Latin Poetry Research Articles

The ‘Maria Story’ in Greek, Latin, & Hebrew

This article provides the first close comparative analysis of the Greek, Latin, and Hebrew versions of the ‘Maria Story’ or teknophagia, the account of the mother who ate her child within a besieged Jerusalem first recorded in Flavius Josephus’ Jewish War 6.201–203. Josephus’ original account was written in Greek in the first century. Within the following half-millennium, three Latin versions of the story developed: those of 1) the Latin translation of the War, 2) Rufinus of Aquileia’s translation of Eusebius’ Church History, which contains Josephus’ Greek version of the story, and 3) the Latin adaptation of Pseudo-Hegesippus or On the Destruction of Jerusalem (De Excidio Hierosolymitano). This latter text comprises a late fourth-century Christian rewrite of the War and served as the most important source for a Jewish text that would emerge five hundred years later: the so-called Sefer Yosippon, an early tenth-century Hebrew text which is arguably the first and most important installment of medieval Jewish historiography. Each of these texts has received scholarly attention, and sometimes several of them have been discussed together; the Maria Story itself has not escaped scholarly treatment. Yet for all this research the exact relationship between these texts and particularly their accounts of the Maria Story has never been explained clearly and in detail. This article fills this gap in the research and uses the Maria Story to explore source-critical, literary, philological, and rhetorical questions pertaining to these five versions of the Maria Story, with an emphasis upon De Excidio and Sefer Yosippon, the most understudied iterations of this developing ancient and medieval tradition, enhancing scholarly knowledge and appreciation of all these works as distinctive iterations of an interconnected web of tradition.

Pan de sensatez y agua de sabiduría: Estudios sobre el libro de Ben Sira by Nuria Calduch-Benages

Reviewed by: Pan de sensatez y agua de sabiduría: Estudios sobre el libro de Ben Sira by Nuria Calduch-Benages J. L. Manzo nuria calduch-benages, Pan de sensatez y agua de sabiduría: Estudios sobre el libro de Ben Sira (Asociación Bíblica Española Artículos Selectos; Estella: EDV, 2020). Pp. 453. Paper $37. The title of this collection of essays comes from Sir 15:3 "bread of learning . . . and water of wisdom" (NRSV). The twenty-one articles, written by Nuria Calduch-Benages and previously published, reflect three decades of research and teaching dedicated to the study of Ben Sira. The volume consists of an introduction and five sections. Section 1 ("Cuestiones Intoductorias") includes three articles. In "Ben Sira y el canon de las Escrituras," C.-B. offers a textual history of Ben Sira and its canonization in rabbinic Judaism and early Christianity. In "La inspiración en el Sirácida o libro de Ben Sira," C.-B. argues for the inspiration and canonicity of all four versions of Ben Sira. Lastly, "Los títulos griegos y latinos de Sirácida 1–2" is a discussion of the complex process of transmission of Sirach 1–2 through a comparative analysis of the additions of titles in the Greek and Latin versions. Section 2 ("Estudios Temáticos y Semánticos") offers five essays. First, "El motivo de la prueba en el libro de Ben Sira con especial referencia a Si 2, 1–6" is a thematic study of human suffering from the perspectives of wisdom, fear of the Lord, and the law. Next is "El servicio cultural en el Sirácida: Estudio del vocabulario," a philological study of the vocabulary of the cult, followed by "Aromas, fragrancias y perfumes en el Sirácida," in which C.-B. considers the vocabulary of fragrances in Sir 24:15 in the Greek, Syriac, Syro-Hexaplar, and Latin versions. In "Simbología animal en el texto hebreo de Ben Sira," C.-B. studies primarily the images of the lion, the horse, and the moth as metaphors for reproachable human behavior and the pairs wolf/lamb, fodder/slave as illustrations of social categories. The last essay in the section, '"El ser humano se compadece de su prójimo, El Señor, de todo viviente' (Sr 18, 13ab): La misericordia en el Sirácida," offers an examination of human compassion as a divine attribute and its relation to the fear of the Lord, justice, forgiveness, salvation, human frailty, and prayer. The six articles in section 3 ("Estudios Exegéticos") begin with "Traducir-Interpretar: La versión siríaca de Sirácida 1," a general overview of the history of composition of the [End Page 151] Syriac text, followed by a formal and thematic analysis of Sirach 1 in Syriac and Greek. The addition of twelve eschatological verses in the Syriac version reflects an advanced process of redaction and theological reflection from the original text. According to "La sabiduría y la prueba en Si 4, 11-19," wisdom's testing (nsh) consists in reliving the exodus experience, accepting and enduring moral and physical pain, rejecting evil behaviors, and resisting the enemies' attacks to demonstrate faith and trust in the Lord. Next, in "Un juego de palabras sobre el término mûsar (Si 6,22)," C.-B. reviews various interpretations of the Hebrew word and concludes that the sage does not follow the etymological meaning of mûsar in its strict sense but rather plays on the term in the light of the words sûr (apartarse, alejarse, retirarse, "to withdraw, distance oneself), mōser (cadena, atatura o vinculo, "chain, to tie, link or attachment"), and mûsettār (derives from the verb satar [esconcido] or hidden). She is arguing that Ben Sira does not intend to provide an etymological explanation of mōser, but to illustrate through a wordplay the difficulty of attaining wisdom. The essay entitled "Es mejor perdonar que guardar rencor: Estudio de Si 27, 30–28, 7" features the Greek, Syriac, and Latin versions of Sir 27:30–28:7 with textual notes. This is followed by a study on anger and its consequences (Sir 27:30–31), the...

