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Milton and the Book of Enoch — An Alternative Hypothesis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 August 2011

Arnold Williams
Arnold Williams
Affiliation:
Michigan State College
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Extract

In an examination of the influence of the Book of Enoch on certain motifs in Milton's Paradise Lost, Mr. Grant McColley challenges the commonly accepted belief that Bruce was the first to restore to Western Civilization the knowledge of the existence of I Enoch, which had passed out of circulation during the early centuries of Christianity. Mr. McColley's belief that at least the existence of I Enoch was known to certain persons in the mid-seventeenth century and before rests on quotations from three popular travel books of the time: Sandys' Relation of a Journey (1615), Purchas His Pilgrimage (1613), and Peter Heylyn's Cosmography (1652). These authors all agree that the Ethiopians, or Abyssinians, had books containing the ‘oracles’ or ‘writings’ of the patriarch Enoch.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 33 , Issue 4 , October 1940 , pp. 291 - 299
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1940

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References

1 The Book of Enoch and Paradise Lost, Harvard Theological Review, XXXI (1938), 21–22.Google Scholar

2 The Book of Enoch and Paradise Lost, Harvard Theological Review, XXXI, 22.

3 De Civitate Dei, XV, 23; ed. Welldon, J. E. C., London, Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1924, II, 175–176.Google Scholar

4 ‘Idemque Augustinus sub finem eiusdem capitis, opinionem eorum qui dicebant, gigantes non habuisse homines patres, sed fuisse natos ex Daemonibus, fabulosam appellat, & depromptam ex apocrypho quodam & fabularum referto libro, qui olim ferebatur sub nomine Henoch,’ Commentariorum et Disputationum in Genesin, Cologne, 1601, p. 399. I know of no proof that Milton used Pererius. I merely quote him as a handy reference concerning the state of knowledge about the Book of Enoch. Of the commentaries I quote below Milton knew Pareus and Rivetus. See Milton and the Renaissance Commentaries on Genesis, Modern Philology, XXXVIII (1940), 263–278. One commentary Milton may have known, Peter Martyr's In Primum Librum Mosis, which contains a reference to Enoch, I have not cited because it seems too early for our purpose (written probably in the 1560's, published 1578).Google Scholar

5 ‘Ex traditione an ex libro aliquo Enoch Iudas vaticinium hoc habuerit, incertum. Ex libro Apocrypho sumptum (ut plerique putant) non videtur: alioqui Iudas vix inseruisset suae Epistolae; utut sit, Spiritus Sanctus id canonisauit eo ipso, quod in sacras Scripturas retulit.’ In Genesin Mosis Commentarius in Operum Theologicorum, Venice, 1628, tom. 1, p. 158. The earliest publication of In Genesin of which I know was in 1614, but the commentary seems to have been written about 1599.

6 ‘Scripsisse quidem nonnulla diuine illum, Enoch septimum ab Adam, negare non possumus, cum hoc in epistula canonica Iudas apostolus dicat.’ Loc. cit.

7 Hexapla in Genesin, Cambridge, 1605, p. 70.

8 ‘Prophetasse dicit, sed scripsisse librum, aut librum tune extitisse non dicit.’ Exercitatio XLIX, Opera Theologica, Rotterdam, 1651, tom. 1, p. 201.

9 ‘… nisi scirem Judaeorum esse mentiri, neque nunc illas nugas definere posse. …’ Ibid., p. 202.

10 Rivetus' reference to Scaliger: ‘… Graece descripsit illustris Scaliger, in notis Eusebianis, pag. 244. …’ Loc. cit. For an indication of Rivetus' knowledge of Hebrew legend, see below, p. 298.

11 ‘Censeo potius, Henochi nomine scriptum fuisse a quibusdam Judaeis librum, in quo admiscuerunt nonulla bona, quae forte ex traditione de Henochi Prophetis audiverant, prout notum est ad talia fuisse proclives Judaeos, & vera fabulis admiscuisse.’ Ibid.

12 Since completing the work on this note I have seen Mr. McColley's Paradise Lost, Harvard Theological Review, XXXII (1939), 181–239. This magnificent study leaves no doubt that Mr. McColley is thoroughly acquainted with the multitudinous places in which legend material of the sort found in Enoch could be found in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.Google Scholar

13 Milton, Man and Thinker, New York, Dial, 1925, pp. 257–258.

14 For instance, Pareus, op. cit., pp. 112 and 161.

15 De Operibus Dei in Operum Theologicorum, Geneva, 1613, tom. 1, col. 123.

16 ‘Caballici Judaeorum, hoc ita exponunt quod Satan non posthac sit habiturus potestatem in animam, sed in corpus tantum, quod pulvis est. Unde inquiunt, daemones & malignos Spiritus, in sepulchris, maxime ubi sunt cadavera versari, & hujusmodi daemonem Azazelum appellant. Addunt etiam mortuorum corpora saepe induere, & in ea transire. …’ Op. cit., p. 141.

17 Unless Arioc(h) is somehow connected with the Arioc of Genesis 14: 9, who was King of Ellasar (or Pontus). I strongly suspect that there is some such connection, because of the absence of the conventional -el ending. Two other angels have names ending in -ai, Shemhazai (Semjaza) and Ashmedai (Asmodeus). Satan is, of course, Satanael (Satanel, Satanail). Arioc does not fit in either pattern, -el ending or -ai ending.