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 Cain. For after Cain 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.