Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs

THE TESTAMENTS OF

THE TWELVE PATRIAKCHS

BY THE SAME AUTHOR THE APOCALYPSE OF BARUCH.

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THE ASSUMPTION OP MOSES.

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CRITICAL HISTORY OF THE DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE IN ISRAEL, IN JUDAISM, AND IN CHRISTIANITY or, Hebrew, Jewish, ;

and Christian Eschatology from pre-Prophetic Times till the Close of the New Testament Canon (The Jowett Lectures for 1898-99). Demy 8vo, cloth, price 15s. Post free, price 1 5s. 5d.

THE BOOK OF JUBILEES.

Translated from

the

Editor's Ethiopic Text. Edited, with Introduction, Notes, and Indices. Demy 8vo, cloth, price 15s. Post free, price 15s. 4d. net.

THE TESTAMENTS OF

THE TWELVE PATKIARCHS TRANSLATED FROM

THE EDITOR'S GREEK TEXT AND

EDITED, WITH INTRODUCTION, NOTES,

AND INDICES

BY

R. H.

CHARLES,

D.Litt., D.D.

GRINFIELD LECTURER ON THE SEPTUAGINT, OXrOED

FELLOW OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY

LONDON

ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK 1908

l„49S5

/2S

3>

^0 no^ Mife

PREFACE The many

laborious years of study of the Testaments of

the Twelve Patriarchs see at last their close in the present

The labour involved has been very

volume.

times indeed oppressive, but

own compensations

;

the

for

great, at

has not been without

it

toil

been

has

its

frequently

lightened by the joys of discovery, and the task of research

has been often one of sheer delight.

The pleasures

of fox-

hunting are not to be compared with those of the student in full quest of some truth, some for the first

return.

new

fact

showing

time within his intellectual horizon.

Many

of the problems arising

itself

But

to

from our text had

hitherto been wholly unattempted, or else had been wrongly

solved in the past

—

in large part

owing in

earlier years to

the lack of documentary authorities, and in later years to the large

demand on the

scholar's time that the

tions

mastery of

Short but valuable contribu-

these would have entailed.

and suggestions have recently been made by Schnapp,

Conybeare, Kohler, Gaster, and Bousset, and not a few of the conclusions arrived at by these scholars have been con-

firmed by

my own

The main

investigations.

questions

as

regards

the

language, and object of the author, are,

now

practically settled

beyond the range

I

date,

am

original

convinced,

Other

of dispute.

questions arise in the text that call for further study and research.

For the prosecution of these the student

is

fully

TESTAMENTS OF THE TWELVE PATRIARCHS

viii

provided with

all

the documentary materials, so far as the

Testaments themselves are concerned, in the present volume

my

and in

which

Text,

authorities in

Slavonic

by the Oxford

published

is

For these two volumes

University Press.

Greek,

all

accessible

Armenian, Hebrew, Aramaic, and

have been used, and of these a

full

account

is

given in the Introductions to these two books.

The Testaments

of the

Twelve Patriarchs

has, since its re-

discovery by Bishop Grosseteste in the thirteenth century

till

the last decade, been a sealed book, misunderstood and mis-

dated on every hand.

The research of the

last

few years has,

however, as I have just indicated, succeeded in discovering its

true date, purpose, and character.

It

now comes forward

as a book second in importance to none composed between

200

B.C.

and the Christian

It

era.

was written in Hebrew

in the last quarter of the second century

B.C.

by a Chasid on

behalf of the high-priesthood of the great Maccabean family,

and

especially

on behalf of the Messianic claims of John

Hyrcanus, who, according to Josephus, was the only Israelite

who enjoyed But

its

the triple offices of prophet, priest, and king.

claims to historical importance, however great, are

overshadowed by

its still

greater claims as being the sole

representative of the loftiest ethical standard ever attained

by pre-Christian Judaism, and

as such, attesting the existence

of a type of religious thought in pre-Christian

was the natural preparation

for

the ethics

Judaism that of the

New

Testament, and especially of the Sermon on the Mount.

Not only

so,

but this book influenced directly the Sermon

on the Mount in a few of phrases,

and the

its

most striking thoughts and

Pauline Epistles

in

a

great variety of

passages.

The reader who wishes

to get a

summary account

New

of the

Testaments, and

their

should read 88

26, 27 of the Introduction that follows.

