Page 8 of 129
and a few extracts made by the learned monk of the eighth century, Georgius Syncellus, in his Chronography.! A short time after him, in the ninth century, the book is mentioned as an apocryphon of the New Testament by the Patriarch Nicephorus.? The fragments preserved by Syncellus, varyingindeed in minor points of expression, are still virtually an extract from the book as we have it now. They are divided into two parts; the first containing chap. 6:1 to chap. 9:4, the second chap. 8:4 to chap. 10:14, and chap. 15:8 to chap. 16:1; in addition to which there is a small part not found in the Ethiopic. Here comes into consideration also a small fragment of the Greek Enoch found after the discovery and publication of the Ethiopic version. We refer to the Greek text of chap. 89:42-49, written with tachygraphical notes, and published from a Codex Vaticanus (Cod. Gr. 1809) in facsimile, by Angelo Mai in Patrum Nova Bibliotheca, vol. ii. These verses were deciphered by Prof. Gildemeister, who published his results in the Zeitschrift d. Deutsch. Morgenlénd. Gesellschaft, 1855, pp. 621-624. In Jewish literature, the Book of Enoch did not stand in such high regard as it did among Christian writers, and consequently was not so extensively used. It was, however, neither unknown nor ignored altogether. Already in the work so frequently cited in early Christian literature as GTR, a production of the first Christian century, the references are frequent and unmistakable.! A comparison of the statements of this book of the Jubilees, especially p. 17 sq. of the Ethiopic text (ed. Dillmann), with those of Enoch forces us to the conclusion that the author of the former book could not have written as he did without an exact knowledge of the contents of the latter. Of the use made of the book by later Jewish writers, we have a brief account by A. Jellinek in the Zeitschrift d. D. M. G. 1853, p. 249. The clearest example in this respect is found in Sohar, vol. ii. Parasha HTR p. 55 a (ed. Mant. et Amsterd.): “Comperimus in libro Hanochi, Deum illi, postquam, sustulisset eum in sublime, et ostendisset ei omnes thesauros superiores et inferiores, monstrasse etiam arborem vitae et arborem illam, quam interdixerat Adamo, et vidit locum Adami in Paradiso, in quo si Adamus observasset praeceptum illud, vixisset perpetuo et in aeternum mansisset.” In vol. I. Parasha Bereshit, p. 37 b there is a remark that covers about the same ground, with the additional statement that the Book of Enoch was “handed down” to him from the time when he began to associate with superterrestrial ts 7 beings.” The existence of such a Book of Enoch, made certain from these numerous quotations, was the source of considerable perplexity and anxiety to Christian theologians, and numerous and curious were the conjectures concerning its authorship and character. In the ! Rénsch finds nineteen such references in the book of the Jubilees. Cf. Drummond, The Jewish Messiah, p. 71. 2 The Hebrew text of this quotation is found in Philippi, |. c. p. 121. According to Philippi’s statements there are also references to Enoch in the Assumptio Mosis, a fragmentary production of the first or second century, A.D., and in 4 Ezra and in the Sibylline Books. Cf. l.c. p. 105 sq. beginning of the seventeenth century it was confidently asserted that the book, mourned as lost, was to be found in an Ethiopic translation in Abyssinia, and the learned Capuchin monk Peirescius bought an Ethiopic book which was claimed to be the identical one quoted by Jude and the Fathers. Ludolf, the great Ethiopic scholar of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, however, soon proved it to be a miserable production of acertain Abba Bahaila Michael.! Better success attended the efforts of the famous English traveller James Bruce, who discovered three copies of the book, and brought them, in 1773, with him to Europe.? One of these found its way into the Bodleian Library, the other was presented to the Royal Library of France, the ! Published in Dillmann’s translation, pp. 82-86. 2 Cf. Niceph. (ed. Dindorf), I. 787.