Appendix B: The Book of Enoch
Of late this ancient document has again been attracting attention to itself. A lengthy fragment of it in Greek, comprising about a third of the entire book, and forming part of an important find j of manuscripts made a few years ago at Akhmim, has been published by M. Bouriant; and a monograph on this discovery, from the pen of Dillmann, the great authority on the Book of Enoch, has appeared in the shape of a communication made by the late professor to the Academy of Sciences at Berlin. An annotated French version of the Greek fragment has come from M. Lods; and, most important of all for us, Mr. R. H. Charles has published a new translation of the whole book in English, with introduction, notes, appendices and indices, from which everything can be learned which is known on the subject up to date.
Perhaps it may be well to begin with briefly recalling its history.
In early Christian writings reference is made to a book bearing the name of Enoch, which is seriously accepted as the work of the patriarch and referred to as Scripture. These references are not, however, numerous; and soon the Fathers began to express themselves doubtfully, till at length Augustine gave the finishing stroke by rejecting it altogether. Thenceforward it disappeared, although one writer, Syncellus, about A.D. 800, makes a long quotation from it. In the year 1773 Bruce, the traveller, brought from Abyssinia three copies of an Ethiopic manuscript, which proved to be the lost book. Of this an English translation by Lawrence, which is now quite obsolete, appeared in 1821. Other copies from Abyssinia dropped into European libraries from time to time; and in 185 1 Dillmann published the .^Ethiopic text from five manuscripts, supplementing this service in 1853 with a German translation, which has ever since been the basis of all scholarly investigations. At the conclusion of tha British war with King Theodore of Abyssinia, a number of additional manuscripts found their way into the libraries of Europe, especially into the British Museum. These Mr. Charles has made use of in compiling his new edition. He has also, of course, incorporated the results of the splendid labours of Dillmann. His work is an able performance, and highly creditable to English scholarship; he expresses his own views with conciseness and decision; and, although the problems of the book are far from being settled, the materials are now accessible, and everyone can judge for himself what is the value of this relic of the past, It is, however, to be remembered that, in the English or German, we have it only at fourth hand; for the Ethiopic is a translation from a Greek version of a Hebrew original. There are ample indications in the book itself that it was originally written in Hebrew, and also that it originated in Palestine, probably in Galilee. It is about as large in bulk as the Book of Genesis, and is filled with a strange variety of material.
The entire book rests on a peculiar interpretation of the verse in Genesis which says that “Enoch walked with God, and was not, because God took him.’’ The final clause is understood in the ordinary sense of a translation of Enoch similar to that of Elijah; but the first clause — that he “walked with God “■ — is taken to imply that he was favoured with excursions, in the company of God, or rather of the angels, into remote regions of the universe, where wonders and mysteries of all kinds were revealed to him, along with copious disclosures as to the future course of the world.
Such a conception, it will easily be perceived, opened immense imaginative opportunities; for on such a journey, under such guidance, what corner of the universe might not be visited, and what secret might not be explored? From such a standpoint, near the very commencement of human history, a bird’s-eye view might be given of the whole course of the ways of God with men. Such a task would, however, have required the greatest powers. A Dante or a Milton would have been needed to sustain the toilsome journey and make the vast survey, and then to shape the whole into one continuous and consistent picture. The author of the Book of Enoch has, indeed, been called the Hebrew Dante, and his undertaking has been compared to that of Milton. But one is reminded of someone who was spoken of as a Carlyle with a wooden leg stumping down through the Puritan period. On the shoulders of Enoch there are, unfortunately, no “mighty pens” like those which bore up Dante or Milton on his divine path; if he may be said to possess wings at all, they are at most the leathern wings of a bat, capable only of brief and intermittent flights.
He never proceeds far on his way in one direction before he stops, and then he begins again at a totally different point. The book is not a whole in any artistic sense, but a series of fragments, glued together in anything but artistic fashion. When Dillmann issued his translation forty years ago, he persuaded himself that it was a continuous whole, the work of a single author, with only a few interpolations, which could easily be removed. But he subsequently reversed this opinion. And Mr. Charles, following Ewald, looks upon Enoch as being not so much an actual book as a collection of the fragments of an Enoch literature. At one period in the history of Hebrew literature, it seems, Enoch was a name round which literary activity revolved, as at an earlier period it revolved round David; and, as the surviving fragments of lyric poetry collected themselves under the name of
David, so the apocalyptic fragments which survived were gathered under the name of Enoch.
