RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Pseudepigrapha
the martyrdom of Isaiah is recounted; Epiphanius and Jerome speak of an Ascension of Isaiah; the Montfaugon Canon cites a Horasis Hesaiou, known in the eleventh century to Euthymius Zigabenus; in the beginning of the twelfth century Georgius Cedrenus mentions a Testament of Ezekiel; Sixtus Senensis in 1566 speaks of a Latin translation of a Vision of Isaiah printed at Venice in 1522 (rediscovered by Gieseler and published in 1832). In 1828 Mai published two fragments of an Old Latin translation of the Ascension (Nova collectio, iii. 2, pp. 238-239). In 1819 light was thrown upon the Isaianic work current under various names by the publication by Laurence of an Ascension of Isaiah from an Ethiopic manuscript; Gfrorer reissued Laurence's Latin translation in 1840; Dillmann issued a critical edition of the Ethiopic with Latin translation in 1877; and Charles edited in 1900 the Ethiopic and the Latin texts, using Bonwetsch's Latin translation of a Slavonic version of the Vision and the large Greek fragment of Grenfell and Hunt (which they published in Amherst Papyri, part i., 1900). The work contains a prediction by Isaiah in the twenty-sixth year of Hezekiah of the godlessness of Manasseh's reign (chap, i.); after Hezekiah's death Manasseh devotes himself to the service of Satan, and Isaiah flees into the solitude (ii.); a certain Belchira accuses Isaiah to Manasseh of agitating against king and people, stirred to this by Satan, who hates Isaiah because of his prophecy of salvation through the Messiah (iii. 1-iv. 22); Manasseh has Isaiah sawn asunder (v.); in the twentieth year of Hezekiah Isaiah has a vision in which an angel leads him to the seventh heaven, where he learns that Christ is to descend to earth; he is then led back to the firmament where he beholds the story of Jesus from his birth till his ascension, when the angel returns to heaven and Isaiah to his earthly life (vi.-xi.). The book has arisen from uniting two entirely discrete compositions, one purely Jewish which relates the martyr death of Isaiah under Manasseh, the other a purely Christian ascension or vision; to these were added two other pieces as introduction and conclusion, together with shorter pieces which were interpolated, part of them corresponding to the Testament of Ezekiel mentioned by Cedrenus (ut sup.). The legends of the martyrdom of Isaiah, probably influenced by Iranian legendary elements, were possibly known in writing to the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews (xi. 37) and to Justin Martyr (Trypho, cxx.); and this gives the terminus ad quern for at least a part of the book. The terminus a quo can not be determined, but the origin is connected at least with II Kings xxi. 16, and the development belongs with the midrash on the prophets, which continued to unfold with such exuberance in the early and middle church periods, furnishing stimulus to fidelity in times of persecution. From a historic standpoint the Christian part is more illuminating than the Jewish, connecting as it does with gnostic and docetic views in the early Church (cf. xi. 2 sqq.). Here the oldest part appears to be the closing section, which gave the name to the entire book. In another part are reflected the bad shepherds and false prophets of the Christian communities of the
early second century (iii. 13 sqq.; cf. the Shepherd of Hermas and the Didache). The disorganized condition of the communities appears to the author as a sign of the end.
35-41. Other Historical Pseudepigrapha: To be mentioned first is (35) Paralipomena Jeremise. The kernel of this book, interpolated by Christians and Jews, is found in the Abyssinian Bible with the double title Reliquiw verborum Baruch and Reliquiae verborum Jeremia, put with the other Baruch and Jeremianic writings. It exists in Ethiopic, Greek (Menceum Grwcorum), Armenian, and Slavonic. It begins, like the Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch, with the days before the capture of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans and the securing by Jeremiah of the temple furnishings. Baruch stays in Jerusalem, Jeremiah goes to Babylon. Abimelech, sent by Jeremiah to the vineyard of Agrippa for figs, falls asleep and wakes up sixty-six years later, returns to the city, finds all changed, seeks Baruch, who is ordered to write Jeremiah a letter to the effect that if the people separates itself from the heathen, it shall be led back to the city. An eagle carries the letter to Jeremiah, together with the figs which are still fresh, and Jeremiah leads the people back. Jews who have brought along Babylonian wives are not admitted to the city; they then found Samaria. Jeremiah falls as dead in the city, revives after three days and praises God for salvation in Christ, and the people stone him to death for his prophecy. The terminus a quo is determined by the use of the Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch; the terminus ad quern is possibly the first decade of the second century. (36) The book Joseph and Asenath, belonging to the midrashic propaganda against mixed marriages, employs the romance, widely diffused, that Asenath became the wife of Joseph after eating with him the " blessed bread of life," drinking a " potion of immortality," and being anointed with the " oil of incorruption." A book dealing with the contest between Moses on the one side and the Egyptian sorcerers (37) Jannes and Jamtores (cf . Ex. vii. 8 sqq.; II Tim. iii. 8) is mentioned by Origen (on Matt, xxiii. 37, xxvii. 9) and is compared by Schiirer with the " Penitence of Jamnes and Mambres " of the Decretum Gelasii. Pliny (Hist, nat., XXX., i. 11) knows of a book under the name of Jannes, which may therefore go back to pre-Christian times. A book other than the Prayer of Manasses (cf. Apocrypha, A, IV., 4) was known in Jewish circles under a title like (38) "The Conversion of Manasseh" (cf. Fabricius, Codex pseudepigraphus Veteris Testamenti, i. 1100-02). (39) The Books of Adam are of interest in that they deal with speculation regarding original man; the Genesis narrative is fused with foreign sources. A Jewish Book of Adam is known to the Talmud, and an apocryphal Adam is known to the Apostolic Constitutions (vi. 16). A haggada, originally Jewish but worked over by a Christian, exists under the misleading title "Apocalypse of Moses," published by Tischendorf in 1866, by Ceriani in 1868, and in a Latin Vita Ada et Evce (published by Meyer, 1878), which goes back to a Greek original. The two texts, found in Kautzsch's Pseudepigrapha, correspond in part verbally, but each has sections not found in the other. An Ar-
Pseudepigrapha Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals