En. x. 15, 16. “To Michael also, the Lord said, Go and announce his
crime to Samyaza and to the others who are with him who have been
associated with women.... Bind them for seventy generations underneath
the earth, even to the day of judgment, and of consummation, until the
judgment, which shall last for ever, be completed. Then shall they be
taken away into the lowest depths of the fire in torments, and in
confinement shall they be shut up for ever.”
Jude 6. “The angels which kept not their first estate, but left
their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under
darkness, unto the judgment of the great day.”
2 Pet. ii. 4. “God spared not the angels when they sinned, but cast
them down to hell, and committed them to pits of darkness, to be
reserved unto judgment.”
Rev. xx. 10. “The devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of
fire and brimstone, ... and shall be tormented day and night for
ever.”
En. xxi. 56. “I beheld columns of fire struggling together to the end of
the abyss, and deep was their descent. But neither its measurement nor
magnitude was I able to discover.... Uriel, one of the holy angels ...
said, This is the prison of the angels, and here are they kept for
ever.”
Rev. xx. 1-3. “And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the
key of the bottomless pit (abyss) and a great chain in his hand. And
he laid hold on the devil and ... cast him into the bottomless pit,
and shut it, and sealed it over him.”
En. lxxix. “In the days of sinners the years shall be shortened, ... and
every thing done on earth shall be subverted and disappear in its
season.... In those days the fruits of the earth shall not flourish in
their season, ... heaven shall stand still. The moon shall change its
laws, and not be seen at its proper period; ... and all the classes of
the stars shall be shut up against sinners.”
En. lxi. 9. “And trouble shall seize them when they shall behold this
Son of woman sitting upon the throne of his glory.”
Matt. xxiv. 7, 21, 22, 29, 30. “There shall be famines and
earthquakes in divers places ... great tribulation, such as was not
since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall
be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh
be saved.... Immediately after the tribulation of those days, the
sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and
the stars shall fall from heaven.... Then shall the tribes of the
earth mourn; and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds
of heaven, with power and great glory.”
En. xlvii. 3. “He sat upon the throne of his glory, while the book of
the living was opened in his presence, and while all the powers which
were above the heavens stood around and before him.”
En. l. “In those days shall the earth deliver up from her womb, and hell
deliver up from hers, that which it has received, and destruction shall
restore that which it owes. He shall select the righteous and holy from
among them.”
En. liv. “In those days shall the mouth of hell be opened into which
they shall be immerged; hell shall destroy and swallow up sinners from
the face of the elect.”
Rev. xx. 11-13, 15. “I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on
it, ... and I saw the dead, small and great, standing before the
throne; and the books were opened, and another book was opened,
which is the book of life, and the dead were judged out of those
things what were written in the books, according to their works. And
the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and hell
delivered up the dead which were in them.... And whosoever was not
found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.”
En. xl. 1. “After this I beheld thousands of thousands, and ten thousand
times ten thousand, and an infinite number of people, standing before
the Lord of spirits.”
Rev. v. 11. “I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round
about the throne, ... and the number of them was ten thousand times
ten thousand, and thousands of thousands.”
En. xlv. 3. “In that day shall the Elect One sit upon a throne of glory,
and shall choose their conditions and countless habitations.”
Matt. xxv. 31, 32. “Then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory;
and before him shall be gathered all nations; and he shall separate
them one from another.”
John xiv. 2. “In my father’s house are many habitations.”
En. xlv. 4. “In that day I will cause my Elect One to dwell in the midst
of them. I will change the face of the heaven: I will bless it and
illuminate it for ever. I will also change the face of the earth: I will
bless it, and cause those whom I have chosen to dwell upon it.”
Rev. vii. 15. “He that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among
them.”
2 Peter iii. 13. “Nevertheless, we, according to his promise, look
for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.”
En. xcii. 17. “The former heaven shall depart and pass away, a new
heaven shall appear.”
Rev. xxii. 1. “I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first
heaven and the first earth were passed away.”
En. lxi. 4-9. “The word of his mouth shall destroy all sinners, and all
the ungodly who shall perish at his presence.... Trouble shall come upon
them, as upon a woman in travail. One portion of them shall look upon
another; they shall be astonished, and shall abase their countenances;
and trouble shall seize them, when they shall behold this Son of woman
sitting upon the throne of His glory.”