1,

influence

on the

Testament,

PREFACE Some

ix

of the Sections in this Introduction will of neces-

sity appear

my

in the Introduction to

Text, which will

be published immediately by the University Press.

As

the present volume constitutes the

first

commentary

on the Testaments, the editor has had often to pursue untravelled ways, and as he has pushed his discoveries this

in

direction,

now

in

he

that,

is

now

conscious that he

cannot when so doing have escaped falling into errors of perception, judgment,

For such he can

scholarship.

or

with confidence throw himself on the indulgence of his fellow researchers,

who know

and the ease with which he I have, however,

errors.

the difficulties of the pioneer falls

done

my

a victim even to obvious best to avoid such errors.

In this I should no doubt have been more successful, sheets

had been revised by other

eyes.

But

if

my

I naturally

shrank from imposing the overwhelming labour of revising

my

Text on any of

my

Translations and Notes.

friends,

For

and even of reading

all corrections I shall

my

be very

grateful.

I cannot conclude without thanking the Publishers for

their

magnanimity in undertaking yet another of these

expensive works.

I

may have something

hope that their virtue in this respect outside of and beyond its

E. H. Oct. 2, 1907,

24

Bardwell Road, Oxford.

own

reward.

CHAKLES.

CONTENTS SECTION 1.

The Book and

2.

The Greek MSS

3.

The Armenian MSS

4.

its

PAGE

.... ....

Fortunes

XV

.

xviii

xxii

The Armenian Version found in two Recensions their Mutual Relations, and Affinities with THE Greek MSS Value of the Version .

;

5.

Edition of the Armenian Text

6.

Translations op the Armenian Version

7.

The Slavonic Version

8.

The two Slavonic Recensions

9.

The Greek Version found

XXV xxviii

xxix

XXX

in

xxxi

two forms, a and

.... ....

(3

their Relations and the Characteristics of their

Representatives

—

10.

Editions of the Greek Version

11.

Modern Translations op the Greek Version

12.

Critical Inquiries

13.

The Greek Version Hebrew

—

14.

a and

13

xxxii

XXX vi

(3

—P

xxxvii

..... a

Translation

from

xxxviii

the xlii

derived respectively from two lost hebrew Table op Affinity op

Recensions, H" and H^.

ALL THE Textual Authorities

.

.

•

xlvii

15.

Date of the Original Hebrew

.

.

.

1

16.

Title op the Book

.

•

.

liv

17.

Integrity, Authorship, Sources

.

.

.

.

.liv

TESTAMENTS OF THE TWELVE PATRIARCHS

xii

PAGE

SECTION

18.

Date of Greek Version

19.

Jewish Additions to the Text

.

.

.

Ivii

20.

Christian Additions to the Text

.

.

.

Ixi

21.

Midrash Wajjissau containing Fragments of the Testament of Jddah

.

.

.

.

....

Ivi

Ixv

22.

Late Hebrew Testament of Naphtali

.

Ixvi

23.

Aramaic and Greek Fragments coNTAiiiiNG Phrases and Clauses from an Original Source of the Testament of Levi and the Book of Jubilees .

Ixviii

Influence of the Testaments on Jewish Literature

.

Ixxiv

24.

25. 26. 27.

.

„

„

Patristic Literature

Ixxv

„

„

The New Testament

Ixxviii

Theology at the Close of the Second Century b.c. and its Influence on New Testament Theology

Jewish

......

The Testament op Reuben

CONTENTS

APPENDIX

xiii

I PAGE

Translation of a Late Hebrew Testament of Naphtali, WHICH contains FRAGMENTS OF THE ORIGINAL Testament .

,

.

.

.

APPENDIX

.221

II

Translation of Aramaic and Greek Fragments op an Original Source of the Testament of Levi and THE Book of Jubilees .

INDEX

.

.

.228

I

.......

Passages from the Scriptures and other Ancient Books Directly Connected or Closely Parallel with the

Text

INDEX Names and Subjects

.

.

237

II

.

.

.241

INTRODUCTION § 1.

The Book and

its

Fortunes

The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs were written in Hebrew in the later years of John Hyrcanus in all prob-

—

ability after his final victory over the Syrian

before

his

breach with

between 109 and 106.

combined loyalty

to

the Pharisees

—

Their author was a Pharisee

bean dynasty had now reached the zenith of

of

words,

who

the best traditions of his party with

the most unbounded admiration of Hyrcanus.

and

power and

other

in

in its reigning representative,

Judaism possessed the

who

triple offices

The Maccaits prosperity,

alone in the history of prophet, priest,

and king, the Pharisaic party had come to recognise the actual Messiah.

