the-book-of-enoch-r-h-charles - Fallen Angels

Sect, l] Chapter VI. 2-6 15
heaven, saw and lusted after them, and said to one another:
' Come, let us choose us wives from among the children of
men and beget us children.' 3. And Semjaza, who was their
leader, said unto them :
' I fear ye will not indeed agree to do
this deed, and I alone shall have to pay the penalty of a great
sin.' 4. And they all answered him and said: 'Let us all swear
an oath, and all bind ourselves by mutual imprecations not to
abandon this plan but to do this thing.' 5. Then sware they
all together and bound themselves by mutual imprecations upon
it. 6. And they were in all two hundred ; who descended ''in
any way of escape -from this time by
reason of the wrath, wherewith the
king of all the ages is wroth with yon.
Imagine not that you will escape these
things," And these (words) are from
the first book of Enoch concerning the
watchers.'
And said
Saw and > G'.
(E G'). > Gi^.
4.
This
thing. We must with G^ omit meker
(= 'plan') as a gloss on 'thing' in
E. Its presence makes the text ungrammatical.
6. And they were
in all. G' rjaav Si ovtoi. Who
descended ... on Mount Hermon.
I have here followed G" of KaraPivTef
tv Tats ^fiepais 'lipeH eis t^v Kopviji^v
ToC 'Epi^ovieliJi opovs. The Ethiopic text
reads :
—
' and they descended on Ardis
which is the summit of Mt. Hermon.'
The name Ardis, otherwise unknown, is
to be explained with Dillmann as a com-
pression of 'IdpeS lis, the translator not
having found iy rats ^fitpats in his text.
HaMvy in the Journal AsiaUque, Avril-
Mai 1867, pp. 356-7, reproduces this
verse in Hebrew, whereby we see at a
glance why the angels descended in the
days of Jared—from IT' to descend,
and why it was that they bound themselves
by mutual oaths on Hermon
from D'ln a curse.
liD-iin "Ti tyxn ^5 Ti,'; ''b''3 ?in';i
'^''l.nni '5'3B'3 13 o ;iDin yh isip^i
Cf. Book of Jubilees 4" :
' Jared ; for
in his days the angels of the Lord
descended on the earth.' This play
on Jared shows that the idea originated
in Hebrew. It cannot be reproduced
in Aramaic, which does not possess the
root Til. The play on Hermon is
possible not only in Hebrew (see above)
but also in Aramaic ID'iiriK . . . piSin.
Cf. Hilary, Comm. in Fss. 132^ ' Hermon
autem mens est in Phoenice, cuius in-
terpretatio anathema est. Eertur id de
quo etiam nescio cuius liber exstat,
quod angeli concupiscentes iilias hominum,
cum de caelo descenderent, in
hunc montem Hermon maxima conve-
nerant excelsum.' The reasons for tlie
descent of the angels in the Book of
Jubilees differ from those given in this
chapter. In 4" and 5^ ""• of that book
it is stated that the watchers yere sent
to the earth by God ' to instruct the
children of men to do judgement and
uprightness', and that when so doing
they began to lust after the daughters
of men. This form of the myth seems
to be followed in Test. Reuben 5". In
Enoch the angels are said to have
descended through their lust for the
daughters ofmen, and the same reason is
given in Jalkitt Shim. Beresh.44. See
Weber, Jiid. Theologie 253. Against
this and other statements of Enoch
there is an implicit polemic in the Book