450 THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY | 67,2005

phrase of 1 Enoch 10:4-6, we discover that this appearance by the "Chosen One"
(= the Messiah) 35involves the rebinding of Azazel:

1 Enoch 52:7-9; 54:4-6; 55:4 52:7 And
it will come to pass in those days that no
one will be res- cued by gold or by silver,
and no one will be able to escape. 8
There will be no iron for war, nor will
anyone put on a breastplate. Bronze will
be useless. Tin also will be useless, and
count for nothing. And lead? No one will
want it. 9 These things will all be
abandoned and destroyed from the face
of the earth when the Cho- sen One
appears before the face of the Lord of
Spirits ...
Zeph 1:18 and 1 Enoch 10:4-6 LXX
Zeph 1:18 And their silver and their
gold will not at all be able to rescue
them in the day of the Lord's anger; but
the whole land will be consumed in the
fire of his jealousy; for he will effect a
speedy destruc- tion upon all those
inhabiting the earth.

54:4 ... So I asked the Angel of Peace

who went with me: "These shackling
chains—for whom are they being
prepared?" 5 He said to me: "These are
being prepared for the legions of Azazel, / Enoch 10:4: And to Raphael he said:
so that they may seize them and throw "Bind Asael by feet and by hands, and cast
them into the lowest hell, covering their him into the dark- ness. Make an opening
jaws with rough stones, just as the Lord in the desert which is in Dudael, and throw
of Spirits has commanded. 6 Then him into it. 5 Place rough, jagged rocks
Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and over him, cover him with darkness, and let
Phanuel—these will seize them on that him stay there for all time. Cover his face
great Day and throw them into the so that he may not see the light. 6 On the
furnace of blazing fire, for the Lord of day of the Great Judgment he will be led
Spirits will take vengeance on them for away into the fire."
their iniquity in becom- ing servants of
Satan and leading astray the inhabitants
of the earth." 55:4: "... You, mighty
kings who inhabit the earth! You must
look upon my Chosen One as he sits on
the throne of Glory and judges Azazel,
all of his associates, and all of his
legions in the Name of the Lord of
Spirits."

35
For the messianic titles in the Parables, see James C. VanderKam, "Righteous One, Mes-
siah, Chosen One, and Son of Man in 1 Enoch 37-71," in The Messiah: Developments in Earliest
Judaism and Christianity (ed. James H. Charlesworth; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992) 169-91.
 MATTHEW 22:1-14 AS MIDRASH451

Perhaps the "destruction upon all those inhabiting the earth" in Zeph 1:18 is
still echoing in the language of
1 Enoch 55:4, with its threat to the mighty kings
"who inhabit the earth," although admittedly the point cannot be pressed
since such language is fairly common. In any event, the threat to
Jerusalem, described shortly afterwards in 56:5-7, is still part of this same eschatolo
we have embedded in 1 Enoch 52:7-56:7 (1) a midrash on Zephaniah 1, (2) com-
bined with a midrash on the pericope of the binding of Azazel in 10:4-6,
1 Enoch
and (3) featuring a prophecy of an attack on Jerusalem by the Parthians and
Medes (ca. 50 B.C.E.?).
That the author of the Parables of Enoch was influenced by earlier
Enochic literature requires little explanation, but why Zephaniah?
Enochic interest in Zephaniah 1 likely stemmed from the striking manner
with which this oracle combines imagery of Noah's flood with the coming Day of the
3). Juxtaposing the deluge and doomsday is a favorite leitmotif in 1 Enoch?6
Sharp-eyed Enochians' could easily have read a judgment on Azazel and
his asso- ciates into the language of LXX Zeph 1:8: "And it will be in the
day of the Lord's sacrifice, that I will take vengeance on the άρχοντας."
Extant Greek versions of the Book of the Watchers refer 37 to Azazel as an άρχων. No
1 Enoch 54:6: ".. . for the Lord of Spirits will take vengeance on them [i.e., the
legions of Azazel]."8 Moreover, in the Book of the Watchers Azazel is
responsi-
ble 3
for introducing metallurgy to humankind. 9
The author of the Parables
saw 3
the rejection of this craft adumbrated in Zeph 1:18, which he then expanded in
midrashic fashion in1 Enoch 52:7-9, perhaps inspired at the same time by the
historical circumstances Bampfylde describes.
The Jewish author of the Parables, like the later Christian author of Jude,
apparently saw in the theophany of 1 Enoch 1:3b-9 a latter-day demonic resur-
gence (see 1 Enoch 39:1, which describes a replay of Gen 6:1-4), but where Jude
saw false teachers in the church as manifestations of the Watchers, the
author of the Parables identified them with the "kings and mighty" of his day who o
the chosen (7Enoch62-64; 67:4-13). Seeing a looming attack on Jerusalem, the
author of the Parables evidently felt that the Day of the Lord was near, and for
him this included the revelation of the Messiah and the rebinding of the Watcher

