TESTAMENT OF ISAAC (1st - 4th century) Questions.

[rakovsky]

I agree that it's most fitting for the forum when a document or a question about it relates to the Coptic Church, as Dzheremi mentioned. I appreciate his and others conversations with me about these early writings here. One of the main questions that I have had when researching this document was about scholars' discussions on the commemoration of Isaac in the Coptic Church, so I'd like to ask about it below.

The main versions of The Testament of Isaac are in the Sahidic and Bohairic dialects of Coptic, although there are also Ethiopic and Arabic versions. M.Delcor suggests that it is early because of its affinity to the Dead Sea Scrolls and to the Testament of Abraham, whereas P.Nagel thinks that it dates to 400 AD. The Testaments of Abraham and Isaac are two early writings that narrate these three ancient Patriarchs' conversations with angels before their repose.
The Testament of Isaac is online here: https://ia902701.us.archive.org/16/items/TheTestamentOfIsaac/TheTestamentOfIsaac.pdf

(Question 1) Does the Coptic Church's commemoration of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob have special features or is it distinct from their commemoration in other Churches?

W. F. Stinespring writes in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (vol. 1, p. 904):

There are pronounced Christian elements in the Testament of Isaac as it now stands, and in its present form it has the function of emphasizing the state of the deaths of Abraham and Isaac as commemorated in the Coptic Church. Thus it would be possible to see the work as springing from the Coptic Christian Church.

When I read this sentence, I took the writer as saying that the Coptic Church and its Tradition have a special commemoration for Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and that their Testaments emphasize stories of their repose that are part of this commemoration. But maybe I read this incorrectly and he only meant that the Testaments emphasize the repose of the two Patriarchs, who are commemorated in the Coptic Church.

John Fadden connects T.Isaac to different aspects of Coptic Christian Tradition in his doctoral dissertation, "'Our Father Isaac': Reading the Sahidic Testamentof Isaac in an Egyptian Monastic Context". He writes:

In Apostolic Constitutions vi. 16, the author identifies a list of apocryphal books of Moses, Enoch, Adam, Isaiah, David, Elijah, and of the three patriarchs. The reference to the three patriarchs may refer to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.73 Scholars who treat thisas a reference note that in the non-Sahidic versions of T. Isaac, scribes often placed it in a collection with T. Ab.and Testament of Jacob (T. Jac.) called the Testaments of the Three Patriarchs(T. 3 Patr.). T. 3 Patr. is the only collection of books of Abraham,Isaac, and Jacob that is known from antiquity.

T. Isaac has a clear notion of monk ( MONAXOC ) as an identity. Monasticism emerges in the third and fourth century C . E .

digitalcommons.du.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1970&context=etd

Fadden has this to say about the connection between Isaac's Testament and his commemoration in the Church:

The Lord mentions the day of Isaac’s commemoration three times in the conversation between the Lord and Abraham (T. Isaac 6.8, 12, 15). In the epilogue, the narrator makes reference to the day of the patriarchs’ commemoration ( T. Isaac 8.6). These brief mentions reflect an awareness of a day of commemoration for Isaac that people are observing. The Coptic Church has a long history of celebrating the three patriarchs – Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – as a group on the 28th of Mesore (August 21). ... The feast is the result of local practice before it became a part of an orthodox calendar. In Upper Egypt, the celebration of martyrs and biblical figures is already active in the fourth century.
...
Elsewhere in T. Isaac, Isaac discusses earthly and heavenly worship with Jacob... Prophesying the period after Christ’s death and resurrection and the end of time, Isaac says:

• And the sacrifices of the Christians will not cease until the completion of the age, whether in secret or in open. And the Antichrist will not appear as long as they offer sacrifice. Blessed is every person who does this service and believes in it, since the archetype is done in the heavens, and they will celebrate with the Son of God in his kingdom. (T. Isaac 3.18-20)