Henriko Valua išrinkimo Abiejų Tautų Respublikos valdovu vaizdavimas lotyniškoje prancūzų poezijoje: „J. de La Gessée“ Henriada ir jos autorius

In 1573, Henry de Valois, Duke of Anjou, was elected as the king of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, and some literary works were published to familiarize the French public with the history of Poland and Lithuania, the geographical and economic situation of the country. Some Polish historical works were translated into French (e.g. the chronicle of Jan Herburt of Felsztin), many poets wrote occasional poems, dedicated to the future king, in French, Polish, and Latin. This article aims to discuss the poem Henrias, dedicated to Henry de Valois, written in Latin by a French poet under the pseudonym Jean de La Gessée, – a rare and completely unexplored work until today. Henrias was addressed not only to the future king but also to the court, the French diplomats and ambassadors of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Henry de Valois is portrayed here according to the tradition of Renaissance epic poetry by using an ethical model of the ruler’s “virtues” and by discussing the ruler’s place in history, linking him both to the mythological origins of the French nation (to the myth of Trojan ancestry), and to the former rulers of Poland and Lithuania (the ruler is depicted here as the successor of their policy). The poet also presented a description of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth – the future reign of Henry de Valois – in accordance with the literary tradition of 16th-century representations of Poland–Lithuania. To be noted, this is the first description of Poland–Lithuania in French poetry in Latin and one of the first in all French poetry. The author also wrote an unpublished larger-scale heroic epic Poloniade in French, dedicated to Henry de Valois, but it has not survived. This article also serves as an introduction to the biography and works of this not-well-known poet and discusses the problem of the authorship of his works. It is highly probable that the authorship was so far misattributed and that the author’s name is just a pseudonym of another court poet – talented and highly educated courtier Louis d’Amboise, as shown by the many details, hidden in his poems, including biographical facts (in all his works) and the anagrams of his name (in his Latin poems). Henrias and other Latin poems of this author (e.g. Epigrammatôn … libri duo) show the direct and close contact of the author with the royal entourage, top politicians, and foreign diplomats. It is unlikely that the author was a newcomer protestant Gascon, looking for success in Paris because Henrias was undoubtedly written at the king’s request and was very well paid (as well as the Poloniade). It shows that the author was a Catholic and he was quite familiar with the history and political realities of Poland–Lithuania. Keywords: 16th century; Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth; Henri III, Henri de Valois; 1573 ruler election; Latin Lituanica; neo-Latin literature; 16th-century occasional poetry; 16th-century French literature; Henrias; Jean de La Gessée; Louis d’Amboise.

