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

2 1 The Book of Enoch. [Sect. III.
I am recounting and writing down, and I have revealed to thee
everything, and given thee books concerning all of them : (so)
preserve, my son Methuselah, the books from thy father's
hand and commit them to the generations of the world. 2.
I have given wisdom to thee and wisdom to thy son, and
to thy children that are yet to be, that they may give it to
their children, generation unto generation for ever, this
wisdom (namely) that passeth their thought. 3. And
those who understand it will not sleep, but will listen with
the ear that they may learn this wisdom and it will please
those that eat (thereof) better than good food. 4. 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 traverses the
heaven, entering into and departing from the portals for
thirty days at a time, together with the heads of thousands
of this order of the stars, together with the four which are
added and divided amongst the four portions of the year,
add
LXXXII. 1. Writing down. So GI. Other MSS. and Din.
' for thee.' Generations of the world. G reads : ah(t&\
"kd?" ' children of the world.' 2. "Wisdom to thy son. So G :
Tflft; (Dh&Yl ; but A must be read before wh&h. Din. gives « to
thy children/ For ever. Wanting in G M. 4. Blessed are all
those. Wanting in G. Divided. So G M O &VA,A?« . Other
hidden things to Enoch, and Enoch these revelations is a frequent theme
writes them down. Commit them with the Enoch writers: of. xxxvii.
to the generations of the world. 4; xcii. 1; xciii. 10-14. To thee
These revelations of Enoch are for and ... to thy son : cf. Ps. lxxviii.
all the world from the earliest genera- 5,6. As we must infer from these
tions: those in i-xxxvi are only for words that Lamech is already born,
the far distant generations : cf. i. 2. the writer has followed the Samaritan
See Special Introd. (p. 189). It is or Masoretic reckoning : the former
evidently this passage that Tertullian would allow of Noah being present,
refers to in Be Cultu Fern. i. 3 j Cum 3. Better than good food : cf. Ps.
Enoch filio suo Matusalae nihil aliud xix. 10. 4. The four intercalary
mandaverit quani ut notitiam eorum days introduced by four leaders: cf.
posteris suis traderit. 2. Wisdom. ver. 11 ; lxxv. 1,2. Heads of thou-
The surpassing wisdom conveyed in sands, i. e. the chiliarchs which lead