• 1. Sibylline Oracles
• 2. Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs
• 3. The Ascension of Isaias
• 4. Minor Jewish-Christian Apocrypha

II. APOCRYPHA OF JEWISH ORIGIN WITH CHRISTIAN ACCRETIONS

(a) Sibylline Oracles

See the separate article under this title.

(b) Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs. This is an extensive pseudograph, consisting of;

1. narrations in which each of the twelve sons of Jacob relates his life, embellished by Midrashic expansions of the Biblical data
2. exhortations by each patriarch to the practice of virtues, or the shunning of vices illustrated in his life
3. apocalyptic portions concerning the future of the twelve tribes, and the Messianic times

(c) The Ascension of Isaias

The Ascension of Isaias consists of two parts:

1. The Martyrdom of Isaias, in which it is told that the prophet was sawn in two by the order of the wicked King Manasses.
2. The Ascension proper.

This purports to be the description by Isaias of a vision in which he was rapt up through the seven heavens to the presence of the Trinity, and beheld the descent of the Son, "the Beloved", on His mission of redemption. He changes his form in passing through the inferior celestial circles. The prophet then sees the glorified Beloved reascending. The Martyrdom is a Jewish work, saving some rather large interpolations. The rest is by Christian hands or perhaps a single writer, who united his apocalypse with the Martyrdom. There are tokens that the Christian element is a product of Gnosticism, and that our work is the same with that much in favour among several heretical sects under the name of the "Anabaticon", or "Ascension of Isaias". The Jewish portion is thought to have appeared in the first century of our era; the remainder, in the middle of the second. Justin, Tertullian, and Origen seem to have been acquainted with the Martyrdom; Sts. Jerome and Epiphanius are the earliest witnesses for the Ascension proper. The apocryphon exists in Greek, Ethiopic, and Slavonic manuscripts.

(d) Minor Jewish-Christian Apocrypha

Space will permit only an enumeration of unimportant specimens of apocryphal literature, extant in whole or part, and consisting of

• Jewish originals recast or freely interpolated by Christians, viz., the "Apocalypses of Elias" (Elijah), "Sophonias" (Zephaniah), the "Paralipomenon of Baruch"; and
• Christian compositions whose material was supplied by Jewish sources; the so-called "Apocalypse of Moses", the "Apocalypse of Esdras", the "Testament of Abraham", the "Testament of the Three Patriarchs", the "Prayer of Joseph", the "Prayer of Aseneth", the "Marriage of Aseneth", (the wife of Joseph)