According to Mr. Charles, there are half-a-dozen or more authors; but unfortunately, their works are far from being in the condition in which they left them. Nearly everywhere there are signs of alteration and mutilation. Worst of all, the final editor seems to have had in his hands a Noah apocalypse, purporting to give revelations made to Noah of a kind similar to those made to Enoch; and he thought fit to combine the two into a single book. Instead, however, of doing so in a rational manner, he simply chopped the Noah production into a mass of fragments, and sprinkled them promiscuously all over the original work. They turn up in every other page without rhyme or reason, rendering it exceedingly difficult to get any continuous sense and sorely trying the editorial temper.
Whether or not this may have been the way in which the book came into existence, it is certainly true that there are several separate masses in it easily distinguishable; and it will be well to indicate briefly what these are.
The book opens thus: “The words of the blessing of Enoch, wherewith he blessed the elect and righteous, who will be living in the day of tribulation, when all the wicked and godless are to be removed. And Enoch answered and spake, [Enoch] a righteous man, whose eyes were opened by God, that he might see a vision of the Holy One in the heavens, which the angels showed me; and from them I heard everything, and I understood what I saw, but not for this generation, but for the remote generations which are to come.’’ There follows a theophany, in which God comes forth to judge the world, ending with the verse which appears in St. Jude,” Lo, He comes with ten thousand of His holy ones to execute judgment upon them, and He will destroy the ungodly, and will convict all flesh of all that the sinners and ungodly have wrought and ungodly committed against Him.’’ Then suddenly the writer wanders off into a description of physical phenomena, such as the regularity of the seasons and the like, the slender thread of connection being the contrast between the order of nature and the disorder of the life of sinners. This feeble transition is characteristic; and very often there is not even as much connexion as here.
After this introduction, we come to the first long section of the book, which is a comment on the paragraph in Gen. vi. on the mixing of the sons of God with the daughters of men. Not only is this theme here handled at great length, but it recurs again and again throughout the subsequent book, forming one of the leading topics. The interpretation given is that the sons of God were angels; and this occurrence was both the fall of the angels and the origin of evil on earth, though these points of view are not always consistently maintained. The author knows the fallen angels so well that he gives the names of a score or more of them; and, indeed, his acquaintance with angels, both good and bad, is everywhere most intimate, and he displays great inventiveness in supplying them with names. The fallen angels corrupted the inhabitants of the earth by communicating to them evil secrets, such as witchcraft, the use of arms, the painting of the eyebrows, the use of pen and ink, and many other nefarious practices. Their offspring consisted of a race of giar.ts a thousand ells high. Of course, the poor inhabitants of the earth could not long stand the proceedings of such Brobdingnagian neighbours; and a great cry rose to heaven, in answer to which the archangels were despatched to slay the monsters. The fallen angels were bound down beneath the mountains, to await a more condign punishment at the consummation of all things. The spirits, however, of the giants escaped into the atmosphere, and these are the demons who now roam at large over the earth, plaguing the lot of man; but their time will also come.
