Apocalypse of Thomas

Historical English source page 592

556 APOCALYPSE OF THOMAS euiticn of the Apocalypse based on manuscripts at Munich and Rome, which has not yet appeared. In the Journal of Theological Siudies for 1910 I printed the beginning of the book from a Verona MS. (of eighth century). Maffei had noticed this, and in 1755 Dionisi had printed it in a forgotten volume. In 1911 Dom Bihlmeyer printed another ‘Lu -terpolated’ text from Munich in the Revue Bénédictine. Yet m in 1918 Max Forster (Studien z. engl. Philol. : Der V ercelli-Codez) showed that the fifteenth sermon in the famous Anglo-Saxon MS. at Vercelli is an Old English version of this Revelation; that a Hatton MS. and the Blickling Homilies also contain matter drawn from it; and that a shortened Latin form is to be found in a dialogue printed by Suchier (L’Enfant sage, 1910, p. 272). Lastly, there are quotations from it in some odd—I think Irish—homilies in a Reichenau MS. at Carlsruhe, printed by Dom de Bruyne as ‘ Apocryphes Priscillianistes’ in the Revue Bénéd., 1907. There is, then, a quantity of material which we shall look to Professor Dobschiitz to co-ordinate. Latin appears to have been the original language,! and the data of the fuller text point to the days of Arcadius and Honorius. How much earlier the shorter text may be it is not easy to say: and I would not commit myself to the assertion that there is not a Greek decument at the back of that. APOCALYPSE OF THOMAS A. Verona fragment (eighth century) and Wilhelm’s text (Munich Clm. 4585, ninth century). Here beginneth the epistle of the Lord unto Thomas. Hear thou, Thomas, the things which must come to pass in the last times: there shall be famine and war and earthquakes in divers places, snow and ice and great drought shall there be, and many dissensions among the peoples, blasphemy, iniquity, envy and villainy, indolence, pride and intemperance, so that every man shall speak that which pleaseth him. And my priests shall not have peace among themselves, but shall sacrifice unto me with deceitful mind: therefore will I not look upon them. Then shall the priests behold the people departing from the house of the Lord and turning unto the world (?) and setting up (or, transgressing) landmarks in the house of God. And they shall claim (vindicate) for themselves many [things and] places that were lost and that shall be subject unto Caesar (?) as also they were aforetime: giving poll-taxes of (for) the cities, even gold and silver,* and the chief men of the cities shall be con- demned (here Verona ends: Munich continues), and their substance brought intof the treasury of the kings, and they shall be filled. 1 This is at least certain for the passage about Arcadius and Honorius: H is not the eighth letter in the Greek alphabet! But the sentence, which is omitted in the Anglo-Saxon version, may be an interpolation. * The Anglo-Saxon renders: setting up gold and silver heads in their cities.