Page:Jewish Encyclopedia Volume 1.pdf/738

682 "

THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

Apocalyptic liiterature

apocalypse and a later addition, which consists of a dispute among the doctors of the Law of the second and third centuries, concerning the name of The original the last king of Persia. Date and apocalypse was written amid the confusion of the year 21, caused by Where the wars of Sapor I. against Rome Written, and his capture of Valerian but in its original form it was probably miire viiluminous. In all probability the author lived in Palestine. During the exciting period of the Perso Roman wars wage(i by Chosroes 1. (540-562) or C'hosroes II. (604628), the apocalyi)sc was furnished with the addition mentioned above, in order to make the prophecies appear to accord with the clianged times and condi" tions, for the outcome of the dispute is that " Kesra (the Arabic form of "Chosroes") must be the name The contents of the book of the last Persian king. are as follows: Michael reveals the end of lime to Elijah on Mt. Cainiel. Elijah is first conducted through various heavenly regions, and the revelaThe tions regarding the end are imparted to him. last king of Persia will march to war against Rome in three successive years, and will finally take three military leaders prisoner. Then Gigit will advance against him, "the [little] horn," the last king hostile to God who will rule upon earth, as Daniel beheld. This king will instigate three wars and Book of will "also stretch out his arm against Israel." The three wars and the atElijah. tack upon Israel are described in de tail in the following part. Then the Messiah, whose name is Winon, will appear from heaven, accompanied by hosts of angels, and engage in a series of battles first to annihilate the armies waging these wars, and secondly to vanquish all the remaining heathen. After this, Israel will enjoy the blessings of the Messianic kingdom for forty years, at the end of which time Gog and Magog will muster the heathen to war around .Jerusalem: but they will be annihilated, and all the heathen cities will be destroyed. The day of doom will then come and last forty days; then the dead will be awakened and

—

brought

to

judgment.

The wicked

will

be deliv-

ered over to the torments of liell: but to the good the tree of life will be given: and for them the glorious Jerusalem will descend from heaven, and among them shall reign peace and knowledge of the

Law.

From this summary will be

noticed

how closely the

picture of the future world given in this apocalypse resembles the Revelation of John the description also of Elijah's transportation through the heavenly regions shows a striking relation to the Ethiopic

Book

of

Enoch (compare

xviii. 13-15, xxii. 1. 11).

ih.

xiv. 8, 9, 13-19, 22(f,

Worthy

of attention is the descriptionof the adversary of the Messiah, the Antichrist, who before the advent of the Messiah shall subdue the world and persecute Israel. This description is a conventional feature of a great number of Neo-Hebrew apocalypses. It is found, for example, in much the stiine form in all those treated belf)w. In the latter, however, the adversary is called Annilus (Romulus); while in the Elijah apocalypse he is called Gigit, which is an enigmatical designation of Odhenat the duke of Palmyra (.see Buttenwieser, I.e. p. 72). The description of the adversary in the present apocalypse shows also, as Bousset has pointed out (I.e. p. 57), striking parallels to the description of the Antichrist in the Coptic Elijah apocalypse, discovered a few years ago, the manuscript of which can in no case be later than the beginning of the fifth century (see Steindorff, " Apocalypse des Elias,

682

p. Ul; while the apocalypse itself is probably of the third or fourth century. Of oilier Christian apocalypsi-s with descriptions of the Antichrist, offering no less remarkable parallels to the aiiocalypses in the writings presently to be mentioned, and also in part to the Elijah apocalypse, may be enumerated: " The Testament of the Lord," "Apocalypse of Esdnis," the "Pseudo-Johaniiis .Vpocalypse." and the Armenian " Seventh Vision of Daniel " (compare also Ho>is.set, I.e. pp. 101 et .itij. Descriptions of the Antichrist in these apocalypses except the "Seventh Vision of Daniel " mav be found in James, "Apocrypha Anecdota," in ""Texts and Studies," ii. 3, 151 it w//.).

—

—

8.

The Apocalypse

paant):

TIktc arc

of

Zerubbabel

Viiriiiiis rereiisioiis ipf

(IDD

this ajioc-

alypse. <Jne was jiriMtcd in Ciinstantinoplc in 1519 in the collection mentioned above, and was reprinted in Wilna. 1819. tog<ther with "Seter Malkiel" (excerpts from this edition are to be found in Eisenmenger. ii. H)'!i et tieq.): another was edited by Jelli.54-57). based on two manuscripts rity Library, which, however, an ex-

nek ("B. H."

ii.

in the Leipsie

amination of the manuscripts by Buttenwieser proved to be inexact



and a third recension, difTering from

both of the above, is in manuscript in the Bodleian Library (Neiibauer, "Cat. Bodl. Ilebr. ilSS." No. 160, 2). Besides these, the Bodleian contains a manuscript of one of he jirinted editions (ihul. No. 2287, 4). t

A new

edition is most desirable. As this book foretells the year 990 or 970 after the destruction of the Temple by Titus as the time of delivery, it must have been written in the eleventh century at the very latest. This aiioculypse describes how Zerubbabel is carried in sjjirit to Nineveh, Book of Ze- the City of Blood, the Great Rome, rubbabel. where Jletatron reveals to him the occurrences at the end of time. He sees the Messiah there, whose name is Alenahem b. 'Amiel. and who wasl)ornat the time of King David, but was brought thither by the Spirit to remain conApart from a few decealed until the end of time. tails, the description of the course of events in the end of time is very much the same as that in "The Wars of King Jlessiah," "Revelations of R. Simon b. Yohai," and "Prayer of R. Simon 1). Yohai." In all of them, the name of the "Evil Adversary" is Armilus, the Aramaic form of Romulus. Except

the " Revelations," they all contain the curious fancy that he is to be bom of a marble statue in Rome. According to the " Apocah'pse of Zerubbabel," he will be begotten out of the statue by Satan: in the "Revelations of R. Simon b. Yohai," he is represented as a creation of Satan and Diabolus. In " The Wars of King Messiah" the epithet "Satan" is applied to him. The description of Armilus in the " Revelations of R. Simon b. Yohai " has more resemblance to that in the Elijah apocalyjise. whereas in the" Apocalypse of Zerulibabel,"in "TheWarsof King Messiah " and "Prayer of R. Simon b. Yohai," he is described as a human monstrosity. " The Wars of King Messiah " and the " Prayer of R. Simon b. Yohai " also state that he will claim to be the >Ie.ssiah and a god, and that he will be accepted by the heathen as such, whereas Israel will In the Constantinople refuse to acknowledge him. edition of the "Apocalypse of Zerubbabel," as Bousset has observed ( I.e. p. 86, note 3), Satan is called bv'h'^- "Belial," the name by which the Antichrist is called in the " Sibylline Oracles," ii. 67, iii, 63; " Tes-

tament of the Patriarchs" (Dan) and "Ascensio This circumstance is of great importance, inasmuch as by its means the Armilus legend, as it is found in the above-mentioned apocalypses, seems Isaire."