Enoch, to whom the entire invisible world is as open and familiar as a man’s own garden to himself, is thrown into contact with the imprisoned angels, who send him as their intercessor to beg for them the pity of Heaven. He draws up their petition in a regular document; for, though he enumerates the use of pen and ink among the evil arts taught by the fallen angels, he has great faith in his own powers of composition. In describing his journey to the palace of heaven, as the bearer of this document, the author unfolds all his rhetorical resources:
“And the vision appeared to me thus: behold, in the vision, clouds invited me and a mist invited me; the course of the stars and the lightnings drove and impelled me: and the winds, in the vision, gave me wings and drove me. And they lifted me up into heaven, and I came till I drew nigh to a wall which is built of crystals and surrounded by a fiery flame; and it began to affright me. And I went into the fiery flame and drew near to a large house which was built of crystals; and the walls of that house were like a mosaic crystal floor, and its groundwork was of crystal. Its ceiling was like the path of the stars and lightnings, with fiery cherubim between, in a transparent heaven. A flaming fire surrounded the wall of the house, and its portal blazed with fire. And I entered into that house, and it was hot as fire and cold as ice; there were no delights of life therein; fear covered me and trembling gat hold upon me. And, as I quaked and trembled, I fell upon my face and beheld in a vision. And lo! there was a second house, greater than the former, all the poitals of which stood open before me, and it was built of flames of fire. And in every respect it so excelled in splendour and magnificence and extent, that I cannot describe to you its splendour and its extent. And its floor was fire, and above it were lightnings and the path of the stars, and its ceiling also was flaming fire. And I looked and saw therein a lofty throne; its appearance was as hoarfrost; its circuit was as a shining sun amid the voices of cherubim. And from underneath the great throne came streams of flaming fire, so that it was impossible to look thereon. And the Great Glory sat thereon, and His raiment shone more brightly than the sun, and was brighter than any snow. None of the angels could enter and behold the face of the honoured and glorious One, and no flesh could behold Him. A flaming fire was round about Him, and a great fire stood before Him, and none of those who were around Him could draw nigh Him. Ten thousand times ten thousand were before Him, but He stood in no need of counsel. And the holiness of the holy ones, who were nigh to Him, did not leave by night nor depart from Him. And until then I had had a veil on my face, and I was trembling. Then He called me with His own voice, and spake to me, ‘Come hither, Enoch, and hear My holy word.’”
I have made this lengthy quotation in order to convey a notion of the writer at his best. The intercessory embassy, however, undertaken at so much peril, was in vain; and Enoch had to return and make known to those who had constituted him their patron that their case was hopeless.
Now follows another lengthy section, the character of which seems to be partly determined by what has just been described. Once having set out on his celestial travels, Enoch makes a peregrination of the universe; and its different localities are described, with the wonders and secrets which they contain. Here is unfolded a kind of universal panorama, in which such places and objects are described as Chaos, Hades, Gehenna, the stream out of which the heavenly bodies daily renew their fires, the tree of life, the windows of the winds, and so forth. All through the book this affectation of revealing physical and metaphysical secrets is an ever-recurring feature. It is especially characteristic of the fragments of the Noah book, which, as has been already indicated, are scattered, as if from a pepper-castor, over the Enoch composition. The principal effort of the kind is found in the latter half of the book, where there occurs a section entitled by Mr. Charles the Book of Celestial Physics. It is a long-winded but clear and compact piece, which ought to be interesting to scientific antiquarians, as giving a fair idea of the astronomical notions of the period. It embodies a complete theory of the sun and moon, of the year, day and night, the seasons, and the winds. The winds drive the heavenly bodies, which issue from different doors in the firmament at different seasons. The sun is of the same size as the moon, but contains seven times the amount of fire. The year consists of three hundred and sixty-four days, neither more nor less. On this the writer is most peremptory, and appears to be conducting a polemic against a profane and innovating notion that it contains three hundred and sixty-five.
After this comes a section consisting of two visions — the one a brief but vivid vision of the Noachic Deluge, seen by Enoch; the other a symbolic history of the world. The latter is an astonishing performance. It opens in this way: “Behold, a bull came forth from the earth, and that bull was white; and after it came forth a heifer; and along with this came forth two bulls, one of them black and the other red. And that black young bull gored the red one and pursued him over the earth, and thereupon I could no longer see that red young bull.” This white bull is Adam, the heifer Eve, the black and red bulls Cain and Abel. And so the history goes on remorselessly from century to century, men and nations being represented by different animals. The Egyptians are wolves; the Midianites wild asses; and so on; and of course the Hebrews are sheep or lambs. Difficulties, however, occur. Noah is a sheep; but how can a sheep build an ark? He has to be transformed into a man for the nonce. And the same metamorphosis happens to Moses when he goes up to the mount to receive the Law. The execution is, however, carried through with courage; and, though it is tedious, yet, when the eagles, vultures, kites and ravens swoop down on the sheep and pick out their eyes, it is not without picturesqueness.
