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Apocalypse of Abraham

About this book

The Journey to Horeb

Chapter 12

1 And we went, the two of us together, for 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 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! Look, I have no sacrifice with me, and I do not know of a place for an altar on the mountain: how can I bring a sacrifice?" 5 And he said to me: "Look behind you!" 6 And I looked behind me, and saw all the prescribed sacrificial (animals) following us: the young heifer, and the female goat, and the ram, and the turtledove, and the pigeon. 7 And the angel said to me: "Abraham!" I said: "Here I am." 8 And he said to me: "Slaughter all these, and divide the animals in half, placing the halves opposite each other, but do not cut the birds apart;⁠ 9 and ("but") give the halves to the men I will show you standing beside you, for these are the altar on the Mountain, to offer a sacrifice to the Eternal; 10 but give the turtledove and the pigeon to me, for I will go up on the wings of the birds, to show you what is in heaven, and on the earth, and in the sea, and in the abyss, and in the underworld, and in the Garden of Eden, and in its rivers and in the fullness of the whole world and its circle; you will see everything in (them)."

Texts in conversation

Compare Philo, On the Life of Moses Book 2 1:14 and Apocalypse of Abraham 12:2

Classical · Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses

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Summary

Philo’s On the Life of Moses describes Moses’ forty days without food as a time when heavenly contemplation sustained him. In the Apocalypse of Abraham, the angel’s presence and speech sustain Abraham in the same way, instead of bread and water.

Passages

Philo, On the Life of Moses Book 2 1:14

Classical
He had indeed despised this last thing for a long time, and almost from the first moment that he began to prophesy and to feel a divine inspiration, thinking it proper to be ready at all times to give his whole attention to the commands of God. And he neglected all food and drink for forty days on end, evidently because he had better food than that in the contemplations with which he was inspired from above from heaven, which also improved him first 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.

Apocalypse of Abraham 12:2

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses
1 And we went, the two of us together, for 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 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! Look, I have no sacrifice with me, and I do not know of a place for an altar on the mountain: how can I bring a sacrifice?" 5 And he said to me: "Look behind you!" 6 And I looked behind me, and saw all the prescribed sacrificial (animals) following us: the young heifer, and the female goat, and the ram, and the turtledove, and the pigeon.
70–150 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in the Apocalypse of Abraham

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. ...”
G. H. Box with J. I. Landsman, The Apocalypse of Abraham (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1918), PDF 32.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Philo, On the Life of Moses Book 2 1:14 and Apocalypse of Abraham 12:2

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