Prayer of Joseph

James1920 fragment dossier, printedpage 25

THE OLD TESTAMENT 25 (Are they still in being?) "I noticed," he says, "a mention of the angel Uriel ; on ]). 62 are the words, Et jingnavit cum angelo Oriel (and he fought with the angel Uriel)." I do not see that this can refer to any one but Jacob, and it is not independent of the Prayer of Joseph. It is quite likely, of course, to have been derived from Origen, who, when all is said, remains our sole source of knowk'dge of the contents of the book. A very lengthy comment might be written upon these fragments. I will try to compress mine. First, the title. Prayer of Joseph, is peculiar. No other separate book is so named, though a good many prayers occurring in Scriptural books are dignified with special titles, and some were current separately. Such arc the Prayers of Moses (Ps. xc), of Habakkuk, of Solomon in Kin^s, and in Wisdom, of Jesus son of vSirach (Ecclus. li.), of Azarias in the furnace (Dan. iii. (LXX)), of Esdras (4 Esdr. viii), of Baruch {Apoc. Bartich), of Manasseh. But these are not whole books. The nearest parallel is the case of the Book or History of Asenath, which the Armenian list places in the stead of the Joseph book, and calls the Prayer (prayers) of Asenath. zA Greek MS. of it has a similar title. Con- fession and Prayer of Asenath. The fact that Asenath replaces Joseph suggests the possibility of an integral connexion between the books (so Mgr. Batiffol). I have tried to establish one, but with little success. The most one can say is that in Asenath a sort of divinity hangs about both Jacob and Joseph : that Levi " saw writings written in the heavens," that the angel who visits Asenath is " captain of the host of the Lord God, leader of all the army of the Most High." He has a name " written in heaven in the book of the Most High by the finger of God, before all. And the things written in that book are ineffable, such as men may not speak or hear." Joseph is described as the son of the Most High. The description of Jacob says that his arms were as those of an angel, his thighs and legs and feet like a giant's, and he like a man that fought {or might fight) with God. I think it quite probable that the