ENOCH, BOOK OF. The interest that once attached to the apocryphal book of Enoch has now partly subsided. Yet a document quoted, as is generally believed, by an inspired man, can never be wholly devoid of importance or utility in sacred literature. We shall allude to the following parti culars relating to it : I History of the book of Enoch.
2. The language in which it was written.
3. Constituent parts, authorship, and age.
4. The place where it was written.
5. Did Jude really quote it.
6. Its use.
In several of the fathers mention is made of Enoch as the author, not only of a prophetic writ ing, but of various productions. The book of Enoch is alluded to by Justin Martyr, Irenwus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Origen, Augus tine, Jerome, Hilary, and Eusebius. It is also quoted on various occasions in the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, a document which Nitzsch has shewn to belong to the latter part of the first cen tury or the beginning of the second. The passages in these ancient writings relating to our present purpose have been carefully collected by Fabricius, in his Codex Psewlepigraphus (vol. i., pp. 160-224), and by Gildemeister in the Zeitschrift der a'eutsch morg-. Gesellschaft, Band. ix. Jewish writers have also referred to the book more or less expressly. There are reminiscences of it in different works ; as in the book Sohar, in Rabbi Menahem, and others enumerated by Jellinek in the seventh volume of the Zeitschrift der deutschen nzorgen land/schen Gesellschaft, p. 249, et seqq. In the Sth century Georgius Syncellus, in a work entitled Chronographia, that reaches from Adam to Dio cletian, made various extracts from the first hook of Enoch.' In the 9th century Nicephorus, patri arch of Constantinople, at the conclusion of his Chronographic Compendium, in his list of canoni cal and uncanonical books, refers to the book of Enoch, and assigns 4Soo erixot as the extent of it. After this time little or no mention appears to have been made of the production until Scaliger printed the fragments of Syncellus regarding it, which he inserted in his notes to the Chronicus Canon of Eusebius. In consequence of the ex
tracts, the book of Enoch excited much attention and awakened great curiosity. At the beginning of the s7th century an idea prevailed that it existed in an Ethiopic translation. A Capuchin monk from Egypt assured Peiresc that he had seen the book in Ethiopic ; a circumstance which excited the ardour of the scholar of Pisa so much, that he never rested until he obtained the tract. But when Job Ludolph afterwards visited the Royal Library in Paris, he found it a fabulous and silly production. In consequence of this disappoint ment the idea of recovering it in Ethiopic was abandoned. At length Bruce brought home three MSS. of the book of Enoch from Abyssinia. ' Amongst the articles,' he states, I consigned to the library at Paris, was a very beautiful and mag nificent copy of the prophecies of Enoch in large quarto. Another is amongst the books of Scrip ture which I brought home, standing immediately before the book of Job, which is its proper place in the Abyssinian Canon ; and a third copy I have presented to the Bodleian Library at Oxford by the hands of Dr. Douglas, bishop of Carlisle.' As soon as it was known in England that such a pre sent had been made to the Royal Library at Paris, Dr. Woide, librarian of the British Museum, set out for France with letters from the secretary of state to the ambassador at that court, desiring him to assist the learned bearer in procuring access to the work. Dr. Woide accordingly transcribed it, and brought the copy back with him to England. The Parisian MS. was first publicly noticed by the eminent Orientalist De Sacy, who translated into Latin ch. i. ii. iii. iv.-xvi., also xxii. and xxxi., and published them in the .11fagasin Encyclopaique, as.. vi. torn. i. p. 382, et seqq. Mr. Murray, editor of Bruce's Travels, gave some account of the book from the traveller's own MS. The Bodleian MS.