II. THE BOOK OF ENOCH.

THE BOOK OF ENOCH IS often referred to, but it is hardly so well known in fact as it ought to be, except to quite a small class of students. And indeed it is an odd and in some ways a not very attractive conglomeration. It is best therefore to begin at once with the prime reason that gives the book interest to us, and this is, its influence on the Christian Movement. ‘Wandering Stars’, we read in the Canonical Epistle of Jude, ‘to these Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying “Behold, the Lord came with ten thousands of His Holy ones to execute judgement upon all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their works of ungodliness which they have ungodly wrought, and of all the hard things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him”.’ This is a definite quotation which cannot be gainsaid. As a matter of fact, the words quoted are the last sentence of the opening paragraph of the Book of Enoch. It is no mere illustration, no coincidence of ideas. ‘ Enoch’ is quoted by name as inspired prophecy. This famous passage is very far from being the only trace of the influence of Enoch upon the New Testament, but it is the clearest and the best known. It is the best starting-point for our discussion of the book.

One thing may be noted at the outset. S. Jerome, in his account of Jude in De Viris Illustribus, says that inasmuch as in the Epistle a testimony is quoted from ‘ Enoch’ an apocryphal Book, it is rejected by most. This unfavourable verdict has curiously persisted almost to our days in a different form. In the nineteenth century not so much stress was laid on canonicity as on date and authorship. Part of the reason that led some distinguished scholars to put the Epistle of Jude in the 2nd century a. n., and to question the right of its author to call himself the brother of James, was derived from the approval with which it seemed to stamp an ‘ apocryphal’ writing. There was a widely-spread feeling that pure original Christianity must have been self-contained and rational, and in no sense based on unfamiliar and unhistorical Jewish legends. In a similar spirit the ‘ calmness’ and ‘ sobriety ‘ of the canonical Bible stories, both of the

Old and New Testaments, were very often contrasted with the ‘extravagance’ of uncanonical ‘fables’.

I well know that I am now touching upon a large and very thorny subject, into which it is not the province of these Lectures to go. My chief object in mentioning it here is to remark that this view does not carry us very far when we are tracing back popular beliefs and popular enthusiasms to their earliest forms. The one thing quite certain about the early Christians is that they were enthusiasts ; those who joined them joined because they were enthusiasts, and the first expression of their hopes and fears were unrestrained and sometimes crude. The early Christians were ‘ full of new wine’. We are more likely to find bad literary and historical criticism in an ‘ early’ Christian document than a ‘ late’ one: ‘moderation’ is likely to be the mark of the second generation rather than the first, and certainly the respect paid in the Epistle of Jude to the Book of Enoch is no reason for putting that Epistle late. In the next Lecture we shall see that something similar may be said about the date of the Christian Apocalypse called the Ascension of Isaiah.

To return to ‘ Enoch, ‘ it must be frankly confessed that the mode of quotation in Jude does imply that the writer of the Epistle believed that the Book of Enoch was the work of the Patriarch. It would be a very interesting subject to investigate to what extent the reputed authorship of pseudonymous books actually secured or influenced their reception in ancient times. What is certain is that when they were rejected it was on grounds of doctrine rather than of historical scepticism, although we may gather from Tertullian that some people did wonder how the Book of Enoch escaped the Flood. But there is another aspect of pseudonymous authorship to which I venture to think sufficient attention has not been given. It is this, that the names were not chosen out of mere caprice; they indicated to a certain extent what subjects would be treated and the point of view of the writer.