The next section is again an attempt to set forth the history of the world. It may be called the Apocalypse of Weeks, because in it the entire history of man appears, from the standpoint of Enoch, as a series of ten weeks, each of which is characterized by some striking feature, such as the appearance of Noah or Abraham or Moses. But the section soon loses itself in eschatological declamation, especially concerning the woes which are to overtake the wicked in the latter days.
One or two fragments are tagged on to the end of the book which would hardly be worth mentioning but for a pretty description which one of them contains of the birth of Noah. At his birth “his body was white as snow and red as a blooming rose, and the hair of his head and his long locks were white as wool, and his eyes beautiful. And, when he opened his eyes, he lighted up the whole house like the sun, and the whole house was very full of light.” Then it wanders off into grotesquery.
Thus I have as briefly as possible characterized the different sections, with the exception of one, which is the most important of all, because in it occur most of the passages which are supposed to have influenced the New Testament. This section appears near the centre; it is long, and it may be called the Book of Similitudes, because it consists of three pieces which call themselves by this name. They are all of eschatological import: the first being a picture of heaven; the second an account of the events which will befall the earth when God visits it in the latter days, to clear out of it the sinners and inaugurate the millennium; and the third treating the same theme in a more hortatory style. As, however, we shall have to come back on this section, it need not at this point be further characterized.
A few words now about the date. Unfortunately, this is exceedingly obscure. Mr. Charles arranges the different compositions, with great confidence, in chronological order, and his various dates cover about a hundred years — from B.C. 170 to 64. But the criticism passed on Mr. Charles’s book by Dillmann * touches this point with telling effect, and has, besides, a wide application to other scholars at the present time: “The practice of arranging the varying ideas or representations of anything in a straight line of chronological and genetic development, and thereby constructing a history of the subject, is very popular with certain recent schools; but he who has observed how old and new, even when, strictly considered, they are mutually exclusive, may yet coexist in one and the same brain, will always regard such constructions with suspicion.”
There are several passages which, at first sight, appear hopeful in determining the date. There is the division of the world’s history into ten weeks, each of which is characterized by some outstanding event. The outstanding event of the seventh week appears to be the publication of the Book of Enoch itself: “And after that, in the seventh week, will a
* Theologische Literaturzeitung, 2nd Sept., 1893.
generation arise, and many will be its deeds, and all its deeds will be apostate. And at its close will the elect of righteousness of the eternal plant of righteousness be elected to receive sevenfold instruction concerning the whole creation.” Here “the plant of righteousness” is the Jewish people, as we learn also from other passages; “the elect of righteousness” are the Pharisaic party, to which the writer belonged; and the sevenfold instruction “concerning God’s whole creation” is a name for his own invaluable lucubrations. Unfortunately, however, the weeks are very indefinite periods; and all we really learn is that the author lived after Elijah, who is the outstanding figure of the sixth week. The events of the three weeks after the seventh are, of course, purely conjectural, and do not help us at all.
In the other programme of the world’s history — that in which men and nations are represented by different kinds of animals — we seem to be certainly on the track, because the characterization is both copious and minute; but just at the critical point, although growing more minute than ever, it becomes unintelligible, as it is impossible to identify with their counterparts the different animals which are brought upon the stage.
Unfortunately, it is about the date of the Book of Similitudes, which, as I have already said, is the most important part, that the greatest doubt exists. Here there is a reference to an attack on the Holy Land by the Medes and Parthians, which seems a hopeful chronological datum, but it turns out to be capable of all sorts of interpretations; and, besides, according to Mr. Charles, the passage in which it occurs is an interpolation. Most hopeful of all, perhaps, appears at first sight a reference to the visits of “the kings and the mighty and the exalted” to certain sulphur springs “in the west, among the mountains of gold, and silver, and iron, and soft metal, and tin;” but, while Hilgenfeld understands this of the congregating of the Roman nobility in the neighbourhood of Vesuvius, Mr. Charles is positive that these springs must be sought in Palestine. And besides, according to him, the words occur in a passage inserted by an interpolator so stupid that what he says does not, perhaps, mean anything at all. Mr. Charles does not believe that there is in the book any reference whatever to the Romans, and therefore his lowest date is B.C. 64 — - the year in which Rome laid its grasp on Palestine. Baldensperger, on the contrary, feels the atmosphere of the irresistible, illimitable Roman rule everywhere in at least the Book of Similitudes — an opinion in which I agree with him, because Mr. Charles’s explanation of the constantly recurring phrase, “the kings and the mighty,” against whom the woes of the Book of the Similitudes are launched, as a designation of the Asmonean kings and their backers, the Sadducees, goes to pieces on the fact that they are characterized as worshippers of idols. The mode in which he explains this away is really an illustration of a style of interpretation by which anything can be made to mean anything.
