1 Enoch 72:1

Pseudepigrapha

1 The book of the courses of the luminaries of the heaven, the relations of each, according to their classes, their dominion and their seasons, according to their names and places of origin, and according to their months, which Uriel, the holy angel, who was with me, who is their guide, showed me; and he showed me all their laws exactly as they are, and how it is with regard to all the years of the world and unto eternity, till the new creation is accomplished which dureth till eternity. 2 And this is the first law of the luminaries: the luminary the Sun has its rising in the eastern portals of the heaven, and its setting in the western portals of the heaven. 3 And I saw six portals in which the sun rises, and six portals in which the sun sets and the moon rises and sets in these portals, and the leaders of the stars and those whom they lead: six in the east and six in the west, and all following each other in accurately corresponding order: also many windows to the right and left of these portals.

Anatolius The Paschal Canon 5

Patristic

I am aware that very many other matters were discussed by them, some of them with considerable probability, and others of them as matters of the clearest demonstration, by which they endeavour to prove that the festival of the Passover and unleavened bread ought by all means to be kept after the equinox. But I shall pass on without demanding such copious demonstrations (on subjects ) from which the veil of the Mosaic law has been removed; for now it remains for us with unveiled face to behold ever as in a glass Christ Himself and the doctrines and sufferings of Christ. But that the first month among the Hebrews is about the equinox, is clearly shown also by what is taught in the book of Enoch.

 Notes and References

"... The ecclesiastical historian Eusebius preserves a lengthy abstract from a work by Anatolius called Canons on the Pascha. He begins writing about Anatolius in Ecclesiastical Histories 7.32.6 and continues through paragraph 21 ... As he quotes from Anatolius's work on the Pascha, he includes these words: 'But that the first month with the Hebrews lies around the equinox is shown also by the teachings of the Book of Enoch' (7.32.19). In connection with this attribution, J. E. L. Oulton referred to 1 Enoch 72:6, 9, 31, 32, while Milik pointed to 72:1-10. In that chapter of 1 Enoch the writer says that in the first month of the solar year the day and night are equal in length (nine parts each) as the sun emerges from the fourth gate at the beginning of the year. Hence, Anatolius may have been adding information from a Greek form of the Astronomical Book ..."

Nickelsburg, George W. E. A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch Chapters 37-82 (p. 349) Fortress Press, 2012

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