The Homeric Formula ἐπ’ εὐρέα νῶτα θαλάσσης and Its Reception: Adaptation and Reinterpretation in the Aeneid

The article examines the reception of the Homeric formula ἐπ’ εὐρέα νῶτα θαλάσσης “on the broad back of the sea” in Greek and Latin poetry, and reconstructs (on the basis of scholia and lexical glosses) how Alexandrian exegesis evaluated this expression. Special attention is given to Vergil’s adaptation of this formula in the Aeneid: in one context Vergil translates the expression neutrally, reproducing Homer’s usage of εὐρέα νῶτα θαλάσσης to speak of the open sea, but omitting the metaphor of the sea’s back (Aen. 7, К рецепции гомеровской формулы ἐπ’ εὐρέα νῶτα θαλάσσης… 47 808–811); in another context, he faithfully reproduces the image, but applies it to the ridge of rocks on which Trojan ships were nearly wrecked (Aen. 1, 108–110).

Imaginations of Barbarians and Barbarian Lands in the Latin Verse Inscriptions

Imaginations of Barbarians and Barbarian Lands in the Latin Verse Inscriptions

The Cambridge Songs (Carmina Cantabrigiensia), ed. and translated by Jan M. Ziolkowski. Cambridge, MA: Department of the Classics, Harvard University, 1994, 1998; The President and Fellows of Harvard College, 2020, 472 pp., 10 ill.

Abstract: This important eleventh-century collection of Latin poetry antecedes a more famous anthology, the thirteenth-century Carmina Burana (“Songs from Benediktbeuern”). This Cambridge group includes a wide variety of contents – panegyrics, dirges, political, religious, and didactic lyrics, comic tales, as well as poems of spring and of love. Like a medieval “top hits,” this varied assemblage could easily have been a student’s or poet’s class book or a professional entertainer’s songbook.

МІФОЛОГІЧНІ ОБРАЗИ В ЛАТИНСЬКОМОВНІЙ ПОЕЗІЇ УКРАЇНСЬКОГО БАРОКО

The article examines the peculiarities of mythological characters in the Latin poetry of the baroque period in Ukraine. This period contributed a lot to intercultural relations between Ukraine and Western Europe and gave a birth to the phenomenon of the baroque Ukrainian poetry, written in Latin language. In the present paper much research has been devoted to the poetic works of Theophan Prokopovych, Grygoriy Vyshnevsky and Ilarion Yaroshevytsky; their poetic texts are found in printed editions ("Elegia paraenetica", "Epinikion", "Elegia Alexii", "Comparatio vitae monasticae", "Descriptiuncula Kijowiae", "Possesoris horum librorum luctuosum vale") and manuscripts ("Iter laureatum", "Cupido seu amor alatus"). The study analyzes the poetry in various genres, such as panegyric, elegy, epigram, lyrical poem. Addressing to the ancient legacy was defined as the sufficient and necessary feature of the baroque style. The article suggests the idea that a poet gives a preference to one or another mythological character in his individual author's interpretation. The analysis of the poetic texts reveals the most productive mythological characters, which can be classified into the following categories: 1) art (Apollo with the Muses, the winged horse Pegasus); 2) martial arts (Mars); 3) celebrations (Bacchus, Hymenaeus); 4) love (Venus, Cupid, Cypride ); 5) natural phenomena (Aurora, Lucifer, Phosphorus, Titan, Zephyrus, Thetis). The research has demonstrated that contamination of the two worldviews was natural for the baroque poet. This contamination was embodied in the bizarre combination of Christian and ancient elements in their literary works. It was traced that Latin poets of the Ukrainian baroque completely followed the literary traditions of the classical theory of poetry, what was marked in the form of the poetic work and its content.

La educación de Ciro en varias traducciones del primer libro de la Ciropedia. Una lectura dirigida a los jóvenes príncipes

Along 15th and 16th centuries, when the literary genre of the speculum principis has reached its maximum splendor, the portrait created by Xenophon of Cyrus the Elder as the ideal model of ruler, became so relevant that Latin and vernacular versions of the classic work proliferated. Valla, Vintimille and Gracián, who address their translations to future princes (both Valla and Vintimille have children as their main addressees), update the speculum principis the Ciropedia already is, modifying, omitting and amplifying certain passages. In this way, they purify the aspects of Xenophon’s model that they consider inappropriate, both in relation to the education Cyrus receives and to his behavior, and they intervene in the education of the prince.