Won

over by the purity of

and pre-eminent civil rulers,

Pharisees, this

new

gifts

life,

nobility of character,

of the Maccabees

as

high

priests,

and military commanders, the Chasids, or early

had some decades

earlier attached

high-priesthood, though with

many

themselves to a misgiving

on account of the break in the high-priestly succession.

The approval thus won from the reluctant Chasids, the Maccabees had deepened and strengthened by their achieve-

ments every year in every province of thought was begotten in

many XV

their activity,

till

Sab

a breast, that at last the

TESTAMENTS OF THE TWELVE PATRIARCHS

xvi

hope of Israel had come, and, in defiance of

all

ancient

prophecy, was sprung from the house and lineage of Levi.^

There are good grounds

Psalm

regarding

for

ex.

as

the outcome of such an expectation, and as greeting one of

Maccabees as the long-expected deliverer of

the

may

But, however this addresses two or

whom had

in

all

established,

John Hyrcanus,

to

the glories and gifts of this

The writer already

great family.

dom

more Messianic hymns

culminated

Israel.^

no doubt that our author

be, there is

sees the Messianic king-

under the sway of which the Gentiles will

in due course be saved,^ Beliar overthrown, sin disappear

from the earth, and the righteous dead

to share in the

rise

blessedness of the living.

Alas for the vanity of man's judgment and man's pre-

Our book had

science.

Hyrcanus, owing to

been

hardly

published,

an outrage done him by the

when

Pharisees,

broke with their party, and, joining the Sadducees, died a year or two

His successors proved themselves the

later.

Their infamy

basest of men.

by contemporary writers of the strange irony the work,*

one of these

of

achieved ^

is

painted in lurid colours

first

or, rather,

assailants

of

the

century

fragments of the work later

Maccabees, has

immortality by finding a covert

But the Testaments were not only used

and by a

B.C.,

in

the

for private edification.

chief

They were

used, as Kohler (J.Q.R., 1893, pp. 400-401) has indicated, on certain occasions in the

High Court

of Justice on the trial of a

according to Sifre,

Num.

12,

woman suspected

Sotah 7^, and Jer. Sotah

16"^,

For

of adultery.

the president of

the Court was directed to urge on the accused the duty of confession, and recite to her

ings

The

—

' '

words of the Haggada, historical events which occur in the early writReuben with Bilhah and of Judah with Tamar."

for exaniiDle, the incident of

confessions of

Reuben and Judah

are found in our text,

and nowhere

else in

ancient Jewish literature. '^

1

Many

Mace. ^

exegetes take Ps. ex. as a Messianic

hymn

addressed to Simon

(cf.

xiv. 1).

Contrast the narrowness of the sister work, the Book of Jubilees, the author

of which, like Ezekiel, believed in the exclusion of the Gentiles from the Messianic

kingdom. *

See § 19.

INTRODUCTION

xvii

manifesto that was issued on behalf of one of the earlier

members

of that dynasty.

This second writer singles out three of the Maccabean

whom

priest kings for attack, the first of

every abomination

;

and chastisement

the people

he charges with

he declares,

itself,

will follow speedily

—

is

apostate,

the temple will be

laid waste, the nation carried afresh into captivity, whence,

on their repentance, God will restore them again to their

own

where

land,

they

God's presence and be

shall

ruled

enjoy

the

blessedness

of

by a Messiah sprung from

Judah.^

When we

contrast the expectations of the original writer

and the actual events that followed, work would

chief value of his

it

would seem that the

consist in the light that it

throws on this obscure and temporary revolution in the Messianic expectations of Judaism towards the close of the second century.

But

whelming value

of the

this is not so.

book

The main, the over-

not in this province, but

lies

in its ethical teaching, which has achieved a real

immor-

tality

by influencing the thought and diction of the writers

of the

New

Testament, and even those of our Lord.^

ethical teaching,

which

is

indefinitely higher

that of the Old Testament,

and helps Old and

to bridge the

New

After the

is

yet

its

This

and purer than

true spiritual child,

chasm that divides the

ethics of the

Testaments. first

century of our era the fortunes of the

Testaments speedily declined in Christendom.

