Testament in Sacred Scripture

TESTAMENT IN SACRED SCRIPTURE. - The term testamentum in the Vulgate often translates the Hebrew berith, by which is indicated both a pact between private individuals and an alliance between nations or ethnic groups (Gen. 21:22 ff.; Ex. 23:32; 34:12, 15; Deut. 7:2; Josh. 9:9 ff.; Judg. 2:2 etc.). In general it indicates the pact established between God and his people: a relation of privilege, willed and brought about by God, bilateral inasmuch as the observance of the Law is always expressed as the condition of God's faithfulness to his promises.

In this sense the Latin term testamentum is poorly suited; it was used under the influence of the Septuagint, which translated berith with διαθήκη ("disposition," for the most part testamentary). Aquila and Symmachus preferred συνθήκη, and already St. Jerome (In Mal., 2:4; PL 25, 1555) warned that the word T. "in many places of Scripture does not mean the will of the dead, but a pact between the living." The ordinary meaning can be found, however, in Gal. 3:15 and in Heb. 9:16. That sense applies well to the writings of the New T., inasmuch as their content can be considered as an "inheritance," a good (the Redemption) in close connection with the death of Jesus Christ. For the books that contain the history and the prophecies of the Hebrew people it is more logical to speak of writings concerning the "pact" between God and humanity.

The use of T. in the sense of a collection of inspired books is very ancient in Christian tradition. It is already found in the Bible: St. Paul (II Cor. 3:14) speaks of the "reading of the Old T."; I Macc. 1:60 describes the persecution promoted by Antiochus IV Epiphanes against "the books of the T. of the Lord."

Angelo Penna

APOCRYPHAL TESTAMENTS

I. Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs

An apocryphal book of the Old Testament, which arose in Jewish circles of the 2nd-1st century B.C., interpolated by Christian hands from the 2nd century A.D. onward, important for understanding the Jewish religious mentality of the 1st century, especially regarding messianism.

It contains the words that each of the 12 sons of Jacob, before dying, would have addressed to his own descendants and to all Israel, in imitation of Jacob himself (Gen. 49), of Joseph (ibid. 50:24 ff.) and of Moses (Deut. 31-33). Each "t." has a historical or biographical part (the Patriarch recalls his life, especially the virtue or vice for which he was distinguished), a paraenetic part (he recommends or dissuades imitation of it), and a prophetic or eschatological part (he predicts of his descendants or of the whole people that for their sins they will be punished, but that thus they will return to God, disposing themselves to receive messianic salvation).

The problem of the time of origin is complicated by the presence of many interpolations. At first the clear allusions to the doctrines of Christianity (even to the incarnation of God and his birth from a Virgin) led it to be considered entirely of Christian origin (Sinker, Deane).

(from Herrada of Landsberg, Hortus Deliciarum, edited by A. Straub, G. Keller, Strasbourg 1981, pl. 82)
TESTAMENT in SACRED SCRIPTURE - Old Covenant or ritual law, miniature from the Hortus Deliciarum of Herrad of Landsberg, fol. 67 (ca. 1230).

Subsequently, however, they were recognized as interpolations of the 2nd century or so, also because they present affinities with the heresy of the patripassians (v. MODALISM). The original language was Semitic (Aramaic or Hebrew; today the general view favors Hebrew). Various historical allusions, particularly the laudatory terms for the tribe of Levi and the priestly class, would date the original book to the most glorious years of the Maccabean period (153-104 B.C.); but other expressions, disparaging of the priestly class, suggest a second Jewish hand from the time when the high priesthood began to decline, under the successors of John Hyrcanus (ca. 70-40 B.C.). Thus, in general outline, Conybeare, Bousset, Charles, Lagrange. It will hardly be possible to follow Felten, who considers the redaction of the entire Jewish work to be later than A.D. 70.

The text has come down to us in Greek, Armenian and Slavonic translations. The Greek translation is represented by nine codices, with two different forms of the text; from the second of these the Armenian version (4th-6th century) would depend, preserved in about ten codices. There also exist separate parts of some "t." (Levi in Aramaic, Greek and Syriac; Naphtali in Hebrew); it seems, however, that they did not belong to this apocryphon, although they present some analogy with it. The T. of the Twelve Patriarchs are used in the Zadokite Document and cited by Origen, St. Jerome and other ecclesiastical writers as an apocryphon. In the Middle Ages Robert Grosseteste, bishop of Lincoln (13th century), prepared a Latin translation of it which spread it widely, also published by Migne (PG 2, 1037-1150) together with the Greek edition of Grabe (1698), both far surpassed by the most accurate edition of R. H. Charles (Oxford 1908) with the variants of all the manuscripts of the ancient versions. Charles, however, is wrong to make the teaching of the New Testament writers and of Jesus himself depend on this apocryphon, followed in this by Friedländer, Hart, Oesterley; he is brilliantly refuted by Lagrange, Plummer, Schürer. There are also numerous modern translations (for which cf. Frey, cited in the bibliography).

Luigi Vagaggini

2. The T. of Our Lord

Such is the title of an apocryphal writing attributed to the apostles John, Peter and Matthew, but which was composed in Greek in the second half of the 5th century, probably in Syria, by a Monophysite author.

It exists only in a Syriac version (of which I. Rahmani produced the first edition at Mainz in 1899), Coptic, Ethiopic and Arabic. The content of the book turns out to be a kind of reworking of elements contained in the Paradoxis of Hippolytus of Rome and consists of eschatological announcements and norms for bishops and for the faithful, with an abundance of details on the Sacraments and on Christian customs.

For the other apocryphal T.: v. ABRAHAM; ADAM; JOB; SOLOMON.

Ignazio Ortiz de Urbina