Transtekstualne aspekty łacińskiej parafrazy Batrachomyomachii autorstwa Jana Siemuszowskiego

Transtextual Aspects of Jan Siemuszowski’s Latin Paraphrase of Batrachomyomachia The article aims to analyse how Jan Siemuszowski, author of a 1568 Latin paraphrase of the Batrachomyomachia, used the Roman epic tradition in his work in the context of Renaissance translations of the poem and how he approached the problem of losing references to Greek literature in the process of transferring the piece into another language. The current state of knowledge of Latin translations of Batrachomyomachia is not advanced, and the issue concerning the dialogue of the poem’s Latin versions with classical literature was recently raised solely by Aaron Vanspauwen, who observed that these works mirror transtextual devices of the Greek original, claiming at the same time that this may be accidental. However, there is sound evidence that the devices were deployed intentionally, as transtextuality appears mainly in texts based on emulation. In this case, it is worthwhile to investigate one of the clearest examples of making use of Roman epic tradition in a translation from Greek, which is a paraphrase made by Jan Siemuszowski, containing over 150 direct references to Latin poetry, especially Virgil and Ovid. To achieve this, Batrachomyomachia and Siemuszowski’s paraphrase were compared in a systematic classification using George Genette’s theory of transtextuality. They were found to have two categories in common, metatexts and intertexts, the latter serving as amplifications and parodies (in Genette’s sense) of epic schemes and heroes. In Siemuszowski’s work, the metatexts are visible in quotations that emphasize the fictional dimension of the work or its supposed grandeur. The allusions used in the amplifications exaggerate the power of heroes and their opponents, and the greatness of the entire world depicted. Moreover, the application of some of them to dangerous characters and phenomena seems to outline the perception of mice and frogs. The comic effect of parody is mainly achieved by highlighting the negative characteristics of animals in contrast to ancient models, especially certain types of figures such as gods, heroes or philosophers. Parody also relates to the stories of epic heroes, making them trivial or lending particular, unearned gravity to the animals. It is observed that Siemuszowski mostly used similar methods as the author of Batrachomyomachia. However, he often supplemented the verses with new, significant references to Virgil and Ovid, preventing the loss of transtexts in the process of translation. The complexity of his piece allows us to perceive it as a text of the third degree – in the terminology used by Katarzyna Warcaba. As a result, Siemuszowski’s paraphrase was in line with the trend of emulation-based translations, whose authors avoided translating the text literally and tried to compete with the original or other authors’ versions of the poem in terms of the techniques used in it.

The Canticle of the Creatures as Hypotext behind Dante’s Pater Noster

The article analyses Dante’s explanatory paraphrase and exegesis of the Lord’s Prayer, which opens the eleventh canto (v. 1–24) of Purgatory. The author reminds us that the prayer is the only one fully recited in the entire Comedy and this devotional practice is in line with the Franciscan prescription to recite it in the sixth hour of the Divine Office when Christ died on the cross. The prayer is reported by the poet on the first terrace of Purgatory, where the proud and vainglorious must learn the virtue of humility, and therefore it symbolizes the perfect reciprocity between man and Godhead. Dante collates and amplifies the two complementary Latin versions of the Lord’s Prayer from Matthew 6: 9–13 and Luke 11: 2–4. The two synoptic texts are supplemented by the Gospel of John, from which Dante takes the concept of celestial bread (manna) – the flesh and the blood of Christ – which nourishes, liberates and sanctifies Christians. Apart from the Bible, Dante also draws upon the Augustinian and Tomistic traditions. However, the main hypotext behind the prayer, which is neither cited nor acknowledged in any explicit form in the Comedy, is the Franciscan Laudes creaturarum (“Canticle of the Creatures”), also known as the Canticle of the Brother Sun. Written in vernacular by St. Francis himself, who is also the author of the Expositio in Pater noster, the Canticle was still recited and sung together with the Lord’s Prayer in the Franciscan communities in Dante’s time. Moreover, following the parallel readings popular nowadays in Dante studies, the author argues that Purgatorio 11 may be elucidated in the context of Paradiso 11, which is the Franciscan canto par excellence, and taken together they both offset cantos 10, 11, 12 of Inferno, which are based on the sin of pride (superbia). The denunciation of pride in and around canto 11 of Inferno alludes to humility – the remedy of such pride in Purgatory 11, which in turn prepares the reader for the encounter with St. Francis – the paragon of humility – in Paradiso 11. The author concludes that the Dantean paraphrase of the Lord’s Prayer is no less than an elaborate exegesis and homage to Christ and His teachings, something which is encompassed in a nutshell in the Sermon on the Mount.

