Gilles de Loches
Gilles de Loches / Aegidius Lochiensis (17th cent.) was a French Capuchin and orientalist. In the early 17th century inaugurated the Capucin missions in Egypt (Said, 1626; Cairo, 1633). When he returned in France in 1633, he visited at Aix-en-Provence the French intellectual and collector Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc and reported that among the rare books he had seen in convents and monasteries in Egypt was also "Mazhapha Einock, or the Prophecie of Enoch, foretelling such things as should happen at the end of the World." Peiresc immediately contacted Gilles' successor in Egypt, Father Agathange de Vendôme, and was able in 1636 to obtain a copy of the manuscript, which however in 1681 was revealed to be merely a theological commentary, containing only some references and allusions to the book of Enoch.