THE ASSUMPTION r OF MOSES R.H, CHARLE \ STUDIA IN THE LIBRARY of VICTORIA UNIVERSITY Toronto PRESS OPINIONS. THE APOCALYPSE OF BARUCH. Translated from the Syriac. BY REV, R. H. CHARLES. Crown 8vo, cloth, price Js. 6d. net. " Mr. Charles s last work will have a hearty welcome from students of Syriac whose interest is linguistic, and from theological students who value of have learned the Jewish and Christian pseudepigraphy ; and the educated general reader will find much of high interest in it, regard being had to its date and its theological standpoint." Record. "Mr. Charles has in this work followed up the admirable editions of other pieces of apocalyptic literature with an edition equally admirable. Some of the notes on theological or other points of special interest are very full and instructive. The whole work is an honour to English scholarship. The work before us is one that no future student of the apocalyptic literature will be able to neglect, and students of the New Testament or the contemporary Jewish thought will find much to interest them in it." Primitive Methodist Quarterly Review. "As is intimated in the title-page, the Syriac text, based on ten MSS., from which the Epistle of Baruch is translated, is included in the volume. The learned footnotes which accompany the translation throughout will be found most helpful to the reader. Indeed, nothing seems to have been left undone which could make this ancient writing intelligible to the student." Scotsman. To say that this is the edition of the Apocalypse of Baruch is to say nothing. Let us say that it is an edition which alone would give an editor a name to live." Expository Times. "It is a book that should be mastered by every student of the New Testament." Westminster Review. " Mr. Charles s new work, The Apocalypse of Baruch, which he is the first to edit from the Syriac in a form accessible to English readers, is the best example that English literature has ever had of the modern to still analysis of ancient books ; and those whom such criticism is obscure cannot do better than study the way in which the artist unravels the tangled skein of authorship in the most beautiful of all the Apocalypses that have come down to us. He has certainly written a very valuable work, for which the students of apocalyptic literature will give him their hearty thanks." Expositor, THE ASSUMPTION OF MOSES OTHER WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR. THE APOCALYPSE OF BAR UCH. Translated from the Syriac : Chapters I.-LXXVII. from the Sixth Century MS. in the Ambrosian Library of Milan, and Chapters LXXVIII.-LXXXVII. THE EPISTLE OFBARUCH. From a New and Critical Text based on Ten MSS. and published herewith. Edited, with Introduction, Notes, and Indices. 75. 6d. net. LONDON: A. & C. BLACK. THE BOOK OF ENOCH. Translated from Dillmann s Ethiopic Text (emended and revised in accordance with hitherto uncollated Ethiopic MSS. and with the Gizeh and other Greek and Latin Fragments), with Introduction, Notes, and Indices. 8vo, i6s. THE ETHIOPIC VERSION OF THE HEBREW BOOK OF JUBILEES. Edited from Four MSS. and critically revised, emended, and restored in accordance with the Hebrew, Syriac, Greek, and Latin Fragments of this Book. 4to, i2S. 6d. THE BOOK OF THE SECRETS OF ENOCH. Trans lated from the Slavonic by W. R. MORFILL, M.A., and edited, with Introduction, Notes, and Indices, by R. H. CHARLES, M.A. 8vo, 75. 6d. OXFORD: THE CLARENDON PRESS. THE ASSUMPTION OF MOSES TRANSLATED FROM THE LATIN SIXTH CENTURY MS., THE UNEMENDED TEXT OF WHICH IS PUBLISHED HEREWITH, TOGETHER WITH THE TEXT IN ITS RESTORED AND CRITICALLY EMENDED FORM EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION, NOTES, AND INDICES BY R. H. CHARLES, M.A. TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN, AND EXETER COLLEGE, OXFORD LONDON ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK 1897 pfi [All Rig/its Reserved} TO MY FATHER AND MOTHER PREFACE WKITTEN in Hebrew shortly after the beginning of the Christian era, this book was designed by its author to protest against the growing secularisation of the Pharisaic party through its fusion with political ideals and popular Messianic beliefs. Its author, a Pharisaic Quietist, sought herein to recall his party to the old paths, which they were fast forsaking, of simple unobtrusive obedience to the Law. He glorifies, accordingly, the old ideals which had been cherished and pursued by the Chasid and Early Pharisaic party, but which the Pharisaism of the first century B.C. had begun to disown in favour of a more active role in the life of the nation. He foresaw, perhaps, the doom to which his country was hurrying under such a shortsighted and unspiritual policy, and laboured with all his power to stay its