The Books of Enoch, Aramaic Fragments of Qumran Cave 4

THE EPISTLE OF ENOCH 47
(Xn''3; En. 89: 50, 54, 56, 66, 72 and 90: 28, 29, 33, 36). Moreover, the
quotation of Barn. 16: 5 is a conglomerate of expressions scattered all over
our Enochic writing. The phrase 'the Lord (of the Sheep) delivers the Sheep'
occurs in En. 89: 56 and 74; 'delivering for destruction' in 89: 63, 70, 74;
'the slaughter (of the Sheep) in their pastures (K^'SItt)' in 89: 54; the abandonment
and destruction of the House and of the Tower in 89: 56 and 66.
The term 'enclosure, sheepfold' (Eth. ^asad^ Gr. /xavSpa, Aram. XT'!)
designates 'the Promised Land' in En. 93: 6; the same word is used, in
a quite different context, in 86: 2 and 89: 34-5.
The influence of Enochic writings, and of the book of Daniel, on subsequent
apocalyptic literature, Jewish and Christian, does not need to be
proved. Thus, for example, an allusion to En. 90: 22-5 can be detected in the
Apocalypse of Elijah, the Coptic version of which is partly overlapped by a
fragment of papyrus of the fourth century: 'He shall judge the shepherds of
the people, he shall require of them all that the flock has done; they will be
delivered to him without rusey TToiyievas rov \Xaov , . .] r7]v vofjLrjv t[. . .] dvev
86X0V .. [...].' The text goes on: 'When Elijah and Enoch descend, they will
devour the flesh of the worlds they will take up the spiritual flesh, and they
will pursue the son of unrighteousness': ore ^HXeias Kal *Ev[KovaLV rov vlov rrjs dSiKcas].^
In the language of later apocalyptic writings, however, it is not easy to
determine the direct borrowings from a given apocalypse. Themes such as
the slaughter of the wicked by the sword which has descended from heaven,
or that of the judgement in the midst of the earth, which are found, for
example, in Lactantius, Inst, div: vii. 19, 5 (ed. Brandt, p. 645), could well
come from En. 90:19 and 26 (Charles, p. xc), but no doubt through successive
intermediaries, beginning with Jub. 5: 9 and 8: 19, passing through the
Sibylline Oracles, and so on.
The fifth and last section of the Ethiopic Book of Enoch (En. 91-108) in
ancient times certainly had the title Epistle of Enoch, according to the
evidence of the subscription in the Chester Beatty-Michigan papyrus (CM),
^EmaroXr] 'EvcoXj a title repeated in the text itself, rrjs emaroXrjs ravrrjs (En.
100: 6).2 In the fragmentary material of Qumran Cave 4 this document is
represented by two manuscripts, En« and En^ the first offering a substantial
' See Wessely, PO xviii, 3 (1924), 487-8 ^ *of this book* E; see also below, note to
[263-4] and Steindorff, Die Apocalypse des En* i ii 21.
Elias in TU, N.F. ii. 3, 1899.