Page Content (OCR)
Enoch (GTR, LXX, HTR) is the name of four biblical persons. The first is the oldest son of Cain (Gen. iv. 17); the second, the son of Jared (Gen. v. 18); the third, the son of Midian (Gen. xxv. 4); the fourth, the oldest son of Reuben (Gen. xlvi. 9; Ex. vi. 14).! Of these the second alone is of importance and interest for us, not only on account of the mysterious prominence given him in Gen. v., but especially from the fact that an inspired writer of the New Testament, Jude, in his letter ver. 14, mentions him as a prophet, and produces a quotation from a book attributed to the patriarch. The existence of such a book does not, however, rest on the authority of this statement alone; but in the early literature of the church there is a whole chain of evidences to this effect. Nearly all of the church Fathers knew of an apocryphal Book of Enoch, and their description of the work and citations from it prove satisfactorily that it was virtually the same as that which now lies before us. Among the Apostolic Fathers, the Epistle of Barnabas refers to such a work. In chap. iv. 3 of that letter, Enoch is cited, and the character of the quotation points to chap. 80 of our book as its probable source, while in the statement of the same Epistle xvi. 5, although introduced with the important words: GTR, we find almost the very words of En. 89:56. From that time on to about the seventh century Christian literature, to which alone we owe the preservation of the important work, produces ample proof of the constant use and high standing of this book. Beside the Jewish-Christian Testament. xxl Patriarch.,! a production of the second century, the church Fathers? Justin Martyr,? Clemens of Alexandria, Origen, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Eusebius, Jerome, Hilary, Epiphanius, Augustine, and others refer to and use it.! The majority of these statements are indeed simply allusions and general references; but they are of such a character that their source in the present Book of Enoch can generally be found to a certainty, the writers in this respect following the example of Jude, whose citation is taken from En. 1:9, and is not a literal reproduction. The Fathers all, with possibly the one dissenting voice of Tertullian (De Cult. Fem. I. 3) deny the canonicity of this book, and properly regard it as apocryphal; some going even so far as to deny the canonicity of Jude because he had dared to quote an apocryphal work.!! The precedent for this step was given in the Apostolic Constitutions, vi. 16, in strong words. When, after the time of Augustine, the period of literary death robbed the church of many of her noblest monuments of literature, the Book of Enoch, too, was lost, and later investigators had to be content with the references in the Fathers, GENERAL INTRODUCTION 1 The last two are transcribed in the authorized version Hanoch, the others Enoch.