The interplay between spiritual evil and physical monstrosity plays a large role in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs. The Testaments are structured around the understanding of a human spirit, the mind, which stands between good and evil spirits, and in general it is the mind that forms the focus of the text’s exhortation. The evil spirits influence the mind, causing a person to think unrighteous thoughts and ultimately commit unrighteous acts. The role of the mind, however, is so large that it even plays a dominant role in the physical appearance of a person. In this article, I examine three distinct cases where someone’s ethical and spiritual evil results in physical monstrosity. First, we see that when someone’s mind follows the temptations of an evil spirit, they become disabled. Second, we see that an evil spirit has the power to poison someone’s own neutral spirit, which ultimately leads the poisoned person to manifest themselves in a monstrous way. Finally, women bear monstrous giants as a direct result of their mental lust for the angelic Watchers. These three cases show the close relationship between external appearance and internal demeanor in the Testaments. Thus, humankind functions as a means through which the invisible monstrous manifests itself in the visible world. This realization helps clarify some early Christian understandings of humankind’s natural and monstrous states, as well as their ideas about ethics and social conduct, the nature of evil, and how the manifestation of evil in the physical world is influenced.

精神邪恶与肉体怪物的相互作用在“十二个族长的遗嘱”中扮演着重要的角色。在旧约它们围绕对人类精神的理解而构建，这种思想介于善与恶之间，一般而言，思想是文本劝诫的重点。邪灵影响思想，使一个人思考不正当的思想并最终犯下不正当的行为。然而，思想的作用是如此之大，以至于它甚至在人的外表上起主导作用。在本文中，我研究了三种不同的情况，即某人的道德和精神邪恶导致人身伤害。首先，我们看到，当某人的思想跟随邪灵的诱惑时，他们就会变得残废。其次，我们看到恶魔具有毒害某人自身中立精神的能力，最终使该中毒者以一种怪异的方式表现出来。最后，女人们拥有巨大的巨人，这是其对天使般守望者的情欲的直接结果。这3种情况表明了外观和内部举止之间的密切关系。遗嘱。因此，人类作为一种手段，使无形的怪物在可见的世界中显现出来。这种认识有助于澄清早期基督教徒对人类自然和可怕状态的理解，以及他们对道德和社会行为，邪恶的本质以及邪恶如何影响物质世界的体现的观念。