William J. Deane · 5 of 16

The Book of Enoch · Part 2

This portion of the work closes with an address of Enoch to his children, exhorting them to lead a holy life, founding his lecture on the certainty of the future which the preceding visions have delineated.

The fifth division of the book (chaps. xcii.–cv.) is called “An Instruction of Wisdom,” and contains the practical application of the four preceding portions, addressed by Enoch primarily to his own family, and then to all the inhabitants of the earth. He opens the subject by predicting the resurrection of the righteous and the destruction of sinners. “The righteous,” he says, “shall arise from sleep and advance in the way of righteousness, and his whole walk shall be in eternal goodness and grace. Mercy shall be shown him; he shall receive dominion, and walk in everlasting light; but sin shall perish in darkness for ever, and shall no more be seen from this day forward.” Before he begins his exhortation, he recounts in brief what he had seen in visions and had read in the heavenly tablets concerning the ten weeks of the world, of which seven belong to the historical past, three to the apocalyptical future. The first week is concerned with Enoch, the second with Noah, the third with Abraham, the fourth with Moses, the fifth with the building of the temple, the sixth with its destruction, the seventh with the introduction of an apostate generation. He intimates that he himself lived at the end of the first week. This would be in due accordance with the personification. The eighth week is the commencement of the Messianic era, when the sword of the righteous shall overcome the oppressors, and the new Jerusalem shall be established. In the ninth week the knowledge of Jehovah shall be spread over the world, and all men shall be forced to acknowledge His power and equity. The tenth and last week ushers in the final judgment on angels and men: the old world shall pass away, and a new heaven shall appear, and earthly life shall be merged in the heavenly. After this preliminary apocalyptical address, the hortatory portion follows, the admonitions to the righteous and to sinners being intermixed. The former are exhorted to continue stedfast in their integrity, and woe is denounced on various classes of the latter. The seer weeps to think of the oppression of the good at the hands of the evil, but is comforted by the knowledge of the final victory of the saints at the coming of Messiah, and the punishment of the unrighteous. Then he sternly reproaches sinners, detailing their folly in many instances, and showing what judgment shall be awarded them. Finally he turns again to the righteous, comforts them in their tribulations, exhorts them to hope and patience by exhibiting their future happy lot and blessedness. They can die in peace, because for them death is the entrance to a better life. And to enforce his words he solemnly adds: “I swear to you, ye righteous, by His mighty power and glory, by His kingdom and majesty, I comprehend this mystery, and have read the heavenly tablets, and have seen the book of the holy ones, and have found written therein that all goodness, joy, and honour are prepared for the spirits of those who have died in righteousness, and that with much good shall ye be recompensed for your troubles, and your lot shall be better than that of the living.” And these books of his shall be handed down to posterity and translated into different languages, and shall be to the good a source of joy, righteousness, and wisdom, and all who believe in them and have learned the lessons there taught shall receive the reward. The section ends with the Lord’s own words: “I and my Son will unite Ourselves with them for ever, because they have walked in the paths of uprightness. And peace shall be upon you; rejoice, ye children of righteousness, in truth.”

The book might naturally terminate here, but, apparently by another hand, two sections are added, one concerning the supernatural circumstances attending the birth of Noah and the prediction of the Flood (cvi.–cvii.); and the other consisting of a writing of Enoch respecting the reward of the righteous and the punishment of the wicked, composed, as he says, “for his son Methuselah, and for those who should come after him, and observe the law in the last days” (cviii.). Here he mentions how in his journeyings he has seen the place of torment, which he describes as a waste outside the earth, and a bottomless sea of fire. The work thus concludes with God’s promise to the righteous: “I will bring into brilliant light those who love my holy name, and set them each on his throne of glory; and they shall shine for endless ages; for righteous is the judgment of God, and to the true will He give truth in the habitation of uprightness. And they shall see how those who were born in darkness shall into darkness be cast, while the righteous shine. And sinners shall cry out, and shall see how these glow with light, and shall continue in their punishment all the times prescribed for them.”