36
See George W. E. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1: A Commentary on the Book of Enoch, Chap-
ters 1-36; 81-108 (ed. Klaus Baltzer; Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001) 49-50. The escha-
tological vision of chaps. 52-56 even digresses abruptly at one point in order to include a
description of the flood (54:7-55:2a).
37
See the Greek of 1 Enoch 6:1-7; and cf. one recension of 8:1 : Άζαήλ ό δέκατος τών αρ-
χόντων.
38
Unfortunately, we have only the Ethiopie version of the Parables for textual
39
comparison. "Azazel taught men to make swords of iron and breast-plates of bronze. He reveale
them the metals of the earth and how to fashion gold into jewelry and silver into bracelets for
women"(1 Enoch 8:1).
 452 THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY | 67,2005

40
prince Azazel, whose wicked influence (including metallurgy) would then
cease. All this, it was thought, was prophesied in Zephaniah 1 and in 1 Enoch 10.
Would Matthew have been aware of these traditions? Matthew's debt to
1 Enoch and specifically to the Parables has been posited by many scholars,
41
despite controversy about the date of the Parables. If Bampfylde's provenance
and dating are correct, then Matthew had available to him a written tradition that
envisioned Azazel and his hosts loose again in the latter days but destined to be bound
and finally judged by God, and this day in turn is linked with the prophe- cies of
Zephaniah 1 and the threat of destruction to Jerusalem. Yet Matthew does not simply
parrot the Parables. He inclines more to Jude's view of the reappear- ance of Azazel in
the form of false disciples rather than as the "kings and mighty," and he has no quarrel
with metallurgy, but the basic synthesis is similar.

What exactly was there in the Enochic tradition that would have attracted
Matthew in the first place? Like the Jews who produced the 1 Enoch corpus,
Matthew held to an understanding of Judaism that, on the one hand, regarded Gentiles
as potential members of God's people (e.g., 28:19), and, on the other hand,
recognized that only a righteous remnant of those within the community would gain
final acceptance on the day of judgment. For both Matthew 42 and

1 Enoch, the dynamic of "many invited, few chosen" operated without regard to
the Jew/Gentile division.
We are finally ready to identify the second proof text of the Great Feast's
nimshal. It will come as no surprise at this point to learn that "the chosen" (oi εκ-
λεκτοί) is a characteristic designation for the righteous in 1 Enoch, including
both the Book of the Watchers and the later Parables. It is43not, however, a nor-

