Old Testament Legends by M. R. James

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OLD TESTAMENT LEGENDS
BEING STORIES OUT OF SOME OF THE LESS-KNOWN APOCRYPHAL BOOKS
OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
BY
M. R. JAMES, LITT.D.
PROVOST OF KING'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE

WITH TEN ILLUSTRATIONS BY
H. J. FORD
LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA
1913
All rights reserved

PREFACE

If you read the title-page of this book--a thing which young persons
very seldom do--you will see that it (the book) contains stories
taken "out of some of the less-known apocryphal books of the Old
Testament." You will very possibly not understand what that means;
but if you will read this preface--another thing which young persons
do even seldomer than they read a title-page--you will find the best
explanation that I can give.

I have to begin by talking about the word apocryphal. The newspapers
are fond of saying that a statement made by the Prime Minister (or
the leader of the Opposition, according to which side in politics the
newspaper takes) is apocryphal. By this, the newspaper means to say
that the statement was untrue. Or, you will read that someone
obtained money or goods by saying that he possessed large estates
abroad; and that the estates turned out to be apocryphal. By this is
meant that they did not exist. But when you read of a book being
apocryphal, something rather different is meant: either that it is
"spurious," i.e. that it pretends to be written by someone who did
not write it; or that what is in it is fabulous and untrue, like the
stories of King Arthur; or both.

Now this word apocryphal is specially used, and perhaps most often
used, in connection with the Bible. Probably you have at least heard
of something called "the Apocrypha," even if you have not read it,
and even if you have mixed it up in your mind with another word,
Apocalypse, which has nothing whatever to do with it. Well, what is
"the Apocrypha"? It is to be found in many Bibles, bound up between
the Old and the New Testaments. It is a set of books, looking just
like the other books of the Bible, with chapters and verses. Some of
it is read in church as weekday lessons in the months of October and
November, as you may see by looking at the Table of Lessons in any
Prayer Book. Now, are all these books of "the Apocrypha" fabulous or
spurious? No. Some of them are. The Second Book of Esdras (that is,
Ezra) was not written by Ezra; The Book of Baruch (the companion of
the prophet Jeremiah) was not written by Baruch; The Wisdom of
Solomon was not written by Solomon. These and some others are
spurious. Also, the books of Tobit and of Judith are fabulous
stories. On the other hand, the book Ecclesiasticus was really
written by Sirach (who is mentioned in the Preface), and The First
Book of Maccabees is a true and valuable history.

Then why, if apocryphal means fabulous or spurious, or both, are
these books, some of which are true and genuine, lumped all together
and called "Apocrypha"? I am sorry to disappoint you, but I cannot go
through the whole history. It is long, it is difficult, and though it
interests me, I am inclined to think it would not interest you unless
I spread it over a great many pages, and filled it out with stories;
and for this I have no time. Let me tell you what strikes me as being
the important thing to bear in mind. Nearly all of these books have
been at some time or another read in church and treated as Scripture.
Nearly all of them are now treated as Scripture by the Roman Church,
but not by most of the Protestant, or Reformed, Churches. They are on
the borderland of the Bible. From having been so long kept together
in a group by themselves, they have come to be thought of as being
all of one uniform kind. But they are not so; they are of very
different sorts and merits.

Let us keep the old name for them and call them "the Apocrypha." It
will be convenient to do so, because I have now to speak of other
apocryphal books, which have never been bound up in our Bibles, but
in older times, before Bibles were printed, were (some of them at
least) read in churches and thought to be sacred books. There are a
great many of these: perhaps, if they were all put together, they
would make up a volume as large as the Old Testament itself; but at
present there is no book in which they are all printed together. Some
are stories, others are visions like those in the Revelation of St.
John, others are psalms and prophecies. But all of them, I think, may
fairly be called either fabulous or spurious, or both.

I can give you an example from the Bible itself to show that there
were such books as long ago as the times of the Apostles, and that
they were read and valued. In the 9th verse of the Epistle of Jude,
you read something very curious about Satan contending with Michael
about the body of Moses. Ancient writers whom we may trust tell us
that this is taken from a book called The Assumption of Moses (that
is, the story of Moses being taken up out of this world at the end of
his life).

