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 Nicaenae, ¹ where he treats the work with respect. My most valued authority, however, on this subject, is Lardner, ² 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 subject ³ 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, ⁴ 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, ⁵ 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, ⁶ and with that corresponding passage which seems to unite the twelve patriarchs with the twelve apostles. ⁷ St. Paul's claim for the twelve tribes before Agrippa ⁸ 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, ⁹ 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: ¹⁰ "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; ¹¹ 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.