Provo, Utah: Maxwell InstituteThe views expressed in this article are the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the position of the Maxwell Institute, Brigham Young University, or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
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A Strange Thing in the Land: The Return of the Book of Enoch
PART 2
The Wicked World of Enoch
The wickedness of Enoch's day had a special stamp and flavor; only the most determined and entrenched depravity merited the extermination of the race. In apocryphal Enoch stories we are told how humanity was led to the extremes of misconduct under the tutelage of uniquely competent masters. According to these traditions, these were none other than special heavenly messengers who were sent down to earth to restore respect for the name of God among the degenerate human race but instead yielded to temptation, misbehaved with the daughters of men, and ended up instructing and abetting their human charges in all manner of iniquity. They are variously designated as the Watchers, Fallen Angels, Sons of God, Nephilim, or Rephaim, and are sometimes confused with their offspring, the Giants.307 Other candidates for this dubious honor have been suggested by various scholars, the trouble being that more than one category of beings qualify as Fallen Angels and spectacular sinners before the time of the Flood.308 The Bible uses the title sons of God—were they different from the Watchers of tradition?
"The sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.
"There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare . . . to them . . . mighty men. . . . men of renown.
"And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth." (Genesis 6:2, 4—5.)
The idea of intercourse between heavenly and earthly beings was widespread in ancient times. Thus, in the newly discovered Genesis Apocryphon, when Lamech's wife bears him a superchild (Noah), he assumes almost as a matter of course that the father is "one of the angels" and accuses her of faithlessness until his grandfather, Enoch, whose "lot is with the Holy Ones" and who lives far away, clears up the misunderstanding. Significantly, the name of the child's mother is Bit-enosh, that is, she is one of the "daughters of men."309 The Cedrenus fragment avoids the problem of heavenly origin by identifying the sons of God and the daughters of men with the descendants of Seth and Cain respectively, and he specifically designates the sons of God as the Watchers.310 Recently M. Emanueli has suggested that the various terms are merely "a figure of speech in order to express the depth of the deterioration of that generation."311
While the sons of God have been identified with both angels and the Watchers, the Greek Enoch does not identify the Watchers with Satan's hosts who fell from heaven from the beginning—they are another crowd.312 It is the Joseph Smith Enoch which gives the most convincing solution: the beings who fell were not angels but men who had become sons of God. From the beginning, it tells us, mortal men could qualify as "sons of God," beginning with Adam. "Behold, thou [Adam] art one in me, a son of God; and thus may all men become my sons." (Moses 6:68; italics added.) How? By believing and entering the covenant. "Our father Adam taught these things, and many have believed, and become the sons of God." (Moses 7:1.) Thus when "Noah and his sons hearkened unto the Lord, and gave heed . . . they were called the sons of God." (Moses 8:13.) In short, the sons of God are those who accept and live by the law of God. When "the sons of men" (as Enoch calls them) broke their covenant, they still insisted on that exalted title: "Behold, we are the sons of God; have we not taken unto ourselves the daughters of men?" (Moses 8:21), even as "the sons of men," reversing the order, married the daughters of those "called the sons of God," thereby forfeiting their title, "for," said God to Noah, "they will not hearken to my voice." (Moses 8:15.) The situation was, then, that the sons of God, or their daughters who had been initiated into a spiritual order, departed from it and broke their vows, mingling with those who observed only a carnal law.
"Why have you left heaven [and] the Exalted One," says Enoch in a Gizeh fragment, "and . . . with the daughters of men defiled yourselves? . . . Ye have behaved as sons of Earth and begotten to yourselves giant sons. And you were once holy, spiritual, eternal beings . . . and have lusted after the flesh . . . as do mortal and perishable creatures."313
What made the world of Enoch so singularly depraved as to invite total obliteration was the deliberate and systematic perversion of heavenly things to justify wickedness. An early Christian writer, Hippolytus, says that the Anti-Christ imitates Christ in every particular: each sends out his apostles, gives his seal to believers, does signs and wonders, claims the temple as his own, has his own church and assembly, etc. Such is the method of "the great Deceiver of the World," against whom, says Hippolytus, "Enoch and Elias have warned us."314 We are reminded how Satan put forth his claim. "I am also a son of God" (Moses 5:13), and commanded Cain to "make an offering unto the Lord (Moses 5:18—19) and to take his oaths "by the living God" (Moses 5:29), as if everything were still in the proper order. In the same spirit Noah's descendants in their wickedness still insisted that nothing had changed. The children of men said to Noah: "Behold, we ae the sons of God; have we not taken unto ourselves the daughers of men?" (Moses 8:21.)
The apocrypha agree: "For in the days of Jared my father, they departed from the teaching of the Lord, from the covenant of heaven. And behold they commit sin and reject [parabainousin] the proper way [ethos] . . . and beget children not like spiritual but like carnal offspring." (Black, p. 44, 106:6, 13—14.)
Sophisticated deception is the name of the game. "Woe unto you who deliberately go astray [poiountes planemata]," cries Enoch, "who promote yourselves to honor and glory by deceitful practices. . . . Who misapply and misinterpret straightforward statements, who have given a new twist to the everlasting Covenant, and then produce arguments to prove that you are without guilt!"315 Cold-blooded calculation is the keynote. The "Watchers" (using the Greek word) led away "myriads of myriads . . . with their Prince Satanel," says the Slavonic Enoch, "and defiled the earth by their acts. And the wives [instead of daughters!] of men did a great evil, violating the law . . . a great iniquity."316 For "in secret places underground" we read in a very early Judeo-Christian source, "they wrought confusion; . . . They committed adultery, every man with his neighbor's wife. They concluded covenants with one another with an oath touching these things."317 Such practices went back to the days of Cain:
| Moses 5:52. . . . The Lord cursed . . . all them that had covenanted with Satan; for they kept not the commandments of God. |
Gizeh 6:2. (The Sons of Heaven wished to break their covenants and join with the daughters of men) 3. but Seimizas [Satan] said "I am afraid you will not be willing to go through with this thing. |
| 5:29. And Satan said unto Cain: Swear unto me . . . and swear thy brethren . . . that they tell it not; for if they tell it, they shall surely die. |
. . . " 4. And they answered him all saying, We will all swear with an oath, and bind each other by a mortal curse[lit., anathemize each other], that we will not go back on this |
| 5:51. For, from the days of Cain, there was a secret combination, and their works were in the dark, and they knew every man his brother. |
agreement [gnome] until we have carried it out; . . . 5. Then they all swore together and pronounced the doom of death on each other. |
| 5:29—30. Satan said unto Cain: Swear unto me by thy throat, and if thou tell it thou shalt die; and swear thy brethren by their heads, and by the living God, that they tell it not; for if they tell it, they shall surely die; and this that thy father may not know it. . . . And all these things were done in secret. |
En. 69:13. Kasbeel, the chief of the oath . . . when he dwelt high above in glory . . . 14. . . . requested Michael to show him the hidden name, that he might enunciate it in the oath, so that those might quake before that name and oath who revealed all that was in secret to the children of men. |
| 1 En. 69:6. It was Gadreel "who showed the children of men all the blows of death, and he led astray Eve." |
|
| 5:16. And Adam and Eve . . . ceased not to call upon God. . . . But behold, Cain hearkened not, saying: Who is the Lord that I should know him? |
Ethiop. Bk. Mysts. PO 6:431. "In the days of Cain evil . . . and deceitful practices increased. The wicked angels set themselves up in open and insolent opposition to Adam, and glorying in their earthly bodies learned a great sin. And |
| 5:51. For, from the days of Cain, there was a secret combination, and their works were in the dark. |
openly exposed all the work which they had seen in heaven." |
And so we find in a Greek Enoch text the Great Angels returning from earth to report to God that they had found "Azael teaching all manner of unrighteousness upon the earth, and he has laid bare those mysteries of the age which belong to heaven, which are [now] known and practiced among men; and also Semiazas is with him, he to whom thou gavest authority [over] those who go along with him."318
As bad as breaking their oaths was divulging them to those not worthy to receive them, thereby debasing and invalidating them. One of the most widespread themes of myth and legend is the tragedy of the hero who yields to the charms of a fair maiden or femme fatale and ends up revealing to her hidden mysteries. The story meets us in the oldest Egyptian epic (where the lady Isis wheedles out of Re the fatal knowledge of his true name) and in like tales of Samson and Delilah, the daughter of Jared, Lohengrin, and so on, in which the woman is Pandora who must know what is in the box. On this theme the Gizeh fragments offer a significant parallel to the Joseph Smith version, in which the common background of the text and the confusion of the later scribes are equally apparent: "Lamech had spoken the secret unto his wives, and they . . . declared these things abroad, and had not compassion. . . . And thus . . . darkness began to prevail among all the sons of men." (Moses 5:53, 55.)
