 1874. The Life of Adam, adduced by Syncellus three times with the words 6 Aeyo/xevos Btos ASa/x, seems to have been identical with the book of Jubilees, or perhaps a part of it. If the latter, it may have been another recension, enlarged and modified in various respects. 4 The Boole of Ada?n s Daughters, Liber (qui appellatur) de fdiabus Adce sive Lcptogcneseos, mentioned in Gelasius s decree about authentic and apocryphal books, also appears to be the same as the Jubilees. 5 4. The Assumption or Ascension of Moses, AvoA^i/as Mwuo-ews, is a prophecy of the future relating to Israel, put into the mouth of Mosss, and addressed to Joshua just before the great lawgiver died. Founded upon the book of Deuteronomy, it is brief and unpoetical. But it seems to have been large at first, for according to Nicephorus, it consisted of 1400 stichs, while the Jubilees had only 1100. 6 The work is an appropriate sequel to the Jubilees, but it seems to have proceeded from a different writer, though he lived at the same time. Internal evidence points to its com position after the death of Herod the Great, and before the destruction of Jerusalem. In the third chapter Pompey the Great is clearly depicted; but there is no trace of Jerusalem s overthrow. The author was a Jew who wrote in Hebrew or Aramaean, and his production was afterwards translated into Greek and Latin. We need not assign him to any other place than Palestine, though Fritzsche conjectures thatRome was his abode. Fragments of the Latin version were first edited from a palimpsest at Milan by Ceriani. The version is by the same hand as that of the Jubilees, for both are found in one MS. and agree in character. The translator may have, therefore, taken the two for the work of the same author. After Ceriani, it has been published by Fritzsche. Hilgenfeld has tried to put it into Greek. The same has been done by Volkmar, Schmidt, and Merx. The ancients believed that Jude borrowed from this work his statement as to the dispute between Michael and the devil about the body of Moses. See Ceriani, Monumenta Sacra et Profana, torn. i. fascic. 1 ; Hilgenfeld, Novum Testamentiim extra canonem rcceptum, fascic. i. 1866 ; Messias Judceorum, 1869 ; Volkmar, Handbuch zu den Apokryphcn, Band 3, 1867; Schmidt and Merx in Archiv fur loissenschaftl. Erforschung des A. T., 1868 ; Fritzsche, Libri Apocryphi Vcteris Testamenti Greece, 1871. 1 In Ewald s Jahrbb., Nos. 2 and 3. The original not till 1859 in a separate volume. 3 Das Judcnthum in Palcestina, u.s.w., p. 94, &c. 3 Monumenta sacra et prof ana, torn. i. fasc. 1. 6 Sacrosancta concilia, torn. v. ed. Colet, p. 389. Chronogr. Compcndiar., p. 787, ed. Dindorf. 5. Apocalypse of Moses, whose proper title is Ao/yi?cri a Aoafj., aTTOKaXv^Oelcra. Trapa $eou Moiucry r&amp;lt;3 vrt O.VTOV, oioaxOeLcra, Trapa TOV dpxa.yyeX.ov Mi^a^A, contains an account of the formation of Adam and Eve, their fall, Seth s dialogue with his mother about Adam, and the disposal of the latter s body beside that of Abel. This work was first published in Greek by Tischendorf from four MSS. It was afterwards accurately edited from one of these (D in the Ambrosian library at Milan) by Ceriani. But this text is incomplete, wanting chapters xviii. xxxv. Tischendorf thinks that Greek is the original, and that its date is about the time of Christ, but it is pro bably later, though certainly not mediaeval, as Dillmann supposes. The AeTrri) yeVecris was thought by some, perhaps also by Syncellus and Cedrenus, to have been the same as the Apocalypse of Moses, and was so called, but it is not. Both, however, are of like character. The revelation is said to have been made to Moses when he received the tables of the law and was instructed by the archangel Michael. Tischendorf, Apocalypses Apocrypha, 1866; Ceriani, Monu menta Sacra et Profana, v. i ; Roensch, Das Buch der Jubilden, 1874. 6. The Sibyllines. The rise of Jewish apocalyptic litera ture of a sibylline character probably dates soon after Alex ander the Great, when Judaism began to look with a spirit of philosophic inquiry into Greek and Oriental literature, attaching itself to such elements as seemed congenial. A composite product was the result. The Alexandrian Jews were the first to adopt this course by fusing the remnants of Greek sibyllism with their native prophecy. The former seemed to them an indication of an Adamic or Noachic religion which had filtered into heathenism not withstanding its polytheism. It was a species of natural prophetism, distinct from the priestly oracles, of a more ancient and higher type, in which Jewish gnosis could discover a point of contact, amid its endeavours to trace the pre-Abrahamic religion in the most enlightened Hellen ism. As Noah was thought to be the second great pro genitor of humanity, who represented the primitive theocratic religion before its division and corruption, the sibyl was his daughter, prophesying of the tower of Babel, and exhorting the people to worship the true God. Her voice was predominatingly threatening, like that of the heathen sibyl, foreshadowing the downfall of paganism. Anti-theocratic kingdoms and cities must be overthrown. There is but one religion, the old Noachic one, which even the heathen sibyl darkly echoed, and her utterances can only be interpreted aright in their relation to the world s history by the Jewish sibyl. Thus Jewish gnosis found support in Hellenism. After using the method and form of the latter in the sibylline oracles, it drew them into a higher region. Uniting them with theosophy and history, it spiritualised them. The prophetic spirit was discerned in the cultus of heathenism, stripped of priestly and poly theistic phenomena. But it was still the main object of the sibyllines to combat heathenism itself, by exposing its idolatry and opposition to the truth, to anticipate its total destruction at the advent of Messiah. Under this general name there exists a collection of oracles said to proceed from the sibyl, in which Jewish ideas are promulgated and recommended to the Gentiles. The contents, however, are of a mixed character. Instead of a connected whole written by one person at a specific time, we have a heterogeneous assemblage of materials, Jewish, Christian, and heathen, of earlier and later origin, which must be separated and sifted before they can be assigned to their respective origins. Books i., ii., iii. 1-96 are late. The first begins with the creation and fall of man, enumerates the six races, and characterises them, the first after Noah falling in the IT. - 23
 * Roensch, p. 4G8, &c.