A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

ENGLAND. (See Church of England.)

ENOCH, THE PROPHECY OF. An apocryphal book, of which there remains but a few fragments.

Enoch was certainly one of the most illustrious prophets of the first world, since Moses says of him, that he “walked with God.” (Gen. v. 24.) This prophet is famed in the Church for two things: the first is, his being taken up into heaven without seeing death (Heb. xi. 5); the second is, his Prophecy, a passage of which St. Jude has cited in his Epistle. (Ver. 14.) The ancients greatly esteemed the Prophecy of Enoch. Tertullian expresses his concern, that it was not generally received in the world. That Father, on the authority of this book, deduces the original of idolatry, astrology, and unlawful arts, from the revolted angels, who married with the daughters of men. And it is on the testimony of this book, that the Fathers of the 2nd and 3rd centuries, as Irenæus, Cyprian, Lactantius, received for true this fable of the marriage of the angels with the daughters of men. St. Augustine, who was less credulous, allows, indeed, that Enoch wrote something divine because he is cited by St. Jude; but he says, it was not without reason that this book was not inserted in the Canon, which was preserved in the temple of Jerusalem, and committed to the care of the sacrificators. St. Augustine sufficiently insinuates, that the authority of this book is doubtful, and that it cannot be proved that it was really written by Enoch. Indeed the account it gives of giants engendered by angels, and not by men, has manifestly the air of a fable; and the most judicious critics believe it ought not to be ascribed to Enoch. De Habitu Mulier. c. iii. De Civit. Dei, lib. xv. c. 23.

This apocryphal book lay a long time buried in darkness; till the learned Joseph Scaliger recovered a part of it. That author gives us some considerable fragments of it, in his notes on the chronicle of Eusebius; particularly in relation to the above-mentioned story of the marriage of the angels with the daughters of men.

Scaliger, Isaac Vossius, and other learned men, attribute this work to one of those Jews, who lived in the times between the Babylonish captivity and our Saviour Jesus Christ. Others are of opinion, it was written after the rise and establishment of Christianity, by one of those fanatics, with whom the primitive Church was filled, who made a ridiculous mixture of the Platonic philosophy and the Christian divinity: such as the authors, or forgers, of the Sibylline Oracles, the Dialogues of Hermes Trismegistus, and the like. The reasons of this opinion are these. 1. The original of the book is Greek; and therefore it was not composed by any Jew, living in Judea, or Chaldea; for they always wrote in Hebrew, or in some of its dialects. 2. It is evident the author was a Christian, because he makes perpetual allusions to the texts of the New Testament. It is therefore, probably, the invention of some Christian, who took occasion from the Epistle of St. Jude to forge this work. As for St. Jude himself, it is probable he cites what concerns the general judgment, not from any book then subsisting under the name of Enoch, but from tradition.—Jurieu, Hist. des Dogmes et Cultes, part i. c. 4.

ENTHRONISATION. (See Bishop.) The placing of a bishop in his stall or throne in his cathedral.

A distinction is sometimes made between the enthronisation of an archbishop and a bishop, the latter being called installation: but this appears to be a mere refinement of the middle ages, of which we have many such.—Jebb.

EPACT. In chronology, and in the tables for the calculation of Easter, a number indicating the excess of the solar above the lunar year. The solar year consisting, in round numbers, of 365 days, and the lunar of twelve months, of twenty-nine and a half days each, or 354 days, there will be an overplus in the solar year of eleven days, and this constitutes the Epact. In other words, the epact of any year expresses the number of days from the last new moon of the old year (which was the beginning of the present lunar year) to the first of January. In the first year, therefore, it will be 0; in the second 11 days; in the third twice 11 or 22; and in the fourth it would be 11 days more, or 33; but 30 days being a synodical month, will in that year be intercalated, making thirteen synodical months, and the remaining three is then the epact. In the following year, 11 will again be added, making fourteen for the epact, and so on to the end of the cycle, adding 11 to the epact of the last year, and always rejecting thirty, by counting it as an additional month. The epact is inserted in the table of moveable feasts in the Prayer Book.

EPHOD, a sort of ornament or upper garment, worn by the Hebrew priests. The word אפוד, ephod, is derived from אפד, aphad, which signifies to gird, or tie, for the ephod was a kind of girdle which, brought from behind the neck, and over the two shoulders, and hanging down before, was put cross upon the stomach; then carried round the waist, and made use of as a girdle to the tunic. There were two sorts of ephods, one of plain linen for the priests, and another embroidered for the high priest. As there was nothing singular in that used by common priests, Moses does not dwell upon the description of it, but of that belonging to the high priest he gives us a large and particular account. (Exod. xxviii. 6, &c.) It was composed of gold, blue, purple, crimson, and twisted cotton: upon that part of it which passed over the shoulders were two large precious stones, one on each shoulder, upon which were engraven the names of the twelve tribes, six upon each stone; and, where the ephod crossed upon the high priest’s breast, there was a square ornament called the pectoral, or breastplate.

St. Jerome observes, that the ephod was peculiar to the priesthood; and it was an opinion among the Jews, that no sort of worship, true or false, could subsist without a priesthood and ephod. Thus Micah, having made an idol and placed it in his house, did not fail to make an ephod for it. (Judges xvii. 5.) God foretold by Hosea, (iii. 4,) that the Israelites should be for a long time without kings, princes, sacrifices, altar, ephod, and teraphim; and Isaiah, speaking of the false gods who were worshipped by the Israelites, ascribes ephods to them.