We have pieces of this book still, but we have not got the whole
story of the dispute between Satan and Michael. However, we know that
it was represented as having taken place when Michael and the other
angels were burying the body of Moses among the mountains in a place
which was kept secret from all men, and that Satan said that though
the soul of Moses might belong to God, the body belonged to him; and,
moreover, that Moses was a murderer, because, long before, he had
killed an Egyptian (as we read in Exodus ii. 12); whereupon Michael
answered Satan in the words, "The Lord rebuke thee," and Satan fled.
That is one example. Another is in the 14th verse of the same
Epistle, where it is said that Enoch, the seventh from Adam,
prophesied of the coming of the Lord to judge sinners. This verse is
taken out of a long book of prophecies and visions called The Book of
Enoch, which still exists, and we may read the very words in it.

In this present book, I am only concerned with the apocryphal
stories; with the prophecies and visions and psalms I have nothing to
do. Now, how and why did the stories come to be written?

It is likely enough that after reading some history in the Bible you
may have wondered whether there was anything more to be known about
the people of whom it told you. You would have liked to find out what
happened to Adam, or Joseph, or David, besides the things which are
written in the Bible. It was just so in ancient times --the times
when our Lord was on earth, and even long before that. The Jews
naturally thought a great deal about the people who are mentioned in
the Old Testament; and just as there are a great many stories about
the heroes of English history--such as that of King Alfred and the
cakes--which, we are told now, are not true, so stories grew up about
the great men of the Bible. Perhaps they were invented, some of them,
in answer to questions which had been asked. Some of them were
certainly made up in order to explain parts of the Bible which were
difficult to understand. I will give an example of this. In the Book
of Genesis (iv. 23, 24) you are told how the patriarch Lamech spoke
to his wives and said, "I have slain a man to my wounding, and a
young man to my hurt." Nothing is said in explanation of this; we are
not told whom Lamech had killed. So a story was made up--no one knows
when--which gives this explanation: Lamech was blind, and he used to
amuse himself by shooting birds and beasts with bow and arrow. When
he went out shooting, he used to take with him his young nephew
Tubal; and Tubal used to spy the game for him and guide his hands
that he might aim his arrow right. One day, when they were out
together, Tubal saw, as he thought, a beast moving in the thicket;
and he told Lamech, and made him aim at it, and Lamech's arrow smote
the beast and killed it. But when Tubal ran to see what kind of beast
it was, he found that it was not a wild beast at all. It was his
ancestor Gain. For after Gain had killed Abel, and God had pronounced
a curse upon him, he wandered about the earth, never able to remain
in one place; and a great horn grew out of his head, and his body was
covered with hair; so that Tubal, seeing him in the distance among
the trunks of the trees and the brushwood, was deceived, and mistook
him for a beast of chase. But when Tubal saw what had happened, he
was terrified, and ran back to Lamech, crying out, "You have slain
our forefather Cain!" And Lamech also was struck with horror, and
raised his hands and smote them together with a mighty blow. And in
so doing he struck the head of Tubal with his full strength, and
Tubal fell down dead. Then Lamech returned to his house, and spoke to
his wives the words that are written in the Book of Genesis. This
story, a very ancient one, as I said, was invented by the Jews to
explain the difficult passage in Genesis; and the early Christian
writers learnt it from the Jews, and it passed into many commentaries
which were written in later times; so that you may still see
representations of it carved in stone in churches, both in England
and elsewhere. In England it may be seen on the inside of the stone
roof of Norwich Cathedral, and on the west front of Wells Cathedral;
but you have to look carefully before you can find it.

There are other stories which pretend to explain texts that do not
seem so difficult. For instance, in the 18th Psalm there is a verse,
"Thou hast made room enough under me for to go." And about this there
is a long tale of how King David went to fight the giant Ishbi-benob,
and was nearly killed by him; for the giant took David and cast him
to the ground, and put a heavy wine-press upon him, which would have
crushed him, but that the earth beneath him suddenly became soft and
yielded room for his body, and thus room was made under him.

Then again, there are others which are like parables.

At this point I will put in two short stories of the parable-kind,
neither of which I think you are likely to have seen. One of them is
certainly taken from an apocryphal book which is lost; and the other
I suspect to have been taken either from the same book or from one
like it.

First I will tell the one about the source of which I am not certain.