Compare this to: "And now concerning the Watchers, [say to them,] You were in heaven and there you knew every mysterion which had not been made known to you as well as that mystery which God allowed; and that you disclosed to your wives in the hardness of your heart, and it was through this mystery that women and men caused iniquities to abound upon the earth." (Gizeh 16:2—4.)319
Clement of Alexandria attributed to Musaeus, the founder of the Greek Mysteries, an account of "how the angels lost their heavenly heritage through the telling of the secret things [mysteria] to women," things, Clement observes, "which the other angels keep secret or quietly perform until the coming of the Lord." 320
Rather surprisingly, the age of Enoch is consistently described as the time of great intellectual as well as material sophistication. "Azael . . . taught [men] to make knives and breastplates and all kinds of military hardware; and to work the ores of the earth, and how gold was to be worked and made into ornaments for women; and he showed them polishing [eye-paint] and cosmetics and precious stones and dyes. . . . And the sons and daughters of men adopted all these things and led the saints astray. And there was great wickedness on the earth, and they became perverted and lost in all their ways. . . . Along with that their leader Semiazas taught them scientific formulas (epaodas kata tou nous), and the properties of roots and plants of the earth. The eleventh, Pharmakos, taught all manner of drugs, incantations, prescriptions, formulas. [Others] taught them stargazing, astrology, meteorology, geology, the signs of the sun and moon. All of these began to reveal the mysteries to their wives and children."321
The leaders of the people devoted most of their wealth to all kinds of engineering projects for controlling and taming nature. But the Lord altered the order of creation, making the sun rise in the west and set in the east, so that all their plans came to naught.322 The idea of controlling the environment independently of God was not so foolish as it sounds, says the Zohar, "for they knew all the arts . . . and all the ruling chieftains [archons] in charge of the world, and on this knowledge they relied, until at length God disabused them by restoring the earth to its primitive state and covering it with water."323 Rabbi Isaac reports: "'In the days of Enoch even children were acquainted with these mysterious arts [the advanced sciences].' Said R. Yesa: 'If so, how could they be so blind as not to know that God intended to bring the Flood upon them and destroy them?' R. Isaac replied: 'They did know,'" but they thought they were smart enough to prevent it. "What they did not know was that God rules the world. . . . God gave them a respite all the time that the righteous men Jered, Methusaleh, and Enoch were alive; but when they departed from the world, God let punishment descend . . . , 'and they were blotted out from the earth' (Genesis 7:23)."324
A Book of Mormon text betrays the Enoch tradition (possibly contained in the brass plates) in a transparent parallel: "Priestcrafts are that men . . . set themselves up for a light unto the world, that they may get gain and praise of the world; but they seek not the welfare of Zion." (2 Nephi 26:29.)
Compare this to: "These men [of Enoch's time] erected synagogues and colleges, and placed in them scrolls and rich ornaments . . . but they did it to set themselves up for a light, and for the honors of men; and in such a way the powers of evil prevail over Israel." (Zohar. Bereshith 25b.)
Power and gain are two faces of one coin: "We are able to do whatever we please," said the people in Enoch's day, "because we are very rich!" To which Enoch replied: "You are wrong! Your riches will soon depart from you . . ."; but they went on seeking the power of gain more grimly than ever.325
An interesting connection emerges in the account of how "in the time of Enoch they committed murder, shedding of blood of the children of men; they enslaved them, they sold what did not belong to them, they entered homes without right, and took whatever they wanted . . . they rigged the laws in their favor, and imitated the abominable deeds of the rebellious angels of a former time in which, when Abel tried to check them they encompassed his death by a conspiracy."326 For this confirms a bold statement found in the Doctrine and Covenants 84:16: "Abel . . . was slain by [a] conspiracy." Ambition was the motivating force in all this evil. "The giants," says Ben Sira 16:7, "were aspiring spirits who desired to be great in the manner of God on earth"; E. Kraeling has pointed out that the biblical term "men of name," means "men who aspired to be great, 'to make a name' for themselves."327 The Slavonic Enoch version matches the book of Moses in taking us back to the beginning of the matter:
| Moses 4:1. That Satan . . . came before me, saying— Behold, here am I, send me, I will be thy son, and I will redeem all mankind . . . wherefore give me thine honor. |
Ms. R. Ch. 11: The Devil knew that I wanted to make the world . . . with Adam ruling as Lord of it. . . . he became Satan when he fled from heaven, before which time he was Satan-el. |
| 4:4. And he became Satan, . . . to lead them captive at his will, even as many as would not hearken unto my voice. |
He changed his nature and was no longer an angel; he preserved his identity, but his state of mind was altered, as when any righteous person becomes wicked . . . and he conceived the impossible idea of setting up his throne . . . to be equal to my power. [God has given him great power over such as listen to him.] [Apocalypse of Abraham 14:1—2; see also Dead Sea Thanksgiving Scroll VI [f] p.X.) |
Almost all our sources, and especially the Joseph Smith book of Enoch, emphasize the point that the people did not drift imperceptibly into ways of folly. They were so constantly warned that only a high and determined willfulness brought destruction upon them:
| Moses 6:28. And for these many generations . . . have they gone astray, . . . and have sought their own counsels in the dark; . . . |
Beatty 99:89. And they shall go astray in the foolishness [aphrosyne] of their hearts, and the visions of their dreams [the dark] shall lead them astray. |
| 6:29. Wherefore, they have. . . brought upon themselves death. |
And the lying words you have made shall perish. 98:9. Woe to you foolish ones, for you shall perish through your own folly! |
| 5:57. For they would not hearken unto his voice, nor believe on his Only Begotten Son. |
Secrets 4 (Vaillant. p. 18). These are they who denied the Lord, and would not hear the voice of the Lord, but followed their own counsel. |
| 6:29. . . . they have foresworn themselves, and, by their oaths, they have brought upon themselves death; and a hell I have prepared for them, if they repent not. 6:43. . . . why counsel ye yourselves, and deny the God of heaven? |
1 Enoch 63:9. We pass away . . . on account of our own works . . . descending. . . into Sheol [hell]. Black 99:2. Wo unto you who pervert the eternal covenant and reckon yourselves sinless! |
| Bet ha-Midrash (BHM) 5:171. I am Enoch! When the generation of the Flood sinned and said of God: Turn away from him, and in the knowing of his ways do not rejoice. Then God delivered men. |
Nothing could be more deliberate. All the wickedness and folly of the time is summed up in one simple phrase: "Behold, they are without affection!" On this theme there are striking parallels between the Joseph Smith and the Slavonic texts:
| Moses 7:32. The Lord said unto Enoch: |
Secrets 11 (Vaillant, pp. 100ff). The Lord said unto Enoch: |
| Behold these thy brethren; they are the workmanship of mine own hands, . . . |
. . . Upon the earth I placed him as the second angel, in honor and great glory |
| Moses 7:32. . . . and I gave unto them their knowledge, in the day I created them; and in the Garden of Eden, gave I unto man his agency; |
And I established him as King[lit., Caesar, Czar] over the earth, ruling by my authority[wisdom] . . . and I called his name Adam, and I gave him his agency [volya yevo] |
| 7:33. And . . . also [have] given commandment, that they should love one another, and . . . choose |
and I told him: This is good for thee and that is bad [gave him a choice], |
| me, their Father; but behold, they are without affection, and they hate their own blood. |
in order to determine whether he would have love or hatred for me, by showing his love for me among those of his own race [v rodye yevo] . . . [but] all the earth is filled with blood. They will abandon their creator. |
| 7:34. . . . and in my hot displeasure will I send in the floods upon them. . . . |
Therefore I will command the abyss, and the deposits of the waters of heaven will descend |
| 7:37. . . . and the whole heavens shall weep over them. . . . 7:41. . . . and all eternity shook. |
. . . and the earth will be shaken and lose its stability. |
Equally impressive is a parallel with 1 Enoch:
| Moses 7:33. . . . they are without affection, and they hate their own blood; |
1 En. 4 (99:15). Wo unto them who work unrighteousness . . . and slay their neighbors. |
| 34. And the fire of mine indignation is kindled against them; . . . [I will] send in the floods against them . . . |
He . . . shall arouse His fierce indignation and destroy you all with the sword |
| 37. . . . .and the whole heavens shall weep over them. . . . |
and all the holy and righteous shall remember your sins. |
| 6:15. . . . a man's hand was against his own brother, in administering death, . . . seeking for power. |
For a man shall not withhold his hand from slaying his sons . . . , nor from his beloved to slay him. . . nor from his brother. |
These moving passages are to explain the Great Weeping. First, Enoch weeps:
| Moses 7:41. . . . wherefore Enoch knew, and looked upon their wickedness, and their misery, and wept. . . . 7:44. And as Enoch saw this, he had bitterness of soul, and wept over his brethren, and said unto the heavens: I will refuse to be comforted. |
Secrets of Enoch 41. (Morfill). And I saw . . . and I sighed and wept, and spake of the ruin [caused by] their wickedness. 2. And I meditated in my heart and said: Blessed is the man who is not yet born [etc.]. |
| Manichaean Frg.328 Enoch the Just said: I have seen great sorrow, and an outpouring of tears from my eyes, having heard which vile things issue from the mouths of the wicked . . . My eyes are filled with tears and my tongue is tied . . . |
Then, as we shall presently see, all nature weeps, and Enoch is dumbfounded to learn that God himself weeps! This bold concept (quite inadmissible to the Fathers of the fourth century)329 is attested in other Enoch texts:
| Moses 7:28—29. And . . . the God of heaven looked upon the residue of the people, and he wept; and Enoch bore record of it, saying, How is it . . . that thou canst weep, seeing thou art holy, and from all eternity to all eternity? . . . 31. . . . how is it thou canst weep? |
Jewish Encyclopedia 8:519. "When God wept over the destruction of the Temple, Metatron [Enoch] fell on his face and said: I will weep, but weep not thou! God answered and said: If thou wilt not suffer me to weep, I will go whither thou canst not come and there will I lament." |
The angels in heaven and all the other worlds join in the weeping:
| Moses 7:37. . . . the whole heavens shall weep over them, even all the workmanship of mine hands; wherefore should not the heavens weep? . . . 7:40. Wherefore, for this shall the heavens weep, yea, and all the workmanship of mine hands. |
2 Baruch 67:2. Dost thou think that there is no anguish to the angels in the presence of the Mighty One. . . . Dost thou think that in these things the Most High rejoices, or that his name is glorified? |
With the Great Weeping the universe itself is shaken:
| Moses 7:41. . . . Enoch . . . wept and stretched forth his arms, and his heart swelled wide as eternity; and his bowels yearned; and all eternity shook. |
Zohar. Shemoth 8a. Then the Messiah lifts up his voice and weeps, and the whole Garden of Eden quakes, and all the righteous and the Saints who are there break out crying. . . . When the crying and weeping resound for the second time, the whole firmament above the garden begins to shake . . . and God sets about to destroy the wicked. |
Equally shattering is the announcement that, while God sorrows, the Devil is laughing:
| Moses 7:26. Satan . . . looked up and laughed, and his angels rejoiced. 7:28. And . . . the God of heaven looked . . . and . . . wept. 7:33. . . . they should choose me, their Father; but behold, they are without affection, and they hate their own blood. |
Secrets 22 (Vaillant).330 . . . a man hates his neighbor . . . all the earth will be full of blood . . . and they shall abandon their Creator. . . . The Adversary will be in his glory [lit., will make himself great] and rejoice in their [his angels'] works, to my [the Lord's] great affliction. . . . |
| 34. . . . I will send in the floods . . . 41. And . . . Enoch . . . wept . . . and all eternity shook. |
Then I will command the abyss, and the water reserves of heaven will descend upon the earth . . . and all the earth will be shaken and no longer have foundation. |
It is in view of the infinite exaltation and glory of the Deity that Enoch is overwhelmed by his weeping. This is expressed both in a doxology and an aretology (i.e., a speech in which God describes his own glory).
