Dec. 5] PROCEEDINGS. [1893.
tions—one or two more, and very glaring, will be found in this very
Testamentof Naphtali—and the dependence of the Testament on
Hebrew legendary Midrash; there remains still one very grave
objection,whichis insurmountable, viz. : that it would be a simple
stultification to present the Jewish people with a book whose
reputedauthoris one of the Patriarchs or Moses, and that book
was to be in Greek! Abraham or Moses writingin Greek! Why,
the thought alonewoulddrivethe Jews away fromtouchingthe
book,still less to believe in its authenticity.
If it was to be accepted as genuine, it must havebeenwrittenin
the sacred tongueof the Bible, otherwiseit would havebeenrejected
a limine.
I am surprised that so simple an argument has not yet
dawned uponany of the numerous students of the pseudoepi-
graphicalliterature. For, eitherthe authors of these writingshad
a tendency, and were desirous, of influencing the masses, or the
wholewas a mere play of some idle spirits. Thelatteralternative
is out of the question, and the first couldnever have been ac
complishedif the authors wouldhavegonethe very way which they
had to avoid. A writing whichpretendsto be the work of one of
the Patriarchs, must havebeencomposedin the language of that
Patriarch, and not in one loathed, or at least disliked, by the
descendantsof those Patriarchs. Hebrewis therefore the original
languageof these Testaments, and the Testament which I have
discoveredis the real genuine originalof the Greek.
The Testament of Naphtali, whichI publish nowhere, is em
bodied in the great chronicleof Jerahmeel, a MS. of the XHIth
century,of which I have a complete copy. The original is in
Oxford,MS. No.
In the same librarythereis another copy (B) of the XVIth
century, greatly inferior to A as far as the accuracy of the text
is concerned.
By far the best recension is presented by a MS. of the Xllth
century,now in Paris (P), a copy of which I got on the 25th January,- A fourth MS. is in Parma,* 563 De Russi, but this has been
inaccessibleto me. In 1 890 a Testament was printed in Jerusalem
(J), by S. A. Wertheimer, whichseemsto be identical withP.
Of these various MS. I have prepared the present edition,
* V. Buber, MidrashShemuel; Krakau, 1823, p. 35, No. 27, and note 21.
41 E