ENOCH, Books of. According to Gen. v 21-23, Enoch lived 365 years, and he walked with God and disappeared, for God took He is supposed to be identical with the seventh of the 10 antediluvian kings in Berosus (Eue dorachus), the Enmeduranki of K 2486, 4364. the seventh king in the Sumerian list discovered by Pcebel (Babylonian Publications of the Uni versity of Pennsylvania, VI, Philadelphia 1913). Enmeduranki, like Enoch, was called into com munion with the gods and initiated into the mysteries of heaven and earth. If the number 365 indicates the original solar character of Enoch, the stork' is likely to have been derived from a Babylonian or Amorite version in which the regnal years had not been brought into the chronological system found in Berosus. The opportunities of this world-wanderer for ob serving celestial phenomena, reading the heav enly tablets and foreseeing the future naturally invited speculation. He became the inventor of writing, mathematics and astronomy, and the forerunner of Dante as an explorer of heaven and hell. Alexander Poryhistor in the time of Sulla found him referred to by a writer as hav ing learned astronomy from the angels (Euse bius, (Pmparatio evangelica' ix, 17, 8). With the growth of angelology the interest cen tred on the fate of the "sons of God" who had married the "daughters of men" (Gen. vi, 1ff.), while the concern about the future of sinners and saints on earth and in the other world de manded authoritative revelations. None was better fitted to impart information on these things than the translated patriarch.
The writings ascribed to Enoch do not seem to have been generally accepted as canonical at any time, either by Jews or Christians. In some circles, however, they have been regarded as authentic and cherished as sacred books. From references in the book of Jubilees and the earlier stratum of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs it may perhaps be inferred that some of them belonged to the 70 hagiographa, men tioned in 4 Ezra xiv, 46, which were not in cluded in the finally adopted Palestinian canon. There is one direct quotation in the New Testa ment: The epistle of Jude (vs. 14) cites a pas sage from one of the books of Enoch in such a manner as to show that it was considered a genuine utterance of the patriarch and an in spired prophecy. In the epistle of Barnabas an other passage is quoted as "Scripture? Tertul lian defended the authenticity and sacred char acter of the book known to him and maintained that the Jews rejected it because it referred prophetically to the Lord, having probably in mind the passage cited by Jude. Clement of Alexandria also quotes the book with confi dence. Origen charges Celsus with not having
read the book of Enoch whence his statement concerning the angels was taken, and not being aware that the books ascribed to Enoch were not universally accepted as divine in the churches. Anatolius of Laodicea quoted a pas sage simply to show the character of the Jewish calendar, but Zosimus of Panopolis refers to the hooks as "ancient and divine scriptures? Jerome rejected the book of Enoch as apocry phal; Augustine took the same position; and it is counted among the Apocrypha by the Apos tolic Constitutions (5th century), Pseudo Athanasius, Nicephorus' 'Stichometria> (1500 or 4800 stichi), and the 'Index LX librorum.' The parts copied by George Syncellus (c. 790) may have been drawn from Pandorus of Alex andria; but the manuscript found at Panopolis seems to have been written•later than the 8th century. Many writers, from 4 Ezra and 2 Peter to George Cedrenus in the 11th century, who do not mention the name of Enoch show an acquaintance either with the book itself or with its characteristic ideas, notably that of the fall and punishment of the angels.
In Abyssinia the book of Enoch has main tained its position in the canon before the book of Job to the present time, not only among the Christians, but also, according to the testimony of Bruce, among the Jews whose Ethiopic text, however, has not yet been examined. To what extent another book ascribed to Enoch. pre served in the Slavonic Church, was regarded as canonical cannot be determined. The He brew Enoch, though quoted by many mediaeval Jewish writers, does not seem to have been con sidered by them as a part of the canon. Ven erable Bede (died 735) thought that the book of Enoch merited to be counted among the sacred scriptures because of its authority, age and use, but especially because of the testimony? of Jude. William Whiston defended the canon icity of the book known to him through Syn cellus, and William Murray regarded the nu cleus of the Ethiopic Enoch as genuine and in spired. The Roman Catholic Church reckons the books ascribed to Enoch among the Apoc rypha of the Old Testament, while many Prot estant scholars, who give this name to the deu tero-canonical books of the Old Testament, des ignate them as Pseudepigrapha, a term first used by Jerome in regard to the Wisdom of Solomon and the Epistle of Jeremiah. Un identified quotations indicate that all the Enoch literature has not yet been discovered. The three extant works are generally called the Ethiopic, Slavonic and Hebrew Enoch, because of the languages in which they first became known. in their full extent, to modern scholars.