vienna

[Here is a break: the text goes on: For I am ⟨ the Son ⟩ of the high and powerful: I am the Father of all. ( al. And know ye: I am the Father most high: I am the Father of all spirits.) This, as we shall see, is the beginning of the older(?) and shorter, text, and of the Vienna fragment: only, in the latter, some words now unintelligible precede it: not the words, however, which are in Wilhelm's text. I will continue with Wilhelm.]

Hear thou, O Thomas, for I am the Son of God the Father, and I am the father of all spirits. Hear thou of me the signs which shall come to pass at the end of this world, when the end of the world shall be fulfilled ( Vienna : that it pass away) before mine elect depart out of the world. I will tell thee that which shall come to pass openly unto men ( or , will tell thee openly, &c.): but when these things shall be the princes of the angels know not, seeing it is now hidden from before them ( Vienna adds : at what day the end shall be fulfilled, and some defective clauses ).

Hear thou, O Thomas, for I am the Son of God the Father, and I am the father of all spirits. Hear thou of me the signs which shall come to pass at the end of this world, when the end of the world shall be fulfilled ( Vienna : that it pass away) before mine elect depart out of the world. I will tell thee that which shall come to pass openly unto men ( or , will tell thee openly, &c.): but when these things shall be the princes of the angels know not, seeing it is now hidden from before them ( Vienna adds : at what day the end shall be fulfilled, and some defective clauses ).

Then shall there be in the world sharings (participations) between king and king, and in all the earth shall be great famine, great pestilences, and many distresses, and the sons of men shall be led captive among all nations and shall fall by the edge of the sword (and there shall be great commotion in the world: Vienna omits ). Then after that when the hour of the end draweth nigh, there shall be for seven days great signs in heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be moved.

Then shall there be on the first day the beginning: at the third hour of the day a great and mighty voice in the firmament of heaven and a bloody cloud coming up (down, Vienna ) out of the north, and great thunderings and mighty lightnings shall follow it, and it shall cover the whole heaven, and there shall be a rain of blood upon all the earth. These are the signs of the first day.

And on the second day there shall be a great voice in the firmament of heaven, and the earth shall be moved out of its place, and the gates of heaven shall be opened in the firmament of heaven toward the east, and the (smoke of a great fire shall break forth through the gates of heaven and shall cover all the heaven until evening. In that day there shall be fears and great terrors in the world. These are the signs of the second day. Vienna is defective here ).

But on the third day about the third hour shall be a great voice in heaven, and the abysses of the earth ( Vienna ends ) shall roar from the four corners of the world; the pinnacles ( so ) of the firmament of heaven shall be opened, and all the air shall be filled with pillars of smoke. There shall be a stench of brimstone, very evil, until the tenth hour, and men shall say: We think the time draweth nigh that we perish. These are the signs of the third day.

Bihlmeyer's text has only the latter element, and as it agrees pretty closely with our oldest authority, the Vienna fragment (though in that, as I have said, something did precede Bihlmeyer's opening), I judge it to be the older of the two forms. The first part of Wilhelm's text with its clumsy indication of Arcadius and Honorius by means of their initials is much in the manner of the later Sibyllines, in which this particular trick is pushed to an absurd length, and used for quite imaginary personages as well as historic ones. In the second part Wilhelm's text departs widely from the Vienna fragment, and here again shows itself as probably inferior.

Bihlmeyer's text has only the latter element, and as it agrees pretty closely with our oldest authority, the Vienna fragment (though in that, as I have said, something did precede Bihlmeyer's opening), I judge it to be the older of the two forms. The first part of Wilhelm's text with its clumsy indication of Arcadius and Honorius by means of their initials is much in the manner of the later Sibyllines, in which this particular trick is pushed to an absurd length, and used for quite imaginary personages as well as historic ones. In the second part Wilhelm's text departs widely from the Vienna fragment, and here again shows itself as probably inferior.