Chapter 4 of the Apocalypse of Zephaniah (c. 1st c. BC-AD 1st c.), reads thusly:
1 Then
I walked with the angel of the Lord. I looked before me and I saw a place
there. 2 [Thousands] of thousands and myriads of myriads of an[gels]
entered through [it]. 3 Their faces were like a leopar[d], their tusks
being outside their mouth [like] the wild boars. 4 Their eyes were mixed
with blood. Their hair was loose like the hair of women, and fiery scourges
were in their hands. 5 When I saw them, I was afraid. I said to that angel
who walked with me, “Of what sort are these?” 6 He said to me, “These are
the servants of all creation who come to the souls of ungodly men and bring
them and leave them in this place. 7 They spend three days going around
with them in the air before they bring them and cast them into their eternal
punishment.” 8 I said, “I beseech you, O Lord, don’t give them authority
to come to me.” 9 The angel said, “Don’t fea[r], I will not permit them to
come to [you] because you are pure before the Lord. I will not permit them to
come to you because the Lord Almighty sent me to you because ‹you› are pure
before him.” 10 Then he beckoned to them, and they withdrew themselves and
they ran from me. (OTP 1:511)
Chapter 6 of the same work reads:
1 Again
I turned back and walked, and I saw a great sea. 2 But I thought that it
was a sea of water. I discovered that it was entirely a sea of flame like a
slime which casts forth much flame and whose waves burn sulfur and bitumen.
3 They began to approach me. 4 Then I thought that the Lord Almighty had
come to visit me. 5 Then when I saw, I fell upon my face before him in
order that I might worship him. 6 I was very much afraid, and I entreated
him that he might save me from this distress. 7 I cried out, saying,
“Eloe, Lord, Adonai, Sabaoth, I beseech you to save me from this distress
because it has befallen me.” 8 That same instant I stood up, and I saw a
great angel before me. His hair was spread out like the lionesses’. His teeth
were outside his mouth like a bear. His hair was spread out like women’s. His
body was like the serpent’s when he wished to swallow me. 9 And when I
saw him, I was afraid of him so that all of my parts of my body were loosened
and I fell upon my face. 10 I was unable to stand, and I prayed before the
Lord Almighty, “You will save me from this distress. You are the one who saved
Israel from the hand of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. You saved Susanna from the
hand of the elders of injustice. You saved the three holy men, Shadrach, Meshach,
Abednego, from the furnace of burning fire. I beg you to save me from this
distress.” 11 Then I arose and stood, and I saw a great angel standing
before me with his face shining like the rays of the sun in its glory since his
face is like that which is perfected in its glory. 12 And he was girded as
if a golden girdle were upon his breast. His feet were like bronze which is
melted in a fire. 1 And when I saw him, I rejoiced, for I thought that the Lord
Almighty had come to visit me. 14 I fell upon my face, and I worshiped
him. 15 He said to me, “Take heed. Don’t worship me. I am not the Lord
Almighty, but I am the great angel, Eremiel, who is over the abyss and Hades,
the one in which all of the souls are imprisoned from the end of the Flood,
which came upon the earth, until this day.” 16 Then I inquired of the
angel, “What is the place to which I have come?” He said to me, “It is Hades.”
17 Then I asked him, “Who is the great angel who stands thus, whom I saw?”
He said, “This is the one who accuses men in the presence of the Lord.” (OTP
1:512-13)
Commenting on the demonology of this text, Robert
Charles Branden noted that
The canonical
book of Zechariah greatly influenced the Apocalypse of Zephaniah. The author of
the Apocalypse of Zephaniah portrays two classes of angels. One class is beastly
(4) and one is noble (6:11-15). With the accuser of Zech. 3:1-2 providing
the background, the role of the beastly angels is to accuse mankind and one is
singled out as the great angel and particularly beastly (6:1-10, 16-17).
This does not prove that the New Testament Satan is what is pictured in
Zechariah, but it does show how the adversary in Zech 3:1-2 began to be read
as referring to a particular angel who was particularly beastly. (Robert
Charles Branden, Satanic Conflict and the Plot of Matthew [Studies in
Biblical Literature 89; New York: Peter Lang, 2006], 23, emphasis added)
