As the Book of Enoch is, in some respects, the most notable extant
apocalyptic work outside the canonical Scriptures, it will not be
inappropriate to offer a few remarks here on the Apocalyptic Literature
generally. In writing about the books which belong to this literature,
Prof. Burkitt says very pointedly that “they are the most characteristic
survival of what I will venture to call, with all its narrowness and its
incoherence, the heroic age of Jewish history, the age when the nation
attempted to realize in action the part of the peculiar people of God.
It ended in catastrophe, but the nation left two successors, the
Christian Church and the Rabbinical Schools, each of which carried on
some of the old national aims. And of the two it was the Christian
Church that was most faithful to the ideas enshrined in the Apocalypses,
and it did consider itself, not without some reason, the fulfilment of
those ideas. What is wanted, therefore, in studying the Apocalypses is,
above all, sympathy with the ideas that underlie them, and especially
with the belief in the New Age. And those who believe that in
Christianity a new Era really did dawn for us ought, I think, to have
that sympathy.... We study the Apocalypses to learn how our spiritual
ancestors hoped against hope that God would make all right in the end;
and that we, their children, are here to-day studying them is an
indication that their hope was not wholly unfounded.”[1] Hope is,
indeed, the main underlying motive-power which prompted the writers of
the Apocalypses. And this hope is the more intensive and ardent in that
it shines forth from a background which is dark with despair; for the
Apocalyptists despaired of the world in which they lived, a world in
which the godly were of no account, while the wicked seemed too often
triumphant and prosperous. With evil everywhere around, the
Apocalyptists saw no hope for the world as it was; for such a world
there was no remedy, only destruction; if the good were ever to triumph
it must be in a new world. Despairing, therefore, of the world around
them, the Apocalyptists centred their hope upon a world to come, where
the righteous would come to their own and evil would find no place. It
is this thought which underlies the opening words of the Book of Enoch:
“The words of the blessing of Enoch, wherewith he blessed the elect and
righteous, who will be living in the day of tribulation, when all the
wicked and godless are to be removed.” Nowhere in this book is the
essence of this hope more beautifully expressed than in a short metrical
piece in the first chapter:
“But with the righteous He will make peace,
And will protect the elect,
And mercy shall be upon them.
“And they shall all belong to God,
And they shall all be prospered,
And they shall all be blessed.
“And He will help them all,
And light shall appear unto them,
And He will make peace with them.” (1 Enoch i. 8).
In all the books belonging to this literature which have come down to us
this hope is expressed more or less vividly; nor is the dark background
wanting, with prophecies of coming wrath. It will, therefore, be
realized that the Apocalyptic Literature is almost wholly concerned with
the future; it is true that again and again the Apocalyptist glances at
the contemporary history of the world around him, to which many a
cryptic reference is made—a fact which necessitates some knowledge of
the history of this period (_circa_ 200 B.C.-A.D. 100) for a full
understanding of the books in question—but these references are only
made with a view to comforting the oppressed and afflicted with the
thought that even the most mighty of earthly powers are shortly to be
overthrown by the advent of the new and glorious era when every
injustice and all the incongruities of life will be done away with. So
that every reference to the present is merely a position taken up from
which to point to the future. Now, since, as we have seen, the
Apocalyptists despair of any bettering of the present world, and
therefore contemplate its destruction as the preliminary of the new
order of things, they look _away_ from this world in their visions of
the future; they conceive of other-worldly forces coming into play in
the reconstitution of things, and of society generally; and since these
_are_ other-worldly forces the supernatural plays a great part in the
Apocalyptic Literature. This supernatural colouring will often strike
the reader of this literature as fantastic, and at times _bizarre_; but
this should not be permitted to obscure the reality which often lies
behind these weird shadows. Mental visions are not always easily
expressed in words; the seer who in a vision has received a message in
some fantastic guise necessarily has the impress upon his mind of what
he has seen when giving his message; and when he describes his vision
the picture he presents is, in the nature of the case, more fantastic to
the ear of the hearer than to the eye of him who saw it. Allowance
should be made for this; especially by us Westerns who are so lacking in
the rich imaginativeness of the Oriental. Our love of literalness
hinders the play of the imagination because we are so apt to
“materialize” a mental picture presented by another. The Apocalypses
were written by and for Orientals, and we cannot do justice to them
unless we remember this; but it would be best if we could get into the
Oriental mind and look at things from that point of view.
Another thing which the reader of the Apocalyptic Literature must be
prepared for is the frequent inconsistency of thought to be found there,
together with variableness of teaching often involving contradiction.
