In this post I will be looking at specific early Christian apocryphal and pseudepigraphic writings, which give us an idea of the early Christological views held during that period. Some of these sources are believed to have originally been Jewish works that subsequently underwent revision and redaction by Christian scribes. It is these Christian additions that will be important in discerning the beliefs that Jesus’ followers held in respect to his Deity and the Trinity.

Here I will be looking at two particular works regarding Adam and Isaac. I will be referencing the translations found in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Volume 1: Apocalyptic Literature and Testaments, edited by James H. Charlesworth, published by Doubleday Dell Publishing Group Inc., 1983. All emphasis will be mine.

TESTAMENT OF ADAM

The quotations are taken be from S. E. Robinson, “A New Translation and Introduction.” Robinson believes that some of the Christian insertions occurred between the second-third centuries:

Date

The three sections of the Testament of Adam were not written at the same time, but the final Christian redaction, in which the testament took on its present form, probably occurred in the middle or late third century A.D. This tentative date for the final redaction of the Testament of Adam is supported by several bits of evidence. First, the testament is familiar with the Christian traditions found in the New Testament and must therefore be dated after, say, A.D. 100. Second, part of the Prophecy section is quoted in the Syriac Transitus Mariae, which is dated in the late fourth century. Third, the Testament of Adam demonstrates a literary relationship at one point with the Coptic Apocalypse of Elijah, which is dated in the third century A.D. Ordinarily this might be due to copying at some later date, but here the Testament of Adam seems to preserve the passage (a description of the signs of the Messiah) in a more original form than does the Apocalypse of Elijah and should probably not be dated after that document.

Since the Jewish portions of the testament are likely older than the Christian additions, the Horarium and perhaps some of the Prophecy may date from considerably before the third century A.D. The final section, the Hierarchy, is an accretion which does not lend itself to a firm dating, although it may have been composed between the second and fifth centuries A.D. (P. 990)

Here, now, are the citations:

3 (The Prophecy) 2 Adam said to Seth, his son, “You have heard, my son, that God is going to come into the world after a long time, (he will be) conceived of a virgin and put on a body, be born like a human being, and grow up as a child. He will perform signs and wonders on the earth, will walk on the waves of the sea. He will rebuke the winds and they will be silenced. He will motion to the waves and they will stand still! He will open the eyes of the blind and cleanse the lepers. He will cause the deaf to hear, and the mute to speak. He will straighten the hunchbacked, strengthen the paralyzed, find the lost, drive out evil spirits, and cast out demons.

“He spoke to me about this in Paradise after I picked some of the fruit in which death was hiding: ‘Adam, Adam do not fear. You wanted to be a god; I will make you a god, not right now, but after a space of many years. I am consigning you to death, and the maggot and the worm will eat your body.’ And I answered and said to him, ‘Why, my Lord?’ And he said to me, ‘Because you listened to the words of the serpent, you and your posterity will be food for the serpent. But after a short time there will be mercy on you because you were created in my image, and I will not leave you to waste away in Sheol. For your sake I will be born of the Virgin Mary. For your sake I will taste death and enter the house of the dead. For your sake I will make a new heaven, and I will be established over your posterity.

“‘And after three days, while I am in the tomb, I will raise up the body I received from you. And I will set you at the right hand of my divinity, and I will make you a god just like you wanted. And I will receive favor from God, and I will restore to you and to your posterity that which is the justice of heaven.’

“You have heard, my son Seth, d that a Flood is coming and will wash the whole earth because of the daughters of Cain, your brother, who killed your brother Abel out of passion for your sister Lebuda, since sins had been created through your mother, Eve. And after the Flood there will be six thousand years (left) to the form of the world, and then its end will come.”…

And I, Seth, wrote this testament. And my father died, and they buried him the east of Paradise opposite the first city built on the earth, which was named (after) Enoch. And Adam was borne to his grave by the angels and powers of heaven because he had been created in the image of God. And the sun and the moon were darkened, and there was thick darkness for seven days. And we sealed the testament and we put it in the cave of treasures with the offerings Adam had taken out of Paradise, gold and myrrh and frankincense. And the sons of kings, the magi, will come and get them, and they will take them to the son of God, to Bethlehem of Judea, to the cave.^g

g. Here rec. 3 adds, “Your father David sang psalms to you before you came, only begotten God; for he sang to you about the gold of Ophir in his prophecy. And behold, the literal meaning of your psalm has stood firm. Behold gold and myrrh and frankincense heaped before you, little child. Gold for your royalty, frankincense for your divine substance, and myrrh for your burial.” (P. 994)

4 Also from the Testament of Our Father Adam  

1 The heavenly powers: what they are like and how each of their orders is occupied in the service and the plan of this world. Listen, my beloved, as they are set in order one after another from the bottom, until we reach those who carry our Lord Jesus the Messiah and bear him up. The lowest order is the angels. And the plan has been revealed to it by God concerning every human being whom they watch over, because one angel from this lowest order accompanies every single human being in the world for his protection. And this is its service…

8 These other orders, thrones and seraphim and cherubim, stand before the majesty of our Lord Jesus the Messiah and serve the throne of his magnificence, glorifying him hourly with their “holy, holy, holy.” The cherubim bear up and reverence his throne and keep the seals; the seraphim serve the inner chamber of our Lord; the thrones guard the gate of the holy of holies. This is truly the explanation of the services according to the plan of the angels in this world. (Ibid., p. 995)

The next citations are from a completely different version of the testament of Adam.  

[The Ethiopic text and an Arabic version was published by Bezold in Nöldeke’s Festschrift, Gieszen, 1906. See also Brit. Mus. Add. 16251 and Add. 16217 (Dillmann, Catalogus, Nos. XXXIV and XXXVII.]