Matt. xxv. 31. “When the Son of man shall come in his glory, then
shall he sit upon the throne of his glory.”
2 Thess. i. 9. “Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction
from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power.”
1 Thess. v. 3. “Then sudden destruction cometh upon them as travail
upon a woman with child, and they shall not escape.”
2 Thess. ii. 8. “That wicked whom the Lord shall consume with the
Spirit of his mouth.”
En. lxvi. 5-8. “I beheld that valley in which ... arose a strong smell
of sulphur which became mixed with the waters; and the valley of the
angels, who had been guilty of seduction, burned underneath its soil.
Through that valley also rivers of fire were flowing, to which the
angels shall be condemned, who seduced the inhabitants of the earth.”
Matt. xiii. 42. “And shall cast them into a furnace of fire.”
Matt. xxv. 41. “Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire,
prepared for the devil and his angels.”
Rev. xx. 10. “And the devil that deceived them was cast into the
lake of fire and brimstone.”
En. civ. “Now will I point out a mystery. Many sinners shall turn and
transgress against the word of uprightness. They shall speak evil
things; they shall utter falsehood.”
1 Tim. iv. 12. “The Spirit saith expressly, that in later times some
shall fall away from the faith, ... through the hypocrisy of men
that speak lies.”
En. xlviii. 1-7. “In that place I beheld a fountain of righteousness
which never failed, encircled by many springs of wisdom. Of these all
the thirsty drank, and were filled with wisdom, having their habitation
with the righteous, the elect, and the holy.”
John iv. 14. “But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give
him shall never thirst: but the water that I shall give him shall be
in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.”
Rev. xxi. 6. “I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain
of the water of life freely.”
En. xlviii. “He has preserved the lot of the righteous, because they
have hated and rejected this world of iniquity, and have detested all
its works and ways in the name of the Lord of spirits.”
Gal. i. 4. “Who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us
from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our
Father.”
1 John ii. 15. “Love not the world, neither the things that are in
the world.”
En. ii. xxvi. 2. “Behold, he comes with ten thousands of his saints, to
execute judgment upon them, and destroy the wicked, and reprove all the
carnal for everything which the sinful and ungodly have done and
committed against him ... [who utter with their mouths unbecoming
language against God, and speak harsh things of his glory].”
Jude 14, 15. “Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of
these, saying, ‘Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his
saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convict all the ungodly
of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of
all the hard things which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.’”
The bracketed words, in the last quotation from the Book of Enoch,
establish its complete identity with the parallel passage in the Epistle
of Jude—an identity of marvellous clearness when we consider that the
original version reaches us through translations and retranslations from
Aramæan, Greek, and Ethiopic, and now assumes the modern form of
Anglo-Saxon. Archbishop Laurence, although convinced that the apostle
cited the Greek version of the extant Ethiopic manuscripts, was not
aware that the last sentence of his quotation is present in the text. We
have discovered it in chapter xxvi. 2 of the Book of Enoch; and in thus
perfecting the parallelism between prophet and apostle, have placed
beyond controversy that, in the eyes of the author of an Epistle
accepted as Divine revelation, the Book of Enoch was the inspired
production of an antediluvian patriarch.
The attention of theologians has been concentrated on the passage in the
Epistle of Jude because the author specifically names the prophet; but
the cumulative coincidence of language and ideas in Enoch and the
authors of New Testament Scripture, as disclosed in the parallel
passages which we have collated, clearly indicates that 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. This evangelical plagiarism culminates in the Revelation
of John, which adapts the visions of Enoch to Christianity with
modifications in which we miss the sublime simplicity of the great
master of apocalyptic prediction, who prophesied in the name of the
antediluvian patriarch.
It is important to observe that it was not the practice of early
Christian writers to name the authors whose language and ideas they
borrowed. When we therefore detect the teaching and diction of Enoch in
Gospels and Epistles, our conclusions are analogous to those of the
orthodox theologians who identify passages of Scripture in the pages of
the ante-Nicene Fathers, although frequently cited from unnamed sources,
with an obscurity of expression more dubious in attestation of their
origin, than the remarkable clearness with which the language of Enoch
may be recognized in the New Testament. Biblical analysts may question
obscure traces of evangelical diction in apostolic Fathers; but what
candid and impartial inquirer can doubt the Enochian origin of the “Son
of man sitting upon the throne of his glory”—the “new heaven” and the
“new earth;” the “many habitations” of the elect, and “the everlasting
fire prepared for the devil and his angels”?
