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Introductory Notice
to
The Testaments of the Twelve
Patriarchs.
————————————
This very curious fragment
of antiquity deserves a few words in anticipation of the
translator’s valuable preface. Grabe’s
Spicilegium is there referred to; but it may be well also to
consult his citations, in elucidation, of Bull’s
Defensio Fidei Nicænæ,4
| 4 Vol. v. p. 176, ed.
1827. | where he
treats the work with respect. My most valued authority, however,
on this subject, is Lardner,5
| 5 Credib., vol. ii. pp.
345–364. | who gives a very full
account of the work with his usual candor and learning. He seems
to treat the matter with a needless profusion of space and
consideration; yet in a much later volume of his great treatise he
recurs to the subject6
with expressions of
satisfaction that he had dealt with it so largely before.
Cave placed the composition of the
Testaments about a.d. 192, but concedes
a much earlier origin to the first portion of the work. Origen
quotes from it, and Tertullian is supposed to have borrowed from it one
of his expositions, as will be noted in its place. Lardner clears
it from charges of Ebionitism,7
| 7 The honour done to St.
Paul is enough to settle any suspicion of this sort. | but thinks the author
was so far in accord with that heresy as to use expressions savouring
of “Unitarianism.” Of this charge he is not justly
susceptible, it appears to me: quite otherwise. If we can
imagine Trypho coming to the light after his kindly parting with
Justin,8
| 8 See vol. i. p. 270, note
2, this series. | I can conceive of such a man as the author
of this work. He is a Christian awakening to the real purport of
the Old-Testament Scriptures, and anxious to lead rather than drive his
brethren after the flesh to the discovery of Him “concerning whom
Moses in the law and the prophets did write:” not a
“Judaizing Christian,” as Cave imagined, but the
reverse,—a Christianizing Jew. Now, I must think that such
a writer would weave into his plan many accepted traditions of the Jews
and many Rabbinical expositions of the sacred writers. He was
doubtless acquainted with that remarkable passage in the Revelation in
which the patriarchs are so honourably named,9
and with
that corresponding passage which seems to unite the twelve patriarchs
with the twelve apostles.10
St. Paul’s
claim for the twelve tribes before Agrippa11
would
naturally impress itself on such a mind. Whether the product of
such a character with such a disposition would naturally be such an
affectionate and filial attempt as this to identify the religion of the
Crucified with the faith of the Jewish fathers,12
| 12 See The Christ
of Jewish History in Stanley Leathes’ Bampton
Lectures, p. 51, ed. New York, 1874; also Westcott, Introduction
to Study of the Gospels, 3d ed., London, Macmillans, 1867.
Note, on the Book of Henoch, pp. 69, 93–101; on the
Book of Jubilees p. 109. He puts this book into the first
century, later than Henoch, earlier than the Twelve
Patriarchs. Consult this work on the Alexandrian Fathers, on
inspiration of Scripture, etc.; and note the Jewish doctrine of the
Messiah, pp. 86, 143, 151, also the apocryphal traditions of words of
our Lord, p. 428. | may be
judged of by my reader.
It appears to
me an ill-advised romance; not more a “pious fraud” than
several fictions which have attracted attention in our own times, based
on the traditions of the Hebrews. The legends of the
“Wandering Jew” have grown out of corresponding instincts
among Christians. To me they appear like the profane
“Passion-plays” lately revived among Christians,—a
most unwarrantable form of teaching even truth. But as to the
work itself, seeing it exists, I must acknowledge that it seems to me a
valuable relic of antiquity, and an interesting specimen of the
feelings and convictions of those believers over whom St. James
presided in Jerusalem:13
| 13 Acts xxi. 18–26. To my mind a most touching
history, in which it is hard to say whether St. Paul or St. James is
exhibited in the more charming light. It suggests the absolute
harmony of their Epistles. |
“Israelites indeed,” but “zealous of the
law.” They were now convinced that Abraham and Isaac and
Jacob, with Moses and all the prophets, looked for the Messiah who had
appeared in Jesus of Nazareth. The author of this book was
anxious to show that the twelve patriarchs were twelve believers in the
Paschal Lamb, and that they died in Christian penitence and
faith.
