1. Influence of Eschatology
circles and was brought into
conneotion
with the general historical inter-
ests of the time, resulting in the pro
duction of apocalyptic writings. The
newly won and often quite modern conceptions
were
put in the mouth
of some seer or sage of primitive
times, Enoch, Abraham, Moses, Elias, Ezra,
Baruch, or Solomon. Whether this was understood
by contemporaries as being only a disguise, or
whether it was taken in earnest, the trivial origin
and character of these apocalyptic books, as com
pared with those of former times, was well under
stood in the higher circles of Judaism, and the
pseudepigrapha were not read in the synagogue.
Nevertheless, in a more private way they were
widely circulated, and exercised a potent influence
upon the religious conceptions of the people and
upon their hopes. These aspirations regarding the
future were even placed in the mouths of the heathen
Sibyls by Hellenistic Jews. The mystic tendencies
of Greek civilization were appealed to by Jews who
were in touch with the Greeks, and they presented
these mysterious prophetesses, in whom the old
heathen oracles were personified, as the bearers of
Jewish ideas, above all of the belief in one God in
contrast with idolatry. This was done in such a
way, however, that the general history of the peoples
as well as heathen mythology, which was treated in
a euhemeristic manner, were freely interwoven with
these sayings. The
Sibylline Books (q.v.) arose in
this way, and their beginnings should be placed not
long after the time of the Maccabees. Of the collection
of Sibylline Books extant, the larger part of
book iii. comes from the period of Ptolemy VII.
Physkon (145-117), probably from the time after
140
B.C.
In this writing, the history of the world is
passed in review from the building of the tower of
Babel until the period of the author; then the end
of the world is predicted as imminent, coming to
pass through the manifestation of the God of Israel
and of his Messiah (verse 652 sqq.; " Then will God
send a king from where the sun rises " in agreement
with the passage
Isa. xli. 25,
which was used in a
Messianic sense) who will make an end of wicked
war over the whole earth, by
killing some and ma
king binding treaties with the others" (cf.
Isa. xi. 4
with ii. 2 sqq.), etc.
The eschatological hope was, however, even more
frequently and exhaustively treated in an esoteric
form, as is shown above all in the Book of Enoch
(see
Pseudepigrapha
