Moses

MOSES (Mōšeh, Μω[θ]σῆς, Vulg. MoySES, Ancient Latin Moses). - Founder of Israelite theocracy, lawgiver of Israel, who governed for over forty years as a charismatic leader of a religio-nationalistic character, author of the Pentateuch (v.).

The youth of M. is placed in the last decades of the Hebrews' stay in Egypt, that is, depending on the reckonings (v. CHRONOLOGY, and DBs, II, col. 916), in the first half of the 15th century B.C., or between the end of the 14th and the beginning of the 13th century, when the "oppression" reached its acute phase, with the employment of the Israelites as slaves in immense constructions undertaken by the pharaohs (Ex. 1, 8-14; cf. 5, 10-23), accompanied by xenophobia, which provoked the ferocious decree, repeatedly made harsher, according to which all newborn Hebrew males were to be put to death (ibid. 1, 15-22). From this situation is determined the first event in the life of M., son of Amram, of the tribe of Levi. After hiding him for three months, his mother Jochebed placed him in a little basket smeared with greasy substances among the reeds of the Nile, leaving a sister of his to keep watch; a royal princess, having come — perhaps following a custom known to the child's mother — to bathe, saw the little one and had him collected and entrusted for nursing to a woman summoned by the sister, that is, the mother herself. The woman raised him and after some years gave him back to the princess, who gave him the name M. (Egyptian mīw "son, boy," cf. Thutmosis, Ahmose, etc.; in Ex. 2, 10 connected with the Hebrew māšēh "to draw out," an allusion to the rescue from the waters). The exposure of the newborn in a basket on a river is also found in an Akkadian legend of Sargon (ca. 2600 B.C.), which, however, differs so greatly from the biblical account in everything else that the coincidence must be called entirely accidental (H. Gressmann, Altorient. Texte, Berlin-Leipzig 1926, p. 234).

At court M. remained perhaps some forty years (Ex. 2, 23; 7, 7; cf. Act. 7, 23): a period rich in experiences and decisive for the cultural and spiritual formation of the meditative young man. There is no difficulty in admitting that from the Egyptian environment M. carried away a grand idea of all that activity which had its most marvellous flowering under almost all the sovereigns of the XVIIIth and XIXth dynasties (v. EGYPT), among whom the pharaohs of the "oppression" and of the Exodus are to be sought: that is, the whole complex work directed at establishing a strong state cohesion, laws and civil institutions, cultural initiatives in the broad sense, including religion. The Egyptian reminiscences that Egyptologists detect in the Mosaic institutions can be traced in part to what M. saw during this period of his life.

Above all the young Hebrew must have noted the contrast between the condition of his people, enslaved and defenceless, and the Egyptian people in growing organizational progress; he felt that something had to be attempted. The Bible recalls his visits to his fellow-countrymen, employed as slaves in the grandiose constructions (of Ramses II?; cf. H. Gressmann, op. cit., pp. 106, 107). M. killed an Egyptian overseer who was maltreating the Hebrew workers (Ex. 2, 11-12): a "gesture" useless in itself, but indicative of the impulses at work in the young man's soul. The deed forced M. to flee from Egypt.

The second phase of the formation of the future lawgiver's personality begins. From Egypt he headed, as others had already done for similar reasons (Sinuhe: cf. H. Gressmann, op. cit., p. 55 ff.), to the desert region beyond the eastern borders of the Delta, where there were various populations more or less akin to the Semites. He came to the south-eastern zone of the Sinai peninsula, where the Midianites were. With one of their priestly chiefs, of the family of the Kenites (Iud. 1, 16; 4, 11), named Jethro and Hobab (or Reuel: Ex. 2, 18; Num. 10, 29), he found welcome: he even obtained in marriage his daughter Zipporah, by whom he had two sons, Gershom and Eliezer.

One day, while pasturing the flock of Jethro near Mount Horeb (v.), the great divine manifestation took place (Ex. 3, 1-22), which transformed the homeless fugitive into a leader. From a bush that burned and was not consumed, a voice, which presented itself as that of the "God of his father, God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob," gave him the charge to go and free Israel from Egypt: when asked for his particular name, God revealed himself as "I am" ('ehjeh) and shortly afterwards as "He is" or Yahweh (v.). The mission of leading Israel to settle in the land of Canaan (Ex. 3, 17) was specified to him, assigned to him as his own. To M.'s reluctance, due to a feeling of unfitness for the high office and to a speech defect, God responded by conferring on him thaumaturgic power and assigning him as collaborator his brother Aaron (v.), a good speaker; indeed he ordered him to go to Egypt at once. M., having taken leave of Jethro, set out with his wife and sons. During the journey an event occurred, reported in terms too concise and obscure (ibid. 4, 24-26), commonly understood as a serious illness of M., resolved when circumcision was conferred on his son Gershom. At that time M. was 80 years old (ibid. 7, 7).

