Prayer of Joseph

James1920 fragment dossier, printedpage 22

22 THE LOST APOCRYPHA OF He is speaking of John the Baptist, and, says he : " It will not be out of place to add a notion of our own about him. When we read the prophecy of him, ' Behold, I send my angel before thy face,' etc., we reflected if by chance one of the holy angels being upon service were not sent down as a forerunner of our Saviour. It would not, indeed, be surprising if, when the firstborn of all creation became incarnate, for love of man, some should have become emulators and imitators of Christ, and embraced the opportunity of ministering to His kindness to men by means of a like body. . . . Now if any one accepts among the apocrypha current among the Hebrews, what is entitled the Prayer of Joseph, he will derive from it exactly this teaching, expressed in plain terms : that those who from the beginning possessed some special excellence beyond men, and were greatly superior to all other souls, have descended from the estate of angels into human nature. Jacob, at any rate, says : ' For I Jacob that speak unto you, I am also Israel, an angel of God and a ruling spirit, and Abraham and Isaac were pre-created {TrpoeKTio-Orjcrav, a word only found here) before any work. And I Jacob, that am called by men Jacob, yet my name is Israel, that am called by God Israel, a man seeing God, for I am the first begotten of every living thing that is quickened by God.'" And he continues: "And I, when I was coming from Mesopotamia of Syria, Uriel the angel of God came forth and said that I had come down (came) to earth and tabernacled among men, and that I was called by name Jacob. He envied me and fought with me, and wrestled with me, saying that his name should have precedence of my name and of the angel that is before all {or that his name and the name of the angel that is before all should have precedence of my name). {All is singular, and should perhaps be rendered ' before every (angel).') And I told him his name, and in what order ^ he is among the sons of God, saying : ' Art not thou Uriel, the eighth from me, and I am Israel, an ^ Edd. ir6aos, but ir6a-Tos {quotus) is certainly to be read.