Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs
Anonymous
Book Testament of Joseph · Chapter 9
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.
And often hath she sent unto me saying: Consent to fulfill my desire, and I will release thee from thy bonds, and I will free thee from the darkness.
And not even in thought did I incline unto her. For God loveth him who in a den of wickedness combines fasting with chastity, rather than the man who in kings' chambers combines luxury with licence.
And if a man liveth in chastity, and desireth also glory, and the Most High knoweth that it is expedient for him, He bestoweth this also upon me.
How often, though she were sick, did she come down to me at unlooked for times, and listened to my voice as I prayed! And when I heard her groanings I held my peace.
For when I was in her house she was wont to bare her arms, and breasts, and legs, that I might lie with her; for she was very beautiful, splendidly adorned in order to beguile me. And the Lord guarded me from her devices.