Annianus
c. 412 CE
The story of the Watchers and their influence on the Earth was told first and most impressively in the Book of the Watchers, surviving as the first part of 1 Enoch. This book was highly influential in Antiquity, but by the Hellenistic period, its story of fallen angels and their corruption sat uncomfortably among Jewish scholars and later among Christian Fathers, who could not imagine that angels and humans could create viable offspring. By the early centuries CE, St. John Cassian and Athanasius inform us that the vulgar believed in the Book of Enoch and that angels had descended and mated with human women, while the elite understood the book to be false and that the Sons of God were not angels but the descendants of Adam’s son Seth. This later argument, adopted by Julius Africanus, the great chronographer, influenced the Alexandrian world chronicle of Panodorus, which in turn formed the basis of the chronicle written by the monk Annianus.
Annianus’s chronicle does not survive but its influence was felt throughout the East. It served as the basis for medieval Greek, Syriac, Arabic, and Persian world histories, and as such it transmitted an Egypt-centered account of world history that followed Panodorus in emphasizing the harmony of Babylonian, Egyptian, and Judeo-Christian chronologies, with the descent of the Watchers in the thousandth year of creation as the pivotal event in human history. This account later served as the basis for most of the narratives now associated with fringe history through its influence on medieval pyramid legends, Egyptomania, Herrmeticism, and various magical and occult traditions. While most of the narrative contained in it originated with Panodorus, almost no one preserved anything of Panodorus’s work (except for the Byzantine monk George Syncellus), so it is Annianus’ work that takes pride of place as the most important lost work of the secret history of the world.
It is important to note that it is not the original or the correct view of the Watchers—a story better told by Pseudo-Enoch—but it is the version that Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages knew and the one that the occult tradition, Freemasonry, theosophy, and other alternatives to mainstream history inherited.
In order to reconstruct the story of the antediluvian world as given by Annianus, I have attempted to collate those sources which either explicitly cited Annianus as their source or which drew upon authors who cited Annianus as the source. Because the medieval chronographer Michael the Syrian explicitly cited Annianus and provided the cleanest and least corrupt text where comparisons are available, I have taken his work as the base text for the following reconstruction. However, Michael heavily abridged his source, and he dispensed with much of the material about the Watchers, the Giants, and the world before the Flood, both for space and because of the disrepute into which antediluvian studies had fallen by his day. Therefore, to reconstruct what we can of Annianus’ argument, I have collated Michael’s base text with parallel passages from other witnesses to Annianus, omitting obvious interpolations by the later authors (Syrian and Persian nationalist mythologies, for example) and generally sticking as close as possible to the places where two or more sources agree on the same passage, or where Annianus is explicitly cited as a source.
The original chronicle of Annianus, according to the most thorough witness to it, the Byzantine monk George Syncellus, was comprised of chronological discussions, quotations from profane and sacred authors, and frequent tables and charts. Because this is impossible to reproduce from the extant sources with anything resembling accuracy, the reconstruction below instead should be viewed as a précis, recreating the argument, if not all of the apparatus. I confess, however, to being rather surprised that the disparate sources melded together so coherently. This suggests that there was a single “epic” history of ancient Egypt in circulation in Late Antiquity that started with Adam and Seth and attempted to reconcile the pagan Egyptian history of the country in primordial times with Christian beliefs about the world before the Flood.
The text below is an amalgamation of medieval texts. The source translations are either my own or from public domain sources. Most of the original texts can be found on my Watchers page.
Annianus’s chronicle does not survive but its influence was felt throughout the East. It served as the basis for medieval Greek, Syriac, Arabic, and Persian world histories, and as such it transmitted an Egypt-centered account of world history that followed Panodorus in emphasizing the harmony of Babylonian, Egyptian, and Judeo-Christian chronologies, with the descent of the Watchers in the thousandth year of creation as the pivotal event in human history. This account later served as the basis for most of the narratives now associated with fringe history through its influence on medieval pyramid legends, Egyptomania, Herrmeticism, and various magical and occult traditions. While most of the narrative contained in it originated with Panodorus, almost no one preserved anything of Panodorus’s work (except for the Byzantine monk George Syncellus), so it is Annianus’ work that takes pride of place as the most important lost work of the secret history of the world.