The uncritical receptivity of primitive Christianity regarded the name attached to this book as a sufficient attestation of its genuineness. Thus, as we have seen, Tertullian, while acknowledging that some in his day declined to accept the work, because it was not included in the “Armarium Judaicum,” the Hebrew canon, himself opined that it was written by Enoch, and either preserved in the time of the Flood, or restored by Noah under Divine inspiration. Nor have there been wanting some good people in our own times, with more credulity than critical ability, who have freely accepted the antediluvian authorship and endeavoured to prove that the writer was inspired to predict events down to modern times. I have seen some passages in our book distorted even to enunciate the claims and operations of the British and Foreign Bible Society and the sinister actions of Russian politics. But leaving these dreams, let us come to something more practical. No one nowadays believes that the patriarch Enoch had any hand in the composition of the book which bears his name. This appellation is only another example of the pseudepigraphic idea which dominated so many writers in the period immediately preceding and succeeding the commencement of the Christian era. The sanctity and remarkable destiny of Enoch, the hoar antiquity with which he was associated, designated him as a fit personage to be the mouthpiece of revelations designed for a special purpose and needing the authorisation of a great name. One who himself had been admitted to immediate intercourse with the Most High was peculiarly fitted to reveal Divine mysteries. That no allusion to the production is made in the Old Testament is obvious; that some portion of it was extant in the first Christian century is certified by the quotation in St. Jude’s Epistle. But this certainty will carry us but a little way, as no one can read the work without concluding that it is not the composition of one author or one age, but exhibits difference of origin and date; and if the section from which Jude took his extract presupposes a Jewish and pre-Christian source, other parts may be of quite another character and have no pretension to any such claim. It is a difficult matter (even when we have distributed the work into its several sections) to determine the relation of these parts to each other, and to assign to them their proper position in the treatise. There is no external testimony to appeal to, and we must be guided in our conclusions entirely by internal considerations.

