208 



MRS. WALTER MAUNDER. ON ASTRONOMICAL 



any account that he derived from Genesis, for while still in 

 the third heaven, his conductors led him to hell : — 



'•to the northern region and showed me there a very terrible 

 place. And there are all sorts of tortures in that place. Savage 

 darkness and impenetrable gloom, and there is no light there, but a 

 gloomy fire is always burning and a fiery river goes forth. And all 

 that place has fire on all sides, and on all sides cold and ice, thus it 

 burns and freezes.'"* 



Earlier in this paper, I have shown that this idea of a 

 northern hell, a northern heaven, and a northern paradise for 

 the righteous (displaced by B to the east of north) is peculiar 

 to the Iranians ; the Jewish writer of the " Secrets of Enoch " 

 must, therefore, have derived it from an Iranian source, 

 and, as we have seen, this stamps it as late, certainly later 

 than a. P. 40. 



The description of the fourth heaven contains many astro- 

 nomical technicalities, and some are useful for the purpose of 

 dating the passage. In Chapter XYI, Enoch is "placed 

 at the East, at the course of the Moon." The course of the 

 moon is not given according to the lunar asterisms, or to the 

 signs of the zodiac, or to lunations or phases, but as passing 

 through " twelve great gates extending from the AVest to 

 the East," and the stay of the moon in each of these gates 

 is given in days, and those days correspond to our present 

 conventional months, beginning with one of thirty-one days, 

 i.e., March, and ending with one of twenty-eight days, i.e., 

 February. 4 - Xow the Jewish months were actual lunations ; 

 by the observation of the new moons the sacred feasts 

 were regulated prior to the destruction of the Temple, and 

 indeed for some time afterwards. But the months of the 

 calendar we use were arranged primarily by Julius Caesar, and, 

 after a slight modification, established in general use by 

 Augustus shortly before our era. Slav. Enoch represents 

 these conventional months as being divinely instituted— shown 

 to Enoch as if they were among the secrets of God. No 



* Compare the description in "The Opinions of the Spirit of Wisdom," 

 VII, : " Of hell . . . they execute punishment* and torments. . . . 



There is a place where, as to cold, it is such as that of the coldest frozen 

 snow. There is a place where, as to heat, it is such as that of the hottest 

 an<:l most blazing fires." 



t The text is somewhat corrupt. In two cases at least a wrong 

 number of days is assigued to a month, and the sum of all the months 

 does not agree with the total given. 



