Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs
Anonymous
Book Testament of Asher · Chapter 6
About this work
A collection of farewell discourses attributed to the twelve sons of Jacob, combining ethical exhortation, autobiographical retelling, and eschatological material. The transmitted text preserves Jewish traditions alongside Christian material or interpolation, and its compositional history remains debated.
- Author
- Anonymous
- Date
- Second Temple Jewish material; transmitted form includes later Christian elements.
- Origin
- Unknown
- Genre
- Testamentary Literature / Pseudepigrapha
- Textual language
- Greek textual tradition; earlier sources and layers are debated.
- Translator
- R. H. Charles
- Translation / Edition
- R. H. Charles translation, first published 1908.
Take heed, therefore, ye also, my children, to the commandments of the Lord, following the truth with singleness of face.
For they that are double-faced are guilty of a twofold sin; for they both do the evil thing and they have pleasure in them that do it, following the example of the spirits of deceit, and striving against mankind.
Do ye, therefore, my children, keep the law of the Lord, and give not heed unto evil as unto good; but look unto the thing that is really good, and keep it in all commandments of the Lord, having your conversation therein, and resting therein.
For the latter ends of men do show their righteousness (or unrighteousness), when they meet the angels of the Lord and of Satan.
For when the soul departs troubled, it is tormented by the evil spirit which also it served in lusts and evil works.
But if he is peaceful with joy he meeteth the angel of peace, and he leadeth him into eternal life.