ii. Documents and Editions. — (o) Ethiopie. — This, the fullest recension, was first published in 1810 by Laurence, Kegius Profes-sor of Helirew at Oxford, afterwards .\rchbishop of Cashel, from a M.S which he hud bought in London, ami which also contained an Ethiopie version of 4 Ezra. He accompanied his etiition with translations into Latin and Engli.sh, and with notes and a disserta- tion. In ISTT this edition was suporsedod by Dillmann's, which was ba-sed on Ijiurence's M.S (now in the Bmlleian) and two others in the British Museum. Dillmann gave a literal tninslation into Latin, which remains the most sjitisfaetory form in which those who are not Ethiopie srholara can read the Injok. In ISIU a Erench translation was i.ssiied by M. Bene Biusset, as No. 3 of his series Lei A/XM-ri/fi/ifji f:iliiui>uiui; but this, though convinient, is not to 1k3 relicil on for the jiurinwos of criticism.
(6) Ltitin. — ( 1 ) \ Latin version of the second part (11). the Asi-etutUin <>/ /.vikiA pro[H"r, was printed at Venice in LVJ-J from a MS not now known. It w.o-i published by Aiitonius de l-'antis in a small volnme containing the visions of the Virgin Mechtild luul some other pieces. It was reprinted by Gicselcr io
600 ISAIAH, ASCENSION OF
ISAIAH, ASCENSION OF
»G6ttingen programme in 1832 ; and by Dillmann, together with the two fragments next to be men- tioned, in his edition of 1877. (2) Two Latin fragments were printed by Mai (1828) in liis SerifUt. Vett. Nova Collectio, iii. p. 238 f., from a Vatican palimpsest. He found them in company with certain Arian writings, recognized tht-m as belonging to some apocryphon of the OX, but did not identify them. They are reprinted by Dillmann, and comprise chs. 2'''-3'' and ch. 7''"'. Tliey contain enough to show that they represent a form of the book in which the bracketed section of A was present, and in which A and B were combined.
(c) Greek. — In 1878, the year after the appearance of Dillmann's edition, Osc. von Gebhardt published, in Hilgenfeld's Zeitschrift f. wiss. Thcol. (p. 33011'.), a late recension of the book in Greek from a 12th cent. MS in Paris (ISihl. Nat. 1534), a volume of legcnda (Mar.-May). Under May 9 lie found : irpo- ^7]T£ia, diroKdXu^is Kal fiaprvpiov toO ayiov Kal ^i>o6^ov Kal fieyifTTOv ruiv irpo<pTjTuiv 'Haaiov Tov Trpoip^ov. This is not alluded to by Dr. Salmon in his excellent article in Diet. Chr. Biogr., and it has also escaped the notice of M. Basset. Its importance lies in the fact that, in spite of its entire recasting of the work, it still gives us considerable portions of the original Greek. But there is little to be gained from it for the history of the tradition of the book. The object of the reviser has been to produce a lection for Church purposes ; and he has accordingly re- duced the vision of the Ascension to small compass, and has rearranged the materials so as to put the martyrdom at the end. He appends an account of the prophet's burial, and introduces some traditions about the Pool of Siloani, which find parallels in Pseudo - Dorotheus, the Paschal Chronicle, and Pseudo-Epiphanius (see the references and citations given by v. Gebhardt),
(d) Slavonic. — Three versions in Old Slavonic have been published, but they have not as yet been critically investigated. I'''or notices of them see Bonwetsch in Harnack's Altchristliche Littera- tur, i. 916, and Basset, p. 7 n.
iii. Patristic References. — The most im- portant of these may be noted here, grouped according to the portion of the book to which they belong.
(a) Justin Martyr (Trypho, 120) accuses the Jews of having obliterated from the OT the story of the death of Isaiah, &v irplovi ^vXlvtf iTrplaare. Ter- tullian (de Patient. 14) says : ' His patientioe uuibus secatur Esaias, et de domino non tacet.' The phraseology in each case suggests, though it can- not be held to prove, an acquaintance with A. Origen (Comm. in Matth. 23**; Ep. ad Afric. 9) refers to the story of the martyrdom as contained in an drdKpvipoi' 'Eaalov ; moreover, he cites (Horn, in les. 5) the charge of contradicting Moses ( ' Moses, aiunt, non uidit ; et tu uidisti ? '). Jerome {Comm. in les. l'") gives this charge and the further one, 'quod principes Sodomorum et populum Go- morrhte eos appellauerit,' as the two causes of the prophet's death. Ambrose (in Ps. 118) gives the story of the devil's ofl'er to release Isaiah, if he would declare his prophecies to be false. The anonymous commentary printed with Chrysostom's works (Montf. t. vi.), and known as the Opus impcrfectitm in MatthcEum, refers to Isaiah's pro- phecy of the disobedience of Manasseh and of his own death, and to Hezekiah's consequent wish to Slav his son (Horn. i. p. xx f.).
These references do not of necessity imply more than a knowledge of a Jewish book of the Martyr- dom ; some of them miglit be merely allusions to isolated Jewish legends (cf. Fabricius, Cod. pseud- epigr. VT, p. 108811'.). But Cedrenus (Bonn ed. i. 120 f. ) cites the calculation of the reign of Anti- •hrist, with slightly changed figures; and it is
noticeable that he speaks of the book as Tht Testament of Heze/ciah.
(6) Jerome, in commenting on Is 64*, expressly mentions the 'Ascensio Esai;i',' and says that it contained the quotation cited by St. Paul in 1 Co 2" ' Eye hath not seen,' etc. This passage ia found in Asc. 11*", but only in the Latin version. It is probable, therefore, that Jerome knew the book in a form which contained both A and B. In the context of this last i)a.s.<age he implies that it was used by heretics in Spain ; and this acconls with a reference in the recently recovered works of Priscillian [Tract. 3, p. 47, Schepss). Ei>iphaniji3 twice refers to the 'Afa^ariKbe 'lltralov, and says that it was used by Hieracas, an Egyptian teacher of the beginning of the 4th cent. (Hwr. 67, 3), and by the Archontici, a sect of aljout the same date [llivr. 40, 2). The former of these references relates to the appearance of the Beloved (4 d7air7)T4s) on the right hand of God, and of the Uolj' Spirit on the left hi 'id : the latter refers to the seven heavens.