We have merely collated some of the most striking instances of parallel
passages in the Book of Enoch and in the New Testament. Our readers can
supplement our labours through their own research, in further
attestation of the controlling influence exercised by the uncanonical
author on the language and ideas of canonical works.
Some orthodox theologians, unwilling to admit that an apostle quoted an
apocryphal book, contend that Jude referred to a traditional utterance
of the ancient patriarch; but this obviously fanciful theory inevitably
vanishes in the presence of the numerous passages from the Book of
Enoch, which enter into the composition of New Testament Scripture.
Other pious apologists affirm the post-Christian authorship of the book,
a theory which involves the most improbable assumption that an author,
familiar with the story of a suffering and crucified Messiah, uttered
fictitious predictions in the name of an ancient prophet, which depicted
the career of the Son of man on earth as the triumphal march of a
victorious king. Again, theologians who shrink from the admission that
the language and ideas of evangelists and apostles were anticipated in
an apocryphal book, suggest that the Messianic passages contain
Christian interpolations. But if modern defenders of the faith thus
accuse primitive saints and martyrs of literary forgery, how can they
accept an infallible New Testament at the hands of men thus guilty of
conspiring for the deception of posterity? Convinced of the honesty of
early Christians, we concur with the opinion of Archbishop Laurence,
confirmed by Hoffman, that the passages in question are so intimately
interwoven with the general context that they cannot be removed without
evidently destroying the texture of the whole.
The astronomical calculations on which Archbishop Laurence based his
theory of the residence of the author of the Book of Enoch have been
questioned; but, once his Hebrew nationality has been admitted, it
matters not whether he wrote in or out of Palestine, with this
exception, that if the work was not brought from a distant country into
Judæa, the facility with which a pseudonymous book was accepted in the
locality of its recent composition as the genuine production of an
antediluvian prophet, necessarily encourages scepticism as to the dates
and authorship of all ancient Hebrew literature. It cannot be said that
internal evidence attests the superiority of the Old Testament to the
Book of Enoch; for no Hebrew prophet is more eloquent than its author in
denouncing iniquity, commending righteousness, and inviting all men to
place implicit trust in the final vindication of Divine justice.
Internal evidence indicates the presence of independent Tracts in the
Book of Enoch, possibly composed by different authors. Thus chapters
lxiv. to lxvii. 1 record a vision of the Deluge, narrated as if by Noah
instead of Enoch, and inserted in the middle of another vision with
which it has no connection. But if Pseudo-Enoch borrowed from earlier
writers, the presence of the language and ideas of every section of his
work in the pages of New Testament Scripture inevitably indicates that
the Book or Books of Enoch existed in their present form before the
Christian era.
Christianity obviously borrows the terrors of eternal fire from the Book
of Enoch. Evangelists and Apostles define the duration of Divine
retribution by æons of æons[12] (αἱ αἰῶνες τῶν αἰώνων), or millions of
millions of years, expressive of eternity. It is true that the word æon
can be used in the sense of finite time, but when the authors of New
Testament Scripture speak of æonian fire (τὸ πῦρ τὸ αἰώνιον) they
obviously mean eternal flames. Modern humanity, shrinking from so
merciless a view of Divine retribution, suggests that when sinners have
been tortured for æons of æons they may look forward hopefully to the
future. It is questionable whether final despair would not be preferable
to this form of “hope deferred;” but if modern believers adopt the
terminable theory of æonian fire, this commutation of sentence becomes
equally applicable to the devil and his angels, whose punishment has
been decreed of same duration as that of human sinners;[13] and thus the
traditional enemies of God and man may hope for joyful restoration to
fellowship with Gabriel, Michael, and Raphael, and communion with the
saints, whom they once sought to betray by arts infernal. And as the
righteous are also only promised their rewards in heaven for æons of
æons,[14] if these words mean not eternity, saints may fear, whilst
sinners hope for, the vicissitudes of æonian futurity. Again, as the
dominion of the Messiah,[15] and even the power of God,[16] are depicted
of æonian duration, any limitation of the infinite in the sacred
terminology—æons of æons—imperils the eternal in Divinity.