We turn now to the most important aspect of the subject — the influence of the Book of Enoch on the New Testament.
Mr. Charles gives in parallel columns a long list of coincidences of expression, amounting in all to about a hundred; and, besides, he enumerates several New Testament doctrines which may be supposed to have been modified by the teaching of Enoch. The quotations will strike different persons differently. Of the twenty, for example, found in the writings of St. Paul I should not consider a single one to be indubitable, while some are very far-fetched indeed.* Besides, it is to be noted that about a third of all the supposed quotations are from the Book of Similitudes, about which it is doubtful whether it does not quote the New Testament. But I wish to look at the subject from a viewpoint of my own, and investigate rather the influence of the book as a whole, and of its several masses, than enter minutely into the criticism of detached verses and phrases, about nearly everyone of which opinions will differ.
When Enoch is spoken of as one of the books which may have influenced our Lord and His apostle?,f we naturally inquire first of all what its spirit is — whether it is an inspiring production, which could have communicated to our Lord and to the writers of the New Testament something of the
* The most striking, perhaps, is “King of kings and Lord of lords;” but see Deut. x. 17 and Ps. cxxxvi. 3, to which Mr. Charles gives no reference.
t This is the title of a book by Mr. Thomson on these pseudepigraphic writings.
power with which they spoke and wrote. I have quoted already the characterization of the author as the Hebrew Dante or the Hebrew Milton. In my opinion, Baldensperger is far nearer the mark when he calls him “the patron of the scribes.” Again and again in the book itself the hero is called “Enoch the writer “; and we saw how he edited the petition of the fallen angels. He is an idealized scribe; and his writing is precisely on the level of the hagadoth of the rabbinical schools. Though the book is as long as the larger books of the Bible, there is hardly a verse in it, from beginning to end, on which one would linger with pleasure or which one would delight to recall. Once, indeed, it says beautifully of the stars that they give thanks and praise, and rest not; “and to them their thanksgiving is rest.” And not far from this there is a striking little paragraph, standing quite alone, without any connexion with what goes before or what comes after, which reminds one of a famous passage in a Latin poet: “Wisdom came to make her dwelling among the children of men and found no dwelling-place; then Wisdom returned to her place, and took her seat among the angels. And Unrighteousness came forth from her chambers; and she found those whom she sought not, and dwelt with them, being welcome to them as rain in the desert and dew on the thirsty land.” But with these exceptions, and one or two passages already quoted, there is hardly a touch of originality or tenderness or power, while page follows page of the most barren and tedious commonplace or even nonsense. If the prevailing characteristic of the New Testament be the spirit of power and of love and of a sound mind, I should say that the spirit of this book is exactly the reverse.
The entire production is a glorification of Enoch. Around this hero of the schools not only these writings gathered, but others which are not included in this book but heard of in ancient literature. In the New Testament, however, there is not a trace of hero-worship bestowed on Enoch. Except in its place in the genealogy of Christ in St. Luke, even his name is not once mentioned in the Gospels or the writings of St. Paul. There is one remarkable passage in the Book of Enoch where the hero seems to be identified with the Messiah; and Baldensperger mentions that in the rabbinical writings there are passages where he is placed side by side with the Metatron, a hypostasis of the Divine similar to the Messiah. Had such notions had any place in the circle about Christ, Enoch would have been one of the first names suggested when the minds of men were occupied with the question who Jesus was, and they were making every kind of guess. Elijah was the favourite conjecture, and he would at once have suggested Enoch, as both were taken to heaven without tasting death; but never once was the suggestion breathed that Jesus might be Enoch.
