The Testaments of the Twelve Patri-Archs is a series of fictive death-bed discourses delivered in turn by each of the Patriarchs to his descendants. The weight of scholarly opinion holds that the original Hebrew of the extant Greek was written in Palestine in the 2nd century B.C.E. (which places the work among the very oldest outside the Biblical canon), and that passages which reflect Christian teaching are later interpolations. But even the minority who hold that the work was written in Greek by a Christian in the 2nd century C.E. agree that it embodies much older midrashic materials. An intriguing example of such material, and an excellent illustration of the adaptation of Greek literary modes for Jewish purposes, is the expansion of the story of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife (Genesis 39:7-15) in the Testament of Joseph. Potiphar’s wife’s wanton exposure of her body to Joseph, described in the last chapter, surely belongs earlier in the story; our author’s ineptitude, here and throughout the piece, suggests that he cannot himself have invented the episodes which he is unable to fuse into a coherent story. He found them, we can be sure, in one of the most familiar of all ancient stories—that of the lustful stepmother who accuses her ingenuous stepson of an attempt upon her virtue when her efforts to seduce him fail. The classical treatment is Euripides’s Hippolytus, of which an older and franker version was adapted by Seneca; the whole story recurs in Apuleius and Heliodorus, and aspects of it in a dozen other authors. It is because so many of the motifs in the Testament of Joseph story are borrowed from the Phaedra legend (where they are appropriate) that they seem awkward. An ingenuous lad might mistake the meaning of a stepmother’s caresses, but how could Joseph, who was not a stepson, be so obtuse? And could a slave threaten to denounce his mistress? In a monogamous society a woman might be deterred from suicide by the threat of her successor beating her children; the threat has no meaning in a polygamous society. Nor is suicide for so sentimental a reason as disappointed love intelligible in the framework of Biblical literature; it is as Hellenistic in feeling as the Egyptian’s seizing upon Joseph’s concern for her children as proof that he really loves her.
Closer analysis would reveal a hundred other touches attributable to Greek influence, but the influence is only literary, not doctrinal. But neither is there hostility to Greek doctrine; devout as he obviously is, our author not only knows Greek books but is ready to apply his knowledge to the uses of religion. One indication of the Hellenization of our author’s environment may be detected in his concern for sexual morality, which is evident in other of the Testaments also; the eroticism characteristic of Hellenistic manners may have threatened the older standards.
The translation that follows is from R. H. Charles’s Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament and covers chapters three through nine of the Testament of Joseph.—Moses Hadas.
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How often did the Egyptian woman threaten me with death! How often did she give me over to punishment, and then call me back and threaten me, and when I was unwilling to company with her, she said to me: Thou shalt be lord of me, and all that is in mine house, if thou wilt give thyself unto me, and thou shalt be as our master. But I remembered the words of my father, and going into my chamber, I wept and prayed unto the Lord. And I fasted in those seven years, and I appeared to the Egyptians as one living delicately, for they that fast for God’s sake receive beauty of face. And if my lord were away from home, I drank no wine; nor for three days did I take my food, but I gave it to the poor and sick. And I sought the Lord early, and I wept for the Egyptian woman of Memphis, for very unceasingly did she trouble me, for also at night she came to me under pretense of visiting me. And because she had no male child she pretended to regard me as a son. And for a time she embraced me as a son, and I knew it not; but later, she sought to draw me into fornication. And when I perceived it I sorrowed unto death; and when she had gone out, I came to myself, and I lamented for her many days, because I recognized her guile and her deceit. And I declared unto her the words of the Most High, if haply she would turn from her evil lust.
Often, therefore, did she flatter me with words as a holy man, and guilefully in her talk praise my chastity before her husband, while desiring to ensnare me when we were alone. For she lauded me openly as chaste, and in secret she said unto me: Fear not my husband; for he is persuaded concerning thy chastity: for even should one tell him concerning us, he would not believe. Owing to all these things I lay upon the ground, and besought God that the Lord would deliver me from her deceit. And when she prevailed nothing thereby, she came agara to me under the plea of instruction, that she might learn the word of God. And she said unto me: If thou wiliest that I should leave my idols, lie with me, and I will persuade my husband to depart from his idols, and we will walk in the law of thy Lord. And I said unto her: The Lord willeth not that those that reverence Him should be in uncleanness, nor doth He take pleasure in them that commit adultery, but in those that approach Him with a pure heart and undefiled lips. But she held her peace, longing to accomplish her evil desire. And I gave myself yet more to fasting and prayer, that the Lord might deliver me from her.