Theologians who seek to vindicate Divine clemency through the dubious
expedient of substituting æonian for eternal retribution, overlook the
fact that their theory imputes to Divine wisdom the adoption of torture
as the most effectual means of transforming sinners into saints,—a
theory which practically invites us to follow the Divine example by
torturing our criminals into reformation. How much more consistent for
those who cannot reconcile eternal fire with infinite mercy, to take one
step further in the paths of scepticism, by rejecting everlasting
torture as the nightmare of Enochian visions; instead of assuming that
revelation speaks in language so ambiguous that primitive saints
condemned unbaptized babes to eternal fire, whilst modern piety would
even rescue hardened sinners from the flames! If inspired terminology
encouraged spiritual ferocity in the age of St. Augustine, and fosters
theological humanity in the nineteenth century, what may not be the
future interpretation of words, now supposed to convey an infallible
meaning to students of Scripture?
The Book of Enoch teaches the pre-existence of the Son of Man, the Elect
One, the Messiah, who “from the beginning existed in secret,”[17] and
whose “name was invoked in the presence of the Lord of spirits, before
the sun and the signs were created.”[18] The author also refers to the
“other Power who was upon earth over the water on that day,”[19]—an
apparent reference to the language of Gen. i. 2. We have thus the Lord
of spirits, the Elect One, and a third Power, seemingly foreshadowing
the Trinity of futurity; but although Enoch’s ideal Messiah doubtless
exercised an important influence on primitive conceptions of the
Divinity of the Son of man, we fail to identify his obscure reference to
another “Power” with the Trinitarianism of the Alexandrine school; more
especially as “angels of power” abound in the visions of Enoch.
That remarkable passage in the Book of Enoch, which declares that the
heathen “sacrificed to devils as to gods,”[20] is the obvious source of
that superstition through which primitive Christianity saw in Olympian
deities, not the mere phantoms of man’s imagination, but the fallen
angels who, driven forth from heaven, sought compensation in spiritual
dominion on earth,—a superstition still further confirmed by universal
belief in miracles, wrought, not merely by the Supreme, but by
subordinate powers, whether good or evil.
Thus far we learn that the Book of Enoch was published before the
Christian era by some great Unknown of Semitic race, who, believing
himself to be inspired in a post-prophetic age, borrowed the name of an
antediluvian patriarch to authenticate his own enthusiastic forecast of
the Messianic kingdom. And as the contents of his marvellous Book enter
freely into the composition of the New Testament, it follows that if the
author was not an inspired prophet, who predicted the teaching of
Christianity, he was a visionary enthusiast whose illusions were
accepted by Evangelists and Apostles as revelation—alternative
conclusions which involve the Divine or human origin of Christianity.
It may be said that if the author of the Book of Enoch was not the
patriarch in whose name he wrote, was he not obviously an impostor? In
treating of Hebrew divination in “The Evolution of Christianity,” we
refer to the oracles of Urim and the predictions of Prophets. There was,
however, a third form of divination, known as Bath Kol, or the Daughter
of the Voice, through which the Israelites consulted the Deity by
accepting some preconceived sign in attestation of the Divine approval
of contemplated action. This method of artificial (τεχνικὴ) divination
is said to have succeeded the revelation of prophets, but was practised
by the Israelites at a much earlier period of their history. Thus the
servant of Abraham predetermined the sign through which he would
recognize the future wife of Isaac as divinely chosen; and Jonathan, the
son of Saul, preconcerted the verbal omen through which the Israelites
might know that Jehovah had delivered the Philistines into their hands.
The practice of Bath Kol was doubtless familiar to the Semitic author of
the Book of Enoch; let us not therefore condemn him as an impostor,
knowing that through the accidental synchronism of some pre-arranged
sign, he may have personated Enoch in the conscientious conviction that
he was piously fulfilling the will of the Deity.