For example, there is the Apocalypse of Baruch. The historical Baruch lived in the days of Nebuchadnezzar. Consequently in his Apocalypse he is supposed to be acquainted with the names of the personages who figure in the pre-exilic history of Israel. But though the real interest of the author is in the fate of the Jews after the Destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, ‘ Baruch’ mentions no one by name later than the day of the historical Baruch. In the Assumption of Moses, given out as the last dying-speech of Moses to Joshua but really dating from about 9 a. d., the history of Israel is sketched in figurative though quite comprehensible terms. But no name is mentioned. As I once wrote elsewhere, the Seers of old are supposed to foretell events and to understand doctrines, but they must be silent about names. Daniel may predict the wars of the successors of Alexander, and in chap, xi we can even follow the details of their campaigns, but he must not mention the names of Antiochus and Ptolemy, of Antioch and Alexandria. If he needs to announce the coming of the great over-sea Power from the West, he must not mention the Romans, for the name was unknown in the days of Belshazzar; he must speak of the ships of Chittim.

But further, the choice of a name shews more or less what problems occupy the writer’s mind. Baruch and Ezra were Jews in the strict sense of the word, members of the organized historical Jewish Church-Nation, men to whom no sacrifice was valid outside Jerusalem. Their outlook is the strictly Jewish outlook, God is to them above all things the God of the Chosen People, the problems dealt with are concerned with the fortunes of the Chosen People. And so in the books which bear their names the consummation of all things is found in the Messianic Kingdom. The outlook is national. How different from this is the Book of Job ! Here the scene is laid in patriarchal times and the place is somewhere far away in the East. Why ? Because the writer, who I do not doubt was also a strict Jew, wished to speak about some of the problems of human life apart from the individualities of Jewish customs, divinely enjoined though they might be.

So it is with the Book of Enoch. Enoch was the great-great-grand-father of Shem, but he was the great-great-grandfather of Ham and Japhet too. What was Enoch’s nationality ? He might appropriately reply Homo sum, and accordingly no spot on the wide earth is alien from him, though its centre is still Jerusalem. In the course of his long book there occurs a Vision of the history of mankind, in which the centre of interest is, of course, the fortunes of the Chosen People, but elsewhere the outlook is to a certain extent cosmopolitan. The Sun and the Moon and the Stars, about which Enoch has so much to tell us, shine equally on Jew and Gentile. And the theme of the first part of the work, the Origin of Evil, has (alas !) equal interest for all races. The writer was surely an orthodox Jew and his book was written for his countrymen to read, but like the Book of Job it is concerned with mankind and the world inhabited by mankind as a whole ; it attempts to “justify the ways of God to men”, and not only His dealings with the custodians of His Revelation in Judaea.

The contents of the Book of Enoch are, very roughly, as follows :— After a short Prelude, which strikes the dominant note of the whole literature with its announcement of impending Judgement (i-v), we are told the story of how the ‘ Watchers,’ i. e. the Angels, sons of God, came down to earth and married the daughters of Men, thereby bringing all sorts of evil on mankind, first, because their oft-spring were Giants who devoured men and crops, and secondly, because the Arts and the Sciences were taught by the Watchers to their wives and to the other human beings with whom they came in contact (vi-viii). The leaders of the Watchers were named Semiaza and Azael (or Azazel). Moved by the cry of men suffering under the horrors of Civilization, the Most High interferes. Azael and his companions are to be punished and the earth is to be cleansed by the Flood, and only the son of Lantech, i.e. Noah, is to escape, so that mankind may be started afresh from his descendants (ix-xi).

Before all this had happened Enoch had been taken to live a kind of life between earth and heaven. It was he who had been deputed to announce the Divine Sentence against Azael. Azael appeals for mercy, and Enoch prepares and presents Azael’s petition before the Most High, but it fails : Azael is reduced to impotence forever and his monstrous offspring become the demons in the air all round us (xii-xvi).

Enoch is then taken by holy Angels to view the world from the West to the East (xvii-xxxvi). He sees everything, even to Chaos and beyond Earth and Heaven. He sees also the deep Valleys where the spirits of the dead will be kept till the Day of Judgement (xxii).

Here ends the First Book. The Second, called the Parables or Similitudes of Enoch, contains Enoch’s visions of the pre-existent Elect Messiah, often called in this section ‘ the Son of Man ,’ who at the appointed time will judge the Kings and the mighty rulers of the earth and...