In Egypt M., having obtained recognition from his fellow-countrymen, began negotiations with the pharaoh. To his refusal to let the Hebrews depart he responded with the miracle of the rod and the miraculous ten plagues (v.) of Egypt (ibid. 7, 14-12, 36). At the tenth the pharaoh not only permitted but ordered the immediate departure of the Israelites. There begins the series of events narrated in Ex. 12-20: the evacuation from Egypt, the crossing of the Red Sea, then the journey through the steppe, which will have as its first point of arrival Sinai (v.), accomplished in two months, along a line largely identified, in the direction of the coast on the Red Sea.

During this period several important events and various incidents occurred, among them, from the very day of the departure from Egypt, the institution of the Passover (v.), then the ceremony after the crossing with the singing of the "canticle" of M. (ibid. 15), the gathering of the manna, a first victorious encounter with the Amalekites (v.). Precisely in connection with this last event is found the important notice: "And Yahweh said to M.: Write this for a memorial and put it in the ears of Joshua: that I will utterly blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven" (ibid. 17, 14).

In view of Sinai (ibid. 19) the camp was set up. M.'s plan is clear: to halt at a place well known to him in order to organize for the remainder of the journey. There occurred the intervention of God, which remains among the most prodigious in sacred history: on the third day M. ascended Sinai, where amid terrifying phenomena God uttered a series of prescriptions, the first nucleus of the "Law." It comprised the Decalogue (v.: ibid. 20), the first prescription of the altar (ibid. 20, 22-26) and the "Covenant Code" (ibid. 21-23), the basis of the stipulation of the "Covenant" (ibid. 24, 1-11), which was followed by the delivery of the code written on the stone tablets (ibid. 24, 12-18), later augmented with many other laws, concerning especially worship (ibid. 25-31).

During a long absence of the leader there occurred a first apostasy of the people, the erection of the golden calf as a symbol of Yahweh and the adoption of pagan cults, at the sight of which M. broke the tablets, which shortly afterwards, at his own entreaty, God remade (ibid. 32). From that time and the following years date other religious and social laws scattered through Leviticus and the book of Numbers.

Having carried out the first prescriptions for worship, among them the construction of the Sanctuary and the Ark, M. gave the order to depart, this time heading directly for Canaan: about a year had passed since the arrival at Sinai (cf. ibid. 19, 1 and Num. 10, 11). The new period is narrated in Num. 10 ff., in the form of episodes and notes, for the most part in chronological order.

After a census (Num. 1-4) and according to the marching directions given by M. (ibid. 11), the Israelites, in various stages in which various episodes occurred — the miraculous passage of the quails (ibid. 12, 31 ff.), several seditions against Moses punished by God, etc. — crossed the desert of Pharan, which in its northern part took the name of Sin, and went to encamp at Kadesh, about a hundred km. southwest of the Dead Sea, where there were springs of water. From Kadesh (ibid. 32, 8) M. had an exploration made of the land of Canaan (already described, ibid. 13), with the intention of going there as soon as possible. The return of the explorers, who reported together with enthusiastic news about the fertility of the country also exaggerated reports about the difficulties of penetrating it, threw a great part of the people into dismay, not corrected by the resolute and well-documented corrections of Caleb and Joshua. That was rather a pretext for the outbreak of discontent and jealousies long repressed: they wanted to stone M. and return to Egypt under another leader. God punished the explorers and condemned the whole people to remain exiles in the desert, until from 20 years of age upward, in substance the whole rebellious generation, had disappeared. The "40 years of the desert" begin. The center remained at Kadesh, but, whether from the necessity of food and pasture, or simply in attempts to govern themselves, the people broke up into different groups, which emigrated and often had to be suppressed by the native population (and perhaps also by the Egyptians: cf. the allusion to Israel in the stele of Merneptah: H. Gressmann, op. cit., p. 25): other rebellions occurred, such as the one led by Korah, epidemics and various "sins," among them one of M. himself (Num. 20, 12; cf. 20, 24; 27, 14; Deut. 32, 51), besides the general one of the people, which seems to have involved a true and proper apostasy from Yahweh, as well as from M. (v. NUMERI).

