212 



MRS. WALTER MAUNDER, ON ASTRONOMICAL 



concerning it, for they declared that, since it is the highest and 

 loftiest and swiftest of the spheres, it is the origin of the universe. 

 . . . The ill-informed have said that it has life, and that everything 

 receives life from it." 



It, might almost seem as if one of the "ill-informed persons" 

 referred to was the author of the Slavonic Enoch, since he 

 confines the Deity so decidedly to the tenth heaven, that there 

 might almost be an identification between Him and it. 



Since, then, the original author of Slavonic Enoch could not 

 have lived at so early a date as Dr. Charles has given him : 

 since, by comparison with the Irish Tract, there is no reason to 

 judge the reference to the three outer heavens as interpolations ; 

 and since both books were written by Jews of Alexandria and 

 — if we might so term it — published in the same style ; is there 

 really any serious objection to the conclusion that the author of 

 the originals of Slavonic Enoch and Messahalah were practically 

 contemporaries, and that they were representatives of two 

 opposing lines of thought, of two opposing purposes ? 



The purpose of the Irish Tract is not in doubt. It was a 

 clear and scientific text-book, expressed in simple and unaffected 

 language, for use in schools. It speaks well for the Irish schools 

 in the Middle Ages that it was such a treatise that they caused 

 to be translated into their vulgar tongue. It does not speak 

 well for early Slavonic writers that they brought it about that 

 the "Secrets of Enoch," with its mystic and perverted astrology, 

 was translated into Slavonic, and — as far as we know — into 

 Slavonic only. 



The purpose of the " Secrets of Enoch " is no less clear. It is 

 no genuine apocalyptic work, but over and over again we read 

 such passages as : 



" The Lord contemplated the world for the sake of man and made 

 all creation for his sake, and divided it into time. And from the 

 times He made years, and from the years He made months, and 

 from the months He made days, and of the days He made seven. 

 And in these He made the hours and divided them into small 

 portions, that a man should understand the seasons, and compute 

 years and months and hours, their alternations and beginnings and 

 ends : and that he should compute his life from the beginning till 

 death, and should meditate upon his sin, and should write down his 

 evil and good deeds. . . . Let each man know his deeds, and not 

 transgress the commandments, and let him keep my writings 

 securely . . . every man shall come to the great judgment of the 

 Lord Blessed are the just who shall escape the great judg- 



