Historia Aethiopica (1681 Ludolf), book
Historia Aethiopica (1681) is a book by Hiob Ludolf.
Abstract
In Book III (De rebus ecclesiastics Habessinorum), ch.4 (De Libris Sacris Habessinorum), #49 (Liber Henochi falsus), Ludolf discussed what reported by Pierre Gassendi "in vita Peiresk" about the presence in Europe of a copy of the "lost" book of Enoch. Ludolf was skeptical about the existence of the book. In particular proved that the ms. purchased in 1636 by French intellectual and collector Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc, and then at the Library of Cardinal Mazarin, was not a copy of the "lost" Book of Enoch but a theological commentary containing merely citations of and allusions to the Book of Enoch--the treatise De mysteriis coeli & terrae, & de la S.S. Trinitate by Abba Bahaila Michaelem.
"Illud autem prorsus vanum est, quod Aegidus Lochiensis Capucinus amplissimo viro Peireskio de Prophetia Enochi retulit, quasi illa Aethiopice adhuc extaret, in libro Mazhapha Einock, Liber Henochi dicto. Quo audito, insignis ille virnullis pepercit sumtibus, donec illum librum sibi copararet; sed improbi cenditores falso titulo illi imposuerunt. Nam libellus postea in Bibliothecam Cardinalis Mazarini translatus fuit, illiusque exordium, medium atque finem ad amico exscriptum accepimus, qua nihil de Enocho, neque praedictionibus futurorum, sed quendam Abba-Bahaila-Michaelem autorem habebant, de mysteriis coeli, & terrae, & de S.S. Trinitate lucide deffirentem, ut in commentario Lectori ostendemus" (III, 4, 49).
Editions
Published in Frankfurt, Germany: Joh. David Zunner, 1681.