Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 2.djvu/189

Rh APOCALYPTIC LITERATURE 175 founded upon authorship, Jewish or Christian. This, how ever, cannot be carried out with exactness because of later interpolations, proceeding from Christians who used the Jewish prophecies with the object of making them more suitable. But it is not easy to trace the extent of sub sequent elaborations ; and we have only to rely on probable conjecture. I. JEWISH APOCALYPTIC. 1. Enoch. Under the name of this antediluvian patri arch a book exists which is quoted in the epistle of Jude. After it had disappeared, except the fragments preserved by ecclesiastical writers, it was found in Ethiopia among the Abyssinians, and published by Laurence in 1821 ; subsequently by Dillmann in 1851, to which the latter scholar added a German translation in 1853. The book has been divided into five parts, exclusive of an intro duction and a conclusion. The first contains an account of the fall of the angels, and their intercourse with the daughters of men producing a race of giants, with the consequences of such apostacy ; followed by a description of Enoch s travels through heaven and earth under the guidance of holy angels, who explain to him the mysteries of the visible and invisible world (chapters vi.-xxxvi.) The &quot; second vision of wisdom &quot; is occupied with a description of the mysteries belonging to the heavenly kingdom, the angel-world, the Messiah, the growth and completion of His kingdom, the blessedness of the elect, and the condemnation of the unbelieving (xxxvii.-lxxi.) The third part is astro nomical and physical, including an account of the movements of the stars, the sun, and the moon; of the four winds, and various earthly objects (lxxii.-lxxxii.) The fourth part describes two dream visions shadowing forth the history of man, from his origin to the completion of the Messianic king dom (lxxxiii.-xci.) The fifth contains a series of admoni tory discourses addressed by Enoch to his own family in the first place, and then to all inhabitants of the earth (xcii.-cv.) Several appendices are subjoined containing a narrative of the wonders which happened at Noah s birth, and a writing of Enoch s about the future retribution of the just and unjust (cvi.-cviii.) The work contains much curious matter about the secrets and powers both of the visible and invisible world. Besides its historical views which relate mainly to the past, present, and future of the Jewish people, as also to heathen kings and potentates, much of the legendary and hagadic is interspersed. Daniel s seventy weeks, reaching down to the Messianic age, are changed into seventy periods of heathen rulers. The writer has withal a religious spirit. He is a strict moralist, warning and threatening. His imagination is vivid, but incapable of sublimity. The sweep of his prophetic vision is extensive. He has poetic force and vigour. The work is an interesting product of pre-Christian Judaism, multifarious, artificial, rabbinising. The document consists not only of the prophecy of Enoch, but of extracts from a Xoah-prophecy interspersed. The latter are found in places often unsuitable, consisting of chapters liv. 7-lv. 2, lx., Ixv.-lxix. 25; perhaps also of xx. and Ixx. In cvi., cvii.-the same hand may be partly traced. Setting aside these insertions, the book of Enoch itself seems to be composed of three documents, the oldest of which is chapters xxxvii.-lxxi. The other two are not easily collected, but the chapters xci. 3-cv. have the clearest claim to belong to the second, and xxxiii.-xxxvi., Ixxxv.-xc. to the third. The rest is all uncertain. The first was written about 144 B.C. as Ewald 1 acutely remarks; the other two fall some years later, i.e., within the reign of John Hyrcanus (13G-10G B.C.) The Noah-document is posterior, belonging 1 Abhandlung ueber des jElhiopischen Bitches Ilenokh Entstchung Sinn und Zusammenhang, p. 73. perhaps to the first century ; and all were subsequently put together, forming the present heterogeneous composition. Hilgenfeld contends that chapters xxxvii.-lxxi. proceed from a Christian Gnostic, 2 but his arguments are insufficient. Still more improbable is the hypothesis of Volkmar, that the entire Apocalypse was written 132 A.o. 3 We believe, how ever, in opposition to Dillmann, that they have been interpo lated by a Jewish Christian, since the christology is higher than what Judaism produced ; while the eschatology and angelology are developed in a manner which savours of Christianity. Thus, in the 51st and 62d chapters the Messiah is described as sitting on the throne of His glory and taking part in the judgment, while He is also called the Son of woman, the Son of man. To make Messiah the judge of mankind, either as the delegate of the Father, or together with Him, is not a Jewish, but a Christian idea. This differs from the representation in the 90th chapter, where he is symbolised by a white bull with great horns, whom all the beasts of the field and all the birds of heaven feared and entreated at all times. All races are to be changed into white bulls ; the first among them became a great animal ; and the Lord of the sheep rejoiced over them and all the bulls. Here Messiah is simply the chief of God s people, elevated above the rest, but still of the same nature with them, having no share in the judgment, or in founding the new church of God. He comes into the description by way of appendix, as it were, as though the author could not well omit all notice of Him. His part is entirely subordinate. In the 105th chapter, which, with the next three, show traces of Christian influence, the Messiah is called Son of God, an appellation which seems to carry the idea of His person beyond Judaism, especially in connection with that in the 62d chapter, Son of woman, for the two come very near the idea of an incarnation. The whole work presents no trace of Rome as a power dangerous to Israel, so that the latest parts cannot be brought down far into the 1st century. The book had a very limited circulation among the author s countrymen. They do not quote it. It proceeded from a private individual, who may have belonged to a small circle or sect such as the Essenes. But Jude cites it. It has been translated into English by Laurence ; into German, but chiefly from Laurence s English, by Hoffmann ; and much more correctly by Dillmann in 1853. The translation of the last mentioned scholar has superseded those of his predecessors. See also Ewald s Abhandlung, u.s.w. ; Liicke s Versuch einer vollstandigen Einhitung in die 0/enbarung des Johannes, ii.s.w., zweyte Auflage, 11; Koestlin, &quot;Ueber dieEntstehung des BuchesHenoch&quot; in the Tubingen Journal of Baur and Zeller for 1856 ; Hilgenfeld s Die Jiidische Apolcalyptik ; Davidson in Kitto s Cyclopedia, article &quot;Enoch;&quot; Hilgenfeld s Zeitschrift fur wiss. Theologie, 1860, 1861, 1862. 2. Another apocalyptic production is the so-called Fourth Book of Esdras, or The Prophecy of Ezra, originally written in Greek, but known now only in versions, Latin, Ethiopia, Syriac, Arabic, and Armenian. The whole consists of a series of visions, which Ezra, who is put unchronologically into the 30th year of the Babylonian captivity, is supposed to have had. The questions that troubled the seer arose out of the state in which the Jews were at the time. They were deeply oppressed and afflicted. The heathen had trodden them down to the ground. Why had the promises of God to His own people been unfulfilled 1 Was not Israel still the chosen race, though often sinning 1 Were they not better than the heathen? The Eomaus had 8 Die JMische Apokalyptik, p. 148, &c. 3 &quot; Beitriige zur Erklarung des B. Henoch nach dem ^Etliiop. Text,&quot; in tlio Zeitschrift der deutschen iTwrgenlandischen Oescllschaft, 1860 p. 87, Ac., and HUgenfeld s Zeitschrift, 1861, 1862.