ENOCH

THE PROPHECY OF. An apocryphal book, of which there remains but a few fragments. Enoch was certainly one of the most illustrious prophets of the first world, since Moses says of him, that he “walked with God .” (Gen. v. 24.) This prophet is famed in the Church for two things: the first is, his being taken up into heaven without seeing death (Heb. xi. 5); the second is, his Prophecy, a pa age of which St. Jude has cited in his Epistle. (Ver. 14.) The ancients greatly esteemed the Prophecy of Enoch. Tertullian expre es his concern, that it was not generally received in the world. That Father, on the authority of this book, deduces the original of idolatry, astrology, and unlawful arts, from the revolted angels, who married with the daughters of men. And it is on the testimony of this book, that the Fathers of the 2nd and 3rd centuries, as Irenæus, Cyprian, Lac tanti us, received for true this fable of the marriage of the angels with the daughters of men. St. Augustine, who was le credulous, allows, indeed, that Enoch wrote something divine because he is cited by St. Jude; but he says, it was not without reason that this book was not inserted in the Canon, which was preserved in the temple of Jerusalem, and committed to the care of the sacrificators. St. Augustine sufficiently insinuates, that the authority of this book is doubtful, and that it cannot be proved that it was really written by Enoch. Indeed the account it gives of giants engendered by angels, and not by men, has manifestly the air of a fable; and the most judicious critics believe it ought not to be ascribed to Enoch. De Habitu Mulier. c. iii. De Civit. Dei , lib. xv. c. 23. This apocryphal book lay a long time buried in darkne ; till the learned Joseph Scaliger recovered a part of it. That author gives us some considerable fragments of it, in his notes on the chronicle of Eusebius; particularly in relation to the above-mentioned story of the marriage of the angels with the daughters of men. Scaliger, Isaac Vo ius, and other learned men, attribute this work to one of those Jews, who lived in the times between the Babylonish captivity and our Saviour Jesus Christ . Others are of opinion, it was written after the rise and establishment of Christianity, by one of those fanatics, with whom the primitive Church was filled, who made a ridiculous mixture of the Platonic philosophy and the Christian divinity: such as the authors, or forgers, of the Sibylline Oracles, the Dialogues of Hermes Trismegistus, and the like. The reasons of this opinion are these. 1. The original of the book is Greek; and therefore it was not composed by any Jew, living in Judea, or Chaldea; for they always wrote in Hebrew, or in some of its dialects. 2. It is evident the author was a Christian, because he makes perpetual allusions to the texts of the New Testament. It is therefore, probably, the invention of some Christian, who took occasion from the Epistle of St. Jude to forge this work. As for St. Jude himself, it is probable he cites what concerns the general judgment, not from any book then subsisting under the name of Enoch, but from tradition.— Jurieu, Hist. des Dogmes et Cultes , part i. c. 4.