The recent death of Dr. Pusey recalls the fact, that the learned
translator of the Book of Enoch was his predecessor as Professor of
Hebrew in the University of Oxford. The friends and admirers of the
eminent theologian, who was one of the authors of the Tractarian
movement, propose to found a memorial Library in his name, with “two or
more clergymen, who shall act as librarians, and shall promote _in
whatever way_ the interests of theological study and religious life
within the University”—a programme which seems to inaugurate the reign
of original research within the domains of ecclesiastical theology. But
if, as we are informed by the promoters of the proposed endowment, Dr.
Pusey was above all things “a Christian apologist, the advocate and
champion of the Church of eighteen centuries,” how can the disciples,
who saw in him the “great pillar which once sustained the fortunes of
the Church of England,” encourage a freedom of inquiry, in his name,
which may result in conclusions adverse to the ecclesiastical faith in
which their master lived and died?
Eminent theologians tell us that the future librarians “should be
students of theology—the queen of sciences,—among whom Dr. Pusey held a
position in the first rank;” and yet that he was a zealous supporter of
“a movement which embodied truths included ages ago in the formularies
of the Church.” But how can theology be enrolled among the sciences if
its professors reason in ecclesiastical fetters? As well might a modern
astronomer demand the assent of his pupils to the mediæval theory of the
earth’s immobility, before proceeding to investigate the laws of the
solar system: and thus, doubtless, most theologians seek Divine truth,
weighted with a heritage of foregone conclusions, adverse to the
admission of unorthodox facts.
We all can sympathize with the desire of his disciples to do honour to
the memory of the Tractarian apostle, of many virtues, in whom they see
a “great man, raised up by God Almighty to live and labour for His
Church;” but men who take this transcendental view of a movement, in
which others simply see progress on the road to Rome, can scarcely
consider the prescriptive rights of primitive or mediæval dogmas, in
that impartial mood to which theologians must attain before theology
becomes the “Queen of Sciences.”
Archbishop Laurence was an industrious worker in the scientific
laboratory of theology, when he translated the Bodleian manuscript of
the Book of Enoch, and thus unconsciously placed in our hands the
Ethiopic key to “the evolution of Christianity.” It remains for future
generations to determine whether his labours, or those of his successor
in the Semitic chair of Oxford, shall prove more conducive to the
religious enlightenment of posterity.
Palæontologists who compare the organic fossils of distinctive epochs in
geologic time, and discover in the more recent formations, organisms
partially divergent in structure from pre-existent forms, attribute
variation, not to creative miracles, but to the continuous action of
natural causes fashioning species, throughout the ages, in harmony with
the natural law of “Survival of the Fittest.” We also, having identified
the kindred fossils of Enochian and Evangelical epochs, inevitably infer
that modified versions of pre-existent ideas are traceable, not to
miraculous, but to natural sources,—conclusions which inaugurate the
science of theologic palæontology, and invite all learned travellers to
follow the example of Bruce, by searching the world for ancient
manuscripts which may disclose the merely human origin of dogmas and
mysteries, now accepted as Divine.
Archbishop Laurence, when Professor of Hebrew in the University of
Oxford, translated the Book of Enoch within the walls of the Bodleian
Library, and when appealed to by the Rev. I. M. Butt, in 1827, to
publish the Ethiopic original, answered, “I cannot, the manuscript not
being my own, but belonging to the University of Oxford.” In his preface
to the third edition of his translation, the Archbishop adds, “If the
University of Oxford would oblige the literary world by publishing the
original Ethiopic from the manuscript in its possession, I am persuaded
that Ethiopic scholars would not be wanting to accomplish more than has
been hitherto done for this long regretted book, after its sleep of
ages.” Since these words were written, great progress has been made in
the study of comparative philology; and there are now doubtless many
eminent linguists in England, on the Continent, and in the United
States, who could still further illumine the pages of the Book of Enoch,
through co-operative criticism of the Ethiopic text. Is not the time
therefore come for the University of Oxford to publish the original
manuscript in their possession, that learned Jews and Gentiles may study
the inspired predictions of a great Hebrew prophet, or admire the
sublime imagery of the Semitic Milton who ascended to the heavens to
dramatize Divinity?
