Zephaniah, apocalypse of (Hastings' Dictionary)

A Jewish apocryphon, probably similar in contents to the Ascension of Isaiah. It is named in each of the two lists of OT apocrypha tliat have come down to us, viz. the Stichometry of Nicephorus, and an anonymous list found in Codex Coislinianus, and three other codices (Schiirer, i/'J/' II. iii. 125 tl'.) The only extract known is given by Clemens Alex, in his Stromatn, V. xi.

77, where, after quoting from Moses, Euripides, and Plato to the eti'eet that true worship does not require material temples, he says: 'Are not these (sayings) like tliose of Zephaniah the prophet? " And the spirit of tlie Lord took me and brought me up into the fifth heaven and showed me angels called lords . . dwelling in temples of salvation and singing praise to God, ineffable, most high."' The occu- pants of the fifth heaven are named also in Ascen- sion of Ixaiah, A?-"- ; Slav.

Enoch, 18' ; Testaments, Levi, iii. 3 ; Chagigah, 126. Fragments of a Christianized Coptic recension of the Apocabjpse of Zephaniah were discovered at Akhmim and published by S. Bouriant in Mim. de la mission archiol. au Caire, 1885. A Germ, translation by Stem appeared in the Ztschr. f. drjyp. Sprache, etc., 1886, p. 115 H'. ; and the same fragments, with additions, and along with a fairly comi)lete Coptic recension of the Apocalypse of Elias, have been edited by Steindorfi' in TU.

The question of how much belongs to the Apocalypxc of Zephaniah and how much ought to be assigned to an unidentified Apocalypse, is not yet settled (cf. James in Encyc. Bibl. i. 256). Literature. — Fabricius, Cod. pseudepigr. VT i. 1140 f. ; Dillm. in PRE'i xii. 360 ; Zockler, Apokr. d. AT 440; Schurer, GJV3 iiL 271 J. ; Harnack, Getch. d. attchrist. Litt. i. 854, ii. 1, 672 1 ; Bousset, Der Antichriit, 1895, pp. 54-67. J. T. Maeshall.