Book of Enoch Henok

XX
INTRODUCTION.
the
capricious choice of the metamorphical potter,
whose arbitrary fashioning of plastic clay symbolized,
in Pauline theology, the doctrine of
predestination.
The second parable (xlv.-lv.) demands the absorbed
attention of modern Jews and Gentiles
for it is either the inspired forecast of a great
Hebrew prophet, predicting with miraculous accuracy
the future teaching of Jesus of Nazareth, or^the
Semitic romance from which the latter borrowed
His conceptions of the triumphant return of the Son
of man, to occupy a judicial throne in the midst
of rejoicing saints and trembling sinners, expectant
of everlasting happiness or eternal fire^^and
whether these celestial visions be accepted as human
or^Divine, they have exercised so vast
an influence
on the destinies of mankind for nearly two thousand"
years, that candid and impartial seekers after re^
ligious truth can no longer delay inquiry intojthe
relationship of the Book of Enoch with the revelation,
or the evolution, of Christianity.
The third parable (Ivi.-lxx.) recurs, with glowing
eloquence, to the inexhaustible theme of Messianic
glory, and again depicts the happy future of the
righteous in contrast with the appalling misery of
the wicked.
It also records the supernatural control
of the elements, through the action of individual
angels presiding over the winds, the sea, hail, frost,