In the days of King Hezekiah there was in Israel a rich man who was a
miser and gave nothing to the poor. But one day it happened that he
took up the book of the proverbs of King Solomon; and his eye fell
upon the place where it is said, "He that hath pity upon the poor,
lendeth unto the Lord; and look what he layeth out, it shall be paid
him again." "So," thought he to himself, "this is a good security!"
And forthwith he sold all that he had, and distributed the price
among the poor, keeping for himself only two pieces of money. But, to
his disappointment, he did not only become poor himself by this
means, but he remained poor. The money he had given away did not come
back, and no one else would give him any. So he was reduced to
despair, and said, "I will go straight to Jerusalem, and demand of
God why He has deceived me, and induced me to give away all my
possessions by promises that are false." And he set forth. And on his
way, not far from Jerusalem, he saw two men fighting, and said to
them, "Brethren, what is your quarrel?" And one said, "We were
journeying together, and I saw a shining stone lying in the road, and
pointed it out to this man; and because he was swifter on his feet
than I, he got to it first. And now he says he will keep it for
himself, but I say it belongs to me, for I saw it first." Then said
the traveller, "What is the value of the stone?" They said, "We do
not know." And he said, "Will you take these two pieces of money for
it and let me have it?" And to this they consented. So when the man
got to Jerusalem, he took the stone to a jeweller and showed it to
him; and no sooner had the jeweller seen it than he fell on his face
and gave thanks to God. And then he said to the man, "Where did you
find this? For three whole years all Jerusalem has been ransacked
for this stone. Go quickly to the High Priest and give it to him, and
see what he will give you!" At the same hour there came an angel to
the High Priest, and said to him, "Within a few moments there will
come to you a man bringing the gem which three years ago was lost out
of the breastplate of Aaron the priest. Receive it at his hands, and
give him for it a great sum of gold; and when you have given it,
smite him lightly upon the cheek and say, 'Be not distrustful in thy
heart, and slow to believe the word which says, 'He that hath pity
upon the poor, lendeth unto the Lord.' For thus saith the Lord,
'Have I not now in this present world repaid thee many times over that
which thou didst lend to Me? And, if thou have faith, thou shalt in
the world to come receive a recompense yet many times greater than
this.'" And when the man came, the High Priest did and said as he had
been commanded; and the man's heart was moved, and he left in the
temple all that great sum which had been given him, and for the rest
of his life put his whole trust in the promises of God.

The other short story is taken out of an apocryphal book under the
name of the prophet Ezekiel, and is a parable of the soul and the
body of man at the day of judgment.

There was a certain king, it says, who made a marriage feast for his
eldest son, and invited all his soldiers to his palace to share it.
Now every one of his subjects was a soldier and served in his army,
except only two, one of whom was blind and the other lame; and these
two were not invited to the feast, but remained in their huts--which
were near to one another--very angry and disappointed. After a while
the blind man called to the lame man, "It is a shame that we are not
sitting down to the feast along with the rest! I should like to treat
the king as ill as he has treated us." "How can we?" said the lame
man. "You know his garden," said the other; "let us go and spoil it!"
"All very well," said the lame man, "but how are we to get there?
I cannot walk." "Neither can I see; but we will contrive a way." So
they devised a plan. The lame man plucked the grass that he could
reach, and plaited it into a string, and threw one end to the blind
man, who guided himself by it to the lame man. Then he took the lame
man on his back, and carried him to the king's garden, and there they
did all the mischief they could, trampling down and tearing up plants
and flowers; and they went back to their houses and remained there.
When the rest of the people came out from the banquet into the
garden, they were appalled at the sight of the damage, and were much
perplexed, saying, "Were not all the soldiers of the king bidden to
the feast? and is not every man in the kingdom a soldier? Whence
then are these tracks in the garden, and who has wrought this
mischief?" After a while the king bethought him of the blind and the
lame man; they were brought before him, and he said to the blind man,
"Have you been into my garden?" He answered, "Alas, sire! you see my
infirmity, and that I have no eyes wherewith to find my way!" Then
said the king to the lame man, "And you, have you been into my garden?"
And he answered, "Surely my lord has forgotten my infirmity; it
cannot be that he desires to hurt my feelings by mocking me!" So the
king was perplexed, and went apart to consider how the two could have
contrived the business--for he was sure that they were guilty. At
last a thought came to him, and he set the lame man on the blind
man's shoulders, and scourged them both together. Then indeed did
they cry out, and the lame said to the blind, "Did you not lend me
your feet to take me to the king's garden?" And the blind to the
lame, "Did you not lend me your eyes to show me the way?" And in like
manner at the judgment the soul will say to the body, "I could not
have sinned if you had not given me the limbs with which I did evil."
And the body to the soul, "But it was you who thought of the evil
which I carried out." Thus one will try to throw the blame on the
other; but is either of them free from guilt?