It is important to note that it is not the original or the correct view of the Watchers—a story better told by Pseudo-Enoch—but it is the version that Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages knew and the one that the occult tradition, Freemasonry, theosophy, and other alternatives to mainstream history inherited.
In order to reconstruct the story of the antediluvian world as given by Annianus, I have attempted to collate those sources which either explicitly cited Annianus as their source or which drew upon authors who cited Annianus as the source. Because the medieval chronographer Michael the Syrian explicitly cited Annianus and provided the cleanest and least corrupt text where comparisons are available, I have taken his work as the base text for the following reconstruction. However, Michael heavily abridged his source, and he dispensed with much of the material about the Watchers, the Giants, and the world before the Flood, both for space and because of the disrepute into which antediluvian studies had fallen by his day. Therefore, to reconstruct what we can of Annianus’ argument, I have collated Michael’s base text with parallel passages from other witnesses to Annianus, omitting obvious interpolations by the later authors (Syrian and Persian nationalist mythologies, for example) and generally sticking as close as possible to the places where two or more sources agree on the same passage, or where Annianus is explicitly cited as a source.
The original chronicle of Annianus, according to the most thorough witness to it, the Byzantine monk George Syncellus, was comprised of chronological discussions, quotations from profane and sacred authors, and frequent tables and charts. Because this is impossible to reproduce from the extant sources with anything resembling accuracy, the reconstruction below instead should be viewed as a précis, recreating the argument, if not all of the apparatus. I confess, however, to being rather surprised that the disparate sources melded together so coherently. This suggests that there was a single “epic” history of ancient Egypt in circulation in Late Antiquity that started with Adam and Seth and attempted to reconcile the pagan Egyptian history of the country in primordial times with Christian beliefs about the world before the Flood.
The text below is an amalgamation of medieval texts. The source translations are either my own or from public domain sources. Most of the original texts can be found on my Watchers page.
A Reconstruction of the Antediluvian Narrative in Annianus’ World Chronicle
Annianus would have begun his chronology with the creation of the world and the creation of Adam and proceeded following the Genesis narrative through the story of Cain and Abel. It is likely that Annianus referred next to the prophecy allegedly given by the angels to Adam, recorded by Josephus (Antiquities 1.70) and in the apocryphal books of Adam and Eve, of the coming of the Watchers, their sin, and the destruction of the world by either fire or flood. We pick up the narrative with the birth of Seth, where the story of the Watchers begins.
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Composite Narrative
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Notes
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1. After Adam came Seth his son. Seth gave names to the seven planets, and comprehended the lore of the movement of the heavens. He also prepared two pillars, one of stone and one of brick and wrote these things upon them. For he had predicted universal ruin, which if it were to come by water, the stone pillar would survive, and the brick were it by fire; and the former even now continues to exist on the mountain of Siriad, as Josephus testifies. This same Seth devised the Hebrew letters. In the 270th year of Adam Seth was caught away by an angel and instructed in what concerned the future transgression of his sons (that is to say, the Watchers, who were also called Sons of God), and concerning the Flood and the coming of the Saviour. And on the fortieth day after he had disappeared, he returned and told the protoplasts all that he had been taught by the angel. He was comely and well-formed, both he and those that were born of him, who were called Watchers and Sons of God because of the shining of the face of Seth. And they dwelt on the higher land of Eden near to Paradise, living the life of angels, until the 1000th year of the world.