He, then, who will read or study the following
waif of the olden time, as I have done, will not find it unprofitable
reading. It really supplies a key to some difficulties in the
Scripture narrative. It suggests what are at least plausible
counterparts of what is written. “To the pure all things
are pure;” and I see nothing that need defile in any of the
details which expose the sins, and magnify the penitence, of the
patriarchs. In fact, Lardner’s objection to one of the
sections in the beautiful narrative of Joseph strikes me as
extraordinary. It is the story of a heroic conflict with
temptation, the like of which was doubtless not uncommon in the days of
early Christians living among heathens;14
| 14 Vol. i. Elucid. II. p.
57, this series. | and I
think it was possibly written to inspire a Joseph-like chastity in
Christian youth. “I do not suppose,” says Lardner,
“that the virtue of any of these ancient Hebrews was complete
according to the Christian rule.” I am amazed at this; I
have always supposed the example of Joseph the more glorious because he
flourished as the flower of chastity in a gross and carnal age.
Who so pure as he save John the Baptist, that morning star that shone
so near the Sun of Righteousness in the transient beauty of his
“heliacal rising”? Surely Joseph was a type of Christ
in this as in other particulars, and our author merely enables us to
understand the “fiery darts” which he was wont to hurl back
at the tempter. I own (reluctantly, because I dislike this form
of teaching) that for me the superlative ode of the dying Jacob
receives a reflected lustre from this curious book, especially in the
splendid eulogy with which the old patriarch blesses his beloved
Joseph. “The author,” says Lardner, “in an
indirect manner…bears a large testimony to the Christian
religion, to the facts, principles, and books of the New
Testament. He speaks of the nativity of Christ, the meekness and
unblameableness of His life, His crucifixion at the instigation of the
Jewish priests, the wonderful concomitants of His death, His
resurrection, and ascension. He represents the character of the
Messiah as God and man: the Most High God with men, eating and
drinking with them; the Son of God; the Saviour of the world, of the
Gentiles and Israel; as Eternal High Priest and King. He likewise
speaks of the effusion of the Holy Spirit upon the Messiah, attended
with a voice from heaven; His unrighteous treatment by the Jews; their
desolations and the destruction of the Temple upon that account; the
call of the Gentiles; the illuminating them generally with new light;
the effusion of the Spirit upon believers, but especially, and in a
more abundant measure, upon the Gentiles.…There are allusions to
the Gospels of St. Matthew, St. Luke and St. John, the Acts of the
Apostles, and of the Epistles to Ephesians, First Thessalonians, First
Timothy, Hebrews, and First St. John, also to the Revelation. So
far as consistent with the assumed character of his work, the author
declares the canonical authority of the Acts of the Apostles and the
Epistles of St. Paul.” Of which of the minor writers among
the Ante-Nicene Fathers can so much be said?
Regarded as a sort of Jewish surrender to Justin’s
argument with Trypho, this book is interesting, and represents, no
doubt, the convictions of thousands of Jewish converts of the first
age. It is, in short, worthy of more attention than it has yet
received.
Here follows
Mr. Sinker’s valuable Introductory
Notice:—
The apocryphal work known
as the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs professes to be, as
its name implies, the utterances of the dying patriarchs, the sons of
Jacob. In these they give some account of their lives, embodying
particulars not found in the scriptural account, and build thereupon
various moral precepts for the guidance of their descendants. The
book partakes also of the nature of an Apocalypse: the patriarchs
see in the future their children doing wickedly, stained with the sins
of every nation; and thus they foretell the troubles impending on their
race. Still at last God will put an end to their woe, and comfort
is found in the promise of a Messiah
There can be little or no doubt that the author was a
Jew, who, having been converted to Christianity, sought to win over his
countrymen to the same faith, and thus employed the names of the
patriarchs as a vehicle for conveying instruction to their descendants,
as winning by this means for his teaching at any rate a prima
facie welcome in the eyes of the Jewish people.