| Moses 7:29—30. How is it thou canst weep, seeing thou art holy, and from all eternity to all eternity? . . . Millions of earths like this . . . would not be a beginning . . . of thy creations. . . . 31. . . . and naught but peace, justice, and . . . mercy shall go before thy face and have no end. . . . |
1 En. 71:14. And righteousness of the Head of Days forsakes him not. 15. . . . from hence hath proceeded peace since the creation of the world. 16. And. . . righteousness never forsaketh Him. With Him will be their dwelling-places, . . . forever and ever. |
| 7:35. (Aretology). Behold, I am God; Man of Holiness is my name; Man of Counsel is my name. . . . 36. Wherefore, I can stretch forth mine hands and hold all the creations which I have made; and mine eye can pierce them also. |
Gizeh 9:4. [The Angels:] Thou art the God of Gods, and Lord of Lords, . . . and God of men [G81 of the worlds, ages], and the throne of thy glory is for all generations [cycles] of the ages [eternities or worlds]; and thy name is Holy One and is praised unto all the ages. 5. For thou didst make all things and hast all authority, and all things are plain before thee and revealed, and thou seest all things. |
| 7:24. . . . and behold, the power of Satan was upon all the face of the earth. 26. And [Enoch] beheld Satan; and he had a great chain in his hand, and it veiled the whole . . . earth with darkness; and he looked up and laughed, and his angles rejoiced. |
1 En. 53:3. For I [Enoch] saw all the angels of punishment abiding and preparing all the instruments of Satan. . . . 54:3. and here mine eyes saw how they made these their instruments, iron chains of immeasurable weight. . . . 53:5. . . . for the kings and the mighty of this earth, that they thereby might be destroyed. |
With the binding, of course, goes imprisonment, a temporary prison for such fallen mortals as repent, a permanent one for the others.
| Moses 7:38. But behold, these which thine eyes are upon shall perish in the floods; and . . . I will shut them up; a prison have I prepared for them. |
2 En. 5.331 This place, Enoch, is prepared for those who practiced abominations on earth. . . . who would not know their Creator. . . . It is for all those that this place has been prepared as an eternal heritage. |
| 6:29—30. They have brought upon themselves death; and a hell I have prepared for them, if they repent not. And this is a decree . . . from my own mouth. |
Jubilees 10:5. Noah: And thou knowest how [the] Watchers, the fathers of these spirits, acted in my day; and as for these spirits which are living, imprison them and hold them fast. . . . [See 1 Pet. 3: 19—20. Jubilees does not borrow from the New Testament!] |
Those in prison, chains, and darkness are only being kept there until the Judgment, which will liberate many, not only because of their repentance, but through the power of the Atonement. It is when Enoch reaches the lowest depth of despair that the revelation of God's plan of merciful redemption turns all to joy: "And as Enoch saw this, he had bitterness of soul, and wept over his brethren, and said unto the heavens: I will refuse to be comforted; but the Lord said unto Enoch: Lift up your heart, and be glad; and look." (Moses 7:44.) It was specifically the spirits who were disobedient in Enoch's day who were to enjoy the preaching of the Lord and promise of deliverance in the meridian of times. (See 1 Peter 3:19—20.)
| Moses 7:67. And the Lord showed Enoch all things . . . and he saw the day of the righteous, the hour of their redemption; and received a fulness of joy. |
1 En. 60:5. Why art thou [Enoch] disquieted . . . 6. that day is prepared . . . for sinners and inquisition . . . that the punishment of the Lord of Spirits may not come, in vain . . . Afterwards the |
| 1 Pet. 3:18. For Christ also hath once suffered for sins . . . 19. By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; 20. Which sometime were disobedient . . . in the days of Noah. |
judgment shall take place according to his mercy and patience. Black 10:6. Azael is bound in prison unto the Great Day of Judgment, when he is led to the enpyrismon, while |
| Moses 7:47. And behold, Enoch saw the day of the coming of the Son of Man, even in the flesh; and his soul rejoiced. |
7. the earth will be healed . . . [of] the blow, that all the sons of man may not be destroyedby the mystery in which the Watchers stumbled and which they taught to their sons. |
| 7:38. . . . these . . . shall perish in the floods; and behold, I will shut them up; a prison have I prepared for them. 39. And That which I have chosen hath pled before my face. Wherefore, he suffereth for their sins; inasmuch as they will repent in the day that my Chosen shall return unto me, and until that day they shall be in torment. |
1 En. 45:2. Such shall be the lot of sinners . . . who are thus preserved for the day of suffering and tribulation. 3. On that day mine Elect shall sit on the throne of glory and shall try their works. |
Another parallel on the same theme:
| Moses 7:57. And as many of the spirits as were in prison came forth . . . and the remainder were reserved in chains of darkness until the judgment of the great day. |
Beatty 103:7. . . . in Hades shall they be in great torment 8. and in darkness, and in chains and in burning flame, and your spirit will come unto a great judgment. |
World in Upheaval
An unfailing aspect of apocalyptic literature in general and of the Enoch writings in particular is the reverberation through their pages of vast upheavals in the natural world. This aspect of apocalyptic has begun to be taken seriously only within very recent years, and it is the scientists rather than the theologians who are impressed by the ancient records.332 Enoch, in fact, is one of their favorite references. They are impressed by the authentic ring of the catastrophic motif in the old apocalyptic writings while the ministry deplores and denounces them as unfortunate examples of a bogeyman mentality.333
What was the world like in Enoch's day? Joseph Smith places the action amidst pastoral nomads ranging the mountains and valleys—and so do the other sources. They show us the righteous and the wicked, sometimes designated as Sethians and Cainites, living respectively in the mountains and the lowlands. 334
| Moses 7:17. . . . the Lord blessed the land, and they were blessed upon the mountains, and upon the high places, and did flourish. |
4 Ezra 6:51. And I gave to Enoch a dry part of the earth, that he might dwell therein, where there were a thousand mountains. |
It was the archetype of Zions to follow:
| D&C 49:24—25. But before the great day of the Lord . . . Zion shall flourish upon the hills and rejoice upon the mountains, and shall be assembled together unto the place which I have appointed. |
Apocalypse of Adam, folio 85, lines 9—11 (p. 193). At the end of time the Saints will come to a high mountain, upon a stone of truth. |
The other side of the picture shows us the wicked gathered together in great valleys. The image not only suits this world, but is projected into the next.
| Moses 7:5. . . . I beheld in the valley of Shum, and lo, a great people which dwelt in tents, which were the people of Shum. . . . |
1 Enoch 13:9. Enoch came to them [the Watchers], and they were all sitting gathered together weeping in Abelsjail, which is between [the mountains] Lebanon and Sênêsêr, with their faces covered. |
| 7. And the Lord said unto me . . . the people of Shum . . . shall utterly be destroyed; and the people of Canaan shall divide themselves in the land, and the land shall be barren and unfruitful. . . . 8. For behold, the Lord shall curse the land with much heat, and the barrenness thereof shall go forth forever. |
Secrets 13 (Vaillant, p. 42). I saw a certain plain, like a prison . . . and I sighed and wept . . . 8. Why is this hollow place separated from the other? 9. . . . that the spirits of the dead might be separated . . . 11. . . . set apart in this great plain until the day of judgment . . . 12. And this division has been made for the spirits . . . of those who were slain in the days of sinners. |
| Gizeh 10:11. . . . Go, Michael, and bind . . . all who have defiled themselves . . . 12. bind them for 70 generations in the valleys [napas] of the earth. |
The first warning to hit the sinners in the plain is, following the ancient pattern, a terrible drought, of which Enoch literature gives us vivid descriptions.
| Moses 7:7. And the Lord said unto me: Prophesy . . . the land shall be barren and unfruitful, and none other people shall dwell there but the people of Canaan. 8. For behold, the Lord shall curse the land with much heat, and the barrenness thereof shall go forth forever; and there was a blackness came upon all the children of Canaan, that they were despised among all people. |
Gizeh 26:2. And I saw the holy mountain and water descending from the mountain . . . 4. and a deep dry valley, and another valley [see Shum and Canaan, Moses 7:5]. 5. (Both valleys were utterly desolate and without a tree.) 27:2. This is a cursed land, reserved for the cursed forever . . . |
| Black, p. 6. 100:11. Every cloud and mist and dew and rain shall be withheld because of your sins. 100:12. Therefore offer gifts to the rain that it be not hindered from descending for you, and to dew, and cloud and mist. 101: For if He closes the window of heaven and hinders the dew and rain from descending because of you, what will you do? |
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| 1 Enoch 18:12. I saw a place which had no firmament. . . . There was no water upon it, and no birds, but it was a waste and horrible place. 22:3. These hollow places have been created for this very purpose, . . . that all the souls of the children of men should assemble there. |
Bad times render men desperate. Obsessed by dread and guilt, they turn hysterically against each other, and soon find themselves locked in deadly combat to the point of extermination.