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Syncellus, Chronicle 10-11; Kedrenos, History 1.16. Source texts: Jubilees 4; Josephus, Antiquities 1.68-74; Africanus in a lost section of his Chronicle. The text is substantively identical in both Byzantine authors, Syncellus and Kedrenos. The Syriac authors omit this material, but this is in keeping with their minimization of antediluvian occult traditions. However, Ephrem the Syrian, a contemporary of Annianus, preserves part of the same story in his Commentary on Genesis and Exodus, proving that it was extant at the time of Annianus. The corrupt version of Theophilus of Edessa’s chronicle surviving in Agapius of Hierapolis’s Kitab al-‘Unwan alludes to elements of this part of the story, and Theophilus copied from Annianus. Parts of the story are attributed by Agapius to Julius Sextus Africanus, a source cited by Annianus. The text here might be embroidered with some slightly later legendry, but it derives from sources known to and used by Annianus. Michael the Syrian states that Annianus discussed the life of Seth from “the testimony of the Book of Enoch,” though this does not appear in the book. Probably Jubilees was meant. |
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2. In the days of Seth, his children remembered the blessed life of Paradise, and they dreamed of pleasing God through their purity; therefore, they ascended Mount Hermon, and lived there in the holy orders, forgoing marriage. That is why they were called the Sons of God and the Watchers. From the death of Adam to this period was 432 years.
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Michael the Syrian, Chronicle 1.3; Bar Hebraeus, Chronography 1, p. 4; Al-Juzjani, Tabaqat-i-Nasiri 1 (corrupt). Michael identifies Seth’s progeny as “Sons of God” and “angels,” while Bar Hebraeus calls them “Sons of God” and “Watchers,” and Al-Juzjani identifies them only as “Watchers.” |
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3. Now Seth, being one hundred and five years old, begot Enos; and Seth lived nine hundred and twelve years. He announced that he would call upon the Name of the Lord. Now, although he submitted to marriage, he was not neglectful in pleasing God, and he did so more than those who chose a life of virginity and who went up into the mountain of Hermon but who did not abide in their covenant.
Enos was ninety years old when he begot Kenan, and all his years were nine hundred and five. After Enos came Kenan his son, who at the age of seventy years begot Mahalalel; and all the years of his life were nine hundred and ten years. And after Kenan came Mahalalel his son, who at the age of sixty-five years begot Jared; and all the years of his life were eight hundred and ninety-five years. |
Michael the Syrian, Chronicle 1.3; Bar Hebraeus, Chronography 1, p. 4; Al-Juzjani, Tabaqat-i-Nasiri 1 (corrupt); source texts: Genesis 5 with Jubilees 4. This material is almost a straight transcription of the Genesis and Jubilees sources and was likely reproduced by Annianus in the same or similar words. |
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4. And after Mahalalel came Jared his son, whom he taught all the sciences and told all that was to happen in the world. He considered the stars and read the book of the secrets of Heaven given to Adam: this he gave to his son Enoch. When Jared was one hundred and sixty and two years old he begot Enoch; and all the years of his life were nine hundred and sixty and two years.
