memorable days of the Ptolemys, was not yet wholly extinguished and still possessed sufficient power to protect itself against the yoke which Pharisaism sought to put upon the people?”[287] It is not necessary to assume that all the literature produced by the Jews during these centuries emanated either from Pharisaic or Sadducæan circles. There are other alternatives; and in the present case it seems most probable that the bulk of this book was written by apocalyptists who belonged neither to Pharisaic nor yet to Sadducæan circles. The Book of Enoch was originally written partly in Aramaic (vi.-xxxvi., lxxxiii.-xc., according to Charles) and partly in Hebrew (the rest of the book). No portion of the book in its original form has come down to us; the Ethiopic version is the only complete one extant, it was translated from the Greek version of which only fragments remain.[288] The Latin version, which was also made from the Greek, is not extant with the exception of i. 9, cvi. 1-18. That the book is Palestinian is generally acknowledged; its original language of itself points to this. The Book of Enoch is in many respects the most important of all the apocalypses, since it is without a rival for the history of doctrinal development during the last two pre-Christian centuries. The teaching of the book is sometimes contradictory, which is not to be wondered at in view of its composite authorship; for example, in lxix. 11 it is said that man was originally created without sin, “like the angels,” but that death came through sin and destroyed him; but elsewhere the entering in of sin from the first is traced to the spiritual world. The doctrines of angels and demons appear in a developed form in this book. The teaching concerning the Kingdom is likewise contradictory; vi.-xxxvi. are full of materialistic ideas, whereas xci.-civ. are marked by conceptions which are entirely spiritual. So, too, with regard to the Messiah; at one time He is represented as without having any special _rôle_ to fill, at another He appears as the “Righteous One,” or as the “Elect One,” “The Son of Man,” and “The Christ” or “Anointed One.” Regarding the Last Things, the teaching about the Judgement varies according as to whether the Messianic Kingdom is conceived of as an eternal earthly kingdom, in which case the final Judgement precedes it, or as only a temporary earthly kingdom, when the Judgement takes place at its close; in xxxvii.-lxxi. (“The Similitudes”) it is taught that the Messianic Kingdom is eternal and embraces heaven and earth, here it is initiated by the final Judgement. The punishment of the wicked takes place in Sheol, part of which is a place of fire, and equivalent to the later Gehenna conception; another part of Sheol is described as an intermediate resting-place of the righteous. In the oldest portions of the book both soul and body, a physical body, rise and abide eternally in the earthly Messianic Kingdom; in