ἐν

liver of the three Children from the fiery Furnace. He fays, his Form was like the Son of God, Dan. iii, 25. Afterwards he exprefly calls him an Angel, v. 28. So alfo, with relation to this fame account of the corruption of the Pofterity of Seth by the Cainites, St. Peter tells us of the Spirits εν φυλακή, who were difobe dient in the days of Noe, St. Pet. iii. 19, 20 Thefe he calls Angels, 2 St. Pet. ii. 4. and tells us of their being caft down to Hell, 2 St. Pet ii. 4. Taglaswaas is the word, alluding to the Heathen Mythological Traditions concerning their Titans and Giants. He tells us, they were delivered to Chains of Darkness, to be refer ved unto Fudgment, and joins them with the old World of the ungodly, who were deftroyed by the Flood in the time of Noe, v.5. The Spirits in one place are the fame with the Angels in the other. So they are taken fyn nimously, Act. xxiii. 8. The Sadducees fay, That there is no Refurrection, neither Angel nor Spi rit, but the Pharifees confefs, Ta ampire: That word fuppofes only two, which cannot be unlefs Angel and Spirit had fignified the fame thing St. Peter at leaft plainly fuppofes it, when he makes them both prisoners. So St. Fude: The Angels which kept not their first Eftate, but left their own Habitation, he hath re ferved in everlasting Chains under Darkness, unto the Fudgment of the great Day, v.6. The Fall of the Angels here alluded to, lofing them their first asx could not be their Pride and Ambition. That was afpiring above them. This is rather defcribed as a degeneracy and falling Short of the dignity and excellency of their N ture, which was exactly this ignoble fort of Marriages, whereby they mingled this Holy Seed of God with the unholy Pofterity of the

piacular

piacular Cain. They are faid to have left their own Inhabitation. This can hardly be meant of Heaven, which Angels leave in course when they are fent on Divine Embafies. Yet it is ftill reckoned as their dinner, because they leave it cum animo revertendi. But the Se thites were fuppofed to leave their own holy Habitation, not to be caft out of it, as the first Fallen Angels were, and to have dwelt in the unholy Land of the Cainites for the fake of their Wives. But the following words make this Interpretation yet clearer: Ὡς Σόδομα και Γό μορφα, καὶ αἱ πει αυτας πόλεις τ ὅμοιον τέτοις τρό που εκπορνεύσασαι, καὶ ἀποθέσαι ὀπίσω σαρκὸς ἑτέρας, πρόκεινο δείγμα, πυρὶς αἰωνία δίκίω ὑπέχεσαι, ν. 7. TETOIS cannot refer to the Cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, which are here expreffed by the fa minine Pronoun auras. What therefore can it relate to but the "Ayfeλor, mentioned immediately before in the former Verfe? If fo, it must fuppofe the fin of the Angels alluded to before, to be of the fame nature with that of the Sodo mites, which is faid to be a going after ftrange Flesh, relating to the Matrimonial Union in one Flesh. This muft neceffarily fuppofe the Angels fin alfo to be flefbly, fuch as this mingling of the Holy Seed with the rieg rást would have been accounted. That Flesh of the Cainites was ἑτέρα as ἑτεροεθνής. It is faid to have been Fornication, as I have fhewn this mingling of the Holy Seed to have been called, by Tertul lian. A like connexion of the Sins of the Sodomites, and thefe 'Effe of the Pofterity of Seth, we have in the Teftament of Nephthali. Only the Order is inverted. Having firft mentioned Sodom, ἥτις ενήλλαξε τάξιν φύσεως αυ της, the Author adds, ὁμοίως ἢ καὶ οἱ Ἐγρήγορες ενήλλαξαν τάξιν φύσεως αυτής, ὃς κατηράσατο κύριο,&c.

M 4

n. 3.

