1. Composite character. — The title ' Ascension of Isaiah ' is strictly appropriate only to the latter part of the work, chs. 6-11, in which Isaiah is success- ively led through the firmament and six lower heavens to the seventh heaven, and receives dis- closures regarding the descent, birth, works, cruci- fixion, and ascension of the Beloved. The first five chapters deal in the main with Manasseh's wicked- ness and Isaiah's martyrdom, with a curious inser- tion (3^^''-4'^) which claims to be a vision foretelling the life of Christ and the fortunes of His Church, awkwardly introduced as explaining the wrath of Beliar which occasioned the martyrdom of Isaiah. A careful examination of the diction and subject- matter of each section leads to the clear discrimina- tion of three distinct sources.
(a) The Martyrdom of Isaiah (p- 2a.6b-i3a gi-S^s 5ib-i4)_ This narrates how in the twenty-sixth year of his reign Hezekiah called Manasseh to receive accounts of visions which he had seen (P*^). Isaiah, who is present, warns the king of Manasseh's future wickedness, and foretells his own martyrdom (P''^). After Hezekiah's death, Manasseh, as foretold, for- sakesthe service of God and serves Satan,whereupon Isaiah withdraws first to Bethlehem and then to the desert with his companions (2'*^^). Meanwhile Belchira, a brother of the false prophet Zedekiah, son of Chenaanah, accuses Isaiah and his fellow- prophets to the king, of prophesying evil against Jerusalem, and claiming to have seen God, and calling Jerusalem Sodom, and the princes the people of Gomorrah (2i--3^''). Manasseh seizes Isaiah and has him sa^vn asunder with a wood -saw. Isaiah dies with wonderful firmness and constancy, com- muning with the Holy Spirit till the end. This narrative is mainly historical in form, and contains nothing specifically Christian. In its outlook it might well be Jewish, and this supposition is con- firmed by the Patristic references {e.g. in Origen
and Jerome) which attribute the account of the sawing asunder of Isaiah to Jewish traditions, and also by the fact that the Talmud contains a similar account of Isaiah's death. P'urther, the original was probably written in Hebrew. In 2' a play upon words appears when the passage is re-translated in- to Hebrew (.t^j ns-jp). The name 'Malchira' in 1^ is a transliteration oi]il 'i^s, as S. A. Cook has observed. Above all, the curious term ' a wooden saw ' can hardly be explained except as a misrendering of {'y -libD, ' a wood-saw.'
{b) The Vision of Isaiah (6-11). In the twentieth year of Hezekiah, Isaiah, in the presence of the king, when speaking in the Holy Spirit, is taken up in mind (cf. 2 Co 12^-*) through the firmament and each of the six lower heavens in turn, and finally arrives at the seventh heaven, to which he is ad- mitted by special command of the Lord Christ, There he sees all the righteous from the time of Adam, including Abel, Seth, and Enoch, stript of the garments of the flesh, not sitting on their thrones nor as yet wearing their crowns of glory, until the Beloved has descended to earth (O^^* ^*) and ascended again (9^^). He sees the Great Glory, and on His right the Lord (the Beloved) and on His left the Holy Spirit. He worships the three, and his Lord and the Holy Spirit worship the Great Glory. The Father commissions the Son to descend to earth, and tells of His ascension and final judgment. The Son descends through each heaven in turn, assum- ing in each the form of the angels who dwell in them, and finally passes through the firmament and then the air to the earth. There Isaiah beholds His wonderful birth, miracles, and crucifixion, resurrec- tion, mission of the Twelve, ascension, and session on the right hand of the Great Glory. Isaiah returns to his body and binds Hezekiah to secrecy concern- ing the vision.
The date of this narrative is probably in the 1st cent. A.D. The vision is quoted not only by Jerome, Com. in Isaiam, Ixiv. 4 (Vallarsi, iv. 761), but also by the Actus Petri Vercellenses, ch. xxiv. (p, 72, ed. Lipsius), and by Hieracas the heretic, according to Epiphanius, Hcer. Ixvii. 3. There is also a remark- able parallel between Ignatius, Ep. ad. Ephes. xix. and Asc. Is. W^. There appears to be a reference to the sawing asunder in He 1 P^. The author wrote in Greek, and was a Christian with a Docetic tend- ency and a crude conception of the Trinity.
The title * Ascension of Isaiah ' properly belongs to this section of the work. Jerome so quotes it. Epiphanius refers to it as rh 'Ava^ariKbv 'Ha-atov. The Ethiopic, Slavonic, and Latin texts of 6^ imply the title * Vision of Isaiah,' and so does Montfaucon s Canon.
(c) The Testament of Hezekiah, a Christian Apo- calypse (3^^''-4i*). This title is given in Cedrenus i. 120-121 (ed. Bonn), and is appropriate only to the above section. As Charles observes : ' that such a work was incorporated in the Ascension might also be inferred from l^b-sa^ which describe the contents of Hezekiah's vision.' It describes, briefly string- ing together various details in the manner of an epitome, the coming and death of the Beloved ; the descent of the angel of the Christian Church ; the ascension ; the falling away of the Church, and the prevalence of error, impurity, strife, and covetous- ness ; the coming of Beliar in the likeness of a law- less king, a matricide, who claims to be God, and demands Divine worship, and persecutes the saints for three years, seven months, and twenty-seven days. This persecution is ended by the second coming of the Lord, who drags Beliar into Gehenna, and gives rest to the godly, sets up a kingdom of the saints, Avho afterwards are transformed, and ascend, apparently, to heaven. The final judgment follows, and the godless are annihilated.