It does not seem hard to settle approximately the
limits of time within which the book was probably written. It
cannot be placed very late in the second century, seeing that it is
almost certainly quoted by Tertullian,15
| 15 Adv.
Marcionem, v. 1; Scorpiace, 13; cf. Benj.
11. | and that
Origen16
| 16 Hom. in
Josuam, xv. 6; cf. Reub. 2, 3. | cites the Testaments by name,
apparently indeed holding it in considerable respect. We can,
however, approximate much more nearly than this; for the allusions to
the destruction of Jerusalem assign to the Testaments a date
subsequent to that event. This will harmonize perfectly with what
is the natural inference from several passages,—namely, that the
Gentiles now were a majority in the Church,—as well as with the
presence of the many formulæ to express the incarnation, and with
the apparent collection of the books of the New Testament into a
volume.17
On the other hand, important evidence as to the
posterior limit of the date of writing may be derived from the language
used with reference to the priesthood. Christ is both High Priest
and King, and His former office is higher than the latter, and to Him
the old priesthood must resign its rights. Now such language as
this would be almost meaningless after Hadrian’s destruction of
Jerusalem consequent on the revolt of Bar-Cochba (a.d. 135), after which all power of Judaism for acting
directly upon Christianity ceased; and, indeed, on the hypothesis of a
later date, we should doubtless find allusions to the revolt and its
suppression. On the above grounds, we infer that the writing of
the Testaments is to be placed in a period ranging from late in
the first century to the revolt of Bar-Cochba; closer than this it is
perhaps not safe to draw our limits.18
| 18 [Compare
Westcott, Introduction to Study of the Gospels, p. 132, ed.
Boston, 1862.] |
The language in which the Testaments were
written was no doubt the Hellenistic Greek in which we now possess
them; presenting as they do none of the peculiar marks which
characterize a version. Whether there were a Hebrew work on which
the present was modelled—a supposition by no means improbable in
itself—we cannot tell, nor is it a matter of much
importance. The phenomena of the book itself may be cited in
support of this conclusion: for instance, the use of the
word διαθήκη in its
ordinary classical meaning of “testament,” not
“covenant” as in Hellenistic Greek, for which former
meaning there would be no strictly equivalent word in Hebrew; the
numerous instances of paronomasia, such as ἀθετεῖν,
νουθετεῖν,19
ἀφαίρεσις,
ἀναίρεσις,20
λιμός,
λοιμός,21
ἐν τάξει,
ἄτακτον,22
τάξις,
ἀταξία;23
the frequent use of the genitive
absolute, and of the verb μέλλειν; the use
of various expressions pertaining to the Greek philosophy, as
διάθεσις,
αἴσθησις,
φύσις,
τέλος.
It seems doubtful how far we can attempt with safety to
determine accurately the religious standpoint of the writer beyond the
obvious fact of his Jewish origin, though some have attempted
to show that he was a Nazarene, and
others a Jewish Christian of Pauline tendencies. We shall
therefore content ourselves with referring those who seek for more
specific information on this point to the works mentioned below.
To refer now briefly to the external history of
our document, we meet with nothing definite, after its citation by
Origen, for many centuries: there are possible allusions in
Jerome24
| 24 Adv. Vigilantium,
c. 6. | and in Procopius Gazæus;25
| 25 Comm. in Genesin,
c. 38. | there is also a mention of πατριάρχαι
in the Synopsis Sacræ Scripturæ found among the
writings of Athanasius, as well as in the Stichometria of
Nicephorus of Constantinople, on which it is probably based.
Again, in the Canons of the Council of Rome (494 a.d.) under Gelasius, and of the Council of Bracara (563
a.d.), are possible references, though it is
far from improbable that in some of the foregoing passages the
reference may be to a writing τῶν τριῶν
Πατριαρχῶν
alluded to in the Apostolic Constitutions,26
| 26 vi. 16. [See vol.
vii. p. 457, this series.] | or is even of somewhat loose
application.
