The book of Enoch

As the various parts of the book[4] clearly belong to different dates, diversity of authorship is what one is naturally led to expect; and of this there can, indeed, be no shadow of doubt. The author of the earliest portions was a Jew who lived, as Burkitt has shown, in northern Palestine, in the land of Dan, south-west of the Hermon range, near the head-waters of the Jordan. This is important, as it tends to show that the book, or books, is really Palestinian, and one which, therefore, circulated among Jews in Palestine. “If, moreover, the author came from the north, that helps to explain the influence the book had upon the Religion that was cradled in Galilee.”[5] Of the authors of the other three books of which “Enoch” is made up (viz. “The Dream-Visions,” “The Book of the Heavenly Luminaries,” and “The Similitudes”) we know nothing save what can be gathered from their writings as to their religious standpoint.

Charles holds that though there is not unity of authorship there is, none the less, uniformity; for, according to him, all the books were written by Chassidim,[6] or by their successors, the Pharisees. This contention has been strongly assailed and much weakened by Leszynsky in a recent work on the Sadducees.[7] While frankly recognizing the composite character of the book, Leszynsky holds that the original portions of it[8] emanated from Sadducæan circles; and that the special object of the book originally was the bringing about of a reform of the calendar. He points to the ascription of the book to Enoch as supporting his contention, for Enoch lived 365 years,[9] i. e. his years correspond to the number of days in the solar year; the basis of reckoning time was one of the fundamental points of difference between the Pharisees and Sadducees, for whereas the former reckoned time by the lunar year (360 days), the latter did so by the solar year. Here a significant remark of Burkitt’s is worth recalling; in writing about the false titles given to all the Apocalyptic books, he says: “There is another aspect of pseudonymous authorship to which I venture to think sufficient attention has not been given.

It is this, that the names were not chosen out of mere caprice; they indicated to a certain extent what subjects would be treated and the point of view of the writer.”[10] Further, the fact that “Enoch walked with God; and he was not; for God took him,”[11] i. e. that he ascended into the heavens, is also significant; for he would thereby be just the one to know all about the heavenly luminaries; he was just the most appropriate author of a book which was to deal with astronomical questions. “The Sadducæan character of the original work,” says Leszynsky, “is seen most clearly in the discussion regarding the calendar; chapters lxxii.—lxxxii. are rightly called the Book of Astronomy:[12] ‘the book of the courses of the luminaries of the heaven, the relations of each, according to their classes, their dominion and their seasons, according to their names and places of origin, and according to their months ... with regard to all the years of the world and unto eternity, till the new creation is accomplished which endureth till all eternity’ (lxxii. 1). That sounds almost as though the author of the Book of Jubilees had written it. That it is not a merely scientific interest which impels the writer to give expression to his astronomical theories may be seen from the words at the conclusion of the section: ‘Blessed are all the righteous, blessed are all those who walk in the way of righteousness, and sin not as the sinners in the reckoning of all their days, in which the sun traverseth the heaven, entering into and departing from the portals for thirty days...’ (lxxxii. 4-7).

Herein one can discern quite clearly the tendency of the writer. He desires the adoption of the solar year, while his contemporaries wrongly followed a different reckoning, and therefore celebrated the feasts at the wrong time. The ‘sinners who sin in the reckoning of the year’ are the Pharisees; and the righteous ones who are blessed, the Zaddîkim,[13] who walk upon the paths of righteousness (Zedek) as the name is made to imply, are the Sadducees.”[14] The point may appear small to us, but we may compare with it the Quartodeciman controversy in the Church during the second century. It is, at any rate, a strong point in favour of the Sadducæan authorship of “The Book of the Heavenly Luminaries.”

The pre-Maccabæan portions (assuming that some portions of it are pre-Maccabæan) of the book of Enoch must certainly be ascribed to the Chassidim; but it is not on that account necessary to ascribe all the later portions to the Pharisees. Three points especially militate against this: some of the teaching concerning the Messiah; the, generally speaking, universalistic spirit, which is quite un-Pharisaic; and the attitude towards the Law, which is not that of the Pharisees. It is not to be denied that some portions (e. g. cii. 6 ff.) are from the hands of Pharisees; nor can it be doubted that the whole collection in its present form has been worked over by a Pharisee, or Pharisees; but that all the post-Maccabæan portions in their original form emanated from Pharisaic circles does not appear to have been proved. It seems more likely that, with the exceptions already referred to, the various component parts of the book were written by Apocalyptists who belonged neither to Pharisaic nor yet to Sadducæan circles.