n. 3. Edit. Cl. Grabii Spicil. Tom. i. p. 213. And indeed, the Crimes mentioned in the Hereticks, reproved by S. Jude in this whole Epistle, are of the fame kind, fleshly alfo. They turned the grace of God eis doentesav, v. 4. They de filed their Flesh, v.8. They foamed out their own Shame, v. 13. And they are faid to have gone in the way of Cain, v. 11. Why fo, but to fhew how parallel the Example of the Sethian Angels was to his purpofe, fuppofing their fin alfo to have been their going in the way of Cain? Indeed, S. Peter's referring these things to the time of Noah, will hardly permit them to be otherwife understood than as I faid. And the Chains of Darkness mentioned both by him and S. Fude, wherein thefe Apoftate Angels are faid to have been referved to the Fudg ment of the great Day, feem plainly to allude to the words of the Prophefy of Enoch, as Syncellus has preferved them. So he: Τότε ὁ ὕψιςΘ ἐκέλευσε τοῖς ἁγίοις αρχαγέλοις, κ Eng mś Jászos auifu, x) Ecoyor auto's His & αβυασον, ἕως ἡ κρίσεως. The ἄυ~ of Enoch is the nethermoft Hell, the Taglas of S. Peter, the place into which Saturn, and the Titans, and the Giants, are faid to have been caft, according to the Heathen Mythologies, which alfo fuppofe them to be bound there with the like Chains of Darkness. And Strabo has obS.Peter and S. ferved, that the firft and moft antient TraditiJude, feem to ons were generally Mythological, not invented have had their by their firft Writers the Poets, but found by Accounts of the them in poffeffion.

P. 3. Omiff. à Scalig. &

Grot.

S. LX.

Fall of their

21

2

Angels from The words quoted from the Book of Enoch the Book of by S. Fude, might very probably have been Enoch, which found in it, if we had it intire. It very well tive of the Fall agrees with the defign of it. The early quotaof thefe Chil- tions from it, fhew it to have been an Hiftoridren of Seth.

was a Narra

cal

cal Account of that Apoftafy, according to the fenfe of that Age wherein it was written. They very well fit the perfon of fome Patriarch to the Apoftate's diffuading them from their defetion, before the Judgments of God denounced against them, might overtake them. Such Orations were, in all likelihook, in that Book. From thence, very probably, the Author of the Sibylline Oracles had that which he afcribes to Noah. S. Irenaus tells us of another Patriarch fent by God, in an Embassy to those fame Angels Very probably, because he found a like Oration in his Perfon, in that fame Poetical Drama. They were very fuitable to the defign of the Author, and had nothing more difingenuous in them than the Orations afcribed to likely Perfons in the most celebrated and veracious Hiftorians. It would argue injudiciousness in the Reader, who would reckon on fuch Orations as Facts, not in the Writer of them. Yet, fo far as they were acknowledged to be artificial, that is, to be likely and becoming the perfons to whom they were afcribed, they might be reckoned on by others, and Reasons might be drawn from them, where their Authority was acknowledged, at leaft, as popular Probabilities. S. Ireneus, and the Author of the Sibyl line Oracles, might have seen the Book of Enoch intire, and therefore might have what they fay from the Book it felf. Tertullian, and the Teftaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, quoted by Origen, do frequently refer to it. And the words quoted by S. Jude, are by no means likely to have defcended from an unwritten Tradition. There is no mention of any fuch Speeches, or of any Materials of them, in the Hiftory, as it is related in the Pentateuch. And I know of no other coaval Monuments, well attested,

C

C

attested, that were then extant, from whence S. Fude might have it, who notwithstanding t produces these words in the very Perfon of Enoch. Very probably, as he found them writi ten in the Book it felf. For Oral Tradition never derives Speeches without Writings. Livy owns the Fable of Menenius Agrippa to the People, to have been in a horrid ruftick Style, fuitable to the Age wherein he delivered it, not in the elegant improved Latin wherein Li vy himself has expreffed it. The fuiting therefore fuch Speeches to perfons likely, and the drawing them up in form, were the Ornaments added by the Authors to the Oral Traditions delivered by them. I cannot therefore think, whence S. Jude could have thefe words, but th from a Writing under the perfon of Enoch, nor t do I know of any other Writing afcribed to that Patriarch befides that of which we have fo frequent mention in the next Ages after the Apoftles. What ground therefore is there to think of any other Original? Nor is there any more likely account to be given, I believe, of what S. Peter has concerning this fame Hi2 S. Pet. ii. 5. ftory. He calls Noah a Preacher of Righte oufnefs. This he could not have out of the Pentateuch, which mentions no fuch matter. But he might from this Book of Enoch, from whence the Author of the Sibylline Oracles gives us a Speech in that very fame Perfon of Noe. That fame Author of thofe Oracles makes it spoken to the Tenfes, the fame with the 'Efenfe, the fubject of that Book under the name of Enoch, as appears from the Title in Syncellus. This very well agrees with what the fame S. Peter has in his former Epistle, where he afcribes the fame xngužis to Chrift, I S. Pet. iii. 20. But dual, v. 18. Why

fo?