In R.H. Charles’s edition of Enoch, lxxi. was bracketed as an interpolation. The writer now sees that it belongs to the text of the Similitudes though it is dislocated from its original context. It presents two visits of Enoch to heaven in lxxi. 1-4 and lxxi. 5-17. The extraordinary statement in lxxi. 14, according to which Enoch is addressed as “the Son of Man,” is seen, as Appel points out, on examination of the context to have arisen from the loss of a portion of the text after verse 13, in which Enoch saw a heavenly being with the Head of Days and asked the angel who accompanied him who this being was. Then comes ver. 14, which, owing to the loss of this passage, has assumed the form of an address to Enoch: “Thou art the Son of Man,” but which stood originally as the angel’s reply to Enoch: “This is the Son of Man,” &c. Ver. 15, then, gives the message sent to Enoch by the Son of Man. In the next verse the second person should be changed into the third. Thus we recover the original text of this difficult chapter. The Messianic doctrine and eschatology of this section is unique. The Messiah is here for the first time described as the pre-existent Son of Man (xlviii. 2), who sits on the throne of God (xlv. 3; xlvii. 3), possesses universal dominion (lxii. 6), and is the Judge of all mankind (lxix. 27). After the judgment there will be a new heaven and a new earth, which will be the abode of the blessed.
The Book of the Secrets or Enoch, or Slavonic Enoch. This new fragment of the Enochic literature has only recently come to light through five MSS. discovered in Russia and Servia. Since about A.D. 500 it has been lost sight of. It is cited without acknowledgment in the Book of Adam and Eve, the Apocalypses of Moses and Paul, the Sibylline Oracles, the Ascension of Isaiah, the Epistle of Barnabas, and referred to by Origen and Irenaeus (see Charles, The Book of the Secrets of Enoch, 1895, pp. xvii-xxiv). For Charles’s editio princeps of this work, in 1895, Professor Morfill translated two of the best MSS., as well as Sokolov’s text, which is founded on these and other MSS. In 1896 Bonwetsch issued his Das slavische Henochbuch, in which a German translation of the above two MSS. is given side by side, preceded by a short introduction.
Analysis.—Chaps. i.-ii. Introduction: life of Enoch: his dream, in which he is told that he will be taken up to heaven: his admonitions to his sons. iii.-xxxvi. What Enoch saw in heaven. iii.-vi. The first heaven: the rulers of the stars: the great sea and the treasures of snow, &c. vii. The second heaven: the fallen angels. viii.-x. The third heaven: Paradise and place of punishment. xi.-xvii. The fourth heaven: courses of the sun and moon: phoenixes. xviii. The fifth heaven: the watchers mourning for their fallen brethren. xix. The sixth heaven: seven bands of angels arrange and study the courses of the stars, &c.: others set over the years, the fruits of the earth, the souls of men. xx.-xxxvi. The seventh heaven. The Lord sitting on His throne with the ten chief orders of angels. Enoch is clothed by Michael in the raiment of God’s glory and instructed in the secrets of nature and of man, which he wrote down in 366 books. God reveals to Enoch the history of the creation of the earth and the seven planets and circles of the heaven and of man, the story of the fallen angels, the duration of the world through 7000 years, and its millennium of rest. xxxviii.-lxvi. Enoch returns to earth, admonishes his sons: instructs them on what he had seen in the heavens, gives them his books. Bids them not to swear at all nor to expect any intercession of the departed saints for sinners. lvi.-lxiii. Methuselah asks Enoch’s blessing before he departs, and to all his sons and their families Enoch gives fresh instruction. lxiv.-lxvi. Enoch addressed the assembled people at Achuszan. lxvii.-lxviii. Enoch’s translation. Rejoicings of the people on behalf of the revelation given them through Enoch.