Now in all these writings occurs this marked characteristic. There is past history given in the form of revelation, combined with hopes and predictions of the future. In the former case events are pretty accurately represented, either actually or symbolically; in the latter the seer allows himself free latitude for the display of imagination and the possible development of previous prophetic hints. The difficulty consists in exactly defining the point where history terminates and prediction commences. Usually no hint is given of any such interchange; one phase passes into the other with nothing to mark the passage. If in any particular instance we could say with certainty, here the author writes of contemporary events, and here he crosses from the actual to the ideal, we should at once possess a criterion for determining the date of the composition. Some such opportunity is supposed to be found in chap. xc., where at ver. 16 the emblematical account of past history merges into the expectations of the future. The vision to which we refer (chaps. lxxxv.–xc.) traces the annals of Israel from Adam to the great consummation of mundane affairs. If our readers will refer to the previous account of the contents of the book, they will see that in this Apocalypse the chosen people are represented under the image of domesticated animals, while heathens and enemies are denoted by wild beasts and birds of prey. The allusions are fairly intelligible unto the Captivity; but now comes the paragraph which has exercised the ingenuity of interpreters, and upon the exposition of which the determination of one date depends. About the time of the destruction of Jerusalem the Lord commits the punishment of the chosen people to seventy shepherds, who are told which victims they were to allow to be killed by the wild beasts, and how many, at the same time intimating that they will exceed their commission and destroy many more than the appointed number. Likewise He ordered “Another” to note the number of sheep thus destroyed. These shepherds executed their commission, and delivered the sheep into the hands of the lions and tigers, who burnt the tower and demolished the house. But the shepherds gave over to the beasts many more than they were ordered to do. And when they had ruled for twelve hours, three of the sheep returned and began to rebuild the house and tower. But the sheep mingled with the beasts, and the shepherds rescued them not. When thirty-five shepherds had fed them, birds of prey attacked them; and when twenty-three shepherds had tended the flock, and fifty-eight times were completed in all, then little lambs were born with the results of which we read above. These seventy shepherds are divided into four series, consisting respectively of 12, 23, 23, 12 members. The last of these members would bring as to the author’s own time. Can we with any probability elucidate this riddle? The explanations have been as numerous as the commentators, and we might easily refute their theories by simply comparing one with the other. Out of the confusion thus created we may thank Dillmann and Ewald for helping to deliver us. They and others have seen that an attempt was here made to give a new interpretation to the seventy years of which Jeremiah had spoken as the period of the Captivity, and which had not been followed by that complete restoration which had been anticipated. Hereupon the literal exposition was surrendered; and another theory was started which would account for the partial failure and point to its remedy. The seventy shepherds, according to these interpreters, are foreign and heathen rulers, represented in the prophets as seventy weeks; and they continue to oppress the chosen people till overcome by the great horn, whose victories herald the advent of the Messiah. There is great difficulty in defining the seventy rulers, and it is only with much accommodation that history can be forced into agreement with the writer’s supposed idea. Hence it has been proposed to see in these shepherds, not kings, but angels appointed to superintend the chastisement of Israel at the hands of her enemies. As Drummond points out, these shepherds receive their commission at the same time, which would hardly have been the case had they represented successive monarchs. And further, at the judgment in the delectable land they are placed with the fallen angels; and the one who is deputed to write down the number of sheep destroyed is called “another” (angel); while the duty of protecting the flock from the wild beasts could not have been entrusted to Gentile powers. If, however, we held the usual interpretation of the vision, we should have to explain it in the following way:—The first group of twelve shepherds comprises five Assyrian kings, three Chaldæan and four Egyptian, from Necho II. to Amasis, under whom, more or less, the Israelites suffered injuries. The second group of twenty-three consists of Persian monarchs, from Darius and Cyrus. These 12 + 23 make up 35, the half of the seventy. The next group, consisting also of twenty-three, is composed of Græco-Macedonian kings, from Alexander to his successors, the Ptolemies, Seleucidæ, down to Antiochus Epiphanes. The final twelve range in the Syrian line, from this Antiochus to the close of the reign of Demetrius II. This lands us at B.C. 125. The attempt, however, at exact interpretation is eminently unsatisfactory, while the general features of the scheme are clear enough; and following Schürer’s lucid explanation, we may arrange the matter thus. The seventy shepherds are angels entrusted with the superintendence and punishment of Israel, who neglected their duty and were doomed to hell. The time of the Gentile supremacy is divided into four periods, two of shorter and two of longer duration, as we have seen above. The first period begins from the date of the earliest Gentile invasion (e.g. Assyrian) to the return in the days of Cyrus, the three returning sheep being Zerubbabel, Ezra, and Nehemiah. The second period reaches from Cyrus to Alexander the Great, the substitution of birds of prey for wild beasts (xc. 2) marking the transition from Persians to Greeks. The third extends from Alexander to Antiochus Epiphanes, the lambs symbolising the Maccabees. And the fourth extends from the commencement of the Maccabaean to the author’s own time. This brings us to the “last third of the second century B.C.” The stirring events of the previous twenty or twenty-five years are symbolically depicted. The little lambs of the vision are the pious who rose against the Syrian tyrants, the ravens who tore and devoured them; the sheep with horns are the Maccabaean leaders, who at first had but little success; and one of them in particular was carried off by the enemy. This is Jonathan, the son of Mattathias, who, B.C. 143, was treacherously murdered by Tryphon in Gilead. In similiar figures are represented the defeat and death of Judas and Simon. The great horn which afforded refuge to the persecuted is John Hyrcanus, and the account of the terrible conflict between him and the enemies of Israel merges here into the apocalyptical future. So it is at this point that we may place the meeting of history and revelation, and consequently the composition of this portion of our book.

But our task is by no means ended even if we have satisfactorily determined the age of one section. Were the work one whole, and evidently the production of one author, to fix the date of one portion would be sufficient to determine the approximate date of the rest. But we have every reason to see in the various divisions different authors and different times of composition. Without entering minutely into details, we may say that it is now generally agreed that at least three authors have contributed to the work. The earliest portion, and that which forms the ground-work of the whole (omitting certain interpolations), is found in chaps. i.–xxxvi. and lxxii.–cv. If the author of the historical vision were the writer of this portion, the date of the greater part of the whole work would be determined. There is nothing to guide one to the date in the first thirty-six chapters, but in the latter part of this section there are plain intimations of the same conclusion that has already been reached. The writer in chaps. xciii. 1–14 and xci. 12–17 (which has been displaced) gives another sketch of the world’s history divided into ten weeks, or periods. In agreement with the personification, Enoch intimates that he himself lived at the close of the first epoch. The next five weeks are marked with tolerable distinctness as the epoch of Noah, of Abraham and Isaac, of Moses, of Solomon, of the Captivity. At the end of the seventh week comes the vision of Messiah’s kingdom. We have to determine the duration of this last period. It is impossible to affix any definite number of years to each week, as the duration of each plainly varies most considerably; it has therefore seemed expedient to reckon by generations, counting seven to a week in the earlier times and fourteen in the later periods. This looks like an arbitrary proceeding, one of those accommodations to which critics resort in order to confirm a foregone conclusion. But there are substantial grounds in this case for the notion. It will be seen that seven generations each will cover the first five weeks, the first being from Adam to Enoch, the last from Salmon to Rehoboam. The sixth, according to Drummond’s calculation (omitting, as in St. Matthew, Ahaziah, Joash, and Amaziah), consists of fourteen generations from Abijam to Salathiel. The seventh, taking the series of high priests, and excluding Jason, Menelaus, and Alcimus, as Philo-Græcists, ends with Jonathan, Simon, and John Hyrcanus — thus landing us at the result previously obtained by another road. Of course, there is a doubt concerning the conclusion of the series; but in any case the discrepancy will amount to little more than twenty years, and the date of composition of this portion of the work may be fixed between B.C. 153 and 130, or in the latter half of the second century before Christ.