...
The specifics of Christian sacrifices are not stated at this point [i.e. at the part cited above]; later, however, in T. Isaac 6, Isaac reports various sacrifices the Lord endorses to commemorate Isaac’s day... The types of sacrifices endorsed elsewhere in T. Isaac [I think Fadden means eg. works of mercy] are found elsewhere in early Christian monastic writings.[170]

FOOTNOTE 170
David Frankfurter has argued persuasively that the category of sacrifice is not meaningful in ancient Egyptian religion if sacrifice is narrowly conceived as related to animal slaughter. Thus, when considering how the textual community would have understood the Greek-loan word θυσια, it would not primarily be understood as animal sacrifice. D. Frankfurter. "Egyptian Religion and the Problem of theCategory "Sacrifice"," in Ancient Mediterranean Sacrifice (eds. Knust and Várhelyi; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 75-93.

I believe that the "sacrifices of the Christians" refers to the Eucharistic sacrifices, since it talks about Christ and the Eucharist right before discussing those sacirifices:

At the end of all this, he will choose twelve men and reveal to them his mysteries and teach them about the archetype of his body and his true blood by means of bread and wine: and the bread will become the body of God and the wine will become the blood of God. ... The generations to come will be saved by his body and by his blood until the end of time. The sacrifices of Christians will not cease until the end of time, whether offered secretly or openly; and the Antichrist will not appear so long as they offer up their sacrifice.
(T. Isaac, Chp. 4)

On the other hand, it later gives instructions on Old Testament sacrifices, so when it says that people who identify with Isaac (apparently referring to the Christians as the spiritual sons of Abraham and Isaac) should make sacrifices for him, it sounds like they are talking about the Old Testament type of animal sacrifices, although I suppose it could refer to donations or other non-bloody offerings. Here in Chapter 6, Isaac says:

My sons and brothers... Do not offer a sacrifice with a blemish in it; and wash yourself with water when you approach the altar. ... When you stand before God and offer your sacrifice. when you come to offer it on the altar, you should recite privately a hundred prayers to God and make this confession to God saying: ‘Oh God, the incomprehensible, the unfathomable... [etc.]'

And then in Chapter 10,

The Lord said to Abraham, ‘As for all those who are given the name of my beloved Isaac, let each one of them copy out his testament and honour it, and feed a poor man with bread in the name of my beloved Isaac on the day of his holy commemoration; to you will I grant them as sons in my kingdom’. ... But the most essential thing of all is that he should offer a sacrifice in my beloved Isaac's name, For his body was offered as a sacrifice.'Yet not only will I give you everyone called by my beloved Isaac's name as a son in my Kingdom; I will give you also everyone who does one of the things I have mentioned.

Fadden continues:

The epilogue is also concerned with the inheritors of the kingdom and practice (T. Isaac 8.5-8)... The emphasis is on performing acts of mercy in the name of Abraham and Isaac on the day of their commemoration. Those that do so will become the children of the patriarchs in the kingdom of heaven. ... After additional acts are suggested, the Lord endorses reading Isaac’s testament or listening to another person read his testament: “let him seek out a copy of his testament and read it on my beloved Isaac’s day. If he cannot read it, let him go and listen to others who can” (T. Isaac 6.15).
...
The reading of T. Isaac as part of a yearly commemoration suggests that reading could be an act of devotion in the liturgical setting, in a communal setting.(431)
Footnote 431
In Coptic, it is more common for public reading from a physical book, such as when the lector read inchurch was denoted by the verb ωϣ [pronounced like "Osh" in English phonetics]

(Question 2) How do you understand Abraham's "offering" or "sacrifice" of Isaac in the Testament of Isaac and in Coptic or other Orthodox Church references to it? These references are confusing for me.

