The Books of Enoch, Aramaic Fragments of Qumran Cave 4

98 INTRODUCTION
of Easter. I The wood which the angels make into an ark, from which
will spring 'the race of life' (En. 67: 2), prefigures the redeeming wood of
the Cross.
Moreover, it seems that the author of the Book of Parables was vaguely
familiar with other doctrines, over and above Christian doctrine. Charles^
quotes an interesting Mithraic parallel. I add a hypothetical reference to
the occult sciences of hermetics. According to En. 69: 6-7 'the name of the
third [chief of the fallen angels] is Gadriel: it was he who seduced Eve, and
it was he who showed all mortal wounds to the sons of men; and the shield
and the breast-plate and the sword for war, and all the instruments of death
to the sons of men. From his hand they went out against those who inhabit
the barren land, from this day and right down to the centuries of the centuries.'
The author of the Parables thus attributes to this angel what the
author of the Book of Watchers (En. 8:1) attributed to *A^a'el, namely the
discovery of metallurgy; but there is no mention in En. 8 of the seduction of
Eve. In the passage of En. 69 one can, most probably, detect a Christian
adaptation of the hermetic tract Isis the Prophetess to her son Horus. In this
the goddess narrates how an angel dwelling in the first firmament wished to
consort with her and teach her the preparation of gold and silver; but it
was a greater angel than the first one, with the name -M/xva^A, who came down
to her, made love to her, and revealed to her the hidden mysteries. This
account was composed around the second century A.D. ; it is quoted by the
alchemist Zosimus of Panopolis (third to fourth centuries), who also used the
books of Enoch.3 On the other hand, I do not see any connection between
En. 69: 3-25 and the Logos Ebratkos of a magical papyrus in Paris, as has
been suggested, quite gratuitously, by M. Gaster.^ We may note moreover
that, according to L. Gry, very late additions were made, up to the third and
fourth centuries A.D., in the magical section of the Parables.^
The Greek books of Enoch were known and read in various Gnostic circles
in Egypt.^ Thus in Pistis SophiUy composed in the third century, we find a
^ Ed. A. Vaillant, 1952, p. 3 n. 14.
M. Gaster, *The Logos Ebraikos in the Magical
* ii, p. 102 (note to En. 52: 2). Papyrus of Paris, and the Book of Enoch',
3 See A. J. Festugi^re, La rdvdlation Journal of the Royal Astatic Society, 1901,
d*Hermks Trismdgiste, i (1944), 253-60. pp. 109-17.
* Bibl. Nat. Suppl. grec 574 (fourth cen- * L. Gry, 'Mystique gnostique (juive et
tury), f. 33', 15-3 3 ^ 44 (lines 3007-85 of the chr^tienne) en finale des Paraboles d'Henoch',
editions of C. Wessely, 1888, and K. Preisen- Le Musdon, Iii (1939), 337-78.
dsLTiz, Papyri Graecae Magicae, 1928, pp. 170-3, ^ On a very early Christian Apocalypse of
no. IV; revised by me from the original). See Enoch see my forthcoming paper.