If we are satisfied with the results thus obtained (and nothing more reliable is to be discovered), we have settled the approximate age of two considerable portions of our book. Another section (chaps. xxxvii.–lxxi.), containing the three parables or similitudes, affords little internal help for determining its date. It is evidently a section distinguished from the rest in character and treatment. There is a difference in the use of the names of God, who is called in this part “Lord of spirits,” in the angelology, the eschatology, and especially in the doctrine of the Messiah, which is much more prominent and definite than in the other divisions. Another peculiarity to which Kostlin directs attention is, that contrasted with the pious are not the ungodly in general (as commonly elsewhere), but Gentile rulers and the mighty ones of earth. Ewald finds herein a reason for considering this to be earlier than the rest, because the enemies denounced are foreign and heathen, while in the other parts the sinners are faithless and renegade Israelites, such as were not heard of till the time of Antiochus Epiphanes. But on the same ground Hilgenfeld concludes that it was written after the fall of Jerusalem; so that no argument can be securely based on this peculiarity. There is one historical allusion which has been supposed to give a hint in this direction. In chap. lvi. we are told that the Parthians and Medes shall work destruction in the Holy Land, and shall in turn suffer vengeance at the hand of the Lord, turning upon and destroying one another; and it is argued hence that an incursion by them had recently happened, as in B.C. 40, when they overran Phoenicia and Palestine, or that at any rate they were the enemies most dreaded in the author’s time. But the inference is wholly unwarranted. The writer is not referring to any historical events that had come under his own cognisance, but is giving expression to his predictive anticipations based on the revelation of Ezekiel, chaps. xxxviii., xxxix. A surer criterion is found in the Messianic references, which show marked development when compared with the statements in the former part, as we shall see later on. It is also noted that, while the Book of Jubilees (which we suppose to have been written at the earliest in the century preceding the Christian era) shows acquaintance with other portions of our work, it never makes any allusion to the marked peculiarities of these three parables. From this we gather that this section was unknown to the writer of the “Jubilees,” or was then not extant. The language used at the commencement of the section implies the existence of other books of Enoch, We here read, “The second vision of wisdom, which Enoch saw;” and the “similitudes” which succeed are evidently the complement of the preceding revelations, introducing themes of higher character, and rising from mundane and material elements to matters of heavenly and spiritual signification. We may reasonably conjecture that it was composed some few years later than the preceding portion.

There remain the Noachian sections which are introduced often most inappropriately, and are now found in chaps. liv. 7–lv. 2, lxv.–lxix., cvi.–cvii., and scattered confusedly in some other places. In chap. lxviii. 1, the Book of the Allegories of Enoch is expressly mentioned, so that these paragraphs must be of later date. They are probably derived from some lost Apocalypse of Noah, and have been inserted by some late editor, who, without much critical skill, wove the materials into a form which would give a quasi unity to the whole. The last chapter (cviii.) is probably the latest of all, though there is nothing in it to determine its date accurately.

The great fact which seems most surely ascertained is that the Book of Enoch is, with the exception of some few possible interpolations, of pre-Christian origin. It was written certainly before the Romans had obtained possession of Palestine, as throughout the whole work there is no mention whatever of them, and they never appear as the enemies of Israel. No knowledge of the New Testament is anywhere exhibited; the name of Jesus never appears; His death and resurrection are not mentioned; all that is of Christological import might fairly be gathered from the Old Testament. The writer especially had studied the prophecies of Daniel, and derived much of his language and matter therefrom, amplifying what he found in previous utterances, and colouring it with his own poetical and often crude fancies.