Chapter 13 of the Testament of Isaac says:

This is the going forth from the body of our father Isaac, the patriarch, on the twenty-fourth of the month Mesore. And the day on which his father Abraham offered him as a sacrifice is the eighteenth of Mechir.(12 February) The heavens and the earth were full of the soothing odour of our father Isaac, like choice silver: this is the sacrifice of our father Isaac the patriarch. When Abraham offered him as a sacrifice to God, the soothing odour of Isaac's sacrifice went up into the heavens.

I have trouble understanding what "Isaac's sacrifice" was. I could take this passage to mean that Abraham "offered" Isaac in the sense that he presented, submitted, and tendered Isaac to God as a sacrifice, and that the smell of Isaac went up to God. Interesting issue though in that wind/breeze in Hebrew and Greek also means spirit (pneuma), and that in Russian perfume and spirit are overlapping words (dukh = spirit & wind; dukhi = spirits, winds, perfume). In the liturgy, we ask that our prayer rises like incense. So the rising of isaac's smell could resemble the concept of Isaac's spirit rising to God.

The entry for the commemoration of Isaac on 28 Masra in the Coptic Synaxarium (Coptic Orthodox Calendar) says:

As it was considered that Abraham had fulfilled the sacrifice of his son by intention, it was also considered that Isaac was sacrificed by intention.

The Commemoration of the Patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob - 28 Misra - Masra Month - Coptic Synaxarium | St-Takla.org

What do you think about this?
I can see that Abraham intended to fulfill God's orders to sacrifice Isaac. But God intervened so that this intention was not successful. I don't know if one can rationally speak of unaccomplished actions being accomplished by intention but not in reality. Are there examples of this concept in common speech or literature that I am missing? I don't mean to pick on the Coptic Church here - maybe it talks this way in the Bible or in other Orthodox writings?

 

[Coptic Cross]

I was searching google and came across this topic, i skimmed through your topic fast and i don't mind helping!!

What do you think about this?
I can see that Abraham intended to fulfill God's orders to sacrifice Isaac. But God intervened so that this intention was not successful. I don't know if one can rationally speak of unaccomplished actions being accomplished by intention but not in reality. Are there examples of this concept in common speech or literature that I am missing? I don't mean to pick on the Coptic Church here - maybe it talks this way in the Bible or in other Orthodox writings?

You are not picking on Coptic, you want to understand

The story behind Abraham sacrificing his son, the intend of it was the future prophecy of the coming of Jesus Christ, that the son of God would be sacrificed for human and their sin. That is why God intervened and Isaac was not sacrificed.

Watch the movie of Jesus Christ

Whenever you're lost or need answers, look up the commentary

orthodoxebooks.org

|

 

[dzheremi]

As again, we do not have this document in circulation in our Church, some of these questions aren't really answerable. You are once again proceeding as though because you found this book which says that the document can be read in such and such a context, therefore it is. Maybe it was at one point, but if you go back far enough the same would be true about virtually everything that was not openly gnostic, which is why there are also often Greek, Slavonic, and other versions of many works which nevertheless have no status in those churches, either.

Interesting issue though in that wind/breeze in Hebrew and Greek also means spirit (pneuma), and that in Russian perfume and spirit are overlapping words (dukh = spirit & wind; dukhi = spirits, winds, perfume). In the liturgy, we ask that our prayer rises like incense. So the rising of isaac's smell could resemble the concept of Isaac's spirit rising to God.

It is the same in ours. And even the language is almost the same, as Arabic نفس can mean 'soul' or 'wind'.

I can see that Abraham intended to fulfill God's orders to sacrifice Isaac. But God intervened so that this intention was not successful. I don't know if one can rationally speak of unaccomplished actions being accomplished by intention but not in reality. Are there examples of this concept in common speech or literature that I am missing? I don't mean to pick on the Coptic Church here - maybe it talks this way in the Bible or in other Orthodox writings?

Or the simplest explanation is probably sufficient: he intended to sacrifice him in accordance with how he understood God's will, so although the sacrifice did not happen because God stopped it, we could still say his intention to follow God's will was completed through his willingness to do so.

