Volume 1
The Jewish encyclopedia : a descriptive record of the history, religion, literature, and customs of the Jewish people from the earliest times to the present day / prepared ... under the direction of ... Cyrus Adler [and others] Isidore Singer ... managing editor.
- Date:
- 1901-1906
Licence: In copyright
Credit: The Jewish encyclopedia : a descriptive record of the history, religion, literature, and customs of the Jewish people from the earliest times to the present day / prepared ... under the direction of ... Cyrus Adler [and others] Isidore Singer ... managing editor. Source: Wellcome Collection.
740/752 (page 682)
![apocalypse and a later addition, which consists of a dispute among the doctors of the Law of the second and third centuries, concerning the name of the last king of Persia. The original Date and apocalypse was written amid the Where confusion of the year 261, caused by Written, the wars of Sapor I. against Rome and his capture of Valerian; but in its original form it was probably more voluminous. In all probability the author lived in Palestine. During the exciting period of the Perso-Roman wars waged by Chosroes I. (540-562) or Chosroes 11. (604- 628), the apocal^'pse was furnished with the addition mentioned above, in order to make the prophecies appear to accord with the changed times and condi- tions, for the outcome of the dispute is that “ Kesra ” (the Arabic form of “Chosroes”) must be the name of the last Persian king. The contents of the book are as follows; Michael reveals the end of time to Elijah on Mt. Carmel. Elijah is first conducted through various heavenly regions, and the revela- tions regarding the end are imparted to him. The last king of Persia will march to war against Rome in three successive years, and will finally take three military leaders prisoner. Then G-igit will advance against him, “the [little] horn,” the last king hostile to God who will rule upon earth, as Daniel beheld. This king will instigate three wars and Book of will “ also stretch out his arm against Elijah. Israel.” The three wars and the at- tack upon Israel are described in de- tail in the following part. Then the Messiah, whose name is Winon, will appear from heaven, accom- panied by hosts of angels, and engage in a series of battles—first to annihilate the armies waging these wars, and secondly to vanquish all the remaining heathen. After this, Israel will enjoy the blessings of the Messianic kingdom for forty years, at the end of which time Gog and Magog will muster the heathen to war around .Jerusalem; but they will be annihilated, and all the heathen cities will be de- stroyed. The day of doom will then come and last forty days; then the dead will be awakened and brought to judgment. The wicked will be deliv- ered over to the torments of hell; but to the good the tree of life will be given; and for them the glorious Jerusalem will descend from heaven, and among them shall reign peace and knowledge of the Law. From this summary will be noticed how closely the picture of the future world given in this apocalypse resembles the Revelation of John; the description also of Elijah’s transportation through the heavenly- regions shows a striking relation to the Ethiopic Book of Enoch (compare ib. xiv. 8, 9, 12-19, 22^, xviii. 13-15, xxii. 1, 11). Worthy of attention is the description of the adversary of the Messiah, the Anti- christ, who before the advent of the Messiah shall subdue the world and persecute Israel. This de- scription is a conventional feature of a great number of Neo-Hebrew apocaly'pses. It is found, for ex- ample, in much the same form in all those treated below. In the latter, however, the adversary' is called Armilus (Romulus); while in the Elijah apoc- alypse he is called Gigit, which is an enigmatical designation of Odhenat, the duke of Palmy-ra (see Buttenwieser, l.c. p. 72). The description of the adversary in the present apocalypse shows also, as Bousset has pointed out (l.c. p. 57), striking parallels to the description of the Antichrist in the Coptic Elijah apocalypse, dis- covered a few years ago, the manuscript of which can in no case be later than the beginning of the fifth century (see Steindorff, “ Apocaly^pse des Elias, ” p. 6): while the apocalypse itself is probably of the third or fourth century. Of other Christian apoca- lypses with descriptions of the Antichrist, offering no less remarkable parallels to the apocalypses in the writings presently to be mentioned, and also in part to the Elijah apocalypse, may be enumerated; “ The Testament of the Lord,” “ Apocalypse of Es- dras,” the “Pseudo-Johannis Apocalypse,” and the Armenian “ Seventh Vision of Daniel ” (compare also Bousset, l.c. pp. 101 et .veg. Descriptions of the Antichrist in these apocalypses—except the “Sev- enth Vision of Daniel ”—may be found in James, “ Apociypha Anecdota,” in “Texts and Studies,” ii. 3, 151 et seq.). 8. The Apocalypse of Zerubbabel (ISD There are various recensions of this apoc- alypse. One was printed in Constantinople in 1519 in the collection mentioned above, and was reprinted in AVilna, 1819, together with “Sefer Malkiel” (ex- cerpts from this edition are to be found in Eisen- menger, ii. 708 et seq.)-, another was edited by Jelli- nek (“B. II.” ii. 54-57), based on two manuscripts in the Lcipsic City Library-, which, however, an ex- amination of the manuscripts by Buttenwieser proved to be inexact; and a third recension, differing from both of the above, is in manuscript in the Bodleian Library (Neubauer, “Cat. Bodl. Hebr. MSS.” No. 160, 2). Besides these, the Bodleian contains a manu script of one of the printed editions (ibid. No. 2287, 4). A new edition is most desirable. As this book fore- tells the year 990 or 970 after the destruction of the Temple by- Titus as the time of delivery, it must have been written in the eleventh century at the very- latest. This apocalypse describes how Zerub- babel is carried in spirit to Nineveh, Book of Ze- the City- of Blood, the Great Rome, rubbabel. where Metatron reveals to him the occurrences at the end of time. He sees the Messiah there, whose name is Menahem b. ‘Amiel, and who was born at the time of King David, but was brought thither by- the Spirit to remain con- cealed until the end of time. Apart from a few de- tails, the description of the course of events in the end of time is very much the same as that in “The AVars of King Messiah,” “ Revelations of R. Simon b. Yohai,” and “Prayer of R. Simon b. Yohai.” In all of them, the name of the “Evil Adversary” is Abmii.us, the Aramaic form of Romulus. Except the “ Revelations,” they all contain the curious fancy that he is to be born of a marble statue in Rome. According to the “ Apocaly-pse of Zerubbabel,” he will be begotten out of the statue by Satan; in the “Revelations of R. Simon b. Yohai,” he is repre- sented as a creation of Satan and Diabolus. In “ The AVars of King Messiah” the epithet “Satan” is applied to him. The description of Armilus in the “ Revelations of R. Simon b. Yohai ” has more re- semblance to that in the Elijah apocaly-pse, whereas in the “ Apocaly-pse of Zerubbabel, ” in “ The AVars of King Alessiah ” and “Prayer of R. Simon b. Yohai,” he is described as a human monstrosity. “ The AA'ars of King Messiah ” and the “ Prayer of R. Simon b. Yohai” also state that he will claim to be the Messiah and a god, and that he will be ac- cepted by the heathen as such, whereas Israel will refuse to acknowledge him. In the Constantinople edition of the “ Apocalypse of Zerubbabel,” as Bous- set has observed (l.c. p. 86, note 3), Satan is called hv'h'2. “Belial,” the name by which the Antichrist is called in the “ Sibylline Oracles,” ii. 67, iii. 63; “Tes- tament of the Patriarchs” (Dan) and “Ascensio IsaiK.” This circumstance is of great importance, inasmuch as by its means the Armilus legend, as it is found in the above-mentioned apocalypses, seems](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b29000488_0001_0746.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
