Stuart has laid considerable stress on the Christolo- gy of the book as indicative of an acquaintance on the authors' ]iart with tlie N. T., especially the Apocah'pse. But the Christological portions do not possess sufficient distinctness to iinjily a knowledge of the N. T. The name Jesus never occurs. Neither are the appella- tions Lord, Lord Jesus, Jesus Christ, or even Christ em- ployed. The -^Virdfi f(ii/k, believers, God and his anoint- edj'deny, etc., can hardly be claimed as Christian terms,
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because they occur in the Ethiopic O. T. as the repre- sentatives of Hebrew-Greek ones. All that can be truly deduced from the Cliristology is that it is highly developed, and very elevated in tone, yet fairly deriv- able from the O. T. in all its essential and individual features. Nor is there anything in the eschatology or angelology to necessitate a Christian origin. We allow that the Messiah is spoken of in very exalted terms. His dignity, character, and acts surpass the descriptions presented in other Jewish books. But they are alike in the main, colored by the highly po- etical imagination of the writers, in conformity with the sublimity and animation of their creations. We must therefore reject Stuart's opinion of a Jewish- Christian origin. All the arguments adduced on its behalf are easily dissipated, since Dillmau's edition and Ewald's criticisms have led to a better acquaint- ance with the text of the work itself. Nor is Hil- genfeld's attempt to show that the so-called first Enoch book (xxxvii-lxxi) proceeded from Christian Gnostics more successful, as Dillmann has remarked (Pseudepi- graphen des A. T. in Herzog's £ncyklopddie, xii, 309, 310). Equally futile is Hoffmann's endeavor to show that the work did not appear till after the destruction of Jerusalem in the tirst century, when both Jude's epistle and the Apocalj'pse had been written (Zeitschr. d. morffenl. Gesellsc/nift, vi, 87 sq.). Not very dissim- ilar is Biittcher's view, that the book, like the Sybil- line oracles, was made up in the first and second cen- turies after Christ of pieces belonging to different times (De /nferis, i, § 50u). Nothing is more certain than that the work belongs to an ante-Christian world ; and therefore the only problem is how to distribute the different books incorporated, and when to date them separately and collectivelv. After Laurence, Hoffmann and Gfrorer had erred in placing the whole under Herod the Great ; Krieger and Llicke assigned different portions to different times, putting chaps, i- xxxvi and Ixxii-cviii to the early years of the Macca- biean struggle, and xxxvii-lxxi to B.C. 38-S4. How far this apportionment is correct will be seen from the preceding statements (see Krieger 's Beiirdge z. Kritik imd E.regese, 1845, and Liicke's Vcrsuch einer voUstdn- digen E'mlekimg in die OJJ'enbarung des Johannes, § 11). X. The Place zckere if was wtitten. — The place where the author lived and wrote is Palestine. This alone seems to suit the circumstances implied in the work, which is largely pervaded by the spirit of persons whose power, religion, and independence had been overborne by foreign interference. Laurence, how- ever, endeavors to show from the 72d chapter (71st Laurence), where the length of the daj's at various periods of the j'ear is given, that the locality must have been between the 45th and 4'Jth degrees of north latitude, in the northern districts of the Caspian and Euxine seas. Hence he conjectures that the writer was one of the Jews who had been carried away by Shalmaneser and did not return. Krieger supposes (^Beilrdge, p. 53) that Enoch, the imaginary writer, drew from the astronomical traditions or writings of northern Asia, regardless of the difference of Pales- tine's geographical position. Murray has shown (p. 63 sq.) that one passage favors the idea that the author lived in Abyssinia ; whence he infers that the produc- tion proceeded from various persons belonging to countries removed fi'oni one another. But De Sacy has remarked that as the authors' astronomical sj'Stem is j)artl3' imaginary, their geography- may also be vis- ionary. Neither Egypt, nor Chaldaja, nor Palestine, suits the astronomy of the book. The scientific knowl- edge of the Israelites was imperfect. It is therefore idle to look for accuracy in geographj' or astronomy. The writer or writers systematized such knowledge as they had of natural phenomena after their own fash- ion, as appears from the fact that to every third month thirty-one days are assigned. The allusions to the Oriental theosophy and the opinions of Zoroaster do
not necessarily commend a Chaldiean origin, at least of the astronomical part, since the images of fire, ra- diance, light, and other Oriental sj'mbols may be sat- isfixctorily accounted for by the Jews' intercourse with other nations, and their residence there for a time. The Oriental philosophy of Middle Asia was evidently not unknown to the authors. Zoroastrian doctrines are embodied in the work because Persian influences had been felt by the Israelites since the Babylonian captivity.
XI. I)id Jude realfg quote the Booh of Enoch ? — A simple comparison of the language of the apostle and that found in the corresponding passage of the extant book seems to settle this question conclusivelj' in the aflirmative, especially as the Scripture citation is pre- faced with tlie direct acknowledgment of quotation : "And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying," etc. The following are the words respectively :