The Books of Enoch, Aramaic Fragments of Qumran Cave 4

THE BOOK OF PARABLES 95
'Again he will fly from the West, with light, springing step,
in order to besiege the whole earth and devastate it completely.
But, when at the height of his power and hateful arrogance
be will come and will wish to destroy the city of the blessed ones,
then a king, sent by God against him,
will cause all the great kings and the eminent nobles to perish,
and then the Eternal one will sit in judgement over men.'
The eschatological war of the kings of the peoples against the holy land
and city is described also in Sib. iii. 663 ff. The passage quoted from Sib. v
obviously inspired the author of the Parables (En. 56: 5-7): Tn these days
the angels will gather together and will launch themselves towards the east
where the Parthians and the Medes live; they will shake kings . . . And
they (the kings) will rise up and will trample the earth of His elect, and the
earth of His elect will be before them like a threshing-floor and a beaten
track. But the city of my just ones will be an obstacle for their horses and
they will kindle the war between them, and their right will deploy its
force against them.' (The continuation deals with the mutual massacre of
the sinners—cf. En. 100: 1-3—and the punishment of the kings and the
sinners.)
It seems to me fairly obvious that this apocalyptic text refers to events
contemporaneous with the author of the Parables, the terrible years of
anarchy and invasion in the middle of the third century, and, in particular,
the victorious campaigns of Sapor I which carried him right into Syria and
culminated in the imprisonment of the Emperor Valerian in September
A.D. 260. In the reference to the right of the Parthians and Medes ('right'
meaning 'western') which attacks the rest of the army, I see a reference to
the Palmyrenes (called mdy and mdy 'Medes', in Safaitic inscriptions). As
a matter of fact, the Palmyrenes, living close to the western frontier of the
Sassanid empire, waged war successfully against Sapor and kept the Persians
in check; however, they ended up by asking them for help at the time of the
expeditions of Aurelian against Palmyra in A.D. 272 and 273. On this occasion
Aurelian took the title of Parthicus Maximus (cf. Sib. xiii. 153-4). In A.D. 270
the Palmyrenes, formidable because of their heavy cavalry, occupied Asia
Minor, Syria, and Egypt. In Syria they destroyed Bosra, after a victory
over the Third Cyrenaic Legion.^ Crossing Palestine, whilst marching towards
the Nile, they spared the city of Jerusalem; for Zenobia was well
^ This is mentioned in a Latin inscription from Bosra and in several Safaitic inscriptions which
I shall discuss in detail elsewhere.