The Books of Enoch, Aramaic Fragments of Qumran Cave 4

112 INTRODUCTION
his nephew Theodore of Studios (759-826), and then in the anonymous Life
of St. Nicholas of Studios (died 868).^
It thus appears to be a neologism not found before the beginning of the
ninth century; so we may conclude that the Greek author of the Secrets of
Enoch, perhaps also a Studionite monk, probably lived in the ninth or else
in the tenth century.
We can subscribe fairly readily to Vaillant's estimate (p. xiii) that this
writer 'raconte avec sagesse et un souci visible d'art une histoire merveilleuse,
qui est traditionelle depuis THEnoch juif, et dont il sent et sait faire sentir
toute la grandeur: Tenlevement d'HEnoch, la revelation qui lui est faite des
secrets des cieux, son tete-a-tete avec Dieu, sa mission aupres des hommes,
son role de scribe dans le cieF.
The first part of the work describes Enoch's heavenly journey (pp. 1-18,
chapters I-XII). After the prolix and pompous title (p. i, i-io), the author
specifies the date of the Vision: 'the appointed day of the first month' in the
365th year of Enoch (p. i, 11-12), that is, on the first day of Easter (Vaillant);
this is exactly the date assigned to the Vision of Noah in the Book of Parables
(En. 60: I; see above, p. 97). Enoch is in bed (cf. En. 83: 3, 6) when there
appear to him two angels (called 'men', just as in the Book of Dreams)
who are to be his guides, exactly like the two angels, an angel of peace
and an anonymous angel, who accompanied Enoch and Noah according to the
Book of Parables (En. 52: 3-5; 60: 11, 24). The cosmic guides of the Slavonic
Enoch have the names Semeil and Rasouil (p. 16, 19): the first name probably
signifies S''mS*ely 'Heavens of God', and the second is certainly Rasu*ely
'Well-loved of God', the Hebrew term corresponding to the Aramaic
R^'u^ely the name of the angel-guide in the Book of Watchers (En. 23: 4).
Enoch visits the seven heavens, the number of which comes from the
Testament of Levi and was popularized later by apocalyptic and astrological
writings, and also by iconography. The first heaven is the celestial, starspangled
vault containing the reservoirs of meteorological phenomena (p. 3,
7-17, chapter III); the second heaven is the prison of the apostate angels,
those of En. 6 ff., Jude 6, and 2 Peter 2: 4 (pp. 3, 18-4, 7, chapter IV); in the
third heaven paradise is situated, just as in the Book of Watchers (above,
I PG 99, 820 and 105, 876 (the connection rejected); P. Lemerle, Revue des dtudes sudbetween
minuscule script and its speedy execu- est-europdennes, 7 (1969), 151-4 (the script
tion is emphasized here). Cf. B. Hemmerdinger, which *se caract^rise par les ligatures et la
Byzantion, 37 (1967), 75-9 (his suggestion rapidit^*); O. ICresten, ,Sm>tonww, 24 (1970),
of translating this verb by *to write, to copy, 305-17.
musical manuscripts' should, however, be