Language and Place of Writing.—A large part of this book was written for the first time in Greek. This may be inferred from such statements as (1) xxx. 13, “And I gave him a name (i.e. Adam) from the four substances: the East, the West, the North and the South.” Thus Adam’s name is here derived from the initial letters of the four quarters: ἀνατολή, δύσις, ἄρκτος, μεσημβρία. This derivation is impossible in Semitic. This context is found elsewhere in the Sibyllines iii. 24 sqq. and other Greek writings. (2) Again our author uses the chronology of the Septuagint and in 1, 4 follows the Septuagint text of Deuteronomy xxxii. 35 against the Hebrew. On the other hand, some sections may wholly or in part go back to Hebrew originals. There is a Hebrew Book of Enoch attributed to R. Ishmael ben Elisha who lived at the close of the 1st century and the beginning of the 2nd century B.C. This book is very closely related to the Book of the Secrets of Enoch, or rather, to a large extent dependent upon it. Did Ishmael ben Elisha use the Book of the Secrets of Enoch in its Greek form, or did he find portions of it in Hebrew? At all events, extensive quotations from a Book of Enoch are found in the rabbinical literature of the middle ages, and the provenance of these has not yet been determined. See Jewish Encyc. i. 676 seq.
But there is a stronger argument for a Hebrew original of certain sections to be found in the fact that the Testaments of the XII. Patriarchs appears to quote xxxiv. 2, 3 of our author in T. Napth. iv. 1, T. Benj. ix.
The book in its present form was written in Egypt. This may be inferred (1) from the variety of speculations which it holds in common with Philo and writings of a Hellenistic character that circulated mainly in Egypt. (2) The Phoenixes are Chalkydries (ch. xii.)—monstrous serpents with the heads of crocodiles—are natural products of the Egyptian imagination. (3) The syncretistic character of the creation account (xxv.-xxvi.) betrays Egyptian elements.
Relation to Jewish and Christian Literature.—The existence of a kindred literature in Neo-Hebrew has been already pointed out. We might note besides that it is quoted in the Book of Adam and Eve, the Apocalypse of Moses, the Apocalypse of Paul, the anonymous work De montibus Sina et Sion, the Sibylline Oracles ii. 75, Origen, De princip. i. 3, 2. The authors of the Ascension of Isaiah, the Apoc. of Baruch and the Epistle of Barnabas were probably acquainted with it. In the New Testament the similarity of matter and diction is sufficiently strong to establish a close connexion, if not a literary dependence. Thus with Matt. v. 9, “Blessed are the peacemakers,” cf. lii. 11, “Blessed is he who establishes peace”: with Matt. v. 34, 35, 37, “Swear not at all,” cf. xlix. 1, “I will not swear by a single oath, neither by heaven, nor by earth, nor by any other creature which God made—if there is no truth in man, let them swear by a word yea, yea, or nay, nay.”
Date and Authorship.—The book was probably written between 30 B.C. and A.D. 70. It was written after 30 B.C., for it makes use of Sirach, the (Ethiopic) Book of Enoch and the Book of Wisdom. It was written before A.D. 70; for the temple is still standing: see lix. 2.
The author was an orthodox Hellenistic Jew who lived in Egypt. He believed in the value of sacrifices (xlii. 6; lix. 1, 2, &c), but is careful to enforce enlightened views regarding them (xlv. 3, 4; lxi. 4, 5.) in the law, lii. 8, 9; in a blessed immortality, I. 2; lxv. 6, 8-10, in which the righteous should be clothed in “the raiment of God’s glory,” xxii. 8. In questions relating to cosmology, sin, death, &c, he is an eclectic, and allows himself the most unrestricted freedom, and readily incorporates Platonic (xxx. 16), Egyptian (xxv. 2) and Zend (lviii. 4-6) elements into his system of thought.
Anthropological Views.—All the souls of men were created before the foundation of the world (xxiii. 5) and likewise their future abodes in heaven or hell (xlix. 2, lviii. 5). Man’s name was derived, as we have already seen, from the four quarters of the world, and his body was compounded from seven substances (xxx. 8). He was created originally good: freewill was bestowed upon him with instruction in the two ways of light and darkness, and then he was left to mould his own destiny (xxx. 15). But his preferences through the bias of the flesh took an evil direction, and death followed as the wages of sin (xxx. 16).