As to the place where the authors lived, we have good reason for asserting this to be Palestine. This situation best accords with the circumstances revealed in the various treatises. Here we find individuals and the nation oppressed by foreign influence, and fervent aspirations for relief and freedom, showing a state of things which could only be experienced in the Holy Land itself. The attempts which have been made to determine the writers’ locality by reference to the astronomy and geography of the treatises are quite futile. In both sciences the seers were far from being adepts, and to guide oneself to a decision through the fog of imaginary and erroneous details is a hopeless task.

Nothing can be determined concerning the names of the authors. Does the Apostle Jude, by quoting a passage in the book as the production of “Enoch, the seventh from Adam,” authorise the attribution of the work or of this section to the patriarch? Such has been the contention of some, who hold that the passage in question at any rate was a fragment handed down by tradition from antediluvian times. But the verse is manifestly an integral part of the paragraph in which it appears, exactly suitable to and connected with the existing context, and it must meet with the same treatment at our hands as the rest of the section. We have seen to what date we must relegate this book, and that it has no pretension to any such hoar antiquity as the critics above would assign to it. Doubtless it was well known in early Christian times, and Jude and his contemporaries were familiar with it. Without any idea of giving a decided opinion concerning its authorship, and citing the words merely in illustration of his statement (as St. Paul quoted Menander and Aratus), Jude cursorily appeals to a work with which his readers were familiar; and gives it that title by which it was generally known. By using this quotation for a special purpose, Jude does not give his sanction to the whole contents of the work in which it is now contained. All that he endorses with his authority is this particular passage; and in attributing it to Enoch, he is speaking either from direct inspiration, or, as is more probable, merely repeating current tradition. We may confidently affirm that of the authors who more or less have contributed to the book in its entirety we know nothing; nor, indeed, have we any grounds for conjecturing their identity. That they were more than one is proved by the different uses and expressions which obtain in the several portions; e.g. (as we have already observed) the title Lord of spirits, applied to God so commonly in one section, is not found elsewhere; the angelology differs; the Messianic presentation is not identical, nor the eschatology. The attribution of the work to Enoch is doubtless owed to the fact that popular tradition assigned to him the reception of revelations concerning the secrets of nature and other mysteries, the discovery of the alphabet, and the writing of the earliest books that the world ever saw.

We have now to speak of the teaching of this book and the lessons to be drawn from it. Granting that it is of pre-Christian origin, these are of great interest and importance, as bearing an Jewish opinion in days immediately preceding the appearance of Christ. But there is one preliminary question to settle, and that is whether any or what use of this work was made by subsequent Christian writers. A reader at a late Church Congress astonished and scandalised many of his hearers by boldly asserting that St. John in the Apocalypse had merely plagiarised from certain extant productions of a similar nature. This profane theory was not altogether novel, and it requires mention here since the Book of Enoch has been appealed to as strongly confirming the idea of Christian writers’ indebtedness to previous apocryphal literature.

