At the end of ch. vii. and again at the end of ch. xii. the MS breaks oH' in the middle of a sentence. Chapters viii. and ix. are read between v. and vi., as Charles sugge.sts in his edition (pp. 2J--30). They obviously refer to the Antiochian persecution, and are quite out of place after ch. vii., which describes the Sadducees who Avere contemporaries of the author. Burkitt argues [HDB iii. 449) that 'the Theophany in x. comes in well after the story of the ideal saint Taxo in ix., but very badly after the description of the wicked priests and rulers in vii.' But ch. vii. is mutilated at tiie end, and we cannot argue from the last reference which liappens to be preserved in it. He suggests that the aiithor ' filled up his picture of the final woes from the stories of the Antiochian martj'rs.' But surelj- he would not need to borrow his picture of the ideal saint of the last times (and his name) fr(jm the same period.
2. Date. — The date of composition is clearly fixed by the words in 6"^ ' and he (Herod) shall beget children who .succeeding him shall rule for shorter periods.' As this is a prediction which was falsified by the event, for Antipas reigned forty-three years and Philip thirty-seven (while Herod reigned thirty- four), we must ])Ostulate a date earlier than thirty- four years from Herod's death, i.e. A.D. 30. A date nearer to the deposition of Archeiaus in A.D. 6, which would suggest the impending deposition of his brothers, would be still more suitable.
3. Author. — The author is generally supposed to have been a Zealot (so Ewald, Wieseler, Dillmann,
106
ASSUMPTION OF MOSES
ASSUMPTION OF MOSES
Schiirer, Deane, and Briggs). But, while well aware of the Maccabaean movement, he shows his aversion to Maccabajan methods by his silence in regard to the exploits of Judas and his brethren. His hero, Taxo, instead of taking up arms, withdraws into a cave to die, with the words ' Let us die rather than transgress.' It is not militancy but God's direct and personal intervention that will bring in the kingdom.
The same arguments prove that he was no Sad- ducee. His was no earthly ideal, but that of a heavenly tlieocratic kingdom ( 10^'- )• A Resurrection is not taught, it is true, but it is implied in the con- summation of Israel's happiness in these verses. The Sadducees are attacked, and in 7^' ® there is a play on their name and their claim to be just (D'pn:i and c'pns).
He was not an Essene. He is a strong patriot and keenly interested in the fortunes of the nation. The Law is of perpetual obligation and is itself sufficient. The Temple is built by God Himself (2^) in the place He prepared from the creation (1'*). Its profanations are often mentioned (2** * 3- 5'- * 6"' '). The sacrificial system is regarded as valid (2^), and its cessation is a cause of lamentation (4*^). The altar is polluted only by injustice (5**). The Essenes did not value the Temple sacrifices, and objected to animal sacrifice altogether. The future heavenly abode of the righteous, and the future punishment of Israel's enemies in Gehenna, are dis- tinctively Pharisaic ideas. The pre-existence of Moses in V* is regarded as a unique distinction. The Essenes believed in the pre-existence of all souls alike.
We must conclude, therefore, that the author 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' (Charles, 1897, p. liv).
i. The Latin text. — The Latin text presents a difficult task to the critical reconstructor of the original Hebrew text. To begin with, Ceriani's MS is a palimpsest, in which whole verses are at times indecipherable. In the next place, it is not the original Latin translation but a copy, in which the Latin itself has been corrected and corrupted. Tiius in 5^ we have six lines of duplicate rendering, and there are dittographies also in 6* 8^ IP^. In 11- the copyist has misread 'eum'as 'cum,' and corrects ' Mouses' into 'Mouse' accordingly. The version, however, is very literal, and, in spite of corruptions and carelessness, its Greek source is occasionally evident; and the original Hebrew idiom is frequently preserved. Greek words like clibsis ( = d\'i\pt.s, 3^) and heremus ( = €pTJ/j.os, 3^^), and even a reading \ikejinem in 2'', which presupposes 6pov in Greek [corrupt for Sp/coc], suffice to prove translation from the Greek ; while corrupt passages like 4* 5* 10* 11'^ (see Charles' text) require re-trans- lation into the original Hebrew in order to explain the corruption. In 7^ we have a play on the name Sadducees (o'pns)
' dicentes se esse justos (D'pns) ' which is possible only in Hebrew. An Aramaic original postulated by Schmidt, Merx, and others is not necessitated by tlie order in P" 3^ (see Charles, 1897, pp. xxviii-xlv).
5. The original 'Assumption of Moses.' — The subject-matter of the extant work (preserved largely in Ceriani's Latin MS) proves it to be a Testament of Moses, as it deals witii the dying pre- dictions and ciiarges of Moses as related to Joshua, quite in the manner of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs (q.v.). It nowhere describes his 'As- sumption,' and only in an interpolation (10'^) re- fers to it. The opening words have been thus re- stored by Charles to fill the gap in the MS — ' Testa- mentum Moysi | Quae praecepit aho vi|tae eius