a. The Greek fragments
Later Greek authors who quote, or
allude to, As. Mos. shed light on the contents of the lost ending. Students of
As. Mos. have detailed many such passages from ecclesiastical literature, and
these have been conveniently arranged by A.-M. Denis in his Fragmenta
Pseudepigraphorum Graecorum of 1970. As will be shown below, however, there
are only four passages that derive with certainty from As. Mos., three of which
occur in Gelasius' Ecclesiastical History, one in the Epistle of Jude.
Gelasius Cyzicenus (t ca. 476),
whose quotation from As. Mos. 1:14 ensures the identification of our text as
the ‘Αναληψις Μωσεως (see
the Introduction, section V, a), includes two more quotations referring to a dispute
between the archangel Michael and the devil which come from what must have been
the end of As. Mos. Since a comparison of Gelasius' abundant quotations from
biblical books with the Septuagint text shows that they conform to the latter
with great accuracy, we can also assume that these two quotations from the
Assumption of Moses are trustworthy. They refer to a dispute between the
archangel Michael and the devil. Since Jude 9 contains a passage which
corresponds almost word for word to Gelasius' quotation concerning the quarrel
between Michael and the devil, it can safely be assumed that Jude 9, too, goes back
to the lost ending of As. Mos. The quotation from As. Mos. in the Epistle of
Jude enables us to deduce that the dispute concerned Moses' body.
. . .
The archangel's words quoted in Jude 9 are also
found in Zech. 3:2, again in the context of a discussion between Michael and
the devil. In a vision, the prophet sees the high priest Joshua standing before
the angel of the Lord and Satan standing at his right hand to oppose him (του αντικεισθαι αυτω 3:1). A mitre is set upon the high priest's
head, and he is clothed in radiant garments. He is furthermore ordered to walk
in the Lord's ways. Because Satan apparently objects to this, probably accusing
Joshua of sinful behaviour, the angel of the Lord says to him: ‘Επιτιμησαι κυριος εν σοι, διαβολε. I suspect that this scene from Zechariah's visions has taken on a
life of its own, and re-emerged, with a different application, in As. Mos.2 In
short, a tradition concerning someone called Joshua has been applied to Moses,
a comprehensible development in view of the common association of another
Joshua with Moses in the Old Testament. Jude 9 may then be accepted as a
quotation of As. Mos., not of Zech. 3:2. (Johannes Tromp, The
Assumption of Moses: A Critical Edition with Commentary [Studia in Veteris
Testamenti Pseudepigrapha; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1993], 271, 273, emphasis in
bold added)
