Jude 1:14

And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these The words that follow are almost a verbal quotation from the Apocryphal Book of Enoch. As that work had probably been in existence for a century before St Jude wrote, and was easily accessible, it is more natural to suppose that he quoted here, as in previous instances, what he thought edifying, than to adopt either of the two strained hypotheses, (1) that the writer had received what he quotes through a tradition independent of the Book of Enoch, that tradition having left no trace of itself in any of the writings of the Old Testament, or (2) that he was guided by a special inspiration to set the stamp of authenticity upon the one genuine prophecy which the apocryphal writer had imbedded in a mass of fantastic inventions. On the general question raised by this use of apocryphal material, see the Introduction to this Epistle; and for the history and contents of the Book of Enoch, the Excursus at the end of this volume. In the description of Enoch as the "seventhfrom Adam" there is probably a mystical symbolism. As being such he became typical of the great Sabbath, the millennium, which, according to Jewish thought, was to close the six thousand years of the world's work-day history.

Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints The words appear in the Book of Enoch, as spoken by an angel who interprets a vision which the Patriarch had received as foretelling the judgment of the last day. The latter words run in the Greek literally, with His holy myriads, probably with a reference to Deuteronomy 33:2, the "saints" or "holy ones" here being not the disciples of Christ, but the "innumerable company of angels" (Hebrews 12:22; Psalms 68:17).

EXCURSUS ON THE BOOK OF ENOCH

Judges 1:14.

The history of the book which bears this title is a sufficiently remarkable one. St Jude's reference to the prophecy of Enoch does not necessarily prove that he was acquainted with the book, but it at least shews the existence of traditions that had gathered round the patriarch's name. Allusions elsewhere to the fall of the angels (Justin, Apol. ii. 5) or to the work of Enoch in preaching to them (Iren. iv. 6), or to his knowledge of astronomy (Euseb. H. E. vii. 32), in like manner do not indicate more than the widely diffused belief that he represented not only the holiness, but the science of the antediluvian world. The first Church writer who seems really to have known it is Tertullian (De Hab. Mul., c. 3), who, after giving at length the story how the angels that fell were allured by the beauty of the daughters of men, adds that he knows that the Book (scriptura) of Enoch is rejected by some as not being admitted into the Jewish "Storehouse" of holy writings. He meets the supposed objection that such a book was not likely to have survived the deluge by the hypothesis that it might have been committed to the custody of Noah, and been handed down after him from one generation to another, or that he might have been specially inspired, if it had perished, to rewrite it, as Esdras was fabled (2Es 14:38-48) to have re-written the whole Hebrew Canon. He defends his acceptance of it on the grounds (1) that it prophesied of Christ, and (2) that it had been quoted by St Jude. In another passage (de Idol. c. 15) he names Enoch as predicting certain superstitious practices of the heathen, and so as being the most ancient of all prophets. Augustine, on the other hand, adopting the view that the "sons of God" of Genesis 6 were righteous men who fell into the temptation of lust, rejects the book (which he clearly knew) as apocryphal, and while he admits the prophecy quoted by St Jude as authentic, dismisses all the rest as fabulous (De Civ. Dei, xv. 23). After this the book seems to have dropped out of sight, and it is not again referred to by any ecclesiastical writer. Fragments of it were found by Scaliger in the Chronographiaof Georgius Syncellus, and printed by him in his notes on Eusebius in 1658. In 1773, however, Bruce, the Abyssinian explorer, brought over three copies which he had found in the course of his travels, and one of these, presented to the Bodleian Library, was translated by Archbishop Lawrence and published in 1821. Another and more fully edited translation was published in German by Dillmann in 1853.

The book thus brought to light after an interval of some fourteen hundred years, bears no certain evidence of date, and has been variously assigned by different scholars, by Ewald to b. c. 144 120, by Dillmann to b. c. 110, while other scholars have been led by its reference to the Messiah to ascribe a post-Christian origin to it. As regards its contents, it is a sufficiently strange farrago. The one passage which specially concerns us is found in c. ii., and is thus rendered by Archbishop Lawrence. It comes as part of the first vision of Enoch: God will be manifested and the mountains shall melt in the flame, and then "Behold he comes with ten thousand of his saints to execute judgment upon them, and to reprove all the carnal for everything which the wicked and ungodly have done and committed against him." In c. vii., viii. we have the legend of the loves of the angels and the birth of the giants, and the invention of arts and sciences. Then comes a prophecy of the deluge (c. x.), and visions of the city of God (c. xiv.), and the names of the seven angels (c. xx.). He sees the dwelling-place of the dead, both good and evil (c. xxii.), and the tree of life which had been in Eden (c. xxiv.), and a field beyond the Erythraean Sea in which is the tree of knowledge (c. xxxi.). Vision follows upon vision, until in c. xlvi. we have a reproduction of that in Daniel 7. of the Ancient of Days in the Son of Man, who is identified with the Messiah (c. xlvii.), the Chosen One of God. And so the book goes on, leaving on the reader's mind an impression like that of a delirious dream, with endless repetitions and scarcely the vestige of a plan or purpose. The reader of the English Apocrypha may find the nearest accessible approach to the class of literature which it represents in the Second Book of Esdras, but that, in its profound and plaintive pessimism, has at least the elements of poetry and unity of purpose. The Book of Enoch stands on a far lower level, and belongs to the class of writings in which the decay of Judaism was but too prolific, on which St Paul seems to pass a final sentence when he speaks of them as "old wives" fables" (1 Timothy 4:7).