The origins of David Rapaport's 'Portrait of Moses' story

David Rapaport, one of the founders of psychoanalytic ego psychology, used a story about a portrait of Moses in three of his papers in the 1950s in order to illustrate his view that the self has the power to shape its own nature. The present article traces the origins and evolution of that story through Latin, Islamic and Jewish versions.

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Writing and Constructing the Self in Great Britain in the Long Eighteenth Century, ed. John Baker, Marion Leclair, and Allan Ingram.

<i>Writing and Constructing the Self in Great Britain in the Long Eighteenth Century</i>, ed. John Baker, Marion Leclair, and Allan Ingram.

The Liturgical Usage of Translated Gregorian Chant in the Korean Catholic Church

For centuries, Gregorian chant has served as a monophonic song written for the religious services of the Roman Catholic Church, but Korean Catholics first encountered this chant in the early nineteenth century. Korean Catholics ultimately became more attracted to the Korean translations of these chants, as opposed to the original Latin versions. This article introduces some issues related to the language translation of Gregorian chant, especially for chants performed in Holy Week. The issues include discrepancies in the number of syllables, shifts in melismatic emphasis, difficult diction in vocalization, briefer singing parts because of space limitations, challenging melodic lines, and translation losses from neumes to modern notes.

The Experience of Poetry: From Homer’s Listeners to Shakespeare’s Readers

The Experience of Poetry: From Homer’s Listeners to Shakespeare’s Readers

Cicero and the Early Latin Poets by Hannah Čulík-Baird

Reviewed by: Cicero and the Early Latin Poets by Hannah Čulík-Baird Jesse Hill Cicero and the Early Latin Poets. By Hannah Čulík-Baird. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2022. Pp. 306. Cicero has long been pillaged for his quotations of early Latin poetry, with editors from Stephanus to Skutsch digging precious scraps of republican verse out from the orator's prose, setting the former in big print in their editions of Ennius and relegating [End Page 378] the latter to their footnotes and back-of-the-book commentaries. But Latinists of recent years have begun to feel a bit uneasy with this practice of frosty excerption (for a fragment of Ennius embedded in Cicero can only dangerously be discussed without thought of Cicero). As a result this century has seen an uptick in scholarship that emphasizes the reception and transmission of fragmentary Latin and stresses the importance of the context in which our fragments are preserved.1 Hannah Čulίk-Baird's new book emerges from this trend. Though far from the first scholarly work on Cicero the citer of early Latin poetry (indeed, its title almost translates that of Wilhelm Zillinger's classic Cicero und die altrömischen Dichter [Würzburg 1911]),2 Cicero and the Early Latin Poets distinguishes itself as the first comprehensive monograph to focus squarely on how citation works within the orator's corpus. That is, Čulίk-Baird, unlike Zillinger, is adamantly not interested in trying to dig out "new" fragments of early Latin verse; she rather stays with Cicero in the first century b.c.e., analysing, in admirably accessible prose, the various uses to which he puts republican poetry across his speeches, letters, philosophica, and rhetorica. The result is an ambitious, sensitive, and convincing book, which will be useful both to specialists of republican Latin (though perhaps few of its conclusions will really surprise them) and to anyone generally interested in literary quotation and fragmentation, whether within the discipline of Classics or without. The reasons why Cicero embedded snippets of Latin poetry into his texts are many and various. Rightly, then, Čulik-Baird does not advance one central thesis, but rather offers a discursive and wide-ranging study that allows Ciceronian practice its full, unwieldy complexity. To impose some order on this chaos, she has divided her book into an introduction, five chapters (the last three focus on different poetic genres; the first two are more meandering), a brief envoi, and three appendices that, building on the work of Zillinger, catalogue all of the perceptible moments of poetic citation in Cicero's prose corpus. As is the case with some other recent monographs in the field of fragmentary Latin,3 these appendices are themselves almost worth the price of admission. The Introduction, "All Minds Quote," nicely prepares a reader for what is to follow. Drawing on an eclectic range of thinkers, from Petrarch to Emerson to Butler, Čulίk-Baird here set outs her theoretical position on citation and fragmentation. Prominently, amidst the theorizing of this Introduction, the author conceptualizes Cicero's act of embedding republican poetry in his writings "as a kind of textual embrace rather than an act of shattering" (11). This is a compelling shift in metaphor, inviting us, as it does, to focus on the positive new meaning that the citation of a now-fragmentary author generates instead of the loss that such citation might evoke. Of course, as suggested above, and as Čulίk-Baird's meticulous footnotes themselves make clear, Latinists who work on fragments already are broadly interested in focusing on the meaning generated by reception and transmission, and so the theorizing of her introduction is less a call to arms than it is a defense of what is already being done in the discipline. But it is [End Page 379] an elegant, clear, and powerful defense, which will be useful to many readers; indeed, I suspect this opening section of the book would work well in a seminar on practically any fragmentary author or genre. With Chapter One, "Cicero and the Poets," Čulίk-Baird turns from her own theoretical position to Cicero's, exploring...