Others of these apocryphal books are designed to show how important
some special virtue, or how dangerous some particular sin, may be.
Thus, there is a book called The Testaments (or Last Words) of the
Twelve Patriarchs, in which each of the twelve sons of Jacob, when he
comes to die, calls his children to him and tells them about his own
life, and warns them against his own besetting sin, or shows how he
has been helped by practising some good habit: Simeon speaks about
envy, Issachar about simplicity, Zebulun about kindness, and so on.
And many others there are which are merely, one would say, meant to
tell us more about the lives and deaths of the great men of the old
times than we can learn from the Bible.

Perhaps I have now said enough to show of what sort the tales are
that are told in this book--some of them told for the first time in
English. They are not true, but they are very old; some of them, I
think, are beautiful, and all of them seem to me interesting. In case
anyone should wish to know more about them, I will put down here the
names of the books from which I have taken them.

The first part of the story of Adam is shortened from Mr. S. G.
Malan's translation of The Book of Adam and Eve, and from Dillmann's
German translation of the same (Das christliche Adambuch des
Morgenlandes). The second part is from the Greek Revelation of Moses
(in Tischendorf's Apocalypses Apocryphae), and from the Latin Life of
Adam, edited by W. Meyer.

The first part of the story of Abraham is from The Apocalypse of
Abraham, translated from Slavonic by Professor N. Bonwetsch; the
second part is from The Testament of Abraham, edited by me in Texts
and Studies.

The story of Aseneth is from the Greek History of Aseneth, edited by
Batiffol in Studia Patristica.

The story of Job is taken from The Testament of Job in my Apocrypha
Anecdota (ii).

That of Solomon is from The Testament of Solomon as printed by Migne
at the end of the works of Michael Psellus.

That of Baruch from The Rest of the Words of Baruch, edited by Dr. J.
Rendel Harris.

That of Ahikar principally from the French edition by the Abbe F.
Nau, with some few touches borrowed from that by Dr. J. Rendel
Harris.

One last word. Not all of the stories in this book are equally old.
The oldest is most likely that of Ahikar. Lately some pieces of it
have been discovered in Egypt in a very ancient copy. Next, probably,
comes the second part of the story of Adam. In each of the others
there are some parts which are derived from early Jewish tales, but
the books in which we have them now were put into their present shape
by Christians. Still, there is not one that is less than fifteen
hundred years old.

CONTENTS
PAGE
ADAM 1
THE DEATH OF ADAM AND EVE . . . 15
ABRAHAM 25
THE STORY OF ASENETH, JOSEPH'S WIFE . 49
JOB. . . . . . . 81
SOLOMON AND THE DEMONS. . 105
THE STORY OF EBEDMELECH THE ETHIOPIAN,
AND OF THE DEATH OF JEREMIAH . 121
AHIKAR 135

ILLUSTRATIONS
How SATAN DECEIVED EVE IN THE RIVER (see p. 10) Frontispiece
THEN CAME ONE OF THE SERAPHIM AND BARE THE SOUL OF ADAM TO THE LAKE OF PURE WATER IN THE GARDEN . . . . Facing p. 22
ABRAHAM AND THE BROKEN IDOLS „ 28
ASENETH DOING HOMAGE TO HER GODS . „ 53
"ASENETH, RISE UP" . . . . . . 63
ASENETH FLIES IN HER CHARIOT FROM THE MEN
IN AMBUSH BY THE RIVER „ 76
SATAN DEPARTS, VANQUISHED BY JOB AT LAST . „ 94
JOB'S HAPPY DEATH . . . . , . 102
EPHIPPAS AND THE DEMON OF THE RED SEA
BRING THE GREAT PLLLAR TO SOLOMON . . ,, 116
How AHIKAR OUTWITTED THE KING OF EGYPT . ,, 152

