Are Women the aition for the Evil in the World? George Syncellus’ Version of 1 Enoch 8:1 in Light of Hesiod’s Theogony and Works and Days

Starting from the Greek remains of 1 Enoch 8:1, this article deals with Syncellus’ account of the fall of the watchers. Generally, in the Book of Watchers, according to Aramaic fragments from Qumran, to the Greek ver- sion of the Codex Panopolitanus (G), and to the Ethiopic Text, corruption has been brought to earth by the fallen angels. Syncellus, for his part, recalls a tradition in which “the sons of God” were seduced by female indecency. The attribution of the primordial sin to women, rather than to the angels, can be explained by hypothesising the existence of an anterior tradition, according to which women had no role in the act of primordial contamination. Syncel- lus and the previous chronographers, by inserting pre-existing passages and excerpta into their texts, follow an ideological scheme. All the more, Enochic and non canonical materials are not highly valued at their times, and for this reason, they are very cautiously used. On the basis of these considerations, however, we cannot regard Syncellus as a totally unreliable source, at least philologically. Syncellus explicitly declares that he is quoting from a pre- vious text. The reported text, consequently, derives from a previous tradition, clearly transmitted through the mediation of some other chronographer.