Before the end of the forty-year period the survivors were reconciled with the old leader, who still had the strength to organize the resumption of the march. To avoid Edom, the great caravan descended a little to the south, then climbed back up in a march of some months to the north, into Moabite territory, crossed the great valleys that descend to the Dead Sea, among them the Arnon (v.), often opening its way with arms, and came in sight of the Jordan. Among the most important episodes of this period are that of Balaam (v.), the wars against the allied kings of all Transjordan, the first disastrous contacts with the local cults, especially that of Beelphegor (v.). Of the conquered region a first partition was made, according to rules fixed by M. (Num. 32, 34).

There remained only the last leap for the completion of the work: the occupation of Canaan. But, because of the punishment inflicted on M. for his sin (ibid. 20, 12), his mission was accomplished: he therefore thought of his final dispositions. He made a general revision of all the legislation promulgated from Sinai to Kadesh, updating and completing it, in a series of discourses that were written down (Deut. 17, 18; 25, 58, etc.) and deposited near the Ark (ibid. 31, 26) and form the content of Deuteronomy (v.); he renewed the covenant (ibid. 28, 69), ordered the periodic reading of the Law; finally he named as his successor Joshua, son of Nun. More than the laws, M. wished his spiritual testament to be a song summarizing the history of Israel, which he composed and pronounced in a final assembly of Israel (ibid. 31, 30-32, 43), and a series of blessings for the individual tribes (ibid. 33). Then he went up Mount Nebo, from which he contemplated beyond the valley of the Jordan the plateau of Canaan, and in that posture he died. He was 120 years old.

In dying, M. left a heritage that extended into all the future through its religious significance; and it comprises two closely linked parts: one consigned to writing, one inserted into lived history.

The work of M. as author of writings that have come down linked to his name is the object of the historical-critical problem concerning the Pentateuch (v.).

The existence of alphabetic writing already some centuries before the age in which, however its particulars are fixed, M. must be placed, is no longer a problem.

The account recalled of the order given by God to M. after the war with the Amalekites directly attests the use established from that time in Israel of putting into writing accounts of events that had occurred; and it is noteworthy that, alongside the order: "Write this in remembrance in the book ("any writing to be kept for memory") it is said at once: "And put it in the ears of Joshua" (Ex. 17, 14): in the small nomadic group traditions are being established, but in their support a nucleus of written documents is also being formed, of an official character, since it is said that they are "for a testimony." Numerous narrative passages of the present Pentateuch have the appearance of documents of this kind, such as the lists of stages completed in the desert, accounts of victories (Ex. 13-18; Num. 31-33, etc.), various events in the relation with other peoples (Balaam, Num. 22-24; Edomites, Num. 20 etc.), internal events of the Israelite community (Num. 11.12.14.16.20.21 etc.), the account of the census (Num. 1-2), of the first partition (Num. 32), etc.

For the laws the question is subdivided, inasmuch as they are referred in general to the Mosaic era, or in particular to the person of M. Explicit testimonies scattered throughout the whole "Law" oblige us to hold that many prescriptions were written from that time: the detail of the stone Tablets for the first laws of Sinai attests this, first of all for the Decalogue (v.).

That a legislative activity goes back personally to M. cannot be denied. Later tradition could not have invented this detail and fixed it precisely on M., rather than, for example, on Abraham. After him no one would have had the authority to impose a body of laws like that which was in the practice of Israel. That the Pentateuch (v.) portrays more the characteristics of a sedentary and agricultural people (for example, Ex. 21-22) than those of a nomadic people, creates no difficulty: the bedouinism of the 40 years of the desert was provisional, always awaiting stable settlement. Mosaic Israel was not simply nomadic: agriculture is spoken of already in connection with the Patriarchs (Gen. 26, 12; 27, 7 etc.); also in Egypt, besides sheep and goats, the Hebrews had cattle (ibid. 45, 10; Ex. 19, 9, 24) and worked the land (Deut. 11, 10). That the prescriptions remained very far from practice shows that it is truly a programmatic code, one may even say ideal, which does not result in the main from the codification of an existing practice, but proposes a higher condition of civilization: another sign of its origin through the work of a personality of exceptional stature.