| Moses 7:7. . . . Behold the people of Canaan, which are numerous, shall go forth in battle array against the people of Shum, and shall slay them that they shall utterly be destroyed. |
Gizeh 10:9. Go, Gabriel, to the ill-begotten ones, the crooked ones, and the sons of adultery; and destroy the sons of the Watchers from among men. Set them to fighting each other in war and in wanton destruction. |
The picture fits later dispensations as well:
| D&C 87:6. And thus, with the sword and by bloodshed the inhabitants of the earth shall mourn . . . until the consumption decreed hath made a full end of all nations. |
Black 7:6. The earth fell under the rule of the lawless, and [8:1] Azael [Satan] taught them the manufacture of weapons and how to work the treasures of the earth. |
| 7. That . . . the blood of the saints, shall cease to come up into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth, from the earth, to be avenged of their enemies. |
4. The cry of those slain of the people ascended to heaven. 9:1—3. The angels saw blood flowing upon the earth, and heard the voices of the slain crying out to God for vengeance. |
| D&C 1:35. . . . the hour is not yet, but is nigh at hand, when peace shall be taken from the earth, and the devil shall have power over his own dominion. |
Secrets MS. R, 22 (Vaillant). Nation rises against nation for the devil has begun to reign. . . and there arose warfare and great trouble. |
Besides the people of Canaan who extirpate those of Shum, seven other exotic tribes are named in the Joseph Smith Enoch, suggesting the familiar seven-pattern of tribal organizations. They are the people of the lands of Sharon, Enoch, Omner, Heni, Shem, Haner, and Hanannihah. (Moses 7:9.) What would ancient copyists thousands of years later on the other side of the world have made of such a list? They would handle it exactly as scribes have always done, by transferring it to a more familiar setting. The scribe of the Ethiopian Enoch puts in the place of those familiar tribes the names of what were to him the most distant and exotic of peoples on earth, and naturally treats the reference to lions as a familiar and highly conventional figure of speech:
| Moses 7:5. . . . I beheld . . . a great people which dwelt in tents, . . . the people of Shum. 6. . . . and I looked towards the north, and I beheld the people of Canaan, which dwelt in tents. (Italics added.) |
1 Enoch 56:5. To the east [I saw] Parthians and Medes [the two great tent-dwelling nations of antiquity]: |
| 9. [Enoch beholds the seven other nations] 13. . . . and the roar of the lions was heard out of the wilderness: and all nations feared greatly. . . . |
they shall stir up the [other] kings, . . . that they may break forth as lions and from their lairs. |
| 16. And from that time forth there were wars and bloodshed among them. |
One of nature's ironies is that not enough water usually leads to too much. Enoch's world was plagued by flood as well as drought; we are regaled by the picture of lowering heavens ceaselessly dumping dismal avalanches of rain and snow upon the earth. The constant weeping of Enoch and all the saints is matched in the powerful imagery of the weeping heavens and the earth veiled in darkness under the blackest of skies: In the book of Enoch the same imagery is applied to the meridian and the fulness of times as well as the Adamic age.
| Moses 7:28. [Enoch:] How is it that the heavens weep, and shed forth their tears as the rain upon the mountains? |
1 Enoch 100:11—13. . . . because of their sins all heavens weep and darkness prevails, 13. with ice, hail, cold and winds together. |
| 1 Enoch 17:2, 4. I saw the mountains of the darkness of winter, . . . and the place from which all the waters of the deep flow. |
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| 7:37. . . . the whole heavens shall weep over them, even all the workmanship of mine hands; wherefore should not the heavens weep, seeing these shall suffer? 38. But behold, these . . . shall perish in the floods. . . . |
Miracles of Jesus.335 [He tells Peter that because the world will reject the gospel it] will cause the Sun and the Moon to weep . . . and at the corruption of the teachings the hills and mountains will weep. |
| 40. Wherefore, for this shall the heavens weep. . . . 56. [At the Crucifixion] the heavens were veiled; and all the creations of God mourned; and the earth groaned. . . . but 61. . . . before that day the heavens shall be darkened, and a veil of darkness shall cover the earth. . . . 62. And righteousness will I send down out of heaven; and truth . . . out of the earth . . . and . . . cause [them] to sweep the earth as with a flood. |
Berayta, pp. 205—20.336 The waters under the earth are like a small spring beside the waters of creation, which in turn are like a small spring compared with the ocean; the sea is like a small spring compared with the waters which weep. |
| 7:26. [In the days of Cain] it veiled the whole face of the earth with darkness. . . . |
Mysteries of Jesus.337 God punished Cain with seventy-seven days of unmitigated rain. |
| 7:28. And it came to pass that the God of heaven looked upon the residue of the people, and he wept; and Enoch bore record of it, saying: How is it that the heavens weep, and shed forth their tears as the rain upon the mountains? |
1 Enoch 95:1. O that mine eyes were [a cloud of] waters that I might weep over you, and pour down my tears as a cloud of waters. [Passage very corrupt; reconstructed by Charles. This is also the most corrupted part of Gizeh, c. 28—the scribes don't understand it]. |
We find in a striking passage of the Joseph Smith account of Enoch a curious mixture of fire and water; the same oddity in the other Enoch text suggests scenes of volcanic activity with fumeroles, sulphurous vapors, rivers of fire, etc.:". . . in darkness and in chains, and in burning flame. . . ." (Beatty 103:8.)
| Moses 7:34. And the fire of mine indignation is kindled against them; and in my hot displeasure will I send in the floods upon them, for my fierce anger is kindled against them. |
Secrets 13 (Vaillant). I could not support the fear of the burning fire—that is how the words of the Lord were. bin Gorion 1:195. The rains of the Flood were intermingled with showers of fire from heaven. |
| 2 Baruch 53:7. It rained black waters . . . and fire was mingled with them and . . . they wrought devastation and destruction. . . . 9. [The] lightning healed those regions where the waters had descended. 1 Enoch 17:4. And they took me to the living waters, and to the fire of the west, [the waters of creation and baptism]. . . . 5. And I came to a river of fire in which fire flows like water. 1 Enoch 67:5—7. And I saw that valley in which there was a great convulsion, and a convulsion of the waters. . . . 6. . . . from that fiery molten metal and from the convulsion thereof in that place, there was produced a smell of sulphur, and it was connected with those waters. . . . 7. And through its valley proceed streams of fire. |
We are told that when the wicked tried to flee back to the safety of the holy mountain as the waters of the flood began to rise, they could not approach the ark because the rocks were burning hot.338 It is pictures like this that convince the scientists that there may be something to these old apocalyptic tales.
The most conspicuously and consistently reported of all the evils in Enoch's day are the earthquakes, consistent with the picture of plate tectonics that the whole thing presents.
| Moses 6:34. . . . and the mountains shall flee before you, and the rivers shall[accordingly] turn from their course. . . . |
Gizeh 1:5. And all the people shall fear . . . and trembling and great fear shall seize them to the extremities of the earth. |
| 7:13. . . . the earth trembled, and the rivers of water were turned out of their course; . . . and all nations feared greatly. |
6. And high mountains shall be shaken and shall fall and be dissolved . . . and the mountains shall flow down [diarrhynai, "to slip through, to leak, to fall away like water"] and be turned into side-channels, and shall melt like wax before a flame. |
| 7. And the earth will be rent with a splitting and a crackling [rhagas], and everything on the earth will be destroyed. |
These events are correlated with the activities of Enoch, who does not, however, cause them; they are programmed to his purposes, and God stands behind him and speaks through his voice the words of power.
| Moses 7:13. . . . Enoch . . . led the people of God, and their enemies came to battle against them; and he spake the word of the Lord, and the earth trembled, and the mountains fled, even according to his command; and the rivers of waters were turned out of their course; and the roar of the lions was heard out of the wilderness. |
Psalms of Solomon 11:1. At the gathering of Zion . . . 5. Lofty mountains has he humbled, and made plain before them [the people of God] and the hills fled away before their entrance. Black 102:1. And when he gives forth his voice . . . 2. the whole earth shall be shaken and trembling and thrown into confusion. |
| 6:34. Behold my Spirit is upon you, wherefore all thy words will I justify; and the mountains shall flee before you, and the rivers shall turn from their course; and thou shalt abide in me, and I in you; therefore walk with me. |
1 Enoch 52:6. These mountains . . . shall be in the presence of the Elect One as wax before the fire, and like the water which streams down from above. . . . |
| 7:13. . . . all nations feared greatly, so powerful was the word of Enoch, and so great was the power of the language which God had given him. 6:34. [God:] All thy words will I justify; and the mountains shall flee before you. 7:13. . . . he spake the word of the Lord, and the earth trembled, and the mountains fled, even according to his command. |
Secrets 13 (Vaillant). I have heard the words of the Lord like a great thunder amidst ceaseless agitation of the clouds. The Lord of the Earth is terrible and most perilous. [Bonner, pp. 58f, Black 102:1.] And when he gives forth his voice against you, will not you be shaken and affrighted by the mighty sound? And the whole earth shall be shaken and trembling and thrown into confusion." |
The really spectacular show in the Enoch literature is the behavior of the seas. Like the alternating drought and flood from the skies, there is either too much sea or not enough. Before "the floods came and swallowed them up" (Moses 7:43), the sea first drew back in places, leaving its coastal beds high and dry in anticipation of the great tsunami (seawave) which came with the earthquake.
| Moses 7:13—14. The earth trembled, and the mountains fled. . . . There also came up a land out of the depth of the sea, and so great was the fear of the enemies of the people of God, that they fled and stood afar off and went upon the land which came up out of the depth of the sea. |
Secrets 6 (Vaillant 106:6). Enoch: Are not all the sea and its waters the work of the Most High, and did he not set their limits? 7. And by his wrath they are affrighted and dried up. 1 Enoch 60:16. Enoch: The spirit of the sea . . . draws back with a rein, and in like manner it is driven forward and dispersed amid all the mountains of the earth. |
The sea misbehaved on other occasions in Enoch's day:
| Moses 7:66. Before that . . . he saw great tribulations among the wicked; and he also saw the sea, that it was troubled. |
Mid. Rab. 1:37. [Twice the sea invaded the earth.] Once was in the generation of Enosh, and a second time in. the generation of the separation [The Tower]. bin Gorion 1:153. In the days of Enoch, the sea rose and flooded one-third of the land! Combat of Adam and Eve, p. 361. The animals were urged on to the ark by the trembling of the earth; the sea rose in violent agitation, the winds were terrible, the sun disappeared and all the sky. . . . The sea cast mountain waves upon the land. 4 Ezra 6:49. And how thou hast saved two spirits: the one thou hast named Behemoth, and the other Leviathan, 50. And thou didst separate one from the other, for the seventh part, where the water was gathered together, was unable to hold them (both). 51. And thou didst give Behemoth one of the parts [of the earth], which had been dried up on the third day—that he might dwell therein, where are a thousand hills. |
The terrors of the book of Enoch reach their culmination when the upheavals of nature extend to the entire cosmos. Many apocalyptic accounts of the disturbed heavens suggest to some scientists today an actual shifting of the earth on its axis (a phenomenon now well attested from the study of ancient magnetized ceramics) or a massive showering of meteoric particles.