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A critical study into the extent that co-operative learning promotes a greater confidence and a more accurate rendering of syntax in unseen translations for Year 12 IB Higher Latinists

The ability to translate unseen passages is a skill tested in both Latin A-level and the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma. Higher IB candidates are expected to translate a passage of 105–125 words of Latin poetry (in this case, Ovid's Metamorphoses) as the first of their externally marked papers. The International Baccalaureate Organization (IBO) uses unseen passages to ‘measure the [students’] ability to understand and translate texts in the original language’ (2014, p. 25). The passages are marked according to two criteria: (a) meaning; (b) vocabulary and grammar. In order to access the highest grades, the students must provide a ‘logical translation [in which] errors do not impair the meaning’ and ‘render vocabulary appropriately and grammar accurately and effectively’ (IBO, 2014, pp. 28–9).

Who tempted the woman? Variations of the Edenic episode in Jewish Apocalyptic literature

The Jewish Apocalyptic tradition shows various conceptions about the origin of evil, which are developed throughout the history of this school of thought. In the third century a. C., the Book of the Watchers states that the descending of a rebellious group of angels to the earth seeking beautiful women is the direct cause of the origin of evil. Contrary to this myth, the tradition of Adam and Eve emerges as the main alternative. The eating of the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge by the first couple explains the hard life of humans and their mortality. Nevertheless, around the first century A. D., this last tradition is developed in such a way that the serpent of the garden is linked to a satanic figure in some of the texts. This is the case of the references to the Edenic episode in the Book of Parables, 2 Enoch, the Greek Apocalypse of Baruch, the Apocalypse of Abraham, and the Greek and Latin versions of Life of Adam and Eve. Even if not all of them detail the description of the superhuman power hidden in the shape of the serpent, both 2 Enoch and the Latin version of Life of Adam and Eve refer to its initial state as one of the angels of the celestial court. An interpretation that influences the New Testament as well. The Watchers and Satan are all considered as heavenly beings that encourage humankind to superior learning and whose acts lead to the introduction and spread of evil in the world. Therefore, the main purpose of this paper is to analyse these late Apocalyptic references to the story of Adam and Eve in comparison to the myth of the Watchers in order to show the possible syncretism amongst these traditions.

Who tempted the woman? Variations of the Edenic episode in Jewish Apocalyptic literature

The Jewish Apocalyptic tradition shows various conceptions about the origin of evil, which are developed throughout the history of this school of thought. In the third century a. C., the Book of the Watchers states that the descending of a rebellious group of angels to the earth seeking beautiful women is the direct cause of the origin of evil. Contrary to this myth, the tradition of Adam and Eve emerges as the main alternative. The eating of the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge by the first couple explains the hard life of humans and their mortality. Nevertheless, around the first century A. D., this last tradition is developed in such a way that the serpent of the garden is linked to a satanic figure in some of the texts. This is the case of the references to the Edenic episode in the Book of Parables, 2 Enoch, the Greek Apocalypse of Baruch, the Apocalypse of Abraham, and the Greek and Latin versions of Life of Adam and Eve. Even if not all of them detail the description of the superhuman power hidden in the shape of the serpent, both 2 Enoch and the Latin version of Life of Adam and Eve refer to its initial state as one of the angels of the celestial court. An interpretation that influences the New Testament as well. The Watchers and Satan are all considered as heavenly beings that encourage humankind to superior learning and whose acts lead to the introduction and spread of evil in the world. Therefore, the main purpose of this paper is to analyse these late Apocalyptic references to the story of Adam and Eve in comparison to the myth of the Watchers in order to show the possible syncretism amongst these traditions.