The Mosaic legislative activity included the cultic parts (sacrifices, sacred furnishings, etc.). If the Mosaic origin of the cult is admitted, both its legitimate transmission and the degenerations that the prophets later fought against are explained. Thus to M. goes back the founding of the Ark, the assignment of the priesthood to the Levites (v.), with particular designation for the Aaronites and all the essentials of the feasts and ceremonies.

As for the written redaction of the traditions prior to M. himself, there is no doubt that M. must have occupied himself with them to some extent, because of the character not purely historiographical but religious that those traditions have. With the general affirmation of Yahwism (covenant, law), Israel always linked its unique religious text, which begins with the account of the six days and continues by narrating how, into the general history of pagan humanity, there was inserted by divine will (the vocation of Abraham), as the first source of its moral and religious obligations, its own history.

It must be concluded that in pre-Mosaic and Mosaic history, in the Law — including the ceremonial Law — there is a directly Mosaic part. But if one examines the testimonies, the whole body of proofs adduced from the Mosaic books themselves, from the other books of the Old Testament and from those of the New in favor of the Mosaic authenticity of the Pentateuch (v.), it is difficult for this cautious assignment of some, or many, narrative and legislative passages to M. to prove sufficient to show in him the "author of the Pentateuch." It is still necessary to study what that composite work consisted of, containing these passages recognized as Mosaic, which — possibly modified, updated, expanded — has come down to us as "the Pentateuch," of which M. is said to be the author.

Out of respect for the documents, which are meant to be interpreted, not overturned, the Mosaic historical-literary problem can only be posed in this way. Absolutely speaking, several answers are possible: a dossier of minute documents, mostly juxtaposed, already differentiated, inasmuch as they were drafted by various collaborators ("secretaries") of the leader, or owing to different circumstances and epochs, possibly repeated (the doublets), subsequently increased in number; or rather writings of the nature properly of "books," already distinct, possibly more or less corresponding to the "documents" (E J P D) of criticism; or a single work, subsequently expanded and glossed, but above all differentiated into "redactions" (north and south; or the sanctuaries, etc.), which left individual traces in the final work, redacted for the purpose of restoring unity amid variety. The current state of studies does not permit a choice, while it shows that the efforts devoted to reconstructing the history of the book through the centuries have been fruitful.

Of the work of M., of its importance for Israel and through Israel for the whole history unfolded in the light of the Jewish-Christian religion, biblical tradition is full.

M. was the great strengthener of monotheism: one might almost say that he codified it, dogmatized it. With him every possibility of hesitation between the "God of the Fathers" and other gods was removed. Monotheism, as a religious fact proper to Israel, was historically justified through M.: the discrimination of monotheism (= Religion) from paganism, which occurred with the vocation of Abraham, became clear as a theocratic program, an external factor of history, in which lies the generating principle of Israelite religious civilization and of the future Christian civilization. M. is the necessary precursor of Christ.

The attempts to remove his figure from the Egyptian framework (how else would the name M. be explained, and more generally the Egyptian names Hur, Ophni, Phinees, Phutiel, etc., and all the reminiscences, such as Ex. 20:2; Lev. 19:34; 25:42; 26:45; Num. 15:41; Deut. 5:6, 15, etc.?) and the Sinaitic framework, in which biblical tradition places him, have been recognized even by non-Catholic critics as contrary to historical evidence (C. P. Tiele-N. Sonderblom [v. bibl.], p. 329; E. Sellin [v. bibl.]; etc.). The mention of his faults shows that the drafters of the documents did not work from fantasy, were anything but creative in spirit, and all the more so in that episode, which on the people's side has nothing heroic about it, being rather woven through with episodes of cowardice, lack of courage and discipline, as well as of faith (the generation that should have been celebrated turns out instead to be a mass of coarse people, incapable of accepting the minimum of organization, always disunited and in revolt, so much so that it would be necessary to wait for it to disappear before the enterprise could be accomplished). The concreteness and practicality that M. displays even in the great vision (Ex. 3:2-4:17), when he asks God for the guarantee, the "name," the seal of authenticity, demonstrates that M. was not a wandering agitator. His attitude was psychologically oriented in a sense quite different from what the outcome was: he did not know that there was a sacred place at Sinai (ibid. 3:5), he was not inclined to the idea of going to liberate Israel (ibid. 3:11; 4:1-13). The denial of M.'s importance can only be made in contempt of the whole tradition of Israel. If he had not been an exceptional personality, how would he have been considered the founder of the religious and national existence of his people?

