Full text PREFACE to the Book of Enoch, 1882.

This is the full text of the PREFACE of the original publication of this translation of The Book of Enoch.

Enoch (GTR, LXX, HTR) is the name of four biblical persons. The first is the oldest son of Cain (Gen. iv. 17); the second, the son of Jared (Gen. v. 18); the third, the son of Midian (Gen. xxv. 4); the fourth, the oldest son of Reuben (Gen. xlvi. 9; Ex. vi. 14).¹ Of these the second alone is of importance and interest for us, not only on account of the mysterious prominence given him in Gen. v., but especially from the fact that an inspired writer of the New Testament, Jude, in his letter ver. 14, mentions him as a prophet, and produces a quotation from a book attributed to the patriarch. The existence of such a book does not, however, rest on the authority of this statement alone; but in the early literature of the church there is a whole chain of evidences to this effect. Nearly all of the church Fathers knew of an apocryphal Book of Enoch, and their description of the work and citations from it prove satisfactorily that it was virtually the same as that which now lies before us. Among the Apostolic Fathers, the Epistle of Barnabas refers to such a work. In chap. iv. 3 of that letter, Enoch is cited, and the character of the quotation points to chap. 80 of our book as its probable source, while in the statement of the same Epistle xvi. 5, although ... introduced with the important words: GTR, we find almost the very words of En. 89:56. From that time on to about the seventh century Christian literature, to which alone we owe the preservation of the important work, produces ample proof of the constant use and high standing of this book. Beside the Jewish-Christian Testament. xxl Patriarch.,¹ a production of the second century, the church Fathers² Justin Martyr,³ Clemens of Alexandria, Origen, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Eusebius, Jerome, Hilary, Epiphanius, Augustine, and others refer to and use it.¹ The majority of these statements are indeed simply allusions and general references; but they are of such a character that their source in the present Book of Enoch can generally be found to a certainty, the writers in this respect following the example of Jude, whose citation is taken from En. 1:9, and is not a literal reproduction. The Fathers all, with possibly the one dissenting voice of Tertullian (De Cult. Fem. I. 3) deny the canonicity of this book, and properly regard it as apocryphal; some going even so far as to deny the canonicity of Jude because he had dared to quote an apocryphal work.¹¹ The precedent for this step was given in the Apostolic Constitutions, vi. 16, in strong words.

When, after the time of Augustine, the period of literary death robbed the church of many of her noblest monuments of literature, the Book of Enoch, too, was lost, and later investigators had to be content with the references in the Fathers, and a few extracts made by the learned monk of the eighth century, Georgius Syncellus, in his Chronography.

A short time after him, in the ninth century, the book is mentioned as an apocryphon of the New Testament by the Patriarch Nicephorus. The fragments preserved by Syncellus, varying indeed in minor points of expression, are still virtually an extract from the book as we have it now. They are divided into two parts; the first containing chap. 6:1 to chap. 9:4, the second chap. 8:4 to chap. 10:14, and chap. 15:8 to chap. 16:1; in addition to which there is a small part not found in the Ethiopic. Here comes into consideration also a small fragment of the Greek Enoch found after the discovery and publication of the Ethiopic version.

In Jewish literature, the Book of Enoch did not stand in such high regard as it did among Christian writers, and consequently was not so extensively used. It was, however, neither unknown nor ignored altogether. Already in the work so frequently cited in early Christian literature as GTR, a production of the first Christian century, the references are frequent and unmistakable. A comparison of the statements of this book of the Jubilees, especially p. 17 sq. of the Ethiopic text (ed. Dillmann), with those of Enoch forces us to the conclusion that the author of the former book could not have written as he did without an exact knowledge of the contents of the latter. Of the use made of the book by later Jewish writers, we have a brief account by A. Jellinek in the Zeitschrift d. D. M. G. 1853, p. 249.

The clearest example in this respect is found in Sohar, vol. ii. Parasha HTR p. 55 a (ed. Mant. et Amsterd.): “Comperimus in libro Hanochi, Deum illi, postquam, sustulisset eum in sublime, et ostendisset ei omnes thesauros superiores et inferiores, monstrasse etiam arborem vitae et arborem illam, quam interdixerat Adamo, et vidit locum Adami in Paradiso, in quo si Adamus observasset praeceptum illud, vixisset perpetuo et in aeternum mansisset.” In vol. I. Parasha Bereshit, p. 37 b there is a remark that covers about the same ground, with the additional statement that the Book of Enoch was “handed down” to him from the time when he began to associate with superterrestrial beings.

