Prayer of Joseph

James1920 fragment dossier, printedpage 28

28 THE LOST APOCRYPHA OF have the greatest power, the first begotten rulers of the angels." We also find them in the Pirkc R. Eliezer, 4 : " The seven angels that were first created." " That his name should have precedence over my name and over that of the angel before every ..." Schurer would read, " and before every angel" (Trpo toC TravTOcr riyye'Aou for rov Trpo Traj'Torr dyye'Aon), but I do not think the tc.\t can be mended so easily. It depends on one sole MS., and I fear it is defective. More im- portant is it to notice another Pauline parallel : " He hath given him a name which is above every name," etc. No Jewish Scripture supplies a better. Uriel is the wrestling angel. This, again, is peculiar. The uniform Rabbinic tradition says that it was Michael, Pseudo-Philo [Bibl. Antiq., XVHI. 6) that it was the angel who is over the praises, the Ladder of Jacob that it was the archangel Sarckl : in Pirkc R. Eliczcr the wrestling angel gives his own name Israel to Jacob. I do not trace the reason for choosing Uriel. He figures a good deal in Enoch : in xx. 2 he is the angel over the world and over Tartarus ; he guides Enoch to remote regions and shows him the movements of the heavenly bodies. He is one of the four great angels, Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael being his compeers. To Adam he comes as the angel over repentance and tells him of the hours of day and night. To Esdras he shows visions. In the Apocalypse of Peter (and Sib. Orac. II ) he brings souls out of Hades to judgment. In the Testament of Solomon we read of a demon who was an offspring of Uriel, and Uriel is summoned to control him. He appears in our fragment in a somewhat unfavour- able light, seeming to take advantage of Jacob's (Israel's) confinement in a human body to gain a superiority over him, which he (no doubt) hopes to maintain when Jacob's earthly life is over. Of the phrases " come down to earth" and " taber- nacled among men," the second is paralleled by Baruch iii. 38, Rev. xxi. 3, and especially Ecclus. xxiv. 8-10 : the first has its closest illustration in Eph. iv. 9-10.