“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.

The Book of Enoch: its Component Parts and their Dates

The Book of Enoch is now usually designated 1 Enoch, to distinguish it from the later Apocalypse, The Secrets of Enoch, known as 2 Enoch. The former is also called the Ethiopic Enoch, the latter the Slavonic Enoch, after the languages of the earliest versions extant of each respectively. No manuscript of the original language of either is known to be in existence.

According to Canon Charles, the various elements of which our book in its present form is made up belong to different dates. The following table will show the dates of the different parts of the book. Canon Charles believes that these are approximately correct, without committing himself to the certainty of this in each case:

CHAPTERS

xii.-xxxvi. The oldest pre-Maccabæan

xciii., xci. 12-17 “The Apocalypse portions of Weeks.”

vi.-xi., liv. 7-lv. Fragments of Pre-Maccabæan at the 2, lx., lxv.-lxix. “The Book of latest. 25, cvi., cvii. Noah.”

lxxxiii.-xc. “The 165-161 B.C. Dream-Visions”

lxxii.-lxxxii. “The Book of Before 110 B.C. the Heavenly Luminaries.”

xxxvii.-lxxi. “The Parables,” circa 105-64 B.C. or “Similitudes.”

xci. 1-11, 18, circa 105-64 B.C. 19-civ.

i.-v. The latest portion, but pre-Christian.

Chapter cv, which consists of only two verses, cannot be dated; while cviii. is in the nature of an appendix, probably added subsequently, to the whole work.

While these dates may be regarded as approximately correct, it should be pointed out that differences of opinion exist among scholars on the subject. Schürer holds, for example, that, with the exception of chapters xxxvii.-lxxi. (the “Parables,” or “Similitudes”), the entire book belongs to the period 130-100 B.C.; the “Parables” he assigns to a time not earlier than Herod the Great. Beer thinks that the “Dream-Visions” (chapters lxxxiii.-xc.) belong to the time of John Hyrcanus (135-105 B.C.), and he includes under the pre-Maccabæan portions only xci. 12-17, xcii. xciii. 1-14; and holds that the rest of the book was written before 64 B.C. Dalman maintains that it cannot be proved that the important section xxxvii.-lxxi. (the “Similitudes”) is “the product of the pre-Christian period,” though he fully recognizes its Jewish character, Burkitt regards the writer as “almost contemporary” with the philosopher Posidonius (135-51 B.C.). There is thus some diversity of opinion as to the date of the book among leading authorities. That it is, as a whole, pre-Christian, may be regarded as definitely established. More difficult is the question whether any portions of it are pre-Maccabæan; Charles gives various reasons for his belief that considerable parts are pre-Maccabæan; we are inclined to agree with him, though it may be questioned whether the last word on the subject has been spoken.

Authorship

As the various parts of the book[4] clearly belong to different dates, diversity of authorship is what one is naturally led to expect; and of this there can, indeed, be no shadow of doubt. The author of the earliest portions was a Jew who lived, as Burkitt has shown, in northern Palestine, in the land of Dan, south-west of the Hermon range, near the head-waters of the Jordan. This is important, as it tends to show that the book, or books, is really Palestinian, and one which, therefore, circulated among Jews in Palestine. “If, moreover, the author came from the north, that helps to explain the influence the book had upon the Religion that was cradled in Galilee.”[5] Of the authors of the other three books of which “Enoch” is made up (viz. “The Dream-Visions,” “The Book of the Heavenly Luminaries,” and “The Similitudes”) we know nothing save what can be gathered from their writings as to their religious standpoint.

Charles holds that though there is not unity of authorship there is, none the less, uniformity; for, according to him, all the books were written by Chassidim,[6] or by their successors, the Pharisees. This contention has been strongly assailed and much weakened by Leszynsky in a recent work on the Sadducees.[7] While frankly recognizing the composite character of the book, Leszynsky holds that the original portions of it[8] emanated from Sadducæan circles; and that the special object of the book originally was the bringing about of a reform of the calendar. He points to the ascription of the book to Enoch as supporting his contention, for Enoch lived 365 years,[9] i. e. his years correspond to the number of days in the solar year; the basis of reckoning time was one of the fundamental points of difference between the Pharisees and Sadducees, for whereas the former reckoned time by the lunar year (360 days), the latter did so by the solar year. Here a significant remark of Burkitt’s is worth recalling; in writing about the false titles given to all the Apocalyptic books, he says: “There is another aspect of pseudonymous authorship to which I venture to think sufficient attention has not been given. It is this, that the names were not chosen out of mere caprice; they indicated to a certain extent what subjects would be treated and the point of view of the writer.”[10] Further, the fact that “Enoch walked with God; and he was not; for God took him,”[11] i. e. that he ascended into the heavens, is also significant; for he would thereby be just the one to know all about the heavenly luminaries; he was just the most appropriate author of a book which was to deal with astronomical questions. “The Sadducæan character of the original work,” says Leszynsky, “is seen most clearly in the discussion regarding the calendar; chapters lxxii.—lxxxii. are rightly called the Book of Astronomy:[12] ‘the book of the courses of the luminaries of the heaven, the relations of each, according to their classes, their dominion and their seasons, according to their names and places of origin, and according to their months ... with regard to all the years of the world and unto eternity, till the new creation is accomplished which endureth till all eternity’ (lxxii. 1). That sounds almost as though the author of the Book of Jubilees had written it. That it is not a merely scientific interest which impels the writer to give expression to his astronomical theories may be seen from the words at the conclusion of the section: ‘Blessed are all the righteous, blessed are all those who walk in the way of righteousness, and sin not as the sinners in the reckoning of all their days, in which the sun traverseth the heaven, entering into and departing from the portals for thirty days...’ (lxxxii. 4-7). Herein one can discern quite clearly the tendency of the writer. He desires the adoption of the solar year, while his contemporaries wrongly followed a different reckoning, and therefore celebrated the feasts at the wrong time. The ‘sinners who sin in the reckoning of the year’ are the Pharisees; and the righteous ones who are blessed, the Zaddîkim,[13] who walk upon the paths of righteousness (Zedek) as the name is made to imply, are the Sadducees.”[14] The point may appear small to us, but we may compare with it the Quartodeciman controversy in the Church during the second century. It is, at any rate, a strong point in favour of the Sadducæan authorship of “The Book of the Heavenly Luminaries.”