After this a blank ensues until the middle of the
thirteenth century, when it was brought to the knowledge of Western
Europe by Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, the earliest of the
great English reformers.27
| 27 [Of whom see
Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, Part II. vol. i. p. 77, ed.
London, 1885.] | We cite here
the account of the matter given by Matthew Paris, although of course we
need not accept all the opinions of the old chronicler respecting the
document in question: “At this same time, Robert, Bishop of
Lincoln, a man most deeply versed in Latin and Greek, accurately
translated the Testaments of the XII. Patriarchs from Greek into
Latin. These had been for a long time unknown and hidden through
the jealousy of the Jews, on account of the prophecies of the Saviour
contained in them. The Greeks, however, the most unwearied
investigators of all writings, were the first to come to a knowledge of
this document, and translated it from Hebrew into Greek, and have kept
it to themselves till our times. And neither in the time of the
blessed Jerome nor of any other holy interpreter could the Christians
gain an acquaintance with it, through the malice of the ancient
Jews. This glorious treatise, then, the aforesaid bishop (with
the help of Master Nicolaus, a Greek, and a clerk of the Abbey of St.
Alban’s) translated fully and clearly, and word for word, from
Greek into Latin, to the strengthening of the Christian faith, and to
the greater confusion of the Jews.”28
| 28 Historia
Anglorum, a.d. 1242, p. 801, ed.
London, 1571. |
Again, after speaking of the death of
“Master John de Basingstokes, Archdeacon of Leicester,” a
man of very great learning in Latin and Greek, he proceeds:29
| 29 Op. cit.
a.d. 1252, p. 1112. | “This Master John had mentioned
to Robert, Bishop of Lincoln, that when he was studying at Athens he
had seen and heard from learned Greek doctors certain things unknown to
the Latins. Among these he found the Testaments of the XII.
Patriarchs, that is to say, of the sons of Jacob. Now it is
plain that these really form part of the sacred volume, but have been
long hidden through the jealousy of the Jews, on account of the evident
prophecies about Christ which are clearly seen in them.
Consequently this same bishop sent into Greece; and when he obtained
them, he translated them from Greek into Latin, as well as certain
other things.”
After this it would seem as though the same fate
still pursued our document, for the entire Greek text was not printed
until the eve of the eighteenth century, when it was published for the
first time by Grabe, whose edition has been several times
reprinted.30
Four Greek mss. of the
Testaments are known to exist:—
1. The ms. Ff. i. 24
in the University Library of Cambridge, to which it was given by
Archbishop Parker, whose autograph it bears on its first page. It
is a quarto on parchment, of 261 leaves (in which the Testaments
occupy ff. 203a–261b), double columns, 20 lines in
a column, handwriting of the tenth century. It is furnished with
accents and breathings, and a fairly full punctuation. There are
very strong grounds for believing that it was this ms. that Grosseteste’s version was made, exhibiting as it does a
very large amount of curious verbal coincidence with it.31
| 31 [See, e.g., the
curious reading in Levi 18, καὶ
στησει, where the Latin
mss. are unanimous in giving stare
faciet; also the mistake of ᾽Ιακώβ for ᾽Ρουβήμ in
Issachar 1. | The text of this ms. has been that given in the various editions mentioned
below.
2. The ms. Barocci
133 in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, where it came with the rest of
the Barocci collection from Venice, and was presented to the University
by its Chancellor, the Earl of Pembroke. It is a quarto volume;
and except a leaf or two of parchment, containing writing of an older
period, consists of a number of treatises on paper, apparently by
several different hands, in the writing of the latter part of the
fourteenth century. The Testaments occupy ff.
179a–203b. The amount of difference between
this ms. and the preceding is considerable, and
is sufficient to show that it has had no direct communication with the
latter. A large number of omissions occur in it, in some
instances amounting to entire chapters. The variations of this
ms. are given more or less fully in the various
editions.