OLD TESTAMENT LEGENDS

ADAM

When Adam and Eve were driven out of the Garden of Eden, they were as
helpless as little children. They knew nothing of day or night, heat
or cold; they could not kindle a fire to warm themselves, nor till
the ground to grow food. They had as yet no clothes to wear and no
shelter against rain or sun. As long as they were in the garden, it
was always light and warm, and their bodies were so fashioned that
they had no need of food or sleep or of protection against the
burning of the sun; but since they had eaten of the Tree of
Knowledge, they had become like us. Moreover, all the beasts and
birds were friendly with them; but now they knew that it was not so,
and that they had no defence if any fierce animal chose to attack
them; and, more than all, they knew that they had a cruel enemy lying
in wait for them outside the garden, even Satan, who had hated them
from the first, and had brought about their fall by means of the
serpent. And so it was that when they came out of the gate of the
garden and saw the earth stretched out before them, covered with
rocks and sand, and found themselves in a strange land where there
was no one to guide them, they fell down on their faces, and became
as dead, because of the misery and sorrow which they felt. But God
looked upon them and sent His Word to raise them up and comfort them;
and showed them a place not very far from the garden where there was
a cave; and told them that they were to live there. Now this was the
cave which was afterwards called the Gave of Treasures.

When first they entered into the cave, they did nothing but weep and
lament: not only because they had lost the garden, but also because
for the first time the sky was hidden from them by the roof of the
cave; for as yet they had never been in any place where they could
not see it. But when the sun set and there was darkness outside the
cave as well as inside, they were frightened beyond measure; for they
said, "It is because of what we have done: the light is gone out of
the heavens, and will come back no more." Then the Word of God spake
to them and said, "Be comforted; it is only so for a few hours, and
the light will return to you." And they remained praying and weeping
in the cave until the darkness began to grow less. After that the sun
rose, and Adam went to the mouth of the cave, and it shone full upon
him, and he felt the burning heat of it on his body for the first
time, and thought that it was God who had come to afflict and punish
him; and he beat upon his breast and prayed for mercy. But God said,
"This sun is not God; it is created to give light to the world, and
every day it will rise in like manner, and travel over the heavens
and set, as you have seen it. _I_ am God, who comforted you in the
night."

Then Adam and Eve took courage, and came out of the cave, and thought
they would go towards the garden; and when they came near to the gate
by which they had been driven out of it, they met the serpent. Now
before it tempted Eve and became accursed, the serpent had been the
most beautiful of all the creatures. Its head was of all the colours
of the most beautiful jewels; it had eyes like emeralds, and a
melodious voice; it had slender and graceful legs, and it fed on
perfumed flowers and delicious fruits. Now it was loathsome to look
upon; it wriggled on its belly in the dust, and all creatures spurned
and hated it. And when it saw Eve it was enraged to think of the
curse that had come upon it through her, and it raised itself up and
darted at her, and its eyes became blood-red with anger. Then Adam,
who had nothing in his hand wherewith to defend Eve, ran and caught
it by the tail, but it turned upon him and coiled about him and Eve
with its body and began to crush them; and it said, "It is because of
you that I am compelled to trail in the dust and have lost my
beauty." And they cried out for fear. But God sent an angel who
caught hold of the serpent and loosed them, and smote the serpent
with dumbness, so that thereafter it could only hiss. And a great
wind came and took it up, and cast it away upon the seashore of
India.

And when Adam and Eve had a little recovered themselves from their
fear, they went on towards the garden; but at the gate of it there
stood a great cherub holding a sword of fire; and when they were able
to look upon his face, they saw that he was angry and that he frowned
upon them, and raised his sword as if he would smite them with it;
but he said nothing. So they were in great fear, and turned from him
and went back in great sorrow of heart, wandering they knew not
whither, until they found themselves standing on the top of a rock,
and before their feet was a precipice. And Adam was so miserable that
he desired to live no longer; and he cast himself down from the top
of the rock, and lay on the ground below without moving; and Eve
thought that he was dead, and said, "I will not live after him; it is
through my fault that all these evils have come upon him." And she
also threw herself down from the top of the rock; but though both of
them were torn and bruised, they were not wounded to death. And after
a long time they came to themselves.

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