RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Pseudepigrapha
the distant past and the immediate present are linked indissolubly together. This apocalyptic speaks, moreover, not merely to the head, but also to the heart. Though modern science may smile at the pictures of heaven and earth here presented, the final victory of the good over the evil is a hope which has not yet ceased to echo in the breast. For the present generation, as for the people of that time, blessedness is a consummation to be attained under supermundane conditions — a hope that transcends reason.
The number of Jewish and Christian pseudepigraphic writings must once have been great. Jewish legend ascribes to Enoch no fewer than 366, the Mohammedan legend only thirty. The Apocalypse of Ezra (xiv. 6) tells of seventy secret books which are discriminated from the twenty-four canonical. At first sight, then, it seems strange
4. Trans- that so few have survived, but history
mission, reveals the cause. /Externally Judaism passed through Two severe crises, those of 70 a.d. and 135 a.d., and the national-religious hopes of a Jewish hegemony over the nations embodied in these books vanished like a dream in view of the hard fact of defeat. But the surrender of these writings came the easier in that they, like the Septuagint version of the Scriptures, were employed apologetically by the Christian communities, and so the Hebrew originals were by their possessors allowed to disappear. The second cause of loss was the fact that to the philosophically trained Greek theologians of the Church the framework of oriental mythology which supported these writings was clearly apparent. From the centers of church life these writings were banned and found refuge apart from the main currents, in Abyssinia, Armenia, Arabia, and like places, where they have* hardly yet ceased to inspire literary activity in/ similar channels (cf. American Journal of Semitic Languages, xix. 83 sqq.). For ease of discussion it will be well to divide the Pseudepigrapha into poetic, prophetic, historical, and philosophic writings.
II. Poetic Pseudepigrapha: 1-3. The Psalms of Solomon, etc. : The eighteen Psalms of Solomon which sometimes are found in manuscripts of the Septuagint and are reckoned among the Antilegomena (see Canon of Sckipture, II., 7) or the Apocrypha, were first edited by the Jesuit De la Cerda in 1626, after which editions by Fabricius (1722), Hilgenfeld (1868-69), Geiger (1871), Fritzsche (1871), Wellhausen (transl., 1874), and Pick (Eng. transl., Presbyterian Review, 1883) were patterned. A new edition on critical principles was issued by Ryle and James (1891), Swete (in his ed. of the Septuagint, vol. iii., 1894), Von Gebhardt (TU, xiii. 2, 1895), and Kittel (1900). The psalms were originally in Hebrew, ai-.d were translated into Greek for the Greek-speaking Jewish diaspora. Solomonic authorship is excluded by internal evidence. Of the two hypotheses, that they were written in his name or were afterward given the name, the second is the more likely. The nucleus of the collection is traceable to the time of the overthrow of the Maccabean rule by Pompey, whose death in Egypt was known to the writer. Pompey is frequently referred to (xvii. 7, viii. 15, ii. 1-2, 26-27).
The princes of the land (viii. 16-17, xviii. 12) are Aristobulus II. and Hyrcanus II. God has visited the Maccabees, the stealers of thrones and profaners of the temple, and with them their sinful supporters, the wise in counsel (i.e., the Sadducees; xvii. 8, viii. 11, 19). The opposite party, whose mouthpiece the psalmist is, are the Pharisees (ii. 4, 15 sqq., viii. 8 sqq., 23 sqq., xvii. 10, 15 sqq.). The opposition between the two sects runs through the psalms; the Sadducees appear as sinners, menpleasers, surrounded by wealth and profaning the sanctuary (i. 4, 8-9, iv. 7-9, viii. 8-9, xii. 1 sqq.); while the Pharisees are innocent lambs, saints of God, the righteous and upright, and serve God and not men (iii. 3, v. 19, viii. 23, xiv. 1). The doctrine of God is lofty; his justice and righteousness are proclaimed, and only to the righteous does he grant eternal life (viii. 1, ii. 28 sqq., xiii. 11, xiv. 10). True regard for the law guarantees the safety of the righteous at the judgment (xiv. 2), and God will send his Messiah, David (xiv. 2, xviii. 5 sqq.). Then will sinners be smitten, the Jewish diaspora, united once more, will reign in Jerusalem, and blessed shall he be who lives in that day (xvii. 23- 25, xviii. 6). While these indications suggest the period 65^0 B.C., and the psalms as a whole fit well with this date, attempts have been made to find other settings, as the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, or of Jason, or of Ptolemy in 320 B.C., or of Herod. 2. Deserving mere mention is the Ps. cli. of the Septuagint. 3. The Sibylline books are treated in a special article. 3a. For the Odes of Solomon, see Solomon, Odes of.
III. Prophetic Pseudepigrapha: To be treated here are the apocalypses (nos. 4-21 below) and the testaments (nos. 22-32). 4. The Ethiopio Enoch : The Book of Enoch, cited in Jude 14-15, known in whole or in part to the author of Jubilees and mentioned in the Ap°calyPses of Ezra and Baruch, enjoyed a popularity little less than canonical in the ancient Church until the time of Jerome, and . _ even beyond that was treasured in the
and Com- Greek, particularly the Alexandrian, position. Church. It came to the knowledge of European scholars in the eighteenth century, when in 1773 Bruce acquired three manuscripts from Abyssinia, and the editio princeps was published by Laurence in 1838. Important investigations have been made by Dillmann, Schodde, Charles, Beer, and Fleming. While the Ethiopic text is based upon a Greek original, the question of a Hebrew or Aramaic text back of this is still under debate. In its present form the book divides into three principal parts: an introduction on the imminent world- judgment, i.-v.; the body of the work, vi.-cv.; and the close, cvi.-cviii. The main part subdivides into several parts: (a) vi.-xxxvi., of which vi.-xi. tells of the fall of the angels and their preliminary and final punishment, xii.-xvi. of Enoch's vision and the first and second punishment of the angels and their progeny, xvii.-xxxvi. describes Enoch's travels in company with the angels; (b) xxxvii.-lxxi. is Messianic; the section xxxviii.-xliv. describes the celestial hierarchy, xlv.lvii. the Messianic judgment, lviii.-lxix. the blessedness of the righteous in heaven, lxx.-lxxi. Enoch's
Pseudepigrapha