3. A ms. in the
Vatican Library at Rome, not yet edited. It is said to be a small
quarto on paper, written in a very distinct hand, though unfortunately
some leaves are damaged. It bears a subscription with the date
1235. I owe my knowledge of this ms. to
an article by Dr. Vorstman in the Godgeleerde Bijdragen for
1866, p. 953 sqq.
4. A ms. discovered
by Tischendorf in the island of Patmos, of which no details have yet
been published.32
| 32 See Tischendorf,
Aus dem heiligen Lande, p. 341. |
The entire Greek text of the Testaments was
first printed by Grabe in his Spicilegium Patrum et
Hæreticorum, Oxford, 1698, professedly from the
Cambridge ms., but in reality from some very
inaccurate transcript of it, very possibly from one made by Abednego
Seller, also in the Cambridge University Library, Oo. vi. 92.
Grabe also gave a few of the variations of the Oxford ms. Fabricius, in his Codex Pseudepigraphus
Veteris Testamenti,33
gives little more
than a reprint from Grabe. In the second edition of the latter
(1714) the true text has been restored in several passages; but in many
places Grosseteste’s Latin version, which witnessed to the true
reading, was altered to suit Grabe’s incorrect text.
Fabricius’ second edition (1722) is perhaps, on the whole, less
accurate than his first. Since then the text and notes, as given
in Grabe’s second edition, have been reprinted, with but few
additions, by Gallandi, in his Bibliotheca Veterum
Patrum, vol. i. p. 193 sqq., Venice, 1765, and in
Migne’s Patrologia Græca, vol. ii., Paris,
1857. The text of the Cambridge ms. with
a full statement of the variations of the Oxford ms., has recently been edited directly from the
mss. by myself, Cambridge, 1869; from this
edition the present translation has been made.
The mss. of
Grosseteste’s Latin version are numerous, there being no less
than twelve in Cambridge alone and it has been frequently printed, both
with the editions of the Greek text and independently.34
| 34 e.g., 1483; Hagenau,
1532; Paris, 1549; and often. |
Besides the Latin version, the Testaments
have also been translated into several European languages, in all cases
apparently from the Latin. The English translation made by Arthur
Golding was first printed by John Daye in Aldersgate in 1581, and has
since been frequently reproduced; the British Museum, which does not
possess all the editions, having no less than eleven.35
| 35 This English translation
having been made from the Latin, the printed editions of which swarm
with inaccuracies (Grosseteste’s Latin version itself being a
most exact translation), I have been able to make much less use of it
than I could have desired. It has, however, been compared
throughout. |
The author of the French translation36
| 36 Monsieur Macé,
Chefecier, curé de Saint Opportune, Paris, 1713. | appears to believe, as the English
translator had done, that we have here really the last words of the
sons of Jacob. A German translation has also several times been
published,37
| 37 e.g., Vienna, 1544;
Strasburgh, 1596; Hamburgh, 1637. | and a German
translation in ms. is to be found in the
British Museum.38
We may
further mention a Dutch translation (Antwerp, 1570), a Danish
translation (1601),
and a ms. Icelandic translation of the
eighteenth century in the British Museum, add. mss 11,068.
For further information on the subject of the
Testaments, reference may be made, in addition to works already
mentioned, to the following:—Nitzsch, Commentatio
Critica de Testamentis XII. Patriarcharum, libro V. T.
Pseudepigrapho (Wittenberg, 1810); Ritschl, Die
Entstehung der altkatholischen Kirche (Bonn, 1850; ed. 2,
1857), p. 171 sqq.; Vorstman, Disquisitio de Testamentorum XII.
Patriarcharum origine et pretio (Rotterdam, 1857); Kayser in Reuss
and Cunitz’s Beiträge zu den theol.
Wissenschaften for 1851, pp. 107–140; Lücke,Einleitung in die Offenbarung des Joh.,
vol. i. p. 334 sqq., ed. 2.
R. S.
Trinity College, Cambridge.
February 21, 1871.
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