40
In the first part of 1 Enoch 52, mountains of metal melt "like water" before the Messiah
(vv. 1-6).
41
One of the more convincing presentations is David R. Catchpole, "The Poor on Earth and
the Son of Man in Heaven," BJRL 61 (1979) 378-83. See also J. Theisohn, Der auserwählte
Richter: Untersuchungen zum traditionsgeschichtlichen Ort des Menschensohngestalt der Bilderreder
des Äthiopischen Henoch (SUNT 12; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1975) 149-82; David W.
Suter, Tradition and Composition in the Parables of Enoch (SBLDS 47; Mis- soula, MT: Scholars Press
1979) 25-28; George W. E. Nickelsburg, Jewish Literature Between the Bible and the Mishnah: A
Historical and Literary Introduction (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981) 222- 23; and John J. Collins, The
Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to Jewish Apocalyptic Lit- erature (2nd ed.; Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1998) 177-78. Davies and Allison are cautious but
think that "the possibility that our evangelist knew some version of 1 Enoch (including the 'Para-
bles') is real" (Matthew, 2. 52 n. 155). The most extensive examination is Leslie W. Walck, "The
Son of Man in Matthew and the Similitudes of Enoch" (Ph.D. diss., Notre Dame University, 1999;
available from University Microfilms, Ann Arbor, MI). Walck concludes that Matthew probably
was influenced by the Parables (see esp. 378-80).
42
For Enochic expectation of the conversion of Gentiles, see 1 Enoch 10:21; 50:2; 90:30,
33; 91:14. For the theology of the "remnant," see 5:1-9, but the theme is omnipresent.
43
1 Enoch 1:1, 3, 8; 5:7-8; 25:5 (Book of the Watchers); 1 Enoch 38:2-4; 39:6-7; 40:5;
41:2-5; 48:1,9; 50:1; 51:5; 56:6, 8; 58:1-3; 60:6, 8; 61:4,12-13; 62:7-8,11-15; 70:3 (Parables).
 MATTHEW 22:1-14 AS MIDRASH 453

mal Matthean designation for God's people. Apart from 22:14 it appears only in
the Olivet discourse (24:22, 24, 31), but there it comes directly from Matthew's
Marcan source (Mark 13:20, 22, 27). Here in chap. 22, in light of the direct allu-
sion to 1 Enoch 10:4 and the likelihood that he is under the influence of the Para-
bles, Matthew is probably speaking the language of the Enochic tradition in his
nimshal πολλοί γαρ είσιν κλητοί, ολίγοι δέ εκλεκτοί, and44he may possibly
have the opening verse of the Book of the Watchers in mind, which became the
incipit for the entire 1 Enoch corpus: "The Blessing of Enoch: The words with
which he blessed the chosen (εκλεκτούς) and the righteous, who will be present
on the Day of Tribulation when all the godless are removed and the righteous are
delivered." 45

VI. Conclusions
Matthew's parable of the Great Feast is a complex composition. In
Matthew's hands, exegetical readings of Zephaniah and 1 Enoch were combined
with a traditional parable of Jesus to create a new form of this parable, a king-
mashal functioning as a midrash on Zephaniah/7 Enoch. The fall of Jerusalem in
70 CE. apparently struck Matthew and his community as fulfillment of Zepha-
niah's oracle, and a midrashic pattern strikingly similar to Matthew's was already
available in the Parables of Enoch, likewise composed with an attack on
Jerusalem close at hand.
46
Whoever "Matthew" was, his Gospel evidences characteristically Jewish
literary conventions and Jewish theological concerns, but for those who want
clear distinctions between wild-eyed apocalyptic and sober-minded rabbinic
forms of Judaism, he is not easy to classify. If we concentrate our attention on the
king-mashal tradition, Matthew looks like an early rabbi, spinning out new forms
of old parables with the intention of interpreting Scripture. If we concentrate
rather on the apocalyptic background, Matthew writes like a latter-day contribu-
tor to the Enochic tradition. Matthew's handiwork is a healthy reminder that Jew-
ish Christians of the first century were drinking deeply from more than one
stream.

44
Davies and Allison (Matthew, 3. 206) connect the εκλεκτοί of 22:14 with the κεκληµέ-
νους of w. 2-3 . But κεκληµενους goes better with κλητοί in the first part of v. 14, so it stands in
contrast to εκλεκτοί, which must then find a referent elsewhere.
45
The textual variant in Matt 22:14 ("many are the called, but few are the chosen") is too
weakly attested to be championed seriously as original; however, it could reflect the efforts of a
scribe to encourage a reading a little more clearly along the lines spelled out
here. 4 6 It has been no purpose of this article to explore the authorship of the first Gospel. I have
simply accepted the common view that the Gospel of Matthew was written in Greek by a Jewish
Christian in the latter third of the first century C.E.
 ^s
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