The existence of such a Book of Enoch, made certain from these numerous quotations, was the source of considerable perplexity and anxiety to Christian theologians, and numerous and curious were the conjectures concerning its authorship and character. In the beginning of the seventeenth century it was confidently asserted that the book, mourned as lost, was to be found in an Ethiopic translation in Abyssinia, and the learned Capuchin monk Peirescius bought an Ethiopic book which was claimed to be the identical one quoted by Jude and the Fathers. Ludolf, the great Ethiopic scholar of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, however, soon proved it to be a miserable production of a certain Abba Bahaila Michael.¹ Better success attended the efforts of the famous English traveller James Bruce, who discovered three copies of the book, and brought them, in 1773, with him to Europe.

One of these found its way into the Bodleian Library, the other was presented to the Royal Library of France, the third was kept by Bruce. Since that time other copies have been brought from Abyssinia. Strange to say, no use was made of these important documents until the year 1800, when Silvestre de Sacy, in his Notice sur le livre d’ Enoch, in the Magazin Encyclopédique, an vi., tome I. p. 382, gave as specimens of the book the extracts and Latin translation of chap. 1 and 2, chap. 5-16, and chap. 22 and 32, from which then, in 1801, a German translation was made by Rink. There again the matter rested until 1821, when Prof. Laurence, afterwards Archbishop of Cashel, published an English translation from the MS. in the Bodleian, with the title: “The Book of Enoch, the Prophet: an apocryphal production, supposed to have been lost for ages; but discovered at the close of the last century in Abyssinia; now first translated from an Ethiopic MS. in the Bodleian Library. Oxford, 1821.”

The second edition of this work appeared in 1833, the third in 1838. In the same year in which the third edition appeared, Laurence edited the Ethiopic text as: “Libri Enoch Prophetae Versio Aethiopica.” Both text and translation are unreliable, and must now be regarded as entirely antiquated.

Laurence’s text is divided into one hundred and five chapters, which division was accepted by investigators down to Dillmann. He very properly made the division into one hundred and eight chapters. Prof. A. G. Hoffmann, of Jena, issued a full translation of Enoch with copious notes, in two parts, as: Das Buch Henoch in vollständiger Uebersetzung, mit fortlaufendem Commentar, ausführlicher Einleitung und erläuternden Excursen. For Part I., chap. 1-57, issued 1833, Hoffmann could use only Laurence’s text and translation, but for Part II., chap. 58-108, he, in addition to these aids, consulted a MS. copy brought by Dr. Rüppell from Abyssinia and deposited in Frankfurt am Main.

In the second part many of Laurence’s mistakes are corrected, but not all by any means. With these aids at his disposal, Gfrörer made his Latin translation of the book in 1840, as: “Prophetae veteres Pseudepigraphi, partim ex Abyssinico vel Hebraico sermonibus Latine versi”; but this was again unsatisfactory.

The book of Rev. Edward Murray, “Enoch Restitutus, or an Attempt,” etc., London, 1836, must be regarded as a total failure.

All these sins were atoned for when the master-hand of A. Dillmann issued the Ethiopic text in 1851, as: “Liber Henoch, Aethiopice, ad quinque codicum fidem editus, cum variis lectionibus.”

Two years later the same author published his accurate translation of the book, with reliable notes, as: Das Buch Henoch, übersetzt und erklärt, a work of singular acumen and vast learning, which is the standard translation of Enoch to this day.

The publication of these two works inaugurated a series of happy studies by Lücke, Ewald, Köstlin, Hilgenfeld, Volkmar, Langen, Gebhardt, Tideman, and others, who have all sought to give solutions of the many difficulties presented by this most mysterious book, but with very different results.

Before proceeding to the special examination and analysis of the book before us, it is highly important that the question of the trustworthy or untrustworthy character of the Ethiopic translation be discussed.

Is the Ethiopic translation a reliable version of the Greek Enoch? For it is evident that the translation belongs to the early period of Ethiopic literature, when the literature in the Greek language was copied and translated by the Abyssinian theologians, before the introduction of Arabic influence and models. Enoch is, then, like all of the best specimens of literature in Abyssinia,—the Bible, the Book of the Jubilees, the fourth Book of Ezra, Ascensio Isaiae, and Pastor Hermae,—translated from the Greek. Whether the Greek is the original language of the book, or the Hebrew or Aramaic, will be discussed later; here we have to decide on the relation existing between the Ethiopic and the Greek, from which our Enoch is a translation.

