SLAVONIC ENOCH. A pseudepigraphical work extant only in a Slavonic version to which this name has been given in order to distinguish it from the Ethiopic Enoch. (See Emelt.) In the manuscripts it bears the title The Book of the Secrets of Enoch. The existence of this work seems to have been unknown in modern times until 1880. when the South Russian recen sion was published by Popoff. The more com plete version of Morrill and Charles was based on five manuscripts, of which two contain the complete text in Russian and Bulgarian recen sions of the seventeenth and sixteenth centuries, one is an incomplete but valuable Servian codex of the sixteenth century. and two are fragmen tary copies. Other manuscripts are known to exist. The Bulgarian text contains five addi tional chapters on Melchizedek.
The book was translated into the Old Church Slavic from the Greek, possibly in the ninth century. It is evident that the author was influenced by Hellenistic thought. Charles thinks it probable that he lived in Egypt, since he believed in the preexistence and immor tality of the soul, the seven natures of man, the egg theory of the universe and such monsters as the Phoenixes and Chalkadri, cherished no 111es sianic hope, and used the Book of Ecelesiasticus. On the other hand. Hellenizing Jews, Essenes, and others in Palestine seem to have cherished views similar to those found in the Slavonic Enoch. The conception of the human soul as preexistent and immortal, the opposition to oaths, the indifference to the sacrificial cult were characteristic of the Essenes. Many circles were evidently untouched by the political hope of a Messiah (q.v.). The idea of a world-egg had ex
isted in Syria at least since the Persian period, and Egyptian mythological figures found at all times ready entrance there. The Greek Bible was unquestionably used by Hellenizing Jews in Palestine in the first century A.D. If the Greek original of the Slavonic Enoch had been known in Alexandria in the beginning of our era it would be very strange that it was not translated into Ethiopic with the rest of the Enoch litera ture, while its survival only in the Slavonic churches would be natural if it found its way from Syria, Asia Minor. and Constantinople into Bulgaria. It is possible that this work is quoted in the Testaments of the Twelre Patriarchs, but the (late of the latter work is far from certain. Nevertheless, there is much that favors a date for the Slavonic Enoch earlier than A.D. 70, es pecially if a Palestinian origin be assumed. It is a most important document of the Judaism of the first century. apparently untouched by Chris tianity. In it we have the most complete de scription of the seven heavens, the doctrine of the millennium (q.v.), the conception that God requires no sacrifices but a pure heart (xlv. 3), the idea that the souls of animals as well as men survive the shock of death (Mil), and beati tudes, cures, and admonitions reminding in a very striking manner of the ethical precepts and ideals found in the Synoptic Gospels. Consult: Morfill and Charles. The Book of the Secrets of Enoch (Oxford, 1896) ; Bonwetsch. Des slacische Ilcnochbuch (Gottingen, 189(i).