And again, at another time she said unto me: If thou wilt not commit adultery, I will kill my husband by poison, and take thee to be my husband. I therefore, when I heard this, rent my garments, and said unto her: Woman, reverence God, and do not this evil deed, lest thou be destroyed; for know indeed that I will declare this thy device unto all men. She therefore, being afraid, besought that I would not declare this device. And she departed, soothing me with gifts, and sending to me every delight of the sons of men.
And afterwards she sent me food mingled with enchantments. And when the eunuch who brought it came, I looked up and beheld a terrible man giving me with the dish a sword, and I perceived that her scheme was to beguile me. And when he had gone out I wept, nor did I taste that nor any other of her food. So then after one day she came to me and observed the food, and said unto me: Why is it that thou hast not eaten of the food? And I said unto her: It is because thou hast filled it with deadly enchantments; and how saidst thou: I come not near to idols, but to the Lord alone? Now therefore know that the God of my father hath revealed unto me by His angel thy wickedness, and I have kept it to convict thee, if haply thou mayest see and repent. But that thou mayest learn that the wickedness of the ungodly hath no power over them that worship God with chastity, behold I will take of it and eat before thee. And having so said, I prayed thus: The God of my fathers and the angel of Abraham, be with me; and ate. And when she saw this she fell upon her face at my feet, weeping; and I raised her up and admonished her. And she promised to do this iniquity no more.
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But her heart was still set upon evil, and she looked around how to ensnare me, and sighing deeply she became downcast, though she was not sick. And when her husband saw her, be said unto her: Why is thy countenance fallen? And she said unto him: I have a pain at my heart, and the groanings of my spirit oppress me; and so he comforted her who was not sick. Then accordingly seizing an opportunity she rushed unto me while her husband was yet without, and said unto me: I will hang myself, or cast myself over a cliff, if thou wilt not lie with me. And when I saw the spirit of Beliar was troubling her, I prayed unto the Lord, and said unto her: Why, wretched woman, art thou troubled and disturbed, blinded through sins? Remember that if thou kill thyself, Asteho, the concubine of thy husband, thy rival, will beat thy children, and thou wilt destroy thy memorial from off the earth. And she said unto me: Lo, then thou lovest me; let this suffice me: only strive for my life and my children, and I expect that I shall enjoy my desire also. But she knew not that because of my lord I spake thus, and not because of her. For if a man hath fallen before the passion of a wicked desire and become enslaved by it, even as she, whatever good thing he may hear with regard to that passion he receiveth it with a view to his wicked desire.
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I declare, therefore, unto you, my children, that it was about the sixth hour when she departed from me; and I knelt before the Lord all the day, and all the night; and about dawn I rose up, weeping the while and praying for a release from her. At last, then, she laid hold of my garments, forcibly dragging me to have connection with her. When, therefore, I saw that in her madness she was holding fast to my garment, I left it behind, and fled away naked. And holding fast to the garment she falsely accused me, and when her husband came he cast me into prison in his house; and on the morrow he scourged me and sent me into Pharaoh’s prison. And when I was an bonds, the Egyptian woman was oppressed with grief, and she came and heard how I gave thanks unto the Lord and sang praises in the abode of darkness, and with glad voice rejoiced, glorifying my God that I was delivered from the lustful desire of the Egyptian woman.
And often hath she sent unto me saying: Consent to fulfill my desire, and I will release thee from thy bonds, and I will free thee from the darkness. And not even in thought did I incline unto her. For God loveth him who in a den of darkness combineth fasting with chastity, rather than the man who in kings’ chambers comibineth luxury with license. And if a man liveth in chastity, and desireth also glory, and the Most High knoweth that it is expedient for him, He bestoweth this also upon him, even as upon me. How often, though she were sick, did she come down to me at unlooked-for times, and listened to my voice as I prayed! And when I heard her groanings I held my peace. For when I was in her house she was wont to bare her arms, and breasts, and legs, that I might lie with her; for she was very beautiful, splendidly adorned in order to beguile me. And the Lord guarded me from her devices.
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