The Jewish Quarterly Review. conception (if not the Hindoo (Brahmin) one given in Boo k XIV., of the Pre-Buddhistic Epic Mahabharata) is the original and the Christian is a copy. But between these stand the Jewish Essenes. They certainly wrote the Sibylline books, and of these the second book, verses 260-270, has an indisputable Jewish character. They are the prophetical warning to the idolatrous heathen, the pederasts, adulterers, and usurers ! There is the original “gnashing of the teeth ” of those in Gehenna, Sibyll. Book VIII . 350 ; I I . 306, “ the fire” and “ the worms,” and the “ wailing ” of Matt. xii i . 42 and 50, which expression goes back to Judith xvi. 17. Consequently, when a tradition in the name of R. [Joshua ben] Levi, in Shir Hashirim Rabba to v. 15, and Vayikra Rabb. § 25, says that as those that live in concubinage with their servants are “ hung up by their heads in Gehenna”— exactl y as the adulterers are hung up by their heads i n the Peter Apocalypse—and the Rabbinical saying is based on Psalm lxviii . 22, while the Midrash and Targ. Jonath . show the entire Psalm applied to the Two Roads of Life and Death Eternal, Heaven and Hell !—we see at once that the Christian Apocalypse offers only borrowed views and traditions. I n fact, we possess a remarkable visio n of an Essene, דיסח, of the time of Simon ben Shetach, a century before the rise of Christianity, according to which the departed Essene brother enjoys, under the shade of the trees of Paradise, the bliss of the streams of life, while the son of a publican nearly suffers the agonies of Tantalus, standing in the midst of water, yet unable to quench his thirst (compare Visio Pauli, by Brandes, page 28, and St. Perpetua VII.) and a saintly woman, Miriam, the daughter of Eli (the high priest), is at times hedged in under the reeds [of the Styx river] or hung up by her breasts, because her fasts had often the air of hypocrisy (see Jerush. Hagiga II. 1). Compare also the thirteen streams of Balsam which R. Ahbahu saw flowing for him to drink from in Paradise

DOI link for The Jewish Quarterly Review. conception (if not the Hindoo (Brahmin) one given in Boo k XIV., of the Pre-Buddhistic Epic Mahabharata) is the original and the Christian is a copy. But between these stand the Jewish Essenes. They certainly wrote the Sibylline books, and of these the second book, verses 260-270, has an indisputable Jewish character. They are the prophetical warning to the idolatrous heathen, the pederasts, adulterers, and usurers ! There is the original “gnashing of the teeth ” of those in Gehenna, Sibyll. Book VIII . 350 ; I I . 306, “ the fire” and “ the worms,” and the “ wailing ” of Matt. xii i . 42 and 50, which expression goes back to Judith xvi. 17. Consequently, when a tradition in the name of R. [Joshua ben] Levi, in Shir Hashirim Rabba to v. 15, and Vayikra Rabb. § 25, says that as those that live in concubinage with their servants are “ hung up by their heads in Gehenna”— exactl y as the adulterers are hung up by their heads i n the Peter Apocalypse—and the Rabbinical saying is based on Psalm lxviii . 22, while the Midrash and Targ. Jonath . show the entire Psalm applied to the Two Roads of Life and Death Eternal, Heaven and Hell !—we see at once that the Christian Apocalypse offers only borrowed views and traditions. I n fact, we possess a remarkable visio n of an Essene, דיסח, of the time of Simon ben Shetach, a century before the rise of Christianity, according to which the departed Essene brother enjoys, under the shade of the trees of Paradise, the bliss of the streams of life, while the son of a publican nearly suffers the agonies of Tantalus, standing in the midst of water, yet unable to quench his thirst (compare Visio Pauli, by Brandes, page 28, and St. Perpetua VII.) and a saintly woman, Miriam, the daughter of Eli (the high priest), is at times hedged in under the reeds [of the Styx river] or hung up by her breasts, because her fasts had often the air of hypocrisy (see Jerush. Hagiga II. 1). Compare also the thirteen streams of Balsam which R. Ahbahu saw flowing for him to drink from in Paradise

The Jewish Quarterly Review. conception (if not the Hindoo (Brahmin) one given in Boo k XIV., of the Pre-Buddhistic Epic Mahabharata) is the original and the Christian is a copy. But between these stand the Jewish Essenes. They certainly wrote the Sibylline books, and of these the second book, verses 260-270, has an indisputable Jewish character. They are the prophetical warning to the idolatrous heathen, the pederasts, adulterers, and usurers ! There is the original “gnashing of the teeth ” of those in Gehenna, Sibyll. Book VIII . 350 ; I I . 306, “ the fire” and “ the worms,” and the “ wailing ” of Matt. xii i . 42 and 50, which expression goes back to Judith xvi. 17. Consequently, when a tradition in the name of R. [Joshua ben] Levi, in Shir Hashirim Rabba to v. 15, and Vayikra Rabb. § 25, says that as those that live in concubinage with their servants are “ hung up by their heads in Gehenna”— exactl y as the adulterers are hung up by their heads i n the Peter Apocalypse—and the Rabbinical saying is based on Psalm lxviii . 22, while the Midrash and Targ. Jonath . show the entire Psalm applied to the Two Roads of Life and Death Eternal, Heaven and Hell !—we see at once that the Christian Apocalypse offers only borrowed views and traditions. I n fact, we possess a remarkable visio n of an Essene, דיסח, of the time of Simon ben Shetach, a century before the rise of Christianity, according to which the departed Essene brother enjoys, under the shade of the trees of Paradise, the bliss of the streams of life, while the son of a publican nearly suffers the agonies of Tantalus, standing in the midst of water, yet unable to quench his thirst (compare Visio Pauli, by Brandes, page 28, and St. Perpetua VII.) and a saintly woman, Miriam, the daughter of Eli (the high priest), is at times hedged in under the reeds [of the Styx river] or hung up by her breasts, because her fasts had often the air of hypocrisy (see Jerush. Hagiga II. 1). Compare also the thirteen streams of Balsam which R. Ahbahu saw flowing for him to drink from in Paradise