On this page

• Departments (1)
  • 
• Text (4)

  Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

  • 

    Untitled Article

  • 

    Untitled Article

  • 

    REVIEW.

  • 

    Untitled Article

• Transcript

  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Untitled Article

    Art . I . —The Book of Enoch the Prophet , now first Translated from an Ethiopic MS . in the Bodleian Library . By Richard Laurence , LL . D ., Regius Professor of Hebrew , &c . 1821 . Svo . pp . xlviii and 214 . Oxford , pr inted—sold by Rivingtons .

    IN the Epistle which bears the name of Jude , the brother of James , a passage occurs , ver . 14 , in which a prophecy of Enoch , the seventh from Adam , is alluded to : " Behold the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his

    saints to execute judgment upon all , and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have committed , and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him . "

    Several of the fathers , among whom are Irenaeus , Origen , Tertullian and Jerome , speak of a book , by some received as canonical , by others classed with apocryphal writings , in which visions and prophecies of Enoch were contained ; * and it appears to have been extant in Greek a « late as the

    8 th century of the Christian era , when a long extract was made from it by George Syncellus . This quotation was published by Scaliger , in his Notes on the Canon Chronicus of Eusebius , but to this day the Greek work itself has never been found ; and as the passage

    preserved by Syncellus did not happen to contain the words cited by the author of the Epistle of Jude , it remained uncertain whether it was the same book which both these writers used . It has been preserved from destruction by the singular circumstance that the Ahtrcninin ^ d ~ *\ 1 .. !_ 1 _ _ __• J a . "_ . j ^ oyssiman Ch urch has received it into

    its canon , where it stands immediately before the book of Job . Ludolf had heard of ^ its existence , but was disappointed in his expectation of finding a genuine copy of it in the Royal Library at Paris and the very fact that such a work formed a part of the

    * See Suiceri Thesaurus , E ;/< y % ; Lardp » Works , Vt . 618 ; Fabricius , Codex * eude P » graphus Vet . Test ., I . p . 160 , ^ l mi .

    Untitled Article

    Abyssinian canon was doubted of , till Bruce brought three copies of it with him from that country . One of these he presented to the Royal Library of Paris , another to the Bodleian Library ,

    and the third , which formed a part of an Abyssinian Bible , lie retained himself . The learned orientalist , Silvestre de Sacy , published in the Magasin Encyclopedique , a translation into Latin of some parts of it , but to Dr .

    Laurence belongs the honour of being the first to exhibit a complete version of it , from the MS . in the Bodleian . The cultivators of the Ethiopic are so few , that , whatever we may think of the

    value of the book , or of his arguments respecting it , we cannot withhold our acknowledgments from him for enabling us to form a judgment for ourselves upon a work which has excited so much curiosity and discussion .

    That the work which Dr . L . has translated is really the same which was known at the time when the Epistle of Jude was written , and afterwards as the Prophecy of Enoch , can scarcely be doubted . The passage quoted above exists in it nearly word for word : " Behold he comes with ten thousands

    of his saints , to execute judgment upon them , to destroy the wicked , and to reprove all the carnal for every thing which the sinful and ungodly have done and committed against him /' Considering that the English is a translation of a translation , the slight

    variety observable here will not be urged against the identity of the two passages . The same argument applies to the allusions of Irenseijs , Origen and Tertullian , and the extract of

    Svrneeilus , all of which correspond to passages in the work now translated . Interpolations may very probably exist in it , but it appears certain that it is in the main the work which was known in

    the early ages as the Book or Prophecy of Enoch . The leading fiction of the work , on which its visions and prophecies are strung , is , that Enoch being taken up from the sight of the children of men , was permitted to behold the wonders of heaven and hell , of the universe and

    Untitled Article

    ** Still pleased to praise , yet not afraid to blame /'—Popk .

    Review.

    REVIEW .

    Untitled Article

    411

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1821, page 411, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2502/page/31/