The Books of Enoch, Aramaic Fragments of Qumran Cave 4

ii6
INTRODUCTION
Christian pilgrims in the Middle Ages, whilst the Church of Jerusalem
celebrated his commemoration during the octave of the Transfiguration,
8 August.^ According to Isidorus, Melchisedek is mortuus et sepultus in
civitate sua Jeru^alem.^
The name of the patriarch Enoch served as a pseudepigraph to numerous
literary and scientific works in several national literatures of the Middle
Ages.
Thus towards the mid eighth century, 'Kyriakos [bishop] of Segestan took
with himself a wicked doctor. Bar Salta of Res'ayna, and they composed a
book of falsehood which they entitled Apocalypse of Enoch. They inserted
there words signifying that Marwan [killed on 5 August 750] would reign,
and his son after him. The book, having been presented to Marwan by one
of his wise men, he read it and enjoyed it like a child. He ordered Kyriakos
to make a commentary to it. The latter interpreted it according to the
desires of the king.'^ An adulatory court-production like this was clearly
ephemeral, and was probably never copied again. But Kyriakos finally
achieved his object in it, namely preferment to the rich episcopal see of the
Tur 'Abdin.
An interesting Byzantine apocalypse, called The Vision of Enoch the Justy
is preserved only in an Armenian version.^ It begins: 'At the sixth hour
of the day a man appeared unto me over against Mount Lebanon and his
appearance was like unto flaming fire, and he said unto me: "Hear, O man,
what I now relate unto thee, which I have heard from the Lord of Hosts." '
The visions of Enoch and their explanations by the angel concern the
struggle between the Byzantine and Arab empires. A period of ninety-six
years, counted from Hegira, when 'the children of IshmaeF are predominant,
finishes with the decisive victory of a Roman king, a clear allusion to the
nos. 2268-2269C; in Coptic, St. Gaselee, Par- ii99)* Book XI, chapter XXII: vol. iv, 1910
erga Coptica/n{De Abraha et Melchisedec) and [1963], P- 4^5 (text), and vol. ii, 1901 [1963],
iii (1914), 6-13 and E. Laune, Le Grand Eu- p. 507 (translation).
chologe du Monasthe Blanc (PO ^acviii, 2), igsSf ^ Edited from two manuscripts by S.
pp. 396-9 [132-5]. Yovs6p*eanc, T*angaran hin ew nor naxneac,
I. Ankanon girk* hin ktakaranac (Treasure of
^ G. Garitte, Le calendrier palestino-georgien the Old and Modern Fathers, I. Uncanonical
du SincCiticus 34 (X^ sikcle), 1958, p. 297, and Books of the Old Testament), Venice 1896,
Milik, RB Ixvii (i960), 557 n. 5.
pp. 378-86; translation by J. Issaverdens, The
2 PL 83, 132-3. Uncanonical Writings of the Old Testament...,
3 See J.-B. Chabot, Chronique de Michel Venice 1901, pp. 306-8 (Introduction) and
le Syrien patriarche Jacobite d*Antioche (1166- 309-23.