Texts in Conversation
Philo’s On the Life of Moses describes contemplation sustaining Moses through forty days without food. The Apocalypse of Abraham echoes this account of Abraham’s fast, with the angel’s presence and speech taking the place of bread and water.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Philo, On the Life of Moses Book 2 1:14
Classical
And this last thing, indeed, he had despised for a long time, and almost from the first moment that he began to prophesy and to feel a divine inspiration, thinking that it was proper that he should at all times be ready to give his whole attention to the commands of God. And how he neglected all meat and drink for forty days together, evidently because he had more excellent food than that in those contemplations with which he was inspired from above from heaven, by which also he was improved in the first instance in his mind, and, secondly, in his body, through his soul, increasing in strength and health both of body and soul, so that those who saw him afterwards could not believe that he was the same person.
Date: 40 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
Apocalypse of Abraham 12:2
Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses
1 And we went, the two of us together, forty days and nights, 2 and I ate no bread, and drank no water, because my food was to see the angel who was with me, and his speech — that was my drink. 3 And we came to the Mount of God, the glorious Horeb. 4 And I said to the angel: "Singer of the Eternal One! Behold! I have no sacrifice with me, nor am I aware of a place of an altar on the mountain: how can I bring a sacrifice?" 5 And he said to me: "Look round!" 6 And I looked round, and behold! there were following us all the prescribed sacrificial (animals) — the young heifer, and the she-goat, and the ram, and the turtle-dove, and the pigeon.
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Notes and References
“... There is a close parallel
to our text in Philo, Life of Moses, Bk. III. 1, where it is said of Moses in the Mount: “he neglected all
meat and drink fo r forty days together, evidently because he had more excellent food than that in those
contemplations with which he was inspired from above from heaven. ...”
Box, G. H., with J. I. Landsman
The Apocalypse of Abraham
(p. PDF 32) Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1918
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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