No element in the Book of Enoch is more pervasive than the story of the sons of God and the daughters of men, interpreted in the sense already indicated. It is a disagreeable story, and it stains the book through and through. In one or two outlying parts of the New Testament there may be references to certain elements of this conception. There is the reference in Jude to the angels who kept not their first estate, and are reserved in chains, under darkness, against the judgment of the great day; and there is the similar statement in 2 Peter *; but the myth in its great features is not only avoided in the New Testament, but, consciously or unconsciously, opposed. The New Testament writers, and especially St. Paul, have to deal with the origin of the corruption and misery of mankind; but they go back, not to the sixth chapter of Genesis, but to the third.
In connection with this, reference may be made to the enormous development of demonology and angelology in the Book of Enoch, which displays the utmost familiarity with the orders, functions and names of the angels fallen and unfallen. The New Testament also has a copious angelology, but it is based on the Old Testament, and not on Enoch, whose extravagances it avoids. Mr. Charles points out two New Testament notions about angels which appear to be borrowed from Enoch. The one occurs in our Lord’s debate with the Sadducees about marriage, when He says that in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God. Incidentally, in addressing the fallen angels, in Enoch, God speaks of marriage as
* Possibly the much-discussed passage about Christ preaching to the spirits in prison may refer to this.
something unnatural to them, though natural to men. The other case is the cry of the evil spirits in the Gospels not to torment them before the time. In Enoch the demons have permission to range at large till the final judgment. In both these cases we perceive, I should think, the influence of Enoch; but it is less likely that they are direct quotations from Enoch than references to popular conceptions which may at first have owed their origin to this book.
Another enormous element in Enoch consists of descriptions and explanations of physical phenomena, such as the sun, moon and stars, winds, thunder, mists, dews and the like. This part of his task is taken by the author very seriously, and he attaches to his explanations a sacred value. But, happily, this entire domain is ignored by the New Testament.
Nor does it indulge in programmes of the course of the world, like the animal history to which reference has been made. The only thing possessing any resemblance to this of which I can think is the division of mankind into sheep and goats in our Lord’s parable of the Last Judgment; but it is with contrast rather than similarity that in this case we have to deal. In the Book of Revelation there are passages resembling the Ten Weeks of the world’s history; but this resemblance is due to the fact that Enoch and Revelation are both founded on the Book of Daniel.
This estimate of the extent of the influence of the book as a whole, and of its great masses, on the New Testament is, in my opinion, of importance, not only in itself, but on the question, to which we now turn, of the relation of the Book of Similitudes to the New Testament.
Here there is not only undoubted, but extensive, dependence either on the one side or the other. The more striking passages have been already quoted on pp. 61-62 of the text, and one more may be added: — -
“And in that place mine eyes saw the Elect One of righteousness and of faith, and how righteousness shall prevail in his days, and the righteous and elect shall be without number before him forever. And I saw his dwelling-place under the wings of the Lord of spirits, and all the righteous and elect before him are beautifully resplendent as lights of fire, and their mouth is full of blessing and their lips extol the Name of the Lord of spirits, and righteousness before Him never faileth, and uprightness never faileth before Him.” Several of the titles applied in the New Testament to Christ are given to this being, as the Anointed, the Elect One, the Righteous One, and, very frequently, the Son of man. He has existed,” under the wings of the Lord of spirits,’’ from before the creation of the world; and He is to be the Judge of men and angels at the consummation of all things.*
These are remarkable statements, and, if we could be sure that they are of pre-Christian origin, they
* Mr. Dearie’s statement (Pseiidepigrapha, p. 92), that this idea does not occur in the Book of Enoch, is unintelligible. would raise questions about the originality of the New Testament writers, and even of our Lord Himself. They would show at least that, in the period between the Old Testament and the New the religious mind, working upon the messianic elements in the Old Testament, had in several important respects come marvellously near to the actual image of the Messiah as it was to be revealed by our Lord.
of rtlr i m °? takCS the P re -Christian origin of he Book of Similitudes for granted; and this has o ate been the prevaiHng to „ e rf *£*»
but I have seen no arguments advanced in favour o his view which appear to me nearly as strong a those of Drummond* and others on the oppLte side W h ie the impressions made on my ownmind by the study of the book are not favourable to its originality.
