DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49369#0156
A FRAGMENT OF THE APOCALYPSE OF ADAM
IN GREEK.
The text of the principal remains of the Apocalypse (or Testa-
ment) of Adam is to be found, as students of this literature are
aware, in the Journal Asiatique for 1853 (ser. v. tom. 2), pp. 427—
471. They are there given in Syriac and for the most part also in
Arabic with a masterly Essay by Renan. Further light was sub-
sequently thrown on them by Dr Hort in his article on Books of
Adam in the Dictionary of Christian Biography. Since the date
of this last work, not much has been added to the material. I am
able to contribute a small fragment here, in the shape of a Greek
version of the νυχθημερόν or Table of the Hours of the Day and
Night which, in Renan’s edition, appears as Fragments 1 and 2.
This Greek fragment, to which I have made allusion in ano-
ther place1, is not altogether new, though it has not been hitherto
recognised as coming from the Apocalypse of Adam. In the notes
to his edition of Michael Psellus de operationibus daemonum2, Gil-
bert Gaulmyn of Moulins quoted part of it from the MS. from
which the whole is now printed. This is a great magical MS. at
Paris (Cod. Gr. 2419) written at the beginning of the XVlth cen-
tury in a rather difficult hand. It is a perfect storehouse of
Byzantine ‘ occultism,’ containing much Solomonic matter, and
would no doubt repay a more careful examination than I was able
to give it.
1 Texts and Studies, ii. ii. 127.
2 The text and notes are reprinted in Migne’s Cedrenus, vol. ii.
IN GREEK.
The text of the principal remains of the Apocalypse (or Testa-
ment) of Adam is to be found, as students of this literature are
aware, in the Journal Asiatique for 1853 (ser. v. tom. 2), pp. 427—
471. They are there given in Syriac and for the most part also in
Arabic with a masterly Essay by Renan. Further light was sub-
sequently thrown on them by Dr Hort in his article on Books of
Adam in the Dictionary of Christian Biography. Since the date
of this last work, not much has been added to the material. I am
able to contribute a small fragment here, in the shape of a Greek
version of the νυχθημερόν or Table of the Hours of the Day and
Night which, in Renan’s edition, appears as Fragments 1 and 2.
This Greek fragment, to which I have made allusion in ano-
ther place1, is not altogether new, though it has not been hitherto
recognised as coming from the Apocalypse of Adam. In the notes
to his edition of Michael Psellus de operationibus daemonum2, Gil-
bert Gaulmyn of Moulins quoted part of it from the MS. from
which the whole is now printed. This is a great magical MS. at
Paris (Cod. Gr. 2419) written at the beginning of the XVlth cen-
tury in a rather difficult hand. It is a perfect storehouse of
Byzantine ‘ occultism,’ containing much Solomonic matter, and
would no doubt repay a more careful examination than I was able
to give it.
1 Texts and Studies, ii. ii. 127.
2 The text and notes are reprinted in Migne’s Cedrenus, vol. ii.