As the Greek text, with the exception of some fragments, has been lost, this question cannot be apodictically decided, but there are means of reaching a probable result, sufficient to permit us to trust the text as we find it in the Ethiopic translation. This result can be reached in two ways, first by analogy, by seeing whether those translations of which the original Greek has been preserved are faithful representatives of these originals, and thus learning the general manner in which translations were made in Ethiopia, and secondly by comparing the fragments of Enoch that still remain with the translation.

Following the first method, we naturally begin with the comparison of the version of the Bible, translated in the early days of Christianity among the Ethiopians, not from the Hebrew, but from the Septuagint. Here only one authority has a right to speak, the editor of the Octateuchus Aethiopicus, Prof. Dillmann. As late as 1877, after years of diligent research on this subject, his judgment of this translation and its relation to the Greek is as follows:

“With regard to the translation, it must be said that it is a very faithful one, generally giving the Greek text verbatim, often even the relative position of the words; it abbreviates only now and then whatever seemed superfluous, and must, on the whole, be called a successful and happy version. Notwithstanding its entire fidelity to the Greek text it is very readable and, especially in the historical books, smooth, and frequently coincides with the meaning and words of the Old Testament in a surprising manner. Of course there is a difference in this respect between the different books. The Ethiopic translators were by no means very learned men, and had not an absolute command of the Greek language; especially when they had to translate rare words and technical terms this clearly appears, and consequently some misunderstandings and mistakes have crept into the text through the fault of the translators.”

This version of the Old Testament is, then, on the whole, a faithful copy of the Septuagint.

The same must be said of the translation of Pastor Hermae, although here “the sins of omission” are much more frequent, especially in Similitudines iv., v., and vi., which are rather an epitome of the Greek than a translation. Positive mistakes do, indeed, now and then occur,¹ but the main deviations from the Greek are found in the omissions. These are by no means of much importance as to contents, except possibly in Sim. v. 2, and it would be difficult to decide who made these omissions, whether they were already found in the original of the translator, or introduced by him, or are to be ascribed to a copyist.² A close comparison between the Ethiopic and the Greek text proves conclusively that the former is what can be called a good translation.

As the Greek text of the Physiologus has never been issued in a critical edition, a reliable examination of the fidelity of the old Ethiopic translation can scarcely be made, yet the evidences seem sufficient to justify an opinion equally as favorable as that passed on the version of the Bible and on Pastor Hermae.

The Greek text of the Ascensio Isaiae recently discovered, and published by Geghardt in Hilgenfeld’s Zeitschrift für wissenschaft. Theologie, 1878, pp. 330-353, is evidently a different recension from the one from which the Ethiopian made his translation, hence a comparison could produce but few positive results.

From the evidences, then, that can be regarded as valid we are, from analogy, allowed to expect that the Ethiopic translation of Enoch will, on the whole, be a faithful one, although occasional mistakes and omissions may occur. This opinion is confirmed by an examination of the remaining fragments of the Greek text. Comparing our text with that of Syncellus it is at once apparent that they do not always agree. But this does not impeach the veracity of the Ethiopic, for Syncellus furnishes his own evidence that he did not quote literally, but in a free manner. Chap. 8:4 to chap. 9:4 he gives twice, and the two quotations are far from being alike, thus showing that Syncellus, in his extracts from Enoch, as he was accustomed to do when citing other works, does not pretend to quote literally, but simply to give the sense. Certainly Syncellus has occasionally, as in 6:6, the better text, but in other places the Ethiopic wording, as the notes show, is decidedly to be preferred. This comparison, then, in no manner injures the claim of the trustworthy character of the version before us.

Gebhardt has attempted to draw capital from the Greek fragment of 89:42-49, and on the basis of these few verses has reached a very pessimistic conclusion on the Ethiopic text of Enoch, especially chap. 89 and 90. But here there is really but one verse where the Greek presents a better reading, and this verse is of little importance, and can in no wise affect the conclusion that we have in Enoch, as translated by the early Ethiopic church, a faithful copy of the Greek.

Consequently we can proceed to the examination of the book itself with but little hesitancy.

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