Everyone, even at the first reading, must be “enable of the strongly Christian flavour of the quotahons just made; and the pervasive character of this element in the Similitudes is in the strongest contrast to the microscopical similarities between the rest of the book and the New Testament.
Drummond has shown, in detail, that the passages which refer to the Messiah in terms strikingly recalling the New Testament might be excised from the text, not only without mutilating it, but with the result of improving it. Moreover, ‘the intro-
* In The Jewish Jlf ess/ah.
ductory words of the second Similitude, in which the argument is announced, are not in the least consistent with the contents of the subsequent pages as they now stand; and it is in these pages that the most important messianic passages occur. The Book of Jubilees, a Jewish production, dating from about the middle of the first century B.C., quotes the Book of Enoch eighteen times, but it contains only two doubtful quotations from the Book of Similitudes, and neither of these is messianic, the inference being that the Book of Similitudes, or at least the messianic paragraphs in it, must have come into existence at a later date.
The argument, however, which, in my mind, carries most weight, is that the Book of Similitudes is, obviously and confessedly, a perfect patchwork of interpolations. It is sprinkled all over with fragments from the Book of Noah; and it exhibits also additions from other quarters. Indeed, it is of such a nature that it must always have invited interpolation. I have already said that it is apocalyptic, and have tried to define the subjects of the various Similitudes. But the truth is, the Book of Similitudes belongs to that species of religious literature, unhappily not extinct even in modern times, which, properly speaking, is about nothing. It is a mere haze and welter of words, surging uneasily round dim images of the future and the commonplace contrast of the righteous and the wicked. Legitimate doubt might be entertained as to whether the messianic passages belong Originally to the places where they are found, merely on account of the fact that, in idea and language, they have a certain amount of consistency and dignity.
The strongest argument on the opposite side is that, if these had been Christian interpolations, there would have been more Christianity in them — more definite references especially to the facts of Christ’s life and death. This would be a good argument if it were contended that the interpolations were deliberately made for apologetic ends. It was common enough in the earliest Christian ages to make interpolations of this sort, as may be seen in other apocalyptic books of the period, like, for example, The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs. But the argument loses its force if it is supposed that the insertions were made, not deliberately, but naively, the editor working up the substance of a Christian apocalypse along with his other materials. A Christian apocalypse of an eschatological nature need not have contained any more direct references to the history of Christ than are found in the Book of Similitudes.
The conclusion, therefore, to which we seem to be led is that it is hopeless to build any structure of history or speculation on a foundation of this kind. While the possibility of these being anticipations of Christian ideas cannot be denied, the probability lies on the opposite side; and at all events the literary condition in which they have come to us makes anything like certainty impossible.
If in any respect the Book of Enoch may be said to form a milestone in the course of development of religious ideas between the Old Testament and the New, I should say it is in its teaching about the state and the fate of the dead. With this subject we know that the human mind was at that period intensely occupied; and the Book of Enoch shows that, working on the hints supplied by the Old Testament, it had arrived at conceptions on which He who brought life and immortality to light by the gospel subsequently set His seal. The views of the book are by no means consistent throughout; but, on the whole, its conception of the present state of the dead, as well as of the proceedings in the great crisis of the last judgment and the issues which will follow, are far nearer than those of the Old Testament to the representations of the New Testament; and, indeed, there is hardly a feature of the New Testament teaching on these subjects, with the exception, of course, of the part played by Christ, which cannot be matched in the Book of Enoch.
For this and other reasons, the Book of Enoch and the other apocalyptic writings derived from the same period are well worthy of study; although it must be confessed that among all the products of the human mind they are the most unreadable. It is even well, for the sake of science, that nature produces men so constituted that they are able to cast themselves upon such relics of the past with enthusiasm and exaggeration, under the belief that they have discovered a new explanation of the secret of the gospel. Their labours will not be in vain; for the investigation of authentic memorials of human experience is never wholly without reward. The rest of us, however, will probably do well, in the present case, not to pitch our expectations very high. Indeed, on looking closely into the matter, we perceive that the mystery of Christ is deepened rather than explained; because it is more difficult than ever to understand how a plant of such perfect beauty and perennial fruitfulness as Christianity could have sprung out of such a dry ground.