Rationalist attempts tend to exclude the importance of his "God," whom they identify with a Midianite name, or a volcanic deity of Sinai, or of Arabia (who speaks on behalf of the Hebrews in Egypt and assigns them Canaan), under Egyptian influences (the "monotheistic" attempt of Amenophis IV was ephemeral and directed in quite another sense); God in M. would have been one of the many gods, like those that every people had. But "if... the term monotheist means one who teaches the existence of a single God, creator of all things, source of justice, who is equally powerful in Egypt, in the desert and in Palestine, who has neither sex nor mythology, who has human form (= not bestial), but cannot be seen by the human eye and cannot be represented in any form: then it must be said that the founder of Yahwism, M., was certainly a monotheist" (W. F. Albright, From the stone age to christianity: monotheism and historical process, Baltimore 1940, p. 271). Constantly the Israelite religious consciousness recognized in the Yahweh preached by M. its God. The God of the Fathers (Ex. 3:6) is at the same time the God of the children of Israel (ibid. 3:7), who revealed himself with a new name when he established with Israel itself a new relationship. This is a religion that does not come from man, but from God, of whom M. was only the "prophet," the spokesman (Ex. 3:10; 4:12; Num. 11:24 ff.; 12:2; Deut. 18:15, 18; 34:10; Hos. 12:4; Ps. 103:7, etc.). Yahweh, revealing himself as identical with the God of the Fathers, in substance did nothing but assert the requirement of fidelity to the one traditional God. Only thus is the remote origin of monotheism explained, in the exact conception of a personal and moral God, the supreme authority in decisions of a juridical order, the point of reference of the entire public and private life of those who regulated their existence by the Mosaic code.

Giovanni Rinaldi

ARCHAEOLOGY

In the synagogue of Dura Europos (v.) there is a series of frescoes, dated to the mid-3rd century, among which: M., depicted larger than the others, leads the Israelites out of the city (Ex. 11:3): an Aramaic inscription summarizes the scene; M. with the virga Dei touches the waters of the Red Sea and the Egyptians are submerged; M. in the midst of the people of Israel and of the representatives of the twelve tribes; M. with the virga Dei touches the spring of salt water, which is miraculously transformed into fresh water: the darting fish symbolize the miracle; M. and the burning bush.

This biblical cycle demonstrates that, in order to facilitate proselytism, the Jews of the diaspora depicted episodes of the Old Testament in their synagogues. Now the numerous scenes from the life of M. found there suggest that the iconography of M. in Christian art may have derived from such representations. In ancient Christian cemetery art the scenes relating to M. are found in the frescoes: the miracle of the spring (v.); the miracle of the manna (v.); M. untying his sandals is found in Roman cemetery frescoes of the 4th century, as in the coemeterium maius of the Via Nomentana (Wilpert, Pitture, pp. 388-89, pl. 168; id., Die Katakomben Gemälde und ihre alten Kopien, Freiburg im Br. 1891, pl. 26, 1), in the so-called cemetery of Sts. Mark and Marcellian (id., Pitture, p. 389, pls. 215; 216, 2), in the cemetery of St. Lawrence (id., ibid., p. 389, pl. 205), in Domitilla (id., ibid., pl. 230, 1); but the most remarkable example is that in the so-called crypt of the little sheep in Callistus (id., ibid., pl. 275, 2), in which above the prophet the hand of God appears among the clouds to express the admonition (Ex. 3:5). In funerary sculpture it occurs both in Roman sarcophagi and in those of Gaul (Wilpert, Sarcofagi, pp. 241-44; pls. 86, 3; 205, 4; 206, 1 and 2). The symbolism of the scene was expressed by St. Gregory of Nyssa in the funeral commemoration of St. Meletius, bishop of Antioch: "he has loosened the sandal of the soul in order to walk with the spotless foot of the mind on the holy land where God is contemplated" (PG 46, 861).