| Moses 7:61. . . . the heavens shall shake, and also the earth; and great tribulations shall be among the children of men. 7:41. . . . Enoch . . . wept and stretched forth his arms, . . . and all eternity shook. |
Black 102:1. And when he gives forth his voice against you, 2. will ye not be shaken and affrighted by the mighty sound? And the whole earth shall be shaken, and trembling, and thrown into confusion. . . . 3. And the heaven and its lights be shaken and trembling, [and] all the sons of the earth. Bonner, p. 58. "And all the earth was shaking and trembling, and thrown into confusion; and also angels having completed their assignments, and the heaven and the Lights [phosteres] were shaken and trembling, and all the sons of earth." 1 Enoch 60:1. I saw how a mighty quaking made the heaven of heavens to quake, and the host of the Most High, and the angels, a thousand thousands and ten thousand times ten thousand, were disquieted with a great disquiet. |
But there is one concept which goes beyond the scope of astronomy in its exciting implications. It is the doctrine that when a world is destroyed, all the other worlds that have contributed to its existence join in a general mourning.339
| Moses 7:36. . . . and among all the workmanship of mine hands there has not been so great wickedness as among thy brethren. . . . 37. . . . the whole heavens shall weep over them, even all the workmanship of mine hands; wherefore should not the heavens weep, seeing these shall suffer? (Italics added.) 40. Wherefore, for this shall the heavens weep, yea, and all the workmanship of mine hands. |
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| 41. Enoch . . . wept and stretched forth his arms, and his heart swelled wide as eternity; and his bowels yearned; and all eternity shook. |
1 Enoch 60:3. And a great trembling seized me, and fear took hold of me, and my loins gave way and dissolved were my reins, and I fell upon my face, 4. For I had not been able to endure the look of this host, and the commotion and the quaking of heaven. |
| 7:56. And the heavens were veiled; and all the creations of God mourned; and the earth groaned and the rocks were rent. |
Apocryphon of John, p. 20. As I was thinking the heavens opened. . . . 21. . . . And the whole cosmos shook; and I was afraid and fell upon my face. [And God appeared to him and spoke with him comforting him as he did Enoch.] |
The peculiar nature imagery found in the Joseph Smith account of Enoch gets down to basics with the personification of the earth as Terra Mater, speaking as a living entity in a passage strikingly paralleled in the Greek fragments.
| Moses 7:48. . . . Enoch looked upon the earth; and he heard a voice from the bowels thereof, saying: Wo, wo is me, the mother of men from. . . . When shall I rest, and be cleansed from the filthiness which is gone forth out of me? When will my Creator sanctify me, that I may rest, and righteousness for a season abide upon my face? |
Gizeh 10:20. And cleanse thou the earth from all uncleanliness [akatharsias] and all unrighteousness and from all sin and corruption [asebeias] and purge away [exaleipson, "flush, scour"] all impurities, which have come upon the earth. 22. And all the earth shall be cleansed from all pollution [miasmatos] and from all impurities. . . . 11:2. And then truth and peace will dwell together (Koinonesousin homou, "embrace, have all things in common") . . . for all the generations of men. |
| 7:49. And when Enoch heard the earth mourn, he wept, and cried unto the Lord, saying: O Lord, wilt thou not have compassion upon the earth? |
1 Enoch 7:5—6. "And they began to . . . devour one another's flesh, and drink the blood. Then the earth laid accusation against the lawless ones. A man is called wicked [rashac] if he merely lifts his hand against his neighbor. . . . But only he is called evil [rac] who corrupts his way and defiles himself and the earth. |
The rest and comfort that come after the flood will bring a new order of things.
| Moses 7:48. . . . When shall I rest, and be cleansed. . . that I may rest, and righteousness for a season abide upon my face? 49. . . . Wilt thou not bless the children of Noah? [The name Noah means "rest."] 50. . . . have . . . mercy upon Noah and his seed. 51. And the Lord . . . sware . . . that he would call upon the children of Noah. |
Beatty 106:17b. [Enoch:] And he [Noah] shall cleanse [praunei] the earth from all the defilement [phthoras] which is in her. 18. And now tell Lamech that he is his son in truth, [and] call his name [Noah]; for he shall be a remnant of you whereon ye shall rest for a season [katapausete] and his sons, also from the defilement [phthoras] of the earth and from all the wickedness [hamartolon, "pollution"] and from all the vileness [upon the earth]. |
A lengthy passage from The Book of the Combat of Adam and Eve in which that patriarch foresees the flood presents such an arresting correspondence to the Joseph Smith account as to provide a most instructive summary to this depressing part of our history. The Adam quotations are given in the order in which they occur; the matching quotes from the Joseph Smith Enoch are all from the same chapter and describe the same series of events.
| Moses 7:66. And he also saw the sea, that it was troubled. |
Combat of Adam and Eve 10.340 At the sight of him the sea was troubled. |
| 7:13. . . . the rivers of water were turned out of their course; . . . and the mountains fled, . . . |
The Jordan reversed its course [lit., returned to its source] the mountains bounded like the stags and does of the valley. |
| 7:17. . . . they were blessed upon the mountains, and upon the high places, and did flourish. |
The hills resounded with hymns of adoration, the high peaks joined in a hymn of praise |
| 7:41. . . . all eternity shook. 56. . . . and the earth groaned; and the rocks were rent. |
Yea, the earth opened up and shook to its foundations, |
| 7:14. There also came up a land out of the depth of the sea. . . . |
The king of the sea saw me and fled. O sea, why hast thou fled? . . . |
| 7:34. . . . I [will] send in the floods upon them. . . . 7:43. . . . the floods came and swallowed them up. |
O depths of the abyss, why are you troubled? Currents[whirlpools] of the Ocean, why have you overflowed [swollen yourselves]? |
| 7:13. Enoch . . . led the people of God, and their enemies came . . . against them; and . . . [at] the word of the Lord, . . . the earth trembled, . . . |
The chariot of God rumbled in space . . . |
| and the roar of the lions was heard out of the wilderness; 7:37. . . . the whole heavens shall weep over them, even all the workmanship of mine hands; . . . 38. . . . these which thine eyes are upon shall perish in the floods. |
and a great roaring arose from the midst of the terrified beasts. And everything on earth was overthrown. |
Being called, Enoch shrank back in fear and pleaded his unfitness, protesting among other things that he was "but a lad," although sixty-five years old at the time! (6:31.) How is that strange anomaly to be explained? Joseph Smith could have known of none of the writings below which also deal with it. Where did he get the idea? Certainly not from apocryphal sources, although it appears not uncommonly in them. Just a few examples:
bin Gorion 1:295f: The Metatron has 70 names, but the King calls me "the Lad." Why? 296. Because I act in the capacity of one who was before me, even Enoch, who was called "the Lad" 297. because he was the youngest of the hosts.
Book of Adam 1:165—66: Enoch: "I heard my brothers say when I was small how wicked the world is; how then can I all alone achieve anything? If only my brothers were here I could ask them! Yet youthful though I am, I am still older than my brothers, though the last to come into this world. . . ."
BHM 5:172: I am small [qatan, young] in the midst of them [the Watchers, of vast age, to whom he was sent], and am but a lad among them in days and months and years; in view of which they call me 'Lad.'"
Jewish Encyclopedia, 8:519: "In the Hebrew writings . . . and . . . the Apocrypha" Enoch is represented as a young man, "since both sources represent him as a youth"—nobody knows why.
Zohar, Beshalah 66b: "They saw the light of the Shekhinah, namely him who is called 'the Youth' [or Lad] Metatron-Henoch, who ministers to the Shekhinah in the heavenly Sanctuary." And the paved world of sapphire rock [Stone of Truth]. (See also Exodus 24:10.)
Book of Adam, 1:238: Enoch's grandfather, being called on a mission in the same way, made the same objection. When Adam sent the heavenly messengers to him with a mission call, "Seth said: 'O good teacher, for barely eight years [!] have I been in this world . . . I have not yet worn the male tiara [the round cloth cap of Exodus 28:40] nor borne the sword. Go back to Adam who is over 1,000 years old and tell him these things.' But they said: 'Seth, we have already told these same truths to your father Adam. He has been through all this.'" Then the winds bore Seth on high [as they later do Enoch], and he sat on the Throne of Light.
