The Books of Enoch, Aramaic Fragments of Qumran Cave 4

ii8
INTRODUCTION
A curious reference by a tenth-century Arabic chronographer to the literary
activity of Enoch-Tdris deserves to be quoted in extenso. After mentioning
the assumption of Enoch to Paradise, Agapius (Mahbub), son of Constantine
of Membij (Hierapolis), writes in his Kitdh aU'Unwdn:^ 'Henoch {"Uhnuh)
est le meme que Tdris. Certains savants affirment aussi qu'H^noch, qui est
Tdris, fit connaitre, expliqua et enseigna T^criture, les lettres, les ^toiles
(I'astronomie) et le calcul. Manethon, savant d'figypte et astronome, affirme
que Dieu eleva Henoch jusqu'a la sphere tournante et lui fit connaitre les
signes du Zodiaque, qui s'y trouvent, les ^toiles fixes et errantes, les horoscopes,
les termes de Tinfluence des astres, les decades des degr^s, les constellations
qui s'y trouvent, et d'autres mysteres d'astrologie. C'est pourquoi
on dit que son livre des ^toiles s'appelle livre du sens cach^ {kfbh fy ^Ingwm
ysnt" kfh ^Im'^ny). Tous les Harraniens, qui adorent les idoles et les ^toiles,
s'en tiennent a I'avis de Manethon Tfigyptien.'
A work entitled Disciplina clericalis and composed by Rabbi Moses
Sefardi (i062-1 no, converted to Christianity in 1106 under the name
Peter Alphonsus) contains proverbs, allegories, and fables adapted from the
Arabic.2 A Hebrew paraphrase from the beginning of this document (which
contains advice on friendship and on the cult of God, with stories of the old
man who had only half a friend, and of two incomparable friends) appears
under the title 'Book of Enoch', ^lin TDD, in a compilation by R. Nasim
Schomen.3
On a late Ethiopic work entitled Another Discourse on the Birth of Enoch
see below, pp. 258.
Christian visionaries who travelled in the other world inevitably met in
paradise the two people who had been carried off to heaven, Enoch and
Elijah. Thus in the Apocalypse ofPauU written towards the end of the fourth
century, the apostle, guided by an angel, enters the doorway of paradise,
situated in the third heaven, and meets first an old man whom the angel
introduces to him: 'this is Enoch, the scribe of Justice' (ewtox ner*p«^xxbjmyc
n T'2kiRjs.ioc*ytiH), then Elijah, and after this other saints.^
^ Ed. A. Vasiliev, PO V, 4, 1910, pp. 591-2. 1838, pp. 75-129 (translation) and pp. 131-40
2 Ed. A. Hilka and J. W. Soderhjelm, Heidel- (Hebrew text); M. Steinschneider, Die Hebraeberg,
1911. ischen Vbersetzungen des Mitteldlters und die
3 Constantinople 1516, Venice 1544 and Juden als Dolmetscher, Graz 1893 (1956),
1605; the incipit is HiiDttn ^iioiV^'sn *]ian *iaK pp. 933-5 § 557.
lanV OmK nns; ; cf. A. Pichard, Le Lime * E. A. W. Budge, Miscellaneous Coptic Texts
d'Hinoch sur Vamitie traduit de Vhebreu, Paris in the Dialect of Upper Egypt, 1915, pp. 561