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Akhbar al-zaman, 1.5; Murtada ibn al-‘Afif, The History of Egypt; source texts: Genesis 5 with Jubilees 4. Syncellus 10 and Kedrenos 1.17-18 both testify that Adam received a prophecy of the Watchers prior to Seth. Its preservation in the Syriac authors suggests it was in Annianus as well. The Arabic authors alone testify to Jared’s transmission of the prophecy of Seth (here given as Adam, following the Life of Adam and Eve 49-50 tradition first reported in Josephus, Antiquities 1.70), which to the Arabs was known as The Book of the Secret of the Kingdom, but their description of the transmission of the prophecy echoes Syncellus 10 and seems necessary to establish Enoch’s knowledge of the same below. There is an underlying Christian source, but the exact origin is not possible to determine. It may well be the Book of Sothis falsely attributed to Manetho, which the Eastern authors, including Annianus, accepted as authentic. |
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5. And in the fortieth year of Jared, that is to say in the year one thousand of the world, the Sons of God, about two hundred souls, came down from the mountain of Hermon, as Enoch says in his book:
“And it came to pass when the Children of Men were multiplied, beautiful Daughters were born to them: and the Egregori coveted them, and went astray after them: and said, one to the other, Let us choose of our selves wives from the Daughters of Men which are on the Earth. And Semiazas, their Archon, [or President] said unto them, I am fearful that you will not do this thing, and I alone shall be guilty of this great Sin. And they answered him, and said, Let every one of us swear with an oath; and let us bind one another under a curse, that we will not alter this our purpose, until we have performed it. Then they all swore together, and bound one another under a curse. Now they were two hundred that descended, in the days of Jared, upon the top of the Mountain of Heronim. And they called the mountain Hermon, from the oath they had taken, and the curse they had bound one another withal upon it. These are the names of their Archontes; (1.) Semiazas, their President. (2.) Atarcuph. (3.) Arakiel. (4.) Chobabiel. (5.) Orammane. (6.) Ramiel. (7.) Sampsich. (8.) Zakiel. (9.) Balkiel. (10.) Azalzel. [Azael.] (11.) Pharmaros. (12.) Amariel. (13.) Anagemas. (14.) Thausael. (15.) Samiel. (16.) Sarinas. (17.) Eumiel. (18.) Tyriel. (19.) Jumiel. (20.) Sariel.” |
Syncellus 9-10, Kedrenos, 1.20; Michael, 1.3; Bar Hebraeus 5; Muhammad ibn Jabir al-Tabari, The History of the Prophets and Kings, p. 170; source text: Jubilees 4:15; 1 Enoch 6:1ff. Michael and the Syriac authors say that the Sons of God descended because they despaired to return to Paradise, but since they were not in Paradise, this seems like a corruption in the account, especially given the contemporary Jewish story that they were blocked from a return to Hermon. According to Syncellus, Annianus included excerpts of his source texts, and Michael here identifies Annianus explicitly as his source for a summary of 1 Enoch 6, suggesting that Annianus included a quotation from 1 Enoch here. The exact length of the quotation can only be guessed from Syncellus’ excerpt (which may have come from Panodorus), far longer than what I have placed here, covering 1 Enoch 6:1-9:4. The text does not fit neatly into the narrative we have and may have been presented separately from Annianus’ commentary. The accounts of the fall of the Watchers in the parallel medieval authors makes exact reconstruction difficult, suggesting perhaps that the later authors were attempting to summarize 1 Enoch 6:1-9:4 in light of their own later ideas. The discussion found in Michael and Bar Hebraeus is a summary-abstract, probably by Theophilus of Edessa, from whom both borrowed. This likely explains why Bar Hebraeus emphasizes Edessa as a city built by Enoch, something Annianus would likely not have included. A confused version of Theophilus’ original survives in Agapius of Hierapolis’s Kitab al-‘Unwan, where it has been hopelessly conflated with the story of Noah. |
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6. And because they lusted for carnal intercourse with women, their brethren the sons of Seth and Enos despised them, and regarded them as transgressors of the covenant, and they refused to give them their daughters. So instead, they went to the children of Cain, took wives, and sired powerful giants. Because of the just Seth, these giants had great strength, and enormous bodies, and on account of this were monstrous and abominations, and thus had this name imposed upon them. In truth, on account of the wicked Cain, they dedicated themselves with strength, fortitude, and the strongest resolve to a life of murder, impiety, and wantonness.
