assigned to the latter part of the second century before Christ. A sketch of the section respecting the sin of the angels will throw much light on the passage before us. A portion of it had long been known through two considerable extracts, which the Byzantine writer Georgius Syncellus (_c._ A.D. 800) makes from it in his _Chronographia_ (pp. 20-23 and 40-42, Dindorf's ed., Bonn, 1829). The quotation in our Epistle and those made by Syncellus constituted all that was known of the _Book of Enoch_ in Europe until 1773, when the English traveller Bruce brought home three MSS. of an Ethiopic version of the whole which was still extant in the Abyssinian Church. The section about the sin of the angels and their punishment (vii.-xxxvi.) begins very abruptly after a short introduction (i.-vi.), in which Enoch blesses the righteous, and states that he received a revelation from the angels in heaven. "And it came to pass, when the sons of men had multiplied, that daughters were born to them, very beautiful. And the angels, the sons of heaven, desired them, and were led astray after them, and said to one another, Let us choose for ourselves wives of the daughters of the men of the earth." Two hundred of them then made a conspiracy, and went down to the earth, and begat an offspring of giants. They imparted a knowledge of sorcery and many baneful arts; and the corruption thus diffused, and the voracity and violence of their offspring, produced the evils which preceded the Deluge. Then the sinful angels are sentenced by the Almighty, and Enoch is commissioned to make the sentence known to them. "Then the Lord said to me, Enoch, scribe of righteousness, go tell the watchers of heaven, _who have deserted the lofty sky, and their holy everlasting station_, who have been polluted with women, ... that on earth they shall never obtain peace and remission of sin." The fallen angels persuade Enoch to intercede for them; but his intercession is not heard, and he is told to repeat the sentence which has been pronounced upon them. The following particulars of their punishment are of interest. Azâzêl (comp. Lev. xvi. 26, R.V.), one of the ringleaders, is to be _bound hand and foot_, thrown into a pit in the wilderness, and _covered with darkness_; there he is to remain, with his face covered, _till the great day of judgment_, when he is to be cast into the fire. The others, after they have seen their offspring kill one another in mutual slaughter, are to be _bound for seventy generations underneath the earth, till the day of their judgment_, when they shall be thrown into the lowest depths of the fire, and be _shut up for ever_ (x. 6-9, 15, 16). "Judgment has been passed upon you: your prayer shall not be granted you. From henceforth never shall you ascend to heaven. He hath said that on the earth _He will bind you, as long as the world endures_" (xiv. 2). And Enoch is afterwards shown their punishment in a vision. "These are those of the stars