Though they

are referred to occasionally in the next three centuries, they

came

to be discredited as

an Apocryphal writing and

under the ban of the Church.

course of these centuries of their

waning popularity, they

underwent interpolation^ at the hands of Christian ^

2

Part of this prophecy was

See §§ 26, 27.

fell

Unhappily, further, in the

fulfilled in

70 a.D.

^

See % 20.

scribes,

TESTAMENTS OF THE TWELVE PATRIARCHS

xviii

but

happily

many

of

had not been

these interpolations

made when the book was done into Armenian. The reappearance of the Testaments on history was due

the great Bishop

to

Grosseteste, in the thirteenth century,

MS

Greece the

sity Library of

with

all its

of this book,

which

is

the stage of

Lincoln, Eobert

of

who procured from now in the Univer-

This scholar took the book

Cambridge.

Christian additions to be a genuine writing of

He

the twelve sons of Jacob.

charged the Jews with con-

cealing the Testaments from the knowledge of the Church "

on account of the prophecies of the Saviour contained in

them."

Grosseteste translated

his translation gained larity,

and from

the book into Latin, and

an immediate and widespread popu-

in course of time translations were

it

made

into most of the languages of Europe. It

is,

perhaps, needless to state that,

when

the critical

instinct revived with the Eeformation, Grosseteste's view

of the Testaments was

summarily

rejected.

Nay, more, as

the book was regarded as the work of one writer,

it

was

In the course

simply condemned as a Christian forgery.

of four centuries only one voice was raised as against this

mistaken verdict, and that in vain for about two hundred

Only a

years.

score of years ago

Grabe's view that the

Christian clauses were interpolations was rehandled in a treatise

by a young German scholar Schnapp.

Some

years

afterwards the subject was restudied by the present writer,

who now

presents

laborious but

to

happy years

§ 2.

Bodley MS.

a.

MS

contains

latter

part

the

of

the

product

of

many

of research.

The Greek MSS

Barrocio 133.

Quarto.

This paper

by

different

hands of the

several

the

reader

treatises

fourteenth century.

The Testaments

INTRODUCTION occupy

folios

179^-205^

Judah and Gad

Their general

and those of

title

There are two copies

are written in red.

MS. on

of this

xix

MS. Smith 117,

paper, one in the Bodley

belonging to the close of the seventeenth century, and the

Emmanuel

second in

College, Cambridge.

MS.

This

is

remarkable for a large number of omissions, at times of

A

entire chapters.

collation of it

is

given in Dr. Sinker's

wanting in accuracy.

edition, but it is

by him

It is cited

as 0.

University Library, Cambridge, Ff.

b.

Quarto.

24.

i.

This parchment MS. contains four works, of which

Testaments are the fourth, written on It belongs to the tenth century.

in red, except the

MS. that

first,

which

is

It is written in double

The

columns, 20 lines in a column.

writing, according to Dr. James,

is

and

initials

in gold.

Grosseteste's Latin version

Grabe professes

folios

the

203^-262^

titles are

was from

It

was made.

this

His hand-

found on the margin.

have given a transcript of this MS, as

to

his text.

Of

MS.

this

The

there are three copies.

first

two are

University Library and in the Library of Trinity

in the

Cambridge,

College,

respectively,

and

the

third

in

the

Library of Queen's College, Oxford. This

MS. forms the

James has above

tested its accuracy for me,

all praise.

script of the

him

text of Dr. Sinker's edition.

MS

I have, therefore,

it

Dr. to

be

used Dr. Sinker's tran-

in the present edition.

It is cited

by

as C.

Vatican Library, Cod. Graec. 731.

c.

octavo

MS

page.

Besides the Testaments

This

is

a small

written on paper, with 22 or 23 lines on each

the Fathers.

The

and found

it

contains extracts from

The Testaments are given on

folios 9 7^-1 6 7^

script of the latter belongs probably to the thirteenth

century.

This

is

the most important of

all

the

MSS.

A

TESTAMENTS OF THE TWELVE PATRIARCHS

XX

MS. by Guidi

fairly accurate collation of this

Sinker, in his separately published

Appendix

of tlie Testaments,

and cited by him

photograp]is of this

MS.

volumes of the

in three

On

century.

LXX

This

LXX

340^-3 49^ and

There are from 33

text.

tmv

A.ta6rjKaL

words

Book

350-380

39

to

AeTTTT}? Veveaew