It is sort of like the judgment of Solomon in 1 Kings 3:16-28, when king Solomon judges between the two women by proposing that the baby they are fighting over be cut in half. That is giving an order, of sorts, which under normal circumstances it would be understandable to expect to be carried out as it came from the king, but of course the point was not "hey, let's cut a baby in half because we can" or whatever, but to get at the underlying feelings of the woman who was truly the baby's mother, so that the king could properly decide in the case. A surface reading would say "King Solomon's will was not accomplished, because he ordered that the baby be cut in half, and yet that didn't happen", but his true will was not to kill the baby at all, but to find out what was in the hearts of the women. God of course is much higher than any earthly king, so it is not a perfect analogy, but hopefully you can see the parallel.

 

[rakovsky]

I appreciate both of your replies, Coptic Cross and Dzheremi. That's a good point, Coptic Cross, about how the potential sacrifice of Isaac was a foreshadowing of Christ's death. That's an interesting issue, Dzheremi, where Solomon ordered the baby to be killed, but his intention was not for it to be killed, and that one could analogize this to God's orders and intention regarding Isaac. I will think about this some more. It's also neat and helpful that you know Arabic.

What I especially find appealing in Orthodoxy is how it is organically and ecclesiastically connected through the centuries back down to the early Church of the first few centuries AD, as well as its writings, beliefs, traditions, and saints. So for example in another thread on abortion you referenced the Didache (1st century) and I quoted St. Clement of Alexandria where he cited the Apocalypse of Peter in his own argument against abortion. I don't mean that the Apocalypse of Peter or other nonBiblical writings are binding on the Coptic Church, but rather that they are an authority for understanding helpful ways of looking at the early writings, and for understanding the early Church.

Let me add here a few notes about the Testament of Jacob (it's maybe a sequel to the Testament of Isaac) and its relevance, in case someone finds it interesting. EP Sanders writes in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: Apocalyptic Literature and Testaments that the Testaments of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob "were for some centuries immensely popular in Christianity , as may be seen from their wide distribution".

H. Sparks writes about the Testament of Jacob that no copy of it exists in Greek or Sahidic, only in Bohairic. He suggests that this means that the Testaments of Abraham and Isaac were written first, and then Testament of Jacob was written third. but he adds that this could be just a coincidence and that there was a lost Greek and Sahidic original for the Testament of Jacob. The way that the document references the "commemoration" for the Patriarchs and ties it to the 28th of the Coptic month of Mesore makes it look like an originally Coptic Church text. The opening says:

This again is the going forth from the body of our father Jacob the patriarch,
who is called Israel, on the twenty-eighth of the month Mesore ( 21 August ), in the peace of God. Amen.

Then an angel tells Jacob in Chapter 3, "Blessed is the man who commemorates you on your honoured festival."
It sounds to me like it presents itself as written by a Coptic priest or monastic named Athanasius, since he calls himself the readers' "father" in Chapter 11:

Behold now, we have told you these things as best we could in order to instruct you about the going forth from the body of our father the patriarch Jacob Israel. It is written in the divinely inspired scriptures and the ancient books of our fathers the apostles, even I, Athanasius your father.

And then Chapter 13 says:

We commemorate the saints, our fathers the patriarchs, at this very time every year; our father Abraham the patriarch on the twenty-eighth of Mesore, also our father Isaac the patriarch on the twenty-eighth of Mesore, and again our father Jacob on the twenty-eighth of this same month Mesore, as we have found it written in the ancient books of our holy fathers who were pleasing unto God.

