2 Enoch 57
2 Enoch 57
Section: Instructions to Sons
Translated by W.R. Morfill, ed. R.H. Charles (1896)
Zhe Instruction of Enoch to his Sons
LVITI. 1. ‘Listen to me, my sons. *In those days when the Lord came upon the earth for the sake of Adam, and visited?” all his creation, which He Himself had made ?%, 2. The® Lord ”° called all the cattle of the earth 2}, and all
1 Let me do, A: let us put food, Sok. 2 A oi. 3 As God wishes, Sok.; Bom. ‘4 Andsaid,Sok.; Bom. 5 Bom. ® Earthly food, B. LVII. 7 My son Methosalem, A. ®* Bom. * Our, B: 10 Rim,
B. 11 Azukhan, B. 12 A adds all. 13 Sok. adds‘all. 14 And called them, Sok.; A om. 15 Sok. adds and they bowed before his face, and Enoch saw them. 16 Sok. adds saying.
LVIII. ” So A and Sok., but that Sok. adds your father after Adam; B reads in the days of our father Adam the Lord came to visit him and. 18 A adds and after all these created Adam: Sok. adds in brackets in the previous thousand years and after all these created Adam. 18 And the, A B Sok. * Lord God, B. 41 B adds and all the wild beasts and all the fourfooted things.
LVI. 2. Cf. xxii. 7, 8. Khermion are not mentioned ini.to. LVII, 1. Cf. xxxvi. 1; Eth. En. On Gaidal, see i. 10 (note). xcei. 1. 2, Riman, Ukhan, and LVIII. 1. When the Lord came
Chapters LVI e_1LVill.. &. 73
creeping things, and all the fowls that fly *in the air}, and brought them all! before the face of our father Adam ?, and he gave names to all living things on the earth. 3. And the Lord made him lord over all, and put all things under his hands *, and *subdued (them) to So the Lord created ® man as master over all His possessions. 4, The Lord will not judge any soul of beast on account of man,
- but he will judge the soul of man on account of the souls of beasts in the world to come’. 5. * For as there is a special place for mankind for all the souls of men according to their number, so there is also of beasts. And not one
submission and to all obedience? *to man 4.
—— -
1 Bom. 2 Sok. adds that he should give names to all fourfooted things. ° Made subject to Adam all the newly created things, B.
- Secondly he placed all things under the rule of and made them obedient, B. Made them dumb and made them deaf to obey, A. 5 As unto every man, Sok. 6 A adds every. 7 But the soul of man shall judge the animals in this world, A; B gives the sense of the verse; but there shall not be a judgement of every living soul but only
of that of man, and (?) in the great life to come.
upon the earth …and visited. See xxxii. 1 (note). 5. Special place… for all the souls of men. See xlix. 2 (note). So also of beasts. As the Jews helieved at the beginning of the Christian era that all animals had spoken one lan- guage before the fall, and therefore in some degree possessed rationality (JSubilees iii. 28; Joseph. A ntt.i.1.4), it was only natural that they should proceed to infer a future existence of the animal world. The O.‘T. indeed does not show a single trace of this belief, though it always displays a most tender solicitude for their well- heing ; nor do we find it in any pre- Christian Jewish writing, with the exception of the present text. Even here the future life is of a limited nature. Itisethically motived. This
further term of existence is not con- ceded for the brute’s own sake, but wholly with a view to the punish- ment of man. The brute creation is to live just long enough to bring an indictment for ill-treatment against man at the final judgement. Though this idea of any future life in con- nexion with the brute creation may move the wonder of the modern mind: it is justified by perfectly analogous ideas in the ancient world, Not to speak of the doctrine of metempsy- chosis in Greece and the deification of animals in Egypt, such conceptions as those in the text would not unnaturally flow from the powers and qualities frequently assigned to animals by Greek thinkers. Thus, according to Plut. Plac. v. 20, 4, the souls of brutes were rational though
74 The Book of the Secrets of Enoch.
soul shall perish which God has made till the great judge- ment. 6, And every soul of beast shall bring a charge against man if he feeds them badly’.
1 T have followed Sok. in verses 5,6. 3B partly preserves the sense there is one place and one fold for the souls of beasts. For every living soul which God has made was not reserved for the great judgement. And every soul of beasts, &c., as in text. A is transposed and eorrupt; There is a special place for mankind; as there is every soul of man according to his number, so the beast also shall not perish. And every soul of beast which God has made shall bring a charges against man at
(or until) the great judgement if, &c., as in text.