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Kedrenos 1.20; Syncellus 15; source text: 1 Enoch 6-9, Jubilees 5:1-2 and 7:21-2; Genesis 6:1-4. The Syriac authors exclude most discussion of the Giants, but their presence in the Greek narratives testifies to their presence in Annianus’ original. Since this section summarizes 1 Enoch 6-8, and appears in summary in Kedrenos but in quotation from 1 Enoch in Syncellus, it is likely that Annianus’s original was an excerpt from 1 Enoch, which described the crimes of the Giants, a quotation entirely too long to include here but given in full on my page devoted to Syncellus and the Enoch fragments from Annianus. The Syrian tradition, not found in the Greek authors, has it that the daughters of Cain lured the Sons of God down with music. |
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7. And when the sons of Seth, who had descended unto the daughters of accursed Cain, wished to ascend the sacred mountain, the stone of the mountain became fire, and so it was not accessible for them to go back up the mountain, for God had cursed it, as Enoch says in his book:
“But as to the Mountain on which they swore, and bound one another under a curse, there shall never depart from it Cold, and Snow, and Frost; and Dew shall never descend upon it, unless it descend upon it for a curse, until the day of the great Judgment. At that time it shall be burnt up, and laid low, and it shall be burning and melting away, as wax by the fire; so shall it be burnt up, and all its fruits shall wither away. And now I say unto you, ye Sons of Men, that there is great wrath against your Sons, and this wrath shall not cease from you, until the time of the slaughter of your Sons; and your beloved shall perish, and those you honour shall die from off the whole Earth. For all the days of their life, from this time, shall not be more than 120 Years. And do not you think that you shall still live more years; for from this time they shall have no way of escaping, because of the wrath which is kindled against you in the King of all Ages. Do not you imagine, that you shall escape these Judgments. . . .” After this others and afterward still others descended from the holy mountain to the daughters of the accursed Cain.
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Eutychius, Annales; Syncellus 26-27. The conclusion to the legend circulated in Christian circles, and is found in The Book of the Cave of Treasures (Second Thousand Years), a sixth century text that is likely based on a lost original by Ephrem the Syrian in the fourth century. Allusions to it in the Greek authors and the extant excerpts from Ephrem the Syrian suggest it was part of Annianus’s scheme, though this is uncertain. The excerpt attributed by Syncellus to 1 Enoch does not appear in the Ethiopian text and is thought to be from the Book of Giants, which survives only in mutilated form, or the Book of Noah, now lost. My placement of the excerpt here is purely conjectural, but Annianus quoted this text somewhere, and the other references to a curse on Mt. Hermon suggest the excerpt might have appeared here, though admittedly the two legends are not wholly compatible and his analysis of how they were related is unknown. |
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8. When those who were called the “Sons of God” became fallen, they set up Semiazos over them as their king. When they began to quarrel with their brethren the children of Seth, they forced them also to set up a king over them. There were then two kingdoms.
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Michael 1.3; Bar Hebraeus 5. Michael places this line before the discussion of the birth of the Giants, but Bar Hebraeus places it after. Given the following passage, it logically should appear here. Michael repeats the line differently in 1.13, presumably following a different source. |
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9. The first person among the upright and just kings whom they set up is styled Aloros. When Aloros became king, 1024 years had passed from the fall of Adam, and the land of Babylon became the seat of his government, and the just sons of Seth obeyed him. He reigned for ten saris.
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Michael 1.3; Bar Hebraeus 5. Al-Juzjani 1. Aloros was the first king of Babylon in the king list of Berosus. The identification of the Chaldean kings with sons of Seth appears to be the innovation of Panodorus, who was the first to reconcile Sethite mythology with Chaldean lore. |
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10. After Aloros the Chaldean, nine others reigned successively until the Deluge, all Chaldeans, whose number of years has been calculated by the Chaldeans and expressed according to the names of the epoch in sares, neres and sosses.--
