The Books of Enoch, Aramaic Fragments of Qumran Cave 4

THE BOOK OF WATCHERS 29
to men'; 'Moon (male) gave to men the cultivated plants . • . and instructed
in all these arts a young girl whom he finally married.'^
The book of Jubilees presents a more archaic form of this mjrth: the
Watchers, angels of the Lord, come down to the earth to instruct the children
of men and to bring about justice and equity on the earth (4: 15); it is not
until later that the corruption and punishment of the Watchers and their
children will occur (5: i-io). According to the author of En. 6 ff., on the
contrary, sexual appetite dominates the angels from the beginning (6: 1-6
and 7:1), and the sciences they teach are all turned to wicked ends (7: i and
8: 1-3). The writer imagines two chiefs of the fallen angels, a king (Semihazah)
and a sage {'Aia*el)y each presiding over about ten Watchers (and
each of these ten presiding over about ten anonymous angels), thus drawing
on the Babylonian model of antediluvian kings and sages. With these two
chiefs of demons must be contrasted two chiefs of men, the king Son-of-
Lamech (a rather passive figure, just like his angelic partner) and the sage
Enoch, who is at least as active as his celestial counterpart, 'A^a'el. The names
of the twenty principal Watchers (En. 6: 7), of which the fragments of 4Q
give the correct form (with the exception of the name of the fifth), are for
the most part derived from astronomical, meteorological, and geographical
terms. The eleventh, Hermonty takes his name from mount Hermon (6: 6),
whilst Danfel is none other than the Canaanite hero Daniel whose wisdom
is sung in Ugaritic poems and mentioned in Ezek. 28: 3 and 14: 14, 20.
His position in the seventh place on the list is highly significant, for it
corresponds exactly to the position of Enoch in the list of antediluvian
patriarchs. According to Jub. 4: 20 Enoch marries the daughter of Dan'el.
If we are to judge by the reference to Dan'el alongside Noah in Ezek. 14, the
former could be the protagonist in the Phoenician history of the flood, a role
comparable with the Babylonian 'Most-wise', Atra-hasis. The dethronement
of the Phoenician wise man to the rank of the wicked angels was to be copied
by the author of the Book of Giants, who included in his list of giants one
^AMraniy^ one GilgameSy^ who visited Utnapi§tim, the hero of the flood,
in his ultra-terrestrial retreat, and one HohahiSy^ without doubt the giant
Humbaba, guardian of the cedar-forest and adversary of Gilgames.
Another extremely archaic Babylonian feature is retained in the name of
the prison of 'A^a*el. He is to be thrown into the darkness and hurled down
* C. L^vi-Strauss, MythologiqueSy ii: Du miel king-type of Tyre (cf. Ezek. 28).
aux cendres, 1966, pp. 156, 265, 273. ^ Below, p. 313-
^ DTn>t in a fragment of 4QEnGiants*^; a * Below, p. 311.