Perrow—The Last Will and Testament in Literature. 693 
mg and exhortation to those who are to com© in later times. 
There was also a tradition among eastern peoples that Adam, 
finding himself about to die, called his sons about him and made 
his testament. According to the report of an Arab writer, 
Elamcin (died 1273), Adam advised his sons not to descend 
from Mount Horeb but to remain there and keep unmixed with 
the race of Cain. If they should find it necessary to depart 
from Horeb, they were to take with them Adam’s body and bury 
it at the center of the earth (Jerusalem). 1 
The Testament of Abraham, found both in Greek and Arabic 
versions, together with The Testament of Isaac and The Testa¬ 
ment of Jacob which are found only in the Arabic, may be 
classed as moral testaments. 2 They have in the process of time 
suffered much mutilation and confusion, but it is easy to see 
that the main purpose of these documents is to convey moral in¬ 
struction. 
The Testament of Abraham is thought to have been put to¬ 
gether during the second century by a Jewish Christian using 
a Jewish legend. The main body of the work has little to do 
with testation, being an account of an apocalypse shown to 
Abraham just before his death. But the fact that it is called a 
Testament shows the tendency to apply this term to apocryphal 
accounts of Bible characters. 3 In the companion pieces, The 
Testament of Jacoh, and The Testament of Isaac, the moral ele¬ 
ment is very prominent. The Testament of Jacob follows first 
the account given in Genesis, then an apocalypse is introduced, 
and this is followed by a long moral exhortation. The Testa- 
1 See Dictionnaire des Apocryphes, ed. L’Abbe Migne, Paris, 1858, 
II, 42: Migne cites Fabricius, Cod. Apoc. Vet. Test., I, 35; and tbe 
Universal History of Eutychius (died 940 A. D.) in the Latin version 
published by Pococke in 1658. 
2 M. R. James, Texts and Studies, Cambridge, 1892, vol. II no. 2, 
pp. 55, 140, and 152. James mentions also a Testament of Moses, a 
Testament of Hezekiah and a Testament of Our Lord (Texts and Stu¬ 
dies, V, no. 1.). E. H. Palmer, Journal of Philol. Ill, 223, speaks of a 
“Testamentary address of our Lord to his diciples on the Mount of 
Olives before his ascension * * * In this after a series of precepts 
repeated from the Gospels, Our Savior is made to predict the future 
of His church and the fate of His diciples.” Prof. Palmer points out, 
also, that besides in Jewish writings the moral Testament flourished 
as well in non-Jewish literatures of the East. 
• See page 441. 