The first was Aloros, a Chaldean of Babylon, who reigned 10 sares, that is, 98 years and 230 days. The second, Alaparos, his son, reigned three sares, that is, 29 years and 215 days. The third was Amelon, a Chaldean, from Pantibiblon; He reigned 13 sares, that is to say 128 years and 80 days. The fourth, Ammenon, a Chaldean, reigned 12 sares, that is to say 118 years and 130 days. The fifth, Megalaros, also of Pantibiblon, reigned 18 sares, that is, 177 years and 195 days. The sixth, Daonos the shepherd, also of Pantibiblon, reigned 10 sares, that is to say 98 years and 230 days. The seventh, Euedorachos, also of Pantibiblon, reigned 18 sares, that is to say 177 years and 195 days. The eighth, Amempsinos, of Laranchon, reigned 10 sares, that is to say, 98 years and 230 days. The ninth, Otiartes, also of the city of Laranchon, reigned 8 sares, that is to say 78 years and 330 days. The tenth, his son Xisouthros, reigned 18 sares, that is to say, 177 years, and 195 days, and all the years together amounted to 1183 years and 205 days. In the time of this last one was the Deluge. These 1183 years and 205 days added to the 10,583 years during which there was no king, and during which Adam and Seth governed, fill the space of time that goes from Adam until the Flood which took place in the time of Noah, and formed a total of 2,242 years, according to the Sacerdotal Book. |
Syncellus 18; Michael 1.4; Bar Hebraeus 6; source text: Berosus, Babyloniaka, quoted by Pseudo-Apollodorus and preserved in Eusebius, Chronicle 5 and Syncellus 39. The original likely included an explanation of Annianus’s method of calculating the reigns of the kings, which is irrelevant to our purpose and I have not attempted to reconstruct here. According to Syncellus either Panodorus or Annianus (he does not say which but later attributes a similar scheme to Panodorus) rationalized the lengthy epochs of Berosus by assuming that each “year” of Berosus was a day, reducing astronomical numbers (one sarus was 360,000 years) down to smaller ones. Michael and Bar Hebraeus give the list in the reduced form found in the tables of Annianus. Prior to this king list, Michael the Syrian incorrectly claimed in his discussion of Aloros that Adam and Seth reigned as the first kings but contradicted himself afterward when clearly quoting from Annianus, marking this as an interpolation. |
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11. And after Jared came Enoch who at the age of one hundred and sixty-five years begot Methuselah. And having pleased God for three hundred years he was translated to the place where God wished him, and it is said, to Paradise, the place where the first Adam was when he transgressed the command in days of old. Now this Enoch made manifest before every man the knowledge of books and the art of writing. The ancient Greeks say that Enoch is Hermes Trismegistus, and it was he who taught men to build cities; and he established wonderful laws. And in his days one hundred and eighty cities were built.
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Michael 1.4; Bar Hebraeus 6; source text: Genesis 5:21-24; Jubilees 4:21-23. Jubilees established the tradition that Enoch was taken to Eden rather than to Heaven. Prior to this, 1 Enoch 65:2 and 106:8 state that he lived at the ends of the earth, which Annianus seems to have taken as a reference to upper Egypt, perhaps on the strength of the apocryphal tradition that Enoch made his home beyond the civilized world and beyond a great desert (as the mutilated Book of Giants put it in 4Q530 7 ii 5). Annianus may have tried to harmonize this with 1 Enoch 12:2, where he is said to have dwelt with the Watchers, following the longstanding tradition (preserved in Arab writers) that Egypt had been populated before the Flood by the giant Nephilim. The Paschal Chronicle, likely drawing on Panodorus, the source for Annianus, calls the first Chaldean kings giants and mighty men of renown, implying that Panodorus and Annianus also viewed the antediluvian kings of Egypt as Nephilim. Michael explicitly attributes this passage to Annianus in the Armenian version of his chronicle, but he omits the identification with Hermes, which Bar Hebraeus and Abu Ma‘shar both retain. Given that Annianus wrote for an Egyptian audience, it appears to be authentic to him, though Syncellus makes no mention of it. The identification of Enoch with Hermes likely derives from the lost Judeo-Christian forgery, The Book of Sothis, which Annianus and Panodoros accepted. Agapius says explicitly that Manetho in an unnamed work on the stars discussed Enoch and ascribed to him the same teachings as Hermes. Agapius copied from Theophilus, who was likely drawing on Annianus, though how much he enhanced Annianus’ claims is unclear. |
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12. And he invented the science of the constellations and the courses of the stars. And he ordained that the children of men should worship God, and that they should fast, and pray, and give alms, and make votive offerings, and pay tithes. He was the first to build temples to exalt God therein. He was also the first to study and discuss medicine, and he wrote well-measured poems for his contemporaries about things terrestrial and celestial.