ADAM FORETELLS THE COMING OF CHRIST.

Now therefore know thou all this, and hearken unto my word, and understand that the Word of God, the Most High, shall come down upon the earth, even as He told me at the moment when He thrust me out from the Garden (Paradise). For He told me that His Word in later days should become man from a woman who was a virgin whose name was Mary, and should hide in her, and put on flesh, and be born like a man with great power, and operative skill and knowledge. No one shall know Him except Himself and him to whom He manifested [Himself]. And God said that He should go about with people on the earth, and grow in days and years, and should perform signs and wonders openly, and should walk upon the sea as upon dry land, and should rebuke the sea and the winds openly, and they should be subject unto Him, and that He should cry out to the waves of the sea and they should make answer to Him speedily. And that He should make the blind to see, and the lepers to be cleansed, and the deaf to hear, and the dumb to talk, and should raise up the paralytics, and make the lame to walk, and should turn many from error to the knowledge of God, and should drive out the devils from men.

And besides [these things] God spake unto me, saying, “Be not sorrowful, O Adam, for thou didst wish to become a god and didst transgress my command. Behold, I will stablish thee, not at this present, but after a few days.” And again He spake unto me, saying, “I am God Who made thee to go forth from the Garden of Joy into the earth, which shall shoot forth thorns and brambles, and thou shalt dwell therein. Bend thy back, and make thy knees to totter in old age, and I will make thy flesh food for the worms. And after five days and half a day¹ I will have compassion upon thee, and shew thee mercy in the abundance of my compassion and my mercy. And I will come down into thy house, and I will dwell in thy flesh, and for thy sake I will be pleased to be born like an [ordinary] child. And for thy sake I will be pleased to walk in the market place. And for thy sake I will be pleased to fast forty days. And for thy sake I will be pleased to accept baptism. And for thy sake I will be pleased to endure suffering. And for thy sake I will be pleased to hang on the wood of the Cross. All these things [will I do] for thy sake, O Adam.”

To Him be praise, and majesty, and dominion, and glory, and worship, and hymns, with His Father and the Holy Spirit from this time forward and for ever and ever. Amen. (The Book of the Cave of Treasures – Testamentum Adami)

TESTAMENT OF ISAAC

In this section I cite from W. F. Stinespring, “A New Translation and Introduction.” The author dates this work from around the 2^nd century A.D.

Original language, date, and provenance

The Testament of Isaac is now extant only in the languages listed above, all from the area south of the Mediterranean. Unlike the Testament of Abraham, it is not extant in Greek or in the northern versions, Romanian and Slavic. The dependence on the Testament of Abraham, however, makes it possible that the Testament of Isaac was originally written in Greek, shortly after the Testament of Abraham and in the same milieu.

There are pronounced Christian elements in the Testament of Isaac as it now stands, and in its present form it has the function of emphasizing the date of the deaths of Abraham and Isaac as commemorated in the Coptic Church. Thus it would be possible to see the work as springing from the Coptic Christian Church. The Christianizing is not thoroughgoing, however, and it seems more likely that the original composition was a product of Egyptian Judaism. (P. 904)

And here is what this document says in regards to the Godhead:

2 It came to pass, when the time drew near for our father Isaac, the father of fathers, to depart from this world and to g o out from his body, that the Compassionate, the Merciful One sent to him the chief of the angels, Michael, the one who he had sent to his father Abraham, on the morning of the twenty-eighth day of the month Misri…

Then the angel said to him, “O my beloved Isaac, I have been sent to you from the presence of the living God to take you up to heaven to be with your father Abraham and all the saints. For your father Abraham is awaiting you; he himself is about to com e for you, but now he is resting. -There has been prepared for you the throne beside your father Abraham; likewise for your beloved son Jacob. And all of you shall be above every one else in the kingdom of heaven in the glory of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. You shall be entrusted with this name for all future generations: The Patriarchs. Thus you shall be fathers to all the world, O faithful elder, our father Isaac.” (P. 905)

And now to the quotes themselves:

“And after this there shall come forth twelve giants. Then will come Jesus the Messiah from your descendants out of a virgin named Mary. And God will become incarnate in him until the completion of a hundred years.” (3:17-19, p. 907)

Blessed is everyone who manifests mercy on the memorial day of the father of fathers, our father Abraham and our father Isaac, for each of them shall have a dwelling in the kingdom of heaven, because our Lord has made with them his true covenant forever. And he will keep it for them and for those who come after them, saying to them, “Whatever person has manifested mercy in the name of my beloved Isaac, behold I will give him to you in the kingdom of heaven and he shall be present with them at the first moment of the millennial banquet to celebrate with them in the everlasting light in the kingdom of our Master and our God and our King and our Savior, Jesus the Messiah. He is the one to whom are due the glory, the dignity, the majesty, the dominion, the reverence, the honor, the praise, and the adoration, along with the merciful Father and the Holy Spirit now and for all time, and to all eternity and forever and ever, amen!” (8:5-11, p. 911)

The foregoing shows that the Christians of the 2^nd-3^rd centuries (ca. 100-200 A.D.) were proclaiming that Jesus Christ is the Lord God Almighty that was born of the virgin Mary and who died and rose again on the third day. They further distinguished the Son from the Father and the Spirit, while affirming the Deity of all three Persons since they ascribe eternal dominion, honor, praise, glory etc., to all three members of the Godhead.

In other words, these Christian interpolations prove that true believers from the 2^nd-3^rd centuries were already confessing and worshiping the Trinity!

FURTHER READING

THE CHRISTOLOGY OF THE 12 PATRIARCHS

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