The author of The Evolution of Christianity, in republishing Lawrence’s translation of our book, endeavours in his introduction to prove that Enoch’s work is the source of many Christian opinions and mysteries, primitive Christianity having “freely appropriated his visions as the materials of constructive dogmas.” The writer accepts without question the Archbishop’s views of the origin, date, and locality of the work, except that he is inclined to think that the compiler of the Book of Daniel borrowed from Enoch rather than vice versâ. He proceeds to give instances of the influence of Enoch on subsequent writers and opinions. A few of these we will cite. The theory of the immobility of the earth, for denying which mediaeval physicists were condemned to the stake, is traced to a statement in Enoch (chap. xviii.) concerning the stone which supports the corners of the earth, and the four winds which uphold the earth and the firmament. But the idea is found in Job xxxviii. 6; Ps. xxiv. 2, etc.; and concerning the winds carrying the earth, we may compare Job xxvi. 7 with ix. 6 and Ps. lxxv. 3. The fate of the fallen angels and the happiness of the elect are described in the Book; therefore the Christian view of these matters is derived thence. To this source is traced the teaching concerning the Messiah prevalent in the age immediately preceding and succeeding the appearance of Christ. Then we have a series of passages from the New Testament paralleled by extracts from Enoch which are supposed to have been in the Christian writers’ minds when they spoke or composed the utterances which we now possess. Most of these citations are of very insignificant similarity; many are such as might be found in any works treating of analogous subjects, without any notion of plagiarism, and many more are simply derived from the canonical books of the Old Testament. The “meek shall inherit the earth,” says our Lord in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. v. 5); “the elect shall inherit the earth,” says Enoch v. 7. “Woe unto you which are rich; for ye have received your consolation” (Luke vi. 44). “Woe to you who are rich, for in your riches have you trusted; but from your riches you shall be removed” (Enoch xciv. 8). “The things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils and not to God” (1 Cor. x. 20). “So that they sacrificed to devils as to gods” (Enoch xix. 1). The same idea is found in Bar. iv. 7, and in the Sept. Version of Ps. xcv. 5, cv. 37; Deut. xxxii. 17. The “great gulf fixed” between the souls in Hades (Luke. xvi. 26) is paralleled by a passage (Enoch xxii. 9), mistranslated, “Here their souls are separated by a chasm;” the correct rendering being, “Thus are the souls of the just separated; there is a spring of water above it, light” (Schodde); and our Lord in the parable gives the prevalent opinion without comment. The rapture of St. Paul (2 Cor. xii.) and St. John (Rev. xvii., xix.) is similar to what befell Enoch (chap. xxxix.) in some respects; but one is not dependent on the other in details or description. Enoch hears the angels calling on God, as Lord of lords and King of kings (chap: ix. 3, 4); did St. John therefore borrow the expression (Rev. xvii. 14, xix. 6) from him? The apostle speaks of the tree of life (Rev. ii. 7, xxii. 2, 14); Enoch also (xxiv., xxv.) tells of such a tree, which is plainly derived from Gen. ii. 9, iii. 22, and is alluded to elsewhere, as Prov. iii. 18, xi. 30, etc.; 4 Esdr. viii. 62; “Testament. Levi.” xviii. The tribulations of the last days as delineated in Matt. xxiv. are not unlike the predictions in Enoch lxxx.; but no one reading the two would: gather that they were borrowed one from the other, the variations being numerous, and actual identity not appearing anywhere. There is a book connected with the judgment in Enoch (chap. xlviii.), as in Rev. xx.; but so there is in Ex. xxxii. 32; Ps. lxix. 28; Dan. xii. 1, etc. In Rev. v. 11 the number of angels is called “ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands;” so in Enoch (chap. xl. 1) we read of “a thousand times thousand, and ten thousand times ten thousand beings, standing before the Lord,” which is merely like Dan. vii. 10; Deut. xxxiii. 2. The new heavens and the new earth, adumbrated in 2 Pet. iii. 13 and Rev. xxi. 1, are expected by Enoch (chaps. xlv., xci. 16). The latter passage is perhaps an interpolation, and the former is based on Isa. lxv. 17, lxvi. In 1 Tim. iv. 1, 2 we read, “The Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, through the hypocrisy of men that speak lies;” and St. Paul is thought to have plagiarised from Enoch civ., “and now, I know this mystery that the words of rectitude will be changed, and many sinners will rebel, and will speak wicked words, and will lie and make great works, and write books concerning their words “ (Schodde). Of this character and of no nearer identity are all the passages adduced by the critic as parallel; and, relying on such citations, we are asked to believe that our Lord and ’His apostles, consciously or unconsciously, introduced into their speech and writings ideas and expressions most decidedly derived from Enoch. Few unprejudiced persons will agree with the author of this opinion, whose aim seems to be to throw discredit upon the superhuman origin of Christianity, and to trace it to merely human development. According to him, “the work of the Semitic Milton was the inexhaustible source from which evangelists and apostles, or the men who wrote in their names, borrowed their conceptions of the resurrection, judgment, immortality, perdition, and of the universal reign of righteousness under the eternal dominion of the Son of man.” Yet the same ideas run through all the pseudepigraphic writings, a fact of which our flippant author seems to be wholly unaware. The writer, as he deems, puts orthodox believers in a dilemma: either Enoch was an inspired prophet and the New Testament writers were justified in using his words as Divine utterances, or he was a visionary and fraudulent enthusiast, whose illusions were erroneously accepted by apostles and evangelists, who thus lose their claim to inspiration. Happily, there is a third alternative: the New Testament writers have not borrowed from Enoch, save in the single quotation by St. Jude.