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Bar Hebraeus 6; Abu Ma‘shar, preserved in Ibn Juljul, Tabaqat al-atibbaʾ 5-10. Both Bar Hebraeus and Abu Ma‘shar describe Enoch/Hermes as the inventor of astrology and a civilizing hero. Bar Hebraeus omits most Egyptian material that follows, which was irrelevant to his Syriac readers. Abu Ma‘shar, a Persian scholar who frequently cited Annianus as his source, interpolates Persian parallels that are clearly not in the original but were essential to his purpose. We know Annianus is Abu Ma‘shar’s source here because Al-Juzjani wrongly attributes Annianus’s discussion of the Watchers to Abu Ma‘shar. Bar Hebraeus provides a parallel passage but one describing Enoch as inventing the worship of the zodiac and the establishment of pagan festivals to the stars, which he supposedly received from Agathodaemon, who was Seth. But this version of the story appears to conflate Enoch with Enos, as many Syrian and Armenian sources do, on account of Enos being cited by the Jews as the first to practice idolatry. I believe Abu Ma‘shar to preserve the less corrupt reading. |
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13. It is also said [among the Egyptians] that Hermes was the first to predict the Flood and anticipate that a celestial cataclysm would befall the earth in the form of fire or water. He made his residence in Upper Egypt, and chose it to build pyramids and cities of clay. Fearing the destruction of knowledge and the disappearance of the arts in the Flood, he built the great temples; one is a veritable mountain called the Temple in Akhmim, in which he carved representations of the arts and instruments, including engraved explanations of science, in order to pass them on to those who would come after him, lest he see them disappear from the world.
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Abu Ma‘shar, preserved in Ibn Juljul, Tabaqat al-atibbaʾ 5-10; Sa‘id al-Andalusi, Al‐tarif bi-tabaqat al-umm 39.7-16. This passage could equally well have been placed with the discussion of Seth’s pillars or with Enoch’s astrology. Not enough context survives to determine where it belongs. However, I like the symmetry of beginning and ending with the pillars, so I have placed it here, where it could serve as a link to Annianus’ subsequent discussion of the Flood. Naming the Temple of Akhmim as a mountain is unusual, and I can find no other reference to this. The intentional conflation of the temple with the nearby mountains a few miles from Akhmim offers an important connection though to the belief that the pillars of knowledge erected by Enoch were on a mountain in Egypt. Diodorus Siculus (Library 1.10.4) testifies that a tradition held that Upper Egypt was the only territory not destroyed by the Flood. |
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14. All this Manetho confirms in his book, which according to his own account, he copied from the inscriptions which were engraved, in the sacred dialect and hierographic characters, upon the columns set up in the Seriadic land by Thoth, the first Hermes, (Mercury); and after the Flood, were translated from the sacred dialect into the Greek tongue, in hieroglyphic characters, and committed to writing in books, and deposited by Agathodaemon, the son of the second Hermes, the father of Tat, (Taut of the Phoenician mythology), in the penetralia of the temples of Egypt. He has addressed and explained them to Philadelphus, the second king (of Egypt) who bore the name of Ptolemaeus, in the book which he has entitled Sothis, (or the Dog-star).
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Syncellus 41. While the words are those of Syncellus, they summarize Pseudo-Manetho’s preface to the lost Book of Sothis, which Syncellus confirms was a direct source for Annianus. The extant fragments make clear that the text was heavily shaded with Jewish and Christian interpretations and lore. However, the discussion of Hermes is not preserved. Syncellus’s reference to columns in the Seriadic land parallels Josephus’ story of the pillars built by the descendants of Seth in the Siriadic land (i.e. Egypt) in Antiquities 1.71. The Christian writer of Pseudo-Manetho apparently meant to identify the two, and Panodorus, Syncellus implies, accepted the identification and therefore recognized Enoch as Hermes. |
