Legends of Old Testament characters, from the Talmud and other sourcesBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Religion
Legends of Old Testament characters, from the Talmud and other sources
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Bible. Old Testament -- Legends; Jewish legends
Then the order arrived from Allah, and the angel of the gate refused no
more; so Enoch entered; but before Enoch and Azrael passed the gates,
Ridhwan said to the prophet, “Go in, and behold Paradise, but be speedy
and leave it again, for thou mayst not dwell there till after the
Resurrection.”
Enoch replied, “Be it so;” and he went in and viewed Paradise, and came
out, as he had promised; and as he passed the threshold of the door he
turned and said to the angel, “Oh, Ridhwan! I have left something in
there; suffer me to run and fetch it.”
But Ridhwan refused; and a dispute arose between them.
Enoch said, “I am a prophet; and God has sent me thirty books, and I
have written them all, and I have never revolted against God. In those
books that God sent me, I was promised Paradise. If it be necessary that
I should have undergone death, I have undergone it. If it be necessary
that I should have seen Hell, I have seen it. Now I am come to Paradise,
and that is my home; God has promised it to me, and now that I have
entered I will leave it no more.”
The dispute waxed hot, but it was terminated by the order of God, who
bade Ridhwan open the gate and re-admit Enoch into Paradise, where he
still dwells.[155]
2. THE BOOK OF ENOCH.
The Book of Enoch, quoted by S. Jude in his Epistle, and alluded to by
Origen, S. Augustine, S. Clement of Alexandria, and others of the
Fathers, must not be passed over.
The original book appears from internal evidence to have been written
about the year 110 B.C.[156] But we have not the work as then written;
it has suffered from numerous interpolations, and it is difficult always
to distinguish the original text from the additions.
The book is frequently quoted in the apocryphal “Testament of the Twelve
Patriarchs,” which is regarded as canonical by the Armenian Church, but
the references are for the most part not to be found in the text. It was
largely used by some of the early Christian writers, either with
acknowledgment or without. The monk George Syncellus, in the eighth
century, extracted portions to compose his Chronography. This fragment
in Syncellus was all that was known of the book in the West till the
last century. The Jews, though remembering the work, had lost it in
Hebrew; but it was alluded to by the Rabbis down to the thirteenth
century, and it is referred to in the Book Sohar, though the writer may
not have read the book of Enoch. Bruce, the African traveller, was the
first to bring it to Europe from Abyssinia in two MSS., in the year
1773. Much attention was not, however, paid to it till 1800, when De
Sacy in his “Magasin Encyclopédique,” under the title “Notice sur le
Livre d’Enoch,” gave some account of the work. In 1801, Professor
Laurence gave to the public an English translation, accompanied by some
critical remarks. Since then, the book has been carefully and
exegetically examined. The version we now have is Ethiopic.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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