The Book of Enoch-pages

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Page 36 of 129
The Book of Enoch-pages

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Cuap. 6. With this chapter the book proper begins, and in the recital of the fall of the angels, with other attending circumstances, gives to chap.16 the historical basis of the whole. This is based on the author’s interpretation of Gen. vi. 1 sqq., and is the same as is found in Josephus Antiqq. I. 3, 1, and in Philo, De Gig. 1, 2—Sons of heaven, being an imitation of the appellation sons of God applied to angels Job I. 6; ii. 1; xxviii. 7; Ps. xxix. 1; Ixxxix. 7 (cf. Heb. text), is common to both portions of this book and to the Parables; cf. 13:8; 14:3; 39:1, and is explained by the author himself, 15:1-7. Lust is throughout the whole book represented as the great sin of the angels, 9:8; 10:11; 12:4; 15:3; and this union with the daughters of men became a fruitful source of speculation for later Jewish writers. Cf. Langen, p. 321.—3. Semjaza;_cf. below —4. The belief that such an oath would prove true seems not to have been unpopular among the Hebrews, as is testified by the implicit faith put in the bitter water in case a man suspected the chastity of his wife; cf. Num. v. 18 and Josephus, Antiqq. iii. 11, 6—5. The number two hundred is repeated verse 8. Origen, Contra Celsum, remarks that Celsus had heard that about sixty or seventy angels had descended and become wicked. Syncellus also gives the number as two hundred.—6. Ardis is acorrupt reading, and probably contracted from the GTR of Syncellus; the translator omitting the words GTR; for the Greek has GTR. Fama always placed the fall of the angels in the time of Jared. The book of the Jubilees (chap. 4, ed. Dillmann, p. 17) remarks that Jared was so called because in his days the angels descended (HTR, to descend) on the earth; and Origen (Comm. in Joan. tom. viii. p. 132, ed Hurt.) mentions an explanation of the word Jordan as the descenaing, by bringing it in connection with the name Jared, and adds: GTR..... GTR. Epiphanius (adv. Haer. I. 4, ed. Petav. tom. I. p. 4) puts the origin of magic in the days of Jared. Hermon here taken from HTR or HTR. Hilarius (Comm. in Ps. cxxxiii. 3) remarks: Hermon mons est in Phoenice cujus interpretatio anathema est: quod enim nobis anathema nuncupatur, id hebraice Hermon dicitur. Fertur autem id, de quo etiam nescio cujus liber extat, quod angeli concupiscentes filias hominum, cum de caelo descenderunt, in hunc montem maxime convenirent excelsum. This liber is undoubtedly the Book of Enoch; cf. Jerome on Ps. cxxxiii. 3. This passage proves that the original was written in one of the Semitic languages.—7. This verse mentions eighteen leaders; the Gr. has twenty; and 69:2 sqq. has twenty-one; and the difference in the names in these three lists is considerable. The disharmony between 6:7 and 69 can easily be explained by the fact that these lists were furnished by different authors, for 69 is a portion of the Noachic fragments; and in so uncertain a subject as the names of these angels, which had to be drawn from imagination alone, this lack of agreement is natural and of little moment. The departure of the Ethiopic text from that of Syncellus is probably owing to a gradual corruption of the Ethiopic. Dillmann’s unnecessary attempt to harmonize these three lists is more ingenious than successful. Cf. his Notes, p. 93 sqq. CuapP. 7. In this and the following chapter the Greek and the Ethiopic texts do not harmonize; the former presenting the longer, and in general, although not always, the better, reading. —1. Syncellus dates the events here recorded as GTR, and says it continued GTR, which certainly never was found in the original book of Enoch, as this, after the manner of apocryphal writings, avoids such specific limitations. On the use of roots as instruments for magic Hoffmann (p. 116-120) treats extensively, and draws especial attention to the instances recorded by Josephus, Bel. Jud. vii. 6, 3, and Antiqg. viii. 2, 52. The number three thousand, reduced by one MS. to three hundred and omitted in the Greek, is probably an interpolation. The great giants are stated by Syncellus to have been of three kinds, GTR—a statement that must have been in the original, as it is presupposed in 86:4; 88:2, verses written by the same author. The book of the Jubilees (chap. 7, ed. Dillmann p. 31) divides them into Jerbach, Naphal, and Elj6.—4. The book of the Jubilees 1. c. says that only the third class of giants destroyed mankind.—5. That the giants (not men) sinned with the birds, etc. is mentioned in almost the same words in the book of the Jubilees. Their flesh, i.e. that of man, as, unlike the book just quoted where the contest between the giants themselves goes on before the attack on man, the book of Enoch places this contest after the destruction of mankind. The terrible crime of drinking blood finds its most vivid expression in the book of the Jubilees: “Take heed with blood, take much heed. Bury it in the earth, and and in all the generations of the world.”