The patronizing title of "lad" reflected the general contempt in which Enoch was held—"All the people hate me," he said, "for I am slow of speech." (Moses 6:31.) The Ethiopian passage as rendered by Charles presents a peculiarly instructive parallel to the Joseph Smith version; both contain exactly the same ideas and expressions, but the African scribe has mixed them all up in an interesting way:
| Moses 6:31. And when Enoch had heard these words, he bowed himself to the earth before the Lord, and spake before the Lord saying: Why is it that I have found favor in thy sight, and am but a lad, and all the people hate me; for I am slow of speech. . . . |
1 Enoch 15:24. And until then I had been prostrate on my face, trembling; and the Lord called me with his own mouth, and said to me: Come hither Enoch and hear my words. . . . |
| 32. And the Lord said unto Enoch: Go forth . . . open thy mouth, and it shall be filled. . . . |
1 Enoch 103:9. Say not to the righteous and good who are in life: ". . . we have experienced every trouble, and |
| 33. Say unto this people: Choose ye this day, to serve the Lord God who made you. |
met with much evil . . . and have become few and small [mikropsychos, insignificant]. . . . 10. and have not found any to help us even with a word [i.e., in speech]. . . . 11. Sinners have laid their yoke heavily upon us; 12. They have had dominion over us; that hated us and smote us, and to those who hated us we have bowed our necks. 104:2. God answered: Be hopeful . . . ye shall shine as the lights of heaven . . . 3. and in your cry, cry for judgment. . . . 9. Be not godless in your hearts. |
| 32. And the Lord said unto Enoch: Go forth and do as I have commanded thee, and no man shall pierce thee. |
Book of Adam, p. xxi. And now, little Enoch, ["the Lad"] I have told you the mysteries of the wicked people of this world whose appearance has filled you with fear and distress . . . and that the wicked have conspired to do away with you but in vain. [See also xlvii: All the wicked plotted against Enoch, but in vain.] |
| Behold my Spirit is upon you, wherefore all thy words will I justify . . . and thou shalt abide in me, and I in you; therefore walk with me. |
But fear not. I will return to deliver you from evil and sin . . . and I shall lead thee from this dark world to the dwelling of light. |
| 34. . . . all thy words will I justify; and the mountains shall flee before you, and the rivers shall turn from their course. |
The angel of life said to little Enoch, Arise, take thy way to the source of the waters, turn it aside from its course . . . at this command Tavril indeed turned the running water from its course. . . . |
As to being slow of speech, God will put his very words into Enoch's mouth, so that in a special way it will be the Lord speaking through him:
| Moses 6:32. . . . Go forth and do as I have commanded thee, and no man shall pierce thee. Open thy mouth, and it shall be filled, and I will give thee utterance . . . and I will do as seemeth me good. |
Secrets 13 (Vaillant). I have been sent by the mouth of the Lord to you to tell you what will be. . . . And now my children, it is not out of my own mouth that I speak to you today, but by the mouth of the Lord who has sent me to you. For you hear the words of my mouth, and I have heard the words of the Lord. |
| 30. And this is a decree which I have sent forth in the beginning . . . from my own mouth, . . . and by the mouths of my servants, thy fathers, have I decreed it. |
2 Enoch 29, p. 454. I am sent forth to you today from the Lord's mouth to speak to you. . . . not from my own mouth am I today informing you, but from the Lord's mouth, for you have heard my words from my mouth, but I have heard the Lord's words. . . . |
Enoch was received by the public first with curiosity and surprise, then with resentment, then with fear, and finally with a measure of acceptance that was to produce a church and the city of Enoch. First we see Enoch, the mystery man, the alien, a great curiosity:
| Moses 6:38. And they came forth to hear him, upon the high places, saying unto the tent-keepers: Tarry ye here. . . while we go yonder to behold the seer, for he prophesieth, and |
BHM 4:129. And all the people gathered together and went up . . . to Enoch to hear this thing. |
| there is a strange thing in the land; |
Secrets 16 (Vaillant, p. 60). And they all came together, saying: Come, let us greet Enoch, and they came to the place Azouchan. |
| a wild man hath come among us. |
Iesous Basileus, 2:19ff, 107. John the Baptist was received as Enos [Enoch] returned to earth, preaching in the desert as a wild man. Book of Adam, p. 17. There are false prophets who wander through the mountains and hills, wild men with wild hair and wild voices. They are called vagabond shepherds, live on herbs, and claim that God speaks mysteries by their mouths. 147. One of them, by the name of Marmon [!], led his followers to a place of filthy water. |
| 40. And there came a man unto him, whose name was Mahijah, and said unto him: Tell us plainly who thou art, and from whence thou comest? |
BHM 4:131. And Enoch went out [after his long hiding] and there came a voice saying: Who is the man who rejoices. . . in the ways of the Lord? . . . [See Mahujah and Mahijah, pp. 277—78.] And all the people gathered together and came unto Enoch. . . . and Enoch taught all the people again to keep the ways of the Lord, . . . and gave them all his peace. |
His answer:
| Moses 6:41. And he said unto them: I came out from the land of Cainan, the land of my fathers, a land of righteousness unto this day. And my father taught me in all the ways of God. |
Gizeh 12:1. . . . Enoch was taken, and no man knew where he went, where he is or what became of him. 2. But his works [i.e., missionary labors] are with the Watchers, while his days are with the Saints. 1 Enoch 12:1. And before [this] Enoch was hidden, and no one of the children of men knew where he was hidden, and where he abode and what had become of him. 2. And his activities had to do with the Watchers, and his days were with the Holy Ones. BHM 4:129. Enoch . . . served God and shunned the ways of the wicked sons of men. And Enoch cleaved unto the Order of God in knowledge and intelligence. . . . And he separated himself in his wisdom from men and hid from them for many days. . . . 130. [After preaching] he withdrew again, as in the beginning, and hid himself, to serve the Lord. |
This is the familiar theme of the holy man—Adam, Seth, Noah, Elijah, Abinadi, Ether, Mormon, etc.—who goes forth to admonish the wicked world from time to time, and then withdraws to the society of the righteous, usually in a vale or on a mountain. Such prophets are a disturbing presence among the people. Nowhere is the idea more movingly expressed than in this speech in the book of Moses:
| Moses 6:37. And all men were offended because of him. |
Book of Adam 1:170. And Enoch arose in joy and went forth to preach. But all conspired against him . . . and all the elements were thrown into confusion. |
| 6:39. . . . when they heard him, no man laid hands on him; for fear came on all them that heard him; for he walked with God. |
BHM 4:130. When he visited them, "the children of men feared Enoch greatly." |
| 6:47. And as Enoch spake forth the words of God, the people trembled, and could not stand in his presence. |
Gizeh 13:3. Then going forth I spoke to all of them, and they were all afraid, and trembling and terror seized them. 5. Because they could not speak, neither raise their eyes to heaven for shame. . . . 1 Enoch 13:3. Then I went and spoke to them all together, and they were all afraid, and fear and trembling seized them. |
What caused them to tremble most of all was that Enoch produced a special book as a witness against them. He climaxes the story of his vision "by the sea east" by reminding them of a certain book.
| Moses 6:46. . . . we have a book of remembrance written among us, according to the pattern given by the finger of God; and it is given in our own language [a book meant for them to read]. |
1 Enoch 93:2. I, Enoch, will declare . . . according to that which appeared to me in the heavenly vision . . . and have learnt from the heavenly tablets. 3. And Enoch began to recount from the books. |
The purpose of the book, to witness their fallen state and betrayal of their ancient covenants, as given in the Joseph Smith version, finds striking confirmation in the ancient records:
| Moses 6:45. . . . we know them [our ancestors], and cannot deny, and even the first of all we know, even Adam. 6:46. For a book remembrance we have written among us, according to the pattern given by the finger of God; and it is given in our own language. |
Testament of Abraham. Adam says: Tell me all its [the soul's] deeds that are written down. And immediately an old man [Enoch] came forth from behind the veil with a book in his hand. . . . Then the soul denied, thinking that its deeds would not be remembered. . . . But Adam said: No, there is no lie in this place! Black 98:7. Think not in your souls . . . that . . . your wrongdoings are not observed nor written down before the highest. 8. From now on all your transgressions are written down day and night until your judgment. Black 97:6. And all . . . your unrighteousness shall be read out in the presence of the Great Holy One and in your own presence; because (104:9ff) . . . you have got by through juggling the books and falsifying reports: that is how you got your power, influence, and wealth! Beatty 98:15. Woe to you who write false words . . . and falsify the record. . . . 91:2. Prepare, ye righteous ones, and present the records of your doings as a remembrance, give them as a testimony before the angels, that they may bring the sense of righteousness before the Most High, for a remembrance. Testament of Dan 5:6. (and other Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs). For I have read in the book of Enoch the righteous that your prince is Satan, and that all the spirits of wickedness will . . . cause[the sons of Levi] to sin before the Lord. |
While Charles finds passages in this part of the Ethiopian Enoch "very confused" and "clearly corrupt," all the versions agree on a consistent story: Enoch, while journeying in the highlands passing by a certain sea, has a vision in which the Lord talks with him and sends him to rebuke the people; he finds them assembled in a high place and discusses with them a certain book—a Hypomnemata, or memorial. As a result of what he tells them about the book, they are completely overcome and cannot raise their eyes to Enoch or to heaven for shame. The Joseph Smith account is substantially like that of the Greek and Slavonic texts.
| Moses 6:47. And as Enoch spake forth the words of God [confirmed by the book], the people trembled, and could not stand in his presence. |
Gizeh 13:3. They asked . . . me to read for them the Hypomnemata (memorial, remembrance) before the face of the Lord, 5. because they were in no condition to speak, neither could they raise their eyes to the heavens for shame. 1 Enoch 13:3ff. [In this version "the passage is very confused," says Charles, "clearly corrupt." (P. 30.) 7. And I went off and sat down at the waters of Dan, in the land of Dan to the south of the west of Hermon. I read their petition [or memorial, remembrance] till I fell asleep, 8. and behold . . . I saw visions of chastisement, and a voice came bidding me tell the sons of Heaven and reprimand them. 9. And when I awaked I came unto them, and they were all sitting gathered together weeping in"Abelsjail" . . . with their faces covered. 10. [Then he begins to read to them from] the book of the words of righteousness, and of the reprimand . . . in accordance with the command of the Holy Great One in that vision. |
Enoch's Visions
Before dealing with the success of Enoch's mission, we must consider more closely the marvelous visions which prepared him for it and which are the most significant part of the Enoch literature and the principal reason for its rejections by the conventional Christian and Jewish scholars of the fourth and following centuries. We refer to the cosmological or astronomical teachings most widely associated with the name of Enoch, who, not content with describing a purely spiritual heaven or beatific vision, insists on bringing real stars and planets into the picture—a thing which medieval and modern theologians find unspeakably crass—the very antithesis of everything worthy of the ethereal name of religion. While the Jewish doctors rejected the old cosmological absorption because it turned out to be altogether too popular with the early Christians,341 the Christian doctors in turn attacked them as too popular with the gnostic sectaries and even the heathen.342 Both agreed in tracing back their origin to Enoch.
