Prayer of Joseph

James1920 fragment dossier, printedpage 31

THE OLD TESTAMENT 31 the Prayer of Joseph knew something of Christian theology and indulged in some side-hits at it. Whether that was the main object of the book we cannot tell; but Origen treats it with such respect that I think its attack on Christianity cannot have been very overt. In the Journal of Theological Studies, xx. (1918) p. 20, Mr. Vacher Burch advocates the view that the Praver was pro-Christian, and based on the primitive Testiuuniia against the Jews. " The chief theme of the fragments ... is the surpassing of one angel- appearance of the Christ by another — of Uriel by Israel." It is now known that Uriel was a Testimony hypostasis of this nature, for the Ethiopic Narrative of St. Clement (Budge, Contendings of the Apostles, ii 479) contains this helpful passage : " And I (Peter) gave them com- mandments concerning circumcision according to the Law of Moses, and God (/. e. Christ) appeared unto me in the form of the Angel Uriel, and commanded me to do away the Old Law and to bring in the New." He refers also to the fact that Justin Martyr makes Jacob and Israel names of Christ. I cannot reproduce the whole of the passage here : the thesis is to me uncon- vincing at present. It is obscurely put by Mr. Burch, and needs restatement in an expanded form to make it plausible, or indeed intelligible. See further under Hezekiah.