The reason of this is not to be sought simply in the fact that in the
Apocalypses the hand of more than one author is frequently to be
discerned, a fact which would easily account for divergence of views in
one and the same book—no, the chief reason is that, on the one hand, the
minds of the Apocalyptists were saturated with the traditional thoughts
and ideas of the Old Testament, and, on the other, they were eagerly
absorbing the newer conceptions which the spirit of the age had brought
into being. This occasioned a continual conflict of thought in their
minds; the endeavour to harmonize the old and the new would not always
succeed, and in consequence there often resulted a compromise which was
illogical and which presented contradictions. Inconsistency of teaching
on certain points is, therefore, not surprising under the circumstances.
Again, to realize the significance of much that is found in these
Apocalypses one has to reckon with a rigid predestinarianism which was
characteristic of the Apocalyptists as a whole. They started with the
absolute conviction that the whole course of the world, from beginning
to end, both as regards its physical changes and also in all that
concerns the history of nations, their growth and decline, and of every
single individual, was in every respect predetermined by God Almighty
before all time. This belief of the Apocalyptists is well illustrated in
one of the later Apocalypses by these words:
“For He hath weighed the age in the balance,
And by number hath He numbered the seasons;
Neither will He move nor stir things,
Till the measure appointed be fulfilled.”
(ii. (iv.) Esdras iv. 36, 37.)
Thus “the times and periods of the course of the world’s history have
been predetermined by God. The numbers of the years have been exactly
fixed. This was a fundamental postulate of the Apocalyptists, who
devoted much of their energy to calculations, based upon a close study
of prophecy, as to the exact period when history should reach its
consummation ... the underlying idea is predestinarian.”[2] But all
these things, according to the Apocalyptists, were divine secrets hidden
from the beginning of the world, but revealed to God-fearing men to whom
was accorded the faculty of peering into the hidden things of God and of
understanding them; upon these men was laid the privilege and duty of
revealing the divine secrets to others, hence their name of
Apocalyptists or “revealers.” It was because the Apocalyptists believed
so firmly in this power which they possessed of looking into the deep
things of God that they claimed to be able to measure the significance
of what had happened in the past and of what was happening in the
present; and upon the basis of this knowledge they believed that they
also had the power, given them by God, of foreseeing the march of future
events; above all, of knowing when the end of the world would come, a
consummation towards which the whole history of the world had been
tending from the beginning.
In spite of all the mysticism, sometimes of a rather fantastic kind, and
of the frequently supra-mundane vision with which the Apocalyptic
Literature abounds, the Apocalyptists fully realized the need of
practical religion; they were upholders of the Law, the loyal observance
of which they regard as a necessity for all God-fearing men. In this the
Apocalyptists were at one, in principle, with Pharisaism; but their
conception of what constituted loyal observance of the Law differed from
that of the Pharisees, for, unlike these, the Apocalyptists laid all
stress on the spirit of its observance rather than upon the letter.
Characteristic of their attitude here are the words in 1 Enoch v. 4:
“But ye—ye have not been steadfast, nor done the commandments of the
Lord,
But ye have turned away, and have spoken proud and hard words
With your impure mouths against His greatness,
O ye hard-hearted, ye shall find no peace.”
And again, in xcix. 2:
“Woe to them that pervert the words of uprightness,
And transgress the eternal Law.”
We do not find in this Literature that insistence on the literal
carrying-out of the minutest precepts of the Law which was
characteristic of Pharisaism. Veneration for the Law is whole-hearted;
it is the real guide of life; punishment awaits those who ignore its
guidance; but the Pharisaic interpretation of the Law and its
requirements is alien to the spirit of the Apocalyptists.
As a whole, the Apocalyptic Literature presents an universalistic
attitude very different from the nationalistic narrowness of the
Pharisees. It is true, the Apocalyptists are not always consistent in
this, but normally they embrace the Gentiles equally with the men of
their own nation in the divine scheme of salvation; and, in the same
way, the wicked who are excluded are not restricted to the Gentiles, but
the Jews equally with them shall suffer torment hereafter according to
their deserts.[3]
The Apocalyptic Literature, as distinct from the Apocalyptic Movement
owing to which it took its rise, began to come into existence about the
period 200-150 B.C.; at any rate, the earliest extant example of this
Literature—the earliest portions of the Book of Enoch—belongs to this
period. Works of an Apocalyptic character continued to be written for
about three centuries; the Second (Fourth) Book of Esdras, one of the
most remarkable Apocalypses, belongs to the end of the first Christian
century, approximately. There are Apocalypses of later date, some of
subordinate interest are of much later date; but the real period of the
Apocalyptic Literature is from about 200 B.C. to about A.D. 100; its
beginnings date, therefore, from a time prior to that great landmark in
Jewish history, the Maccabæan Era.