downward progress. But all in vain. He but played afresh the part of Cassandra. The leavening of Pharisaism with viii PREFACE earthly political ideals went on apace, and the movement thus initiated culminated finally in the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 A.D. It adds no little to the interest of the book that it was written during the early life of our Lord, or possibly contemporaneously with His public ministry. At all events, it was known to the writers of Jude 9, 16 and Acts vii., and most probably to the writers of 2 Peter ii. 10-11 and Matthew xxiv. 29 (Luke xxi. 25-26). It may be well here to indicate the features in which this edition differs from previous editions of the Assumption. These consist (1) in a fuller and more critical treatment of the Latin text, and of the Greek and Semitic background which it pre in an of the text at once supposes ; (2) exegesis more comprehensive and detailed. I. The Latin Text. The Latin text has been critically edited and emended four times in Ger many. But three of these editions have failed to recognise the Semitic background of the Latin text, and have thus limited their horizon. The fourth that of Schmidt-Merx which has shown ample recognition of this fact, is often brilliant indeed, but oftener arbitrary, alike in its emendations and restorations. With a view to carrying forward the criticism of the Latin text, the present editor has tabulated the peculiar Latin forms it contains, and PREFACE ix compared them with like forms in the fifth-century Latin MS. of the Gospels, k, and also given the appropriate references to lions ch s Itala und Vul- gata and Schuchardt s Vokalismus des Vulgar-Lateins. The idiosyncrasies of the text have likewise been carefully summarised, and its derivation from the Greek exhibited on grounds in many respects new. At the next stage of the investigation I have been obliged to part company with all scholars but Eosenthal in my advocacy of a Hebrew original. That the book was derived from a Semitic original, it is no longer possible to doubt. That the language in question was Aramaic is, owing to the advocacy of Schmidt-Merx, now generally accepted, but, as it to on for I appears me, inadequate grounds ; have shown, I believe, that it is possible to explain, from the standpoint of a Hebrew original, most of the crucial passages adduced by Schmidt-Merx in favour of an Aramaic, and that the remaining passages have no evidential value on the question at issue. I have shown further, I hope, that whereas many of the passages admit of explanation on either hypothesis, there are several which are explicable only on that of a Hebrew original. II. The Exegesis. The work done in this direc tion has been very inadequate. Short studies, indeed, from time to time, have appeared in Germany and England, but these have in every x PREFACE instance confined themselves to one or more of the salient features and main statements of the book. The occasional explanatory notes in the editions of Volkmar, Hilgenf eld, and Schmidt-Merx are, though often most helpful and suggestive, open to the same criticism. This exegetic meagreness of past scholarship on the subject has made the task of the present editor more arduous than might have been expected. It has, however, been beneficial in necessitating a first-hand study of all the questions involved in the text. As a result of this study, I have been obliged to differ from all preceding scholars on the interpretation of several of the most important facts and chapters in the book. With what success I must leave to others to determine. As a help to the reader, I should add that the exegetical notes are placed under the English trans lation and the critical under the Latin text. This practice, however, is occasionally broken through. Finally, I wish here to express my deep grati tude to Dr. Cheyne for his revision of my proofs of a Hebrew original, and for suggestions connected therewith, and also to Dr. Sutherland Black for his revision of the entire book in proof, as well as for numerous corrections. 17 BRADMORE ROAD, OXFORD, April 1897. CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION xiii-lxv 1. Short Account of the Book (pp. xiii-xiv). 2. Other Books of Moses (pp. xiv-xvii). 3. Editions of the Latin Text Ceriani, Hilgenfeld, Volkmar, Schmidt and Merx, Fritzsche (pp. xviii- xxi). 4. Critical Inquiries Ewald, Langen, Hilgenfeld, Haupt, Rbnsch, Philippi, Colani, Carriere, Wieseler, Geiger, Heidenheim, Haus- rath, Stahelin, Drummond, Reuss, Dillmann, Rosenthal, Schiirer, Baldensperger, Deane, Thomson, De Faye, Briggs (pp. xxi-xxviii). 5. of The Latin Version the Assumption : Its Linguistic Character Palaeography and Syntax, and Critical Worth (pp. xxviii-xxxvi).