how dangerous some particular sin, may be.
Thus, there is a book called The Testaments (or Last Words) of the
Twelve Patriarchs, in which each of the twelve sons of Jacob, when he
comes to die, calls his children to him and tells them about his own
life, and warns them against his own besetting sin, or shows how he
has been helped by practising some good habit: Simeon speaks about
envy, Issachar about simplicity, Zebulun about kindness, and so on.
And many others there are which are merely, one would say, meant to
tell us more about the lives and deaths of the great men of the old
times than we can learn from the Bible.

Perhaps I have now said enough to show of what sort the tales are
that are told in this book--some of them told for the first time in
English. They are not true, but they are very old; some of them, I
think, are beautiful, and all of them seem to me interesting. In case
anyone should wish to know more about them, I will put down here the
names of the books from which I have taken them.

The first part of the story of Adam is shortened from Mr. S. G.
Malan's translation of The Book of Adam and Eve, and from Dillmann's
German translation of the same (Das christliche Adambuch des
Morgenlandes). The second part is from the Greek Revelation of Moses
(in Tischendorf's Apocalypses Apocryphae), and from the Latin Life of
Adam, edited by W. Meyer.

The first part of the story of Abraham is from The Apocalypse of
Abraham, translated from Slavonic by Professor N. Bonwetsch; the
second part is from The Testament of Abraham, edited by me in Texts
and Studies.

The story of Aseneth is from the Greek History of Aseneth, edited by
Batiffol in Studia Patristica.

The story of Job is taken from The Testament of Job in my Apocrypha
Anecdota (ii).

That of Solomon is from The Testament of Solomon as printed by Migne
at the end of the works of Michael Psellus.

That of Baruch from The Rest of the Words of Baruch, edited by Dr. J.
Rendel Harris.

That of Ahikar principally from the French edition by the Abbe F.
Nau, with some few touches borrowed from that by Dr. J. Rendel
Harris.

One last word. Not all of the stories in this book are equally old.
The oldest is most likely that of Ahikar. Lately some pieces of it
have been discovered in Egypt in a very ancient copy. Next, probably,
comes the second part of the story of Adam. In each of the others
there are some parts which are derived from early Jewish tales,