Thus, quoting Eumolpus (140 B.C.), Eusebius reports that Abraham taught astronomy to the Egyptians at Heliopolis (the great prehistoric Egyptian observatory), giving himself and the Babylonians credit for establishing the science while actually recognizing Enoch as its true discoverer.343 Syncellus and Cedrenus hand down the tradition, on the authority of Enoch himself, that it was the angel Uriel who taught astronomy to Enoch.344 To clinch their disapproval, the doctors of Alexandria—the great "spiritualizers"—follow Clement of Alexandria, who maintains that according to Enoch it was the fallen angels who taught "astronomy and divination [mantiken] and related sciences [technas]" to the human race.345 Mystics and theologians thereafter rejected Enoch's cosmologies precisely because they were not mystic but scientific, sharing the Christian prejudice due to which "cosmogonic accounts are in fact exceedingly rare both in Israel and in Islam. . . . Mohammed warned that they would lead to atheism—an old Rabbinical idea."346
Modern theologians see in Enoch "a curious attempt to reduce the scattered images of the [Old Testament] to a physical system. . . . It seems to repeat in every form the great principle that the world, natural, moral, and spiritual, is under the immediate government of God."347 And what, we may ask, is wrong with that? The Reverend Michael Stuart, foremost American theologian when the book of Enoch first came to America in the 1838—40 editions, protested that the scriptures "no where introduced such idle and Phantastic speculations about the natural phenomena of the heavens and earth, as we find in the Book of Enoch,"348 and he speaks for conventional Christianity—even today—when he says, "Every science . . . is entirely foreign to the Scriptures, inasmuch as they were written purely for moral and religious purposes, and not to give lessons in science," for which reason Enoch's cosmology is at present a sealed book.349
The churches are changing their tune so fast today that we must make an effort to remind ourselves that only yesterday Joseph Smith's "cosmism" and literalism were viewed with universal horror and alarm. A leading Catholic theologian of our time assures us that the longing of the Christian is "to be rapt away from matter" and receive "the cup of the spirit which from heaven is held out to earth,"350 while his eminent Protestant counterpart is pleased to note that, thanks to present-day demythologizing of old teachings, "redemption and the spirit are no longer thought of in the Gnostic manner as quasi-physical entities," in spite of Paul.351
It was among the early sectaries that the astronomical parts of Enoch (72—82) enjoyed their greatest favor, according to Van Andel's study. (Pp. 53, 40.) He notes that the inclusion of the physical world in the story of redemption which was indeed inevitable in a history which is a prologue to the Flood—a very physical event indeed (p. 41)—and that the exponents of such literature very sensibly hold that the cosmos itself cannot very well be left out of the picture of God's dealings with men, beginning with the Creation, another physical event. Is it not a main purpose of the Bible to make the cosmos understandable? (P. 93.) In apocalyptic literature the greatest "emphasis is laid on the [historic personality] of Enoch" as the conveyor of cosmic knowledge. (P. 118.) Long ago J. P. Migne protested that it was the very literal and "scientific" tone of it that rendered such religious literature dangerous, and that the proper apocryphal writings for Catholics to read are those which are frankly popular fables, poetic fantasies, and moral and symbolic tales claiming in the end no historical or physical reality.352
It is not our purpose here to discuss Enoch's cosmological discourses, which would take us pleasantly afield but require too much paper. It will be enough to confine our attention to the cosmological passages that can be paralleled in the book of Moses. These parallels are surprisingly plentiful.
We begin with the declaration that Enoch was shown a vision of everything: indeed, receiving a total revelation of all things seems to have been a privilege of each of the great founding fathers of the dispensations, from Adam on.
| Moses 1:27. . . . as the voice was still speaking, Moses cast his eyes and beheld the earth, yea, even all of it; and there was not a particle of it which he did not behold, discerning it by the spirit of God. |
Gizeh 5. For thou hast made all, and hast all authority, and all things appear before thee and are revealed, and thou seest all things. Secrets 17: (Vaillant, pp. 62f). If you lift your eyes to the heavens the Lord is there, because he made the heavens; and if you look upon the earth or the sea, or if you think of things under the earth, the Lord is there also, for he made all things. |
| 7:67. And the Lord showed Enoch all things, even unto the end of the world. |
1 Enoch 19:3. And I, Enoch, alone saw the vision, the ends of all things: and no man shall see as I have seen. |
| 7:4. . . . and he [the Lord] said unto me: Look, and I will show unto thee the world for the space of many generations. |
Gizeh 2:2. See the earth, and consider the works done in it from the beginning to the end, . . . and all the works of God will appear to you. bin Gorion 1:251. The Lord showed Adam everything, including Abraham's story. . . . 253. And "he [Adam] took a leaf and wrote down his Testament, and sealed it up unto the Lord, the Metatron [Enoch], and Adam." Apocalypse of Abraham 21:1. He said to me [Abraham] look! . . . 2. I look down and behold the six heavens and all that is in them, and also the earth and her fruits and all that moves upon her, and her spirits, and the power of her inhabitants [men] . . . 3. and the lower regions . . . 4. [and] the sea and its islands, the animals and its fishes . . . 9. [and] I saw a mighty host of men, women, and children. . . . |
| 1:28. And he [Moses] beheld also the inhabitants thereof, and there was not a soul which he beheld not; and he discerned them by the Spirit of God; and their numbers were great, even . . . numberless. . . . |
Secrets, Ms. R., ch. 10. The Angel Braboil [umpire or scorekeeper] said to me [Enoch]: Sit down and write all the spirits of men, all those who have not yet been born everything to the end of this world, even from the foundation thereof! . . . And I wrote down all the affairs of men. |
| 1:29. And he beheld many lands; and each land was called earth, and there were inhabitants on the face thereof. |
1 Enoch 33:1. I went to the ends of the earth and saw there great beasts, and each differed from the other; and (I saw) birds also differing . . . 2. and to the East . . . I saw the ends of the earth whereon the heaven rests. Jubilees 4:19 (Charles) or 4:181 in Bekker, p. 17. And what was and what will be he saw . . . as it will happen to the children of men throughout their generations until the day of judgment; he saw and understood everything, and wrote his testimony. |
| 6:42. . . . I [Enoch] beheld a vision; and lo, the heavens I saw, and the Lord spake with me. |
Secrets 13 (Vaillant, pp. 40ff). And now my children, I know all things, some from the mouth of the Lord, others that I have seen myself. . . . I have written of the extremities of the heavens and what is in them; I have measured the movements of their hosts . . . I have explored the places of the clouds . . . I have written about the deposits of the snow and reservoirs of ice, . . . how all these things are controlled by the power of God. |
| Origen, "First Principles," in P.G. 11:409. In the same book attributed to Enoch is written: "Universas materias perspexi," which would imply that he had seen every category of matter, divided not separate and distinct species from a single universal substance, to wit, of men or animals, or heavens, or Sun, or of everything that is in this world. |
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| 6:36. And he beheld the spirits that God had created; and he beheld also things which were not visible to the natural eye. |
BHM, 5:176. Enoch knows the names of the Sarim [lords, administrators] who administer every department of existence. . . . Enoch knew not only all the secrets of the Makrokosmos, but of the Mikrokosmos as well. |
The ancients recognize that others, from Adam to Daniel, also had the great Universal Vision, but give Enoch a special rating. Enoch alone, says the Ethiopian Book of Mysteries, saw it all from the beginning to end, before it happened. 353 "The Lord has chosen thee more than any other man on the earth, and has appointed thee the Scribe of His Creations, both visible and invisible. . . ." (Secrets, Ms. R, Vaillant, p. 61, see n. 17.)
Joseph Smith's preoccupation with mountains in his Enoch account would appear suspicious were it not that the other Enoch texts have the same obsession:
| Moses 7:2. . . . there came a voice out of heaven, saying— Turn ye, and get ye upon the mount Simeon. [n.b. Simeon means "place of hearing," hence "audience, assembly"] 3. And it came to pass that I turned and went up on the mount; and as I stood upon the mount, I beheld the heavens open, and I was clothed upon with glory; 4. And I saw the Lord; and he stood before my face, and he talked with me. |
Gizeh 32:2. And thence I took my way along the tops of these mountains, keeping far from towards the East of the earth, and I passed above the Erythrean Sea, and went up to the peaks [akron] and from there passed on higher to Zoti-el. 3. And I went to the paradise of righteousness, and beheld from afar among its trees . . . two trees in particular, great and laden, . . . and the Tree of Knowledge [phroneseos], of whose fruit the holy one ate and received great understanding. 1 Enoch 17:2. And they brought me to the point of darkness, and to a mountain whose summit reached to heaven. |
| 6:37. And . . . Enoch went forth . . . standing upon the hills and the high places. . . . 42. As I journeyed . . . by the sea east, I beheld a vision; and lo, the heavens I saw, and the Lord spake with me, and gave me commandment. |
3. And I saw the place of the luminaries. BHM 5:172. God raised me up . . . in the heaven above, to be a witness against them for all time to come . . . and the holy one, Blessed Be He, made me one with the high place as a prince and a ruler among the angels of the ministry. |
The ancients were quite aware of how Enoch's mysterious departure to heaven and Moses' ascent of Mt. Nebo and his disappearance (Deuteronomy 32:49) resembled each other. Others have also found mountains to be places of special closeness to the Lord—for example, Elijah, Nephi, and the famous Rabbi Ishmael.