In cemetery sculpture there are representations of the crossing of the Red Sea (v.), of the miracle of the spring (v.), of M. receiving the law on Mount Sinai. This scene appears more than thirty times in Roman and Gallic cemetery sculpture (Wilpert, Sarcofagi, p. 237); recently two other examples were found, one near the Confession of St. Peter in the Vatican and the other in a sarcophagus with a double register in catacumbas. There is also the catching of the quails (Ex. 16:13), which occurs in a sarcophagus of Arles, now in the archaeological museum of Aix in Provence, in one of Pisa and on the lid of one of Avignon (Wilpert,

Sarcofagi, p. 244 and pls. 97, 2-4; 157, 2 and 209, 2). Some sepulchral slabs represent the miracle of the spring; in the so-called cemetery of Sts. Mark and Marcellian on the Appian Way, the epitaph of Aurelius Theodulus (4th century) depicts on the right the deceased before the tribunal of Christ and on the left in a niche the prophet M., as the inscription "MOYCHIC ΠΡΟΦΗΤΑ" indicates, clasping the book of the law given to him by the Lord on Sinai (Wilpert, Mosaiken, p. 1020, fig. 499; id., Sarcofagi, p. 241 and pl. 205, 2).

In non-cemetery art the episodes of the life of M. are more numerous. The richest collection was represented in the mosaics of the central nave in St. Mary Major (Wilpert, Mosaiken, pls. 16-22). Some representations relating to the life of M. were destroyed at the time of State V, when the chapel of the Sacrament was erected, but were published by Garrucci, through the surviving copies (R. Garrucci, Storia dell'arte cristiana, Prato 1873-81, pl. 218, 2-3). Other episodes were depicted at Nola, on the testimony of St. Paulinus (Carm. 27, vv. 630-35); in a basilica of Spain, perhaps Saragossa, as the Dittochaeum of Prudentius attests; and especially in St. Vitale in Ravenna; in the panels of the wooden door of St. Sabina in Rome (5th century); in the ivory lipsanotheca of Brescia. Likewise in many miniatures; mention is made here of those of the Ashburnham Pentateuch (7th century), in the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris (Nouvelle acquisition lat. 2334, v. Enc. Catt., VII, coll. 1039-40) and the Syriac ms. 341. In the Vatican Library in the miniatures of the codex of Cosmas Indicopleustes and in cod. Vat. Reg. 1 of the 10th century. In mosaic cycles, as in the Palatine Chapel of Palermo; in the arch of the Roman basilica of Sts. Nereus and Achilleus (795-816; G. B. De Rossi, Musaici, pls. 22, 1; 26, 27). In the church of the Convent of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai the apse mosaic represents the Transfiguration. To the right of Jesus is Elijah, to the left is M. in the appearance of an old man, bearded, distinguished with his name (MOYCHIC). The patriarch is also represented on both sides of a window of the apse arch in the act of untying his sandals and of receiving the law from the divine hand. The mosaics have been attributed to the end of the empire of Justinian (S. Vaillè, La mosaïque de la transfiguration au Sinaï est-elle de Justinien?, in Revue de l'Orient chrétien, 2 [1907], pp. 96-98).

ICONOGRAPHY

M. is mostly depicted as a prophet, and as a witness to the Messiah, in the great French Gothic cathedrals (Chartres, Reims, etc.) and, in Italy, in the pulpits of the Pisan school, on church architraves, etc. In the Sistine Chapel, in the frescoes of the side walls, the story of M. finds its most grandiose development in six scenes depicting: 1) M. with his wife Zipporah in Egypt; Circumcision of their sons Gershom and Eliezer, by Perugino and Pinturicchio; 2) The burning bush with M. killing the Egyptian and driving the Midianites from the well, by Botticelli; 3) Crossing of the Red Sea, by Piero di Cosimo; 4) M. on Sinai and Adoration of the golden calf, by Cosimo Rosselli; 5) Punishment of Korah, Dathan and Abiram, by Botticelli; 6) M. handing over his rod to Joshua; grief over the death of M., by Luca Signorelli and Bartolomeo della Gatta. A seventh scene, M. saved from the waters, by Perugino, was destroyed on the occasion of the execution of Michelangelo's Last Judgment. But Michelangelo himself, who gave, with the famous M. for the mausoleum of Julius II, caught in the moment of wrath against the worshipers of the golden calf, combined with a sense of divine grandeur, the most monumental representation of the Prophet, also frescoed on the vault of the same Sistine Chapel another symbolic episode of his life: that of the bronze serpent.

Naturally the figure of the Prophet appears in all modern illustrations of the Bible, starting with the one painted by Raphael in the Vatican Loggia. Also noteworthy are the frescoes of the Collegio del Cambio in Perugia with the Prophets and Sibyls, the work of Perugino. - See plate XCIX.