At the era of the Renaissance, when enfranchised thought turned from
Aristotle to Plato, it is said that Cardinal Bellarmine advised Pope
Clement VIII. to discountenance a philosophy which approached so closely
to the truths of the gospel—obviously meaning that it would be
inexpedient for the Church to favour a merely human system which
anticipated the Trinitarian theosophy of alleged revelation: is it not
possible that further delay in presenting the world with the Ethiopic
text of Enoch, may suggest to adverse critics, that Oxford neglects the
Hebrew patriarch for the same reason that Rome slighted the Athenian
philosopher?
Archbishop Laurence’s translation, now however, places the Book of Enoch
within the reach of all English readers. Catholics may disregard its
contents, as it is not found in the sacred Canon of their infallible
Church; but Protestants, who adhere to the principles of the
Reformation, and whose tenure of Christianity is therefore contingent on
the appeal to reason, must inevitably enroll Enoch among the prophets,
or reconsider the supernatural in Christianity.
It is important for readers of the Book of Enoch to recollect that we
owe the Reformation to independent study of sacred literature,
previously withdrawn from the people through the oblivion of dead and
untranslated languages. The long neglected Book of Enoch now stands in
analogous relationship with modern seekers after religious truth; and it
remains for its readers to exercise that right of private judgment, to
which Protestantism owes its existence, by impartially considering the
inevitable modifications of faith involved in the discovery, that the
language and ideas of alleged revelation are found in a pre-existent
work, accepted by Evangelists and Apostles as inspired, but classed by
modern theologians among apocryphal productions.
* * * * *
[In revising the proof-sheets of the Book of Enoch, we have been still
further impressed by its relationship with New Testament Scripture.
Thus, the parable of the sheep, rescued by the good Shepherd from
hireling guardians and ferocious wolves, is obviously borrowed by the
fourth Evangelist from Enoch lxxxix., in which the author depicts the
shepherds as killing and destroying the sheep before the advent of their
Lord, and thus discloses the true meaning of that hitherto mysterious
passage in the Johannine parable—“All that ever came before me are
thieves and robbers”—language in which we now detect an obvious
reference to the allegorical shepherds of Enoch.]
Footnote 1:
Compare Book of Enoch ii.
Footnote 2:
Heb. xi. 5.
Footnote 3:
“Against Heresies,” iv. 16. Compare Book of Enoch xv.
Footnote 4:
“On Female Dress,” ii.
Footnote 5:
“De Principiis,” viii.
Footnote 6:
Book of Enoch xl. 8, 9.
Footnote 7:
“Halleluiah” appears upon the cups; and thus a word, with which
ancient Syro-Chaldæans conjured, has become, through the vicissitudes
of language, the Shibboleth of modern “Revivalists.”
Footnote 8:
“On Female Dress,” bk. i. chap. i.
Footnote 9:
Chap. xviii.
Footnote 10:
Chap. xxxviii. 2.
Footnote 11:
Chap. cii., ciii.
Footnote 12:
In “The Evolution of Christianity,” page 355, we mention that “the
Greek word αἰών (æon), signifying an age, a generation, or time
everlasting,” was the title adopted by Valentinus for Divine
emanations.
Footnote 13:
Matt. xxv. 41; Rev. xx. 10.
Footnote 14:
Rev. xxii. 5.
Footnote 15:
Rev. xi. 15.
Footnote 16:
Rev. vii. 12.
Footnote 17:
Chap. lxi. 10.
Footnote 18:
Chap. xlviii.
Footnote 19:
Chap. lx.
Footnote 20:
Chap. xix. 2.
THE BOOK OF ENOCH.
CHAP. I.
1. The word of the blessing of Enoch, how he blessed the elect and the
righteous, who were to exist in the time of trouble; rejecting[21] all
the wicked and ungodly. Enoch, a righteous man, who _was_ with God,
answered and spoke, while his eyes were open, and _while_ he saw a holy
vision in the heavens.[22] This the angels showed me.
2. From them I heard all things, and understood what I saw; that which
will not take place in this generation, but in a generation which is to
succeed at a distant period, on account of the elect.
3. Upon their account I spoke and conversed with him, who will go forth
from his habitation, the Holy and Mighty One, the God of the world:
4. Who will hereafter tread upon Mount Sinai; appear with his hosts; and
be manifested in the strength of his power from heaven.