The book of Enoch : translated from Professor Dillmann's Ethiopic ...

U4 The Book of Enoch. [Sect. II.
be given into the hand of the righteous and holy. 6. And
thenceforward none will seek for mercy for them with the Lord
of Spirits, for their life is at an end.
to repent, lxiii. i ; and express their
thanksgiving of faith, lxiii. 8 ; but
their prayer will not be heard, and the
Lord of Spirits, lxii. 12, and the
righteous, xlviii. 9, will execute judg-
ment upon them, and their destruc-
tion will form a spectacle over which
the righteous will rejoice, lxii. 1 2 ;
and they will be delivered over to the
angels of punishment, lxii. 1 1 ; and
will descend into the tortures of hell,
lxiii. 10. Only one statement seems
to point to heathen rulers : i.e.* their
faith is in the gods which they have
made with their hands,' xlvi. 7. But
this is only a strong expression for
the heathen or Sadducean attitude
of the Maccabean princes and their
supporters, and with it we might aptly
compare Pes. Sol. i. 8 ; viii. 14 ; xvii.
17, wherein the same persons are
charged with surpassing the heathen
in idolatries. There is a like exag-
geration of the wickedness of the Sad-
ducees in xcix. 7 ; civ. 9. The kings
and the mighty in the text, therefore,
are native rulers and Sadducees. We
thus agree with Kostlin, Theol. Jahrb.
1 856, 268 sqq., and Din., Herzog, R. E.
xii. 352, in identifying these princes
with the last of the decaying Asmonean
dynasty. The Herodian dynasty was
not supported by the Sadducees, and
thus may be left out of consideration.
Further, as there are no references
to Rome in the Similitudes, it can-
not as yet have made its power to be
felt in Palestine ; and the Similitudes,
therefore, must have been written be-
fore 64 B. c, when Rome interposed in
favour of Aristobulus II. Baldensper-
ger, Do s SelbstbewilsstseinJesu (p. 12),
indeed, tries to ehow that there are
references to the Roman power j but
his main contention, that the falling
Asmoneans could hardly be designated
as 'mighty kings,' is already answered
on critical grounds : the phrase ' mighty
kings,' does not belong to the true
text. The lower limit is thus 64 B. c,
and the higher may be reasonably
fixed at 94. The differences between
the Maccabees and the Pharisees,
which had already grown important
under John Hyrcanus with his Sad-
ducean policy, were further developed
under Aristobulus I, and in the early
years of Alex. Jannaeus were intensi-
fied into an irreconcilable antagonism.
This antagonism first issued in blood-
shed about 95 B.C., when 6000 Pharisees
were put to death because they
insulted Alex. Jannaeus for failing to
comply with their views on ritual.
This fact explains the writer's demand
for vengeance for the murder of the
righteous, xlvii. I, 2, 4. Subsequent
years only embittered the strife between
the Pharisees and the Asmonean
head of the Sadducees, and
provoked a civil war in which 50,000
Jews fell. Weary of the struggle,
Jannaeus asked the Pharisees to
name their conditions of peace : their
answer was laconic and irreconcilable,
'Thy death'; but in the subsequent
strife they were for the time crushed
into impotence. Owing to the multi-
tudes of Pharisees slain by Jannaeus,
he came to be called 'the slayer of
the pious.' With the accession of
Alexandra 79, however, the Pharisees
became masters of the nation, and
peace prevailed till 70, when again
the nation was rent in twain and
plunged into devastating and bloody