κράτορας—βασανίζεις—ἀναμετρητῶν β͏̅—ὁμοθυμαδὸν μιᾷ φωνῇ—κοσµοκράτορες τοῦ σκότους—Satan fallen from heaven—ἀκρογωνιαῖος λίθος κ.τ.λ.—πτερύγιον τοῦ ναοῦ—"remove mountains."
Again, on p. 124 of Fleck, the demon says καὶ ποιῶ καταπίπτειν καὶ ἀφρίζειν καὶ τρίζειν τοὺς ὀδόντας. So Mark ix. 18 it is said of the πνεῦμα ἄλαλον that whenever it seized the boy, ῥήσσει αὐτόν, καὶ ἀφρίξει καὶ τρίζει τοὺς ὀδόντας αὐτοῦ καὶ χηραίνεται. Are we to regard the author of the Testament as here imitating the Greek Testament? Similarly on p. 136 we have the passage: καὶ ἐγένετο ἐν τῷ εἶναί µε ἐν τῇ βασιλείᾳ µου, ἀπέστειλέ μοι ἐπιστολὴν ὁ βασιλεύς. Here we have an Aramaism which is very common in Luke, and which occurs, though seldom, in Matthew and Mark as well. There is really no reason for supposing any of these phrases to be imitated from the New Testament. It is quite as probable that the writer of the document was a Hellenistic Jew, who naturally employed the same phraseology and idioms as the writers of the New Testament. He has not the air of imitating another document; and if he were writing with the Gospels before him as a model, he would surely imitate them in a more unmistakable manner.
Even the phrase κοσµοκράτορες τοῦ σκότους (§ 72), in spite of its recurrence in Paul (Eph. vi. 12), cannot be regarded as imported from Paul into the Testament. For Paul merely glances at a system of belief which the Testament sets before us in lengthy detail. Celsus, in his book against the Christian religion, written about A.D. 170, and subsequently controverted by Origen[1], gave an account of the thirty-six world-ruling decani identical with that of the Testament in all respects but one, namely, that he used the Coptic or Egyptian names of the decani, whereas the Testament has mock Hebrew ones. The following passage from an old Latin writer exhibits the same belief; and in it, as in the Testament, the supernatural powers are
- ↑ See Origen, c. Celsum, viii. 58.
