Category:Enochic Studies--1500s

Johannes Reuchlin

St Stephen to the Abyssinians

Guillaume Postel

John Dee

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Enochic Studies in the 1500s--Works and Authors

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Overview

At the turn of the 16th century the book of Enoch still remained an elusive presence. In De Verbo mirifico (1494) German Hebraist Johannes Reuchlin repeated the complaint, expressed by Giovanni Pico della Mirandola in his Apologia (1487), against the falsehood and ignorance often hidden behind such splendid titles as the books of Solomon and the books of Enoch. Reuchlin was familiar with the activities of the Hospitium fratrum Indianorum established in Rome in 1481 under Pope Sixtus IV who gave the ancient church and monastery of St. Stephen in Vatican to Ethiopian pilgrims from Jerusalem (the church was renamed Ecclesia fratum Indianorum and is still today known as St Stephen to the Abyssinians). The presence of Ethiopian pilgrims is attested in Roma since 1315 and a delegation of Ethiopic priests attended the Council of Florence in 1441, but the establishment of the Hospitium fratum Indianorum made it the first center of Ethiopic culture in Europe. Reuchlin visited Rome several times and knew well the cultural activities at the Hospitium as he was in correspondence with Johannes Potken who in Rome in 1513 co-edited with the Ethiopian friar Thomas Walda Samuel the first book ever printed in Ethiopic (Alphabetum seu potius syllabarium literarum Chaldaerarum, Rome, 1513). Neither Reuchlin nor Pico della Mirandola before him, however, seemed to be aware of any special connection between the Book of Enoch and Ethiopia. In De arte cabalistica (1517) Reuchlin still implied that Pico had the book of Enoch as one of the "seventy secret books of Ezra," ignoring that Pico had instead only a Hebrew ms (and Latin translation) of Menahem Recanati's work, of which the editio princeps was published in 1523 and a commentary by Mordecai Jaffe appeared in 1595.

The figure of Enoch remained popular in esoteric circles all around Europe. In 1530 the Venetian alchemist Giovanni Agostino Panteo published 26 charachters purporting to be the pre-Flood "Enochian" alphabet. This alphabet was not the result of philological studies but of magical knowledge; after all, the art of alchemy was believed to be one of the secret knowledges taught by the fallen angels and inscribed after the Flood in the Book of Chemes, who was identified with Cam, the son of Noah and descendent of Enoch.

Expectations of the "return" of Enoch continued to be very strong in millenaristic circles. In 1524, Martin Luther himself had to intervene to disprove these beliefs in his commentary on the Letter to Jude. The most notable incident occurred in 1533-34; after Melchior Hofmann predicted that Christ would return to earth, the anabaptist Jan Matthys ruled the city of Munster, Germany as the "New Jerusalem," declaring that he was the prophet Enoch redivivus. Matthys died during the siege of the city, when on Easter Sunday made a sally forth with thirty followers, convinced that Judgment Day had come.

In the meantime, the relations between Europa and Ethiopia had become closer and Ethiopia gradually abandoned its traditional isolationism. When Portuguese diplomat and explorer Pêro da Covilhã arrived in Ethiopia in 1490, he was allowed to stay but not to leave the country. In 1520, however, a Portuguese embassy was welcomed for a visit and diplomatic relations were established between Ethiopia and Portugal. The embassy's chaplain Francisco Alvares composed the first description of the country, then published in Portuguese (Lisbon, 1540) and Italian. The Hospitium fratrum Indianorum in Rome also benefitted from the arrival of pilgrims and scholars from Ethiopia. From 1537 to 1552, Tasfa Seyon, known as Peter the Indian, edited in Rome the first printed edition of the New Testament in Ge’ez, the Ethiopian liturgical language.

First evidence of the existence of an actual book of Enoch in Ethiopia came in mid-16th century by Guillaume Postel. In 1551 in De Etruriae regionis Guillaume declared that the Enoch's prophesies made before the Flood were preserved in the archives of the Queen of Sheba and that to this day they were believed to be canonical scripture in Ethiopia. In 1553 he wrote in his De originibus that in Rome (most likely, in 1547) he had met an Abyssinian priest (apparently, Tasfa Seyon) who illustrated him the content of 1 Enoch. Postel's piece of information was included in 1559 by John Bale in his popular work on Scriptorum Illustrium maioris Brytanniae posterior pars (Basel 1559). According to Luis de Urreta, the Librarian of the Vatican Apostolic Library Guglielmo Sirleto also was made aware of the existence of the Book of Enoch in Ethiopia by two friers who visited the country (in 1579?) as members of a delegation sent by Pope Gregory XIII to the Ethiopian King. But no progress was made in the recovery of the actual content of the book of Enoch.

The idea that magic and alchemy could provide a shortcut continued to fascinate European intellectual circles. In his Introductio in divinam Chemiae artem (Basel 1572) Petrus Bonus repeated Roger Bacon's remarks that Henoch was the great Hermogenes. News from Postel and Bale about the existence of the Book of Enoch inspired British alchemist John Dee to follow the same path as Panteo and Petrus Bonus. In May 1581 his promising yet inconclusive experiments with the crystal ball convinced him that he needed the services of a professional scryer to communicate with the spirits. In 1582-83 Dee formed a partnership with visionary Edward Kelley in the search for the lost wisdom of Enoch. The result was the "discovery" of a mysterious alphabet they claimed to have received from the archangel Michael, and portions of the Book of Enoch written in the "Enochian language" they believed Enoch himself used to communicate with the angels.

@2014, Gabriele Boccaccini, University of Michigan

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  Martin Luther

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  Melchior Hofmann

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  Jan Matthys

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  John Bale

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  Edward Kelley