incapable of acting rationally on ac- count of their bodies; according to Xenocrates they possessed a conselous- ness of God, «a@éAovu yobr rv rept Tov Geiov Evyoray Revoxparns . .. ob” ded- miter nai év rots GAdyors (wos (Clem. Strom. v. 590). Chrysippus ascribed reason to brutes (Chalkid in Tim. p. 148b); while Sextus Medicus (ix. 127) maintained that the souls of brutes and of men were alike. Hence it was generally believed that the souls of men could pass into brutes, mpotov piv adavarov evai gynot Thy puxyy, eira peraBdddovoay eis dAAa yevn (wav (Porph. V. P. 19): while Plato indeed went further and derived the souls of all brutes ultimately from those of men, through a process of deterioration, ds ydp more é£ dvdpiiv yuvaikes Kai TaAAG Onpia yernoowTo, yrioravro of fymoravres Huds (Tim. 76D). With regard to individual animals, some thinkers believed that hees contained a divine element (Virg. Georg. iv. 219-221), while Democri- tus and Pliny plaeed religion among the moral virtues of elephants (H. N. viii. 1). But the closest parallels are to be found in Zoroastrianism, to which indeed we should probably trace in some measure the ideas of the text. Thus in the Zend-Avesta
Vendidad Fargard 13 (Darmesteter) we find an entire chapter dealing with the sacredness of the life of the domes- ticated dog and the eriine of attempt- ing its life—its murderer was to lose his soul to the ninth generation (1-4): with the food that was to be given to it and the penalties entailed by feed- ing it badly (20-28), whieh were to range from fifty to two hundred blows with the horse-goad. Nay more, the land, its pastures and crops were to suffer for the unaioned death of the dog, and these plagues were not to be removed till the man who had sla*n it was slain in turn or had offered sacrifices three days and three nights to the pious soul of the departed dog (54,55). Finally, the soul of the dog went after death to the source of the waters (51). Inthe Midrash Kokeleth, fol. 329, col. 1, we find the following quaint and slightly analogous thought: ‘Rabbi Chama, the son of Gorion, said that wolves and unfruitful trees must give account: just as man must give account, so also must unfruitful trees.’ Hisenmenger, i, 468. It is noteworthy that the ideas of the text have passed over into the creed of the Mohammedans, Thus, according to Sale’s note on the sixth chapter of the Koran, irrational animals will be
| Enoch teaches all his Sons why they must not touch the Flesh of Cattle, because of what comes from tt. |
LIX. 1. He, who acts lawlessly with regard to the souls of beasts, acts lawlessly with regard to his own soul. 2, For a man offers clean animals and makes his sacrifice that he may preserve his soul?. And if he offer as a sacrifice from clean * beasts and? birds, he preserves his soul. 3. Everything that* is given you for food, bind by the four feet: that is an atonement: he acts righteously (therein) and preserves his soul. 4. But he who kills a_ beast without a wonnd kills his own soul and sins against his
LIX. 1 And then he preserves his soul, B.
is a salvation for man.
restored to life at the resurrection that they may be brought to judgement and have vengeance taken on them for the injuries they had inflicted on each other in this life. Then after they have duly retaliated their several wrongs, God will turn them again to dust (Sale’s Koran, Prelim. Discourse, Sect. iv), with the exception of Ezra’s ass and the dog of the seven sleepers which will enjoy eternal life in Para- dise (Koran iii; xviii). Are we to interpret in this manner Orac. Sibyll. vill, 415-418 7—
kai votepoy és Kpiow few kpivev evocBéov Kai EveoeBéwy Biov
dvipwy: kal Kpiov Kpi@ Kal Totpevt Twotpeva Onow wat pooxovy péoxy méAas GAAnAwY és éAeyxov.
Even in Christian times animals were credited with intelligence, conscience, responsibility, as well as with the passions, vices aud virtnes of man- kind (see Bestie delinquenti, D’Addo- sio, 1892, from which the following
2 B om. 3 A edds it
- A om.; B OMITS VERSES 3, 4, 5.
facts are taken). They were accord- ingly solemnly tried, and advocates were assigned at the public expense to them to plead their cause. Thus moles (824 A. D.), a sow (1324), acock (1474), snails (1487) were duly tried and condemned. They were alse occasionally subjected to torture, and their cries were regarded as a con- fession of guilt (l.c. p. 46). Even as late as 1531 a book was written by Chassauée to discuss the lawfulness of trying animals judicially, and the legitimate methods of procedure (lc. p. 75)
LIX. 1. He who acts lawlessly, &c. At first sight this would seem to refer to the sin of bestiality, and such was the view of the scribe of A: see title, but the context is against this, as verses 2-4 clearly show. Hence some illegitimate method of sacrificing or slaughtering animals seems to be referred to here. 2, 3. These verses point to a date prior to the destruc- tion ofthe temple, 7oa.D. 4, Against
76 The Book of the Secrets of Enoch.
own flesh. 5. And if any one does an injury to an animal
secretly, it is an evil custom and he sins against his soul.
[How we ought not to kill a Man, neither with Weapon nor