 

[rakovsky]

Dzheremi,
I appreciate your thoughtful replies.
For Question 1 ("Does the Coptic Church's commemoration of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob have special features?"), isn't the answer "No", because you mentioned that this ancient book giving commemoration instructions doesn't have any status in the Coptic Church, and the only other thing that I found related to their commemoration on 28 Masra was the Coptic Synaxarium's description of the three patriarchs?
("The Commemoration of the Patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob", The Commemoration of the Patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob - 28 Misra - Masra Month - Coptic Synaxarium | St-Takla.org)

For Question 2 (How do you understand Abraham's "offering" or "sacrifice" of Isaac in the Testament of Isaac and in Coptic or other Orthodox Church references to it?), Abraham's offering of Isaac was that he submitted Isaac for a sacrifice and prepared to follow through. In the Testament of Isaac, "the sacrifice of our father Isaac the patriarch" is said to be that the heavens and the earth were full of the soothing odour of our father Isaac, like choice silver".

When the Synaxarium says that "Abraham had fulfilled the sacrifice of his son by intention", it refers to God's request that Abraham sacrifice Isaac, which Abraham intended to carry out, and for which God and Abraham substituted a ram. Ways to describe this in terms of Isaac's "sacrifice" include his sacrifice "by intention", "metaphorically", "by substitution". The Testament seems to imply that Isaac's sacrifice was "spiritual", because it says that the sacrifice was that his "odor" rose to heaven, and spirit and wind/breeze are synonyms in languages like Hebrew and Arabic (as you pointed out, Dzheremi).

 

[rakovsky]

Regarding Question #1 (Whether there is a special commemoration for the three Patriarchs), the abstract for the article "Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in Paradise in Coptic Wall Painting" by Gertrud J.M. van Loon says: "In Egypt, the three patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob can be frequently found in liturgical texts from an early date onwards."
(Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in Paradise in Coptic Wall Painting)

G. Van Loon's article notes that in the Coptic Liturgy of St Basil, there is a prayer for the deceased asking that they be granted a place of rest in the bosom of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
According to Martin O'Kane's essay "The Bosom of Abraham", this is reflected in prayers on 8th-9th century Coptic gravestones saying "May God repose his soul in the bosom of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob."

This is a fresco from the 5th century in the Church of the Virgin in the Coptic monastery Dair al-Suryan (Monastery of the Syrians).

It depicts the three Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob receiving the souls of the departed in their bosoms in paradise; the souls, who are male and females, as one can tell from their hair, are represented sexlessly naked. Each Patriarch holds a grape with two fingers (the thumb and index) of the right hand and cradles the reposed soul in the left arm – the Patriarchs offering the grape to the souls who extend the full length of their right arm to take it and refresh themselves.

SOURCE: COPTIC PARADISE

 

[dzheremi]

I guess I haven't been keeping up with this thread, as I don't remember seeing previously the question about the commemoration of the Patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It is true what you have posted about their mention in the Coptic liturgy and on Coptic gravestones, Rakovsky. In fact, prayer in exactly that form as is found on the gravestones is still part of every Coptic funerary rite, as I understand it. I have never been to a Coptic funeral myself, but I do know that the prayers there contain exactly that formula, as you can see here in the prayers for the Martyrs of El Qiddiseen (the Church of the Saints) in Alexandria in 2011, prayed by Fr. Tadros Yaqoub in the video below beginning at 0:58. (The actual phrase is at ~ 2:27, though the translation here is not the best; the relevant verb here, "yatakiun", from ataka' اتكأ, can mean both "lean" or "recline", though "recline" or "rest" sounds much better and more natural in this context, and I've actually never seen a translation other than here that uses "lean"; I'm fairly sure our liturgical translations use "rest".)

As it was in the early centuries, it still is today.

 

[rakovsky]

Good illustration Is there a special commemoration for them on 28 of Mesora, as the article in the OP says:

These brief mentions reflect an awareness of a day of commemoration for Isaac that people are observing. The Coptic Church has a long history of celebrating the three patriarchs – Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – as a group on the 28th of Mesore (August 21). ... The feast is the result of local practice before it became a part of an orthodox calendar. In Upper Egypt, the celebration of martyrs and biblical figures is already active in the fourth century.

 

[Joy]

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