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

Ivi The Booh of Enoch
Messiah, in the former the conception o£ the Messiah plays
a more important role than had ever yet been assigned to
him. In the former, again, there was only a resurrection of
the righteous ; in the latter a resurrection of all Israelites. In
the former the Messianic kingdom was only temporary ;
in the
latter it was of everlasting continuance. In the former the final
judgement was held at the close of the Messianic kingdom ; in
the latter at its beginning. In the former there was a resurrection
of the spirit only, in the latter of the body also.
§ 14. The Poetical Element in 1 Enoch.
In the course of editing the Ethiopie text of 1 Enoch I was
fortunate enough to discover that no small proportion of it
was written originally in verse. But the full extent of the
poetical element was not recognized till the completion of
the present edition. This discovery not only adds to the interest
of the book, but also illuminates many a dark passage, suggests
the right connexions of wrongly disjoined clauses, and forms an
admirable instrument of criticism generally. Our recognition of
this fact enables us to recognize the genuineness of verses which
had hitherto been regarded as interpolations, and to excise others
which were often in themselves unmeaning or at variance with
their contexts. The very first chapter is the best witness in these
respects. There we find that l^b-a consists of nine stanzas of
three lines each. E had lost two of the lines of stanza seven,
but happily these had been preserved by G^. Again, in 5^~^ we
have eight stanzas of four lines each. The order of the lines has
been disarranged as will be seen in 5""'', but here the parallelism
enables us to effect their restoration. Ch. 51 would without
a recognition of the poetical character be in many respects in-
explicable. In other passages it enables us to recognize certain
lines as dittographs : cf. 59"'' 7P^ 80'"^ S2^'^ 94''«.