Eugenio Battisti

APOCALYPSE of M

Old Testament apocryphon, which has nothing to do with M., as appears from the title of the 4 manuscripts published by C. Tischendorf (1866): "History and life of Adam..., revealed by God to his servant M...".

Closely connected with this apocryphon are: the Life of Adam and Eve in Latin, published in 1878 by W. Meyer; the Slavonic one published by Jagiè in 1893, which follows the A. of M. very closely, albeit with variants and additions; and an Armenian one, published by the Mechitarists of Venice in 1896. The A. of M. agrees with the other lives on many points, often even textually; only one important development is peculiar to it: the account, given by Eve, of the temptation and the fall (chaps. 15-30).

In these apocrypha is narrated the penance of Adam and Eve, as soon as they had left Paradise; the new temptation of Satan, thwarted however by Adam, to whom Satan manifests the reason for his implacable hatred: he owes his fall to humanity, inasmuch as he refused to prostrate himself before man. There follow the birth of Cain and Abel; the killing of the latter; the birth of Seth; the illness of Adam; his death and then that of Eve.

Probably the affinities among these writings are due to their common dependence on a primitive apocryphon, which its ideas, its midrashic form, etc., lead one to consider of Jewish origin, and written in Hebrew. The Christian interpolations stand out at once. Nothing obliges us to postpone its composition to after the 1st century of the Christian era.

Francesco Spadafora

ASSUMPTION of M

Jewish Old Testament apocryphon. In all probability the work consisted of two parts (and not of two distinct books, fused later: R. H. Charles [see bibl.]); the first, revealed by Ceriani in a 16th-century manuscript of the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan, may well be called "the Testament of M." (12 chaps.); the second, lost, is the one most cited by the Fathers (Origen, Princip., III, 2, 1; In Ios. hom., 2, 1; Clement of Alexandria, Strom., VI, 15; etc.). It contained the narration of the death of M. and, probably, his merely spiritual assumption into heaven (cf. 1, 15; 10, 14; and Deut. 34, 6). The ancients speak of the altercation of St. Michael with the devil, over the body of M.

The apocryphon is more historical and eschatological than moral. M., in yielding to Joshua the command of Israel, foretells to him in brief outlines the history of the chosen people from the entry into the Promised Land down to the sons of Herod. In chap. 3 there is already mention of Nebuchadnezzar, of the destruction of Judah and of the deportation of the survivors. Through the intercession of a man (Daniel), the Lord will still show mercy and will raise up a king (Cyrus) who will bring the Israelites back to their homeland (chap. 4). There follow the persecution of the Seleucids and the apostasy of many Jews: "The altar will be in the hands of people who are not priests but slaves, sons of slaves" (chap. 5). Kings will arise who will have themselves called "priests of the Most High God" (=the Hasmoneans); an insolent king will succeed them, for 34 years (=Herod). His sons will reign less than he (an allusion to Archelaus alone); the region will be invaded by "a mighty king of the West," who will take numerous prisoners, burn part of the Temple and crucify many Jews (chap. 6: The king in question is Quintilius Varus; cf. Flavius Josephus, Antiq. Iud., XVII, 10, 2-9 ff.). In chaps. 7-9 there is talk of a second persecution (9, 2); but everything in them refers to the persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes; "there will then arise a Levite named Taxo; he will lead his 7 sons into the desert and will exhort them to die rather than deny the precepts of the Lord" (chap. 9). Probably these chapters have undergone a displacement; they should be placed between chap. 5 and chap. 6. The last chapters are eschatological; they concern the advent of the kingdom of God; God will exercise judgment; the earth will tremble, the sun will be darkened, etc. The kingdom of God, although the moral aspect is not lacking, is rather political. No mention of the Messiah, of the conversion of the gentiles; Christian doctrine is simply ignored.

The author, a pious Pharisee, of sound patriotism, protests against the factional spirit of the Zealots. He awaits the arrival of the theocratic kingdom, the triumph of Israel and its final exaltation; it is for this that he writes. Probably the apocryphon is from 7 A.D., just after the deposition of Archelaus (cf. 6, 7). The Latin text derives from a Greek version; the original was perhaps written in Hebrew or in Aramaic.

Probably Iud. 9 is a quotation of the present apocryphon, as Origen affirms (Princ., III, 2, 1).

Francesco Spadafora