| 2 Nephi 4:24. My voice have I sent up on high; and angels came down and ministered unto me. 25. And upon the wings of his Spirit hath my body been carried away upon exceeding high mountains. And mine eyes have beheld great things, yea, even too great for man; therefore I was bidden that I should not write them. |
BHM 5:170. R. Ishmael: When I went up to the mountaintop to contemplate the Markabah, I entered into the six temples, room by room. Arriving at the entrance to the seventh [the Holy of Holies], I stood to pray before God; and I lifted up my eyes and said: Lord of Eternity, . . . grant me in this hour the crown of the priesthood. . . . And deliver me from Satan. And the Metatron [Enoch] came who [served?] the angel, the Prince of the Presence, and spread his wings and came to meet me with great joy . . . and he took me with his hand and raised me up. |
In these passages, as throughout the book of Enoch, imagery and reality seem to meet and fuse in a peculiar way. Reference to the Holy of Holies is unmistakable in the last passage cited, recalling the well-known Ziggurat concept of the ancients in which the temple itself was to represent a mountain by which one mounted to heaven and the presence of God. Let us return for a moment to Nephi's story of his father's vision, which in some ways parallels Enoch's:
| 1 Nephi 1:4. . . . in the commencement of the first year . . . 5. . . . my father Lehi . . . prayed unto the Lord, yea, even with all his heart, in behalf of his people. . . . 7. . . . he returned to his own house at Jerusalem; and he cast himself upon his bed, being overcome with the Spirit. . . . 8. And being thus overcome with the Spirit, he was carried away in a vision, even that he saw the heavens open, and he thought he saw God sitting upon his throne, surrounded with numberless concourses of angels. |
2 Enoch 1:2. On the first day of the month I was in my house alone, and I rested on my bed and slept [BHM 4:127: "he was praying before God in (his) house and chamber"], 3. and as I slept great grief came upon my heart, and I wept with mine eyes in sleep. . . . 4. There appeared to me two men . . . 8. and these men said to me: Have courage Enoch, do not fear . . . the eternal God sent us to thee, and lo! Thou shalt today ascend with us into heaven. |
The manner in which the prophet is caught up is of particular concern and interest to the ancients. What are "the wings of the Spirit"? Lehi was "carried away in a vision, even that . . . he thought he saw God sitting upon his throne, surrounded with . . . angels," to match which Enoch says, "My spirit was translated, and it ascended to heaven; and I saw the holy sons of God . . . 10. and with them the Head of Days . . . 11. and my spirit was transfigured." (1 Enoch 71:10, 11.) The old writers also treat the idea:
| 2 Nephi 4:25. Upon the wings of his Spirit hath my body been carried away upon exceeding high mountains. And mine eyes have beheld great things, yea, even too great for man. |
BHM 5:170. R. Ishmael [a stand-in for Enoch] was on a high mountain when the Metatron [often equated with Enoch] came, who served the angels, the Prince of Presence, and he spread his wings and came to meet me with great joy to deliver me from the hands of Satan. And he took me by the hand and raised me up. |
| Moses 1:1. Moses was caught up into an exceedingly high mountain. |
BHM 6:175. God laid his hand upon me and raised me and exalted me . . . and seventy-two wings raised me up, so many on one side and so many on the other; it was as if the world was filled with wings. . . . |
| Abraham 2:7. I cause the wind and the fire to be my chariot; I say to the mountains—Depart hence—and behold, they are taken away by a whirlwind. |
1 Enoch 39:3. And in those days a whirlwind carried me off from the earth, and set me down at the end of the heavens. 4. And I saw another vision, the dwelling places of the Holy One, the resting- place of the righteous. Book of Adam 1:238. So Seth arose and prayed, and put off his envelope of flesh. . . . Then the winds of heaven lifted him up in the midst of myriads of spirits . . . and placed him on a shining throne. |
As everyone knows, the Hebrew ruach means both "wind" and "spirit," giving rise to much speculation. A typical example would be Enoch's declaration that Adam "was caught away by the Spirit of the Lord, and was carried down into the water," (Moses 6:64), or that Enoch's people "were caught up by the powers of heaven into Zion." (7:27.) The last indicates that we are dealing with forms of power yet unknown to men, for which the words "wind" and "spirit" may be taken to represent unknown quantities. Competent scientists have now begun to explore the reality of heretofore unknown forms of power,354 with surprising results.355 One of the special characteristics of the Enoch literature is the constant interplay between the physical and psychic, in which the Joseph Smith text leads the way.
Enoch and the Cosmos
Clement of Rome, in the opening lines of the Recognitions, says that what drew him to investigate the gospel and join the church was his burning desire to find answers to the great questions of life: "When was this world made? What was there before it? Was it always there? Is there a life after death?" He says that he wore himself out at school but could find no professor or philosopher who could give him a satisfactory answer.356 It was such "constant seeking for knowledge," as H. D. Betz points out, that necessarily carried the early Christians "beyond history . . . into astronomy and astrology."357 The later church fathers fought with "bitter polemic" against the tendency to ask such questions, 358 and the rabbis declared that "anyone who studies the subjects of the Creation or the Chariot, or who puts his mind to the questions What is above? What is below? What is beyond? What is in the eternities?—it were better for him had he not come into this world!"359
Enoch was one of the curious ones: "I raised my eyes and contemplated this universe, the sky with its glittering stars, the sun and the moon, . . . the angels [who] control the water, the wind, the fire, the earth and all that is in it, the mountains, the sea, the planets, and the trees. Who could tell me where all these powers take their rise? How do they operate? How do they keep going? Who can explain to me the alterations of dawn and dusk, day and night, moon and stars?" He summarizes: "Thus as I viewed the organizations of this world I was troubled." And prostrating himself, he prayed for enlightenment.360
The objection of the religious to the astronomical teachings of the book of Enoch is that they are not in the least bit spiritual: "Through all these chapters," writes Charles of 1 Enoch 72—79, "there is not a single ethical reference. The author has no other interest save a scientific one. . . . [We] have to deal with a complete and purely scientific treatise." 361 Moreover, the interest is in the sun, moon, and stars solely as regulators of the special calendar which set the Enoch-sectaries apart from the rest of the world in their observances.362 And yet Van Andel recognizes that the Enoch cosmology was for those people something more than calendar: it was nothing less than the knowledge of the eternities, "before all else the secret of the Creation . . . God's plan for the entire universe, which had been revealed to the community of the righteous" as a fundamental and organic part of the gospel.363
This broader aspect of the higher knowledge is, however, conspicuously missing from the Ethiopian 1 Enoch, engrossed as it is in the meticulous business of counting and measuring times and cycles, which was to titillate the vanity and challenge the invention of generations of cabalists, cultists, astrologers, schoolmen, and pyramidologists for ages to come, and which indeed justified the doctors of the church and synagogue in their distaste for the whole business. But the cosmology of the Joseph Smith translation of Enoch in the book of Moses is something quite different—a sober concern with a few basic principles which differs so radically from the Ethiopian Enoch that Joseph's critics might well discover here a clear case of outright refutation of the latter-day scripture by the ancient sources were it not that his Enoch text is impressively vindicated by the closely matching concepts of the Slavonic Enoch. The reason for this particular affinity must be examined at a later time; for the present it is sufficient to recognize how strongly Joseph Smith's cosmology is supported by ancient texts known only long after his death. The main subjects common to these documents are the mystery of glory, the universal ongoing creation, the plurality of worlds, and the relationship of the worlds to God and to each other.
It is standard procedure in apocalyptic writings to have the hero introduced to cosmology in the course of his visit to the heavenly realms; in these accounts the leitmotif is glory in varying degrees, and what applies to one heavenly visit applies to another, so that the same descriptions fit the experience of Enoch, Moses, Abraham, Elijah, etc.364
First, the principle is laid down that glory can be experienced only to the degree one is qualified to share it. The person who would behold God's glory must himself first be "clothed upon with glory," i.e., enveloped in that same glory: ". . . being clothed with robes of righteousness, . . . .in glory even as I am, . . . to receive a crown of righteousness, and to be clothed upon, even as I am, to be with me, that we may be one." (D&C 29:12—13; italics added.) Even so with Enoch:
| Moses 7:3. [Enoch:] . . . I beheld the heavens open, and I was clothed upon with glory; 4. And I saw the Lord; and he stood before my face, and he talked with me, even as a man talketh one with another, face to face. |
Secrets 22:8 (Morfill, p. 28.) And the Lord said to Michael: "Go and take Enoch out from his earthly garments, andanoint him with my sweet ointment and put him into the garments of my glory. . . ." 10. And I [Enoch] looked at myself, and was like one of his glorious ones. And there was no difference. (See also Slavonic Enoch 9, Vaillant, pp. 25f.) Text B, 22 (in R. H. Charles, Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, 2:443). After Enoch is "clothed in garments of glory . . . the Lord with his mouth summoned me and said: Have courage, Enoch, fear not, stand before my face to eternity. And . . . Michael brought me before the face of God." Assumption of Moses, Introduction Û3 [". . . it (the Assumption of Moses) shows many affinities with 2 Enoch," Charles, ibid., p. 409]. At his death while still "in the flesh" Moses is met by Enoch- Metatron, who clothes him with light so that he will be able to see the angels; and his body was transformed into "a flame of fire." BHM 5: xlii. In this Hebrew Enoch Book, R. Ishmael tells how in the seventh temple he"beholds Enoch who has been transformed in the Angel Metatron Sar ha-Panim [of the Face]," and who tells him how upon becoming an angel he was "clothed with all glories." |
The reason for the transformation is clear:
| Moses 1:14. . . . I could not look upon God, except his glory should come upon me. |
Gizeh 14:21. And no angel could . . . look upon his face, because it is fearful and glorious, and no flesh can look upon him. 14. And I began to tremble and to shake, and fell upon my face. |
| 1:5. . . . and no man can behold all my glory, and afterwards remain in the flesh on the earth. |
Evangelium Veritatis, folio XVr and folio XV, p. 29. The shock of the sight of God would utterly destroy those unprepared for it. |
| 1:11. But now mine own eyes have beheld God; but not my natural, but my spiritual eyes, for my natural eyes could not have beheld; for I should have withered and died in his presence. |
Sophia Jesu Christi 79. No flesh can endure his presence, nor can his appearance be described. But he showed himself in pure and perfect flesh to us on the mountain, and we were sore afraid. |
| 7:3—4. [Enoch:] I was clothed upon with glory; And I saw the Lord. |
Gospel of Philip 105:28—34, 106:1ff. You can see only what you are like, therefore on the Mountain of Transfiguration the Apostles had to be made great in order to see the greatness of Christ. |
| 1:11. [Moses:] . . . I beheld his face, for I was transfigured before him. |
Evangelium Veritatis, folio XVv, p. 30. They can bear the knowledge of God to that degree to which they can bear the light. |
It is a general principle that applies to all levels of glory; if one is not prepared, the experience of glory can only cause anxiety and alarm:
| Moses 1:11. I beheld his face, for I was transfigured before him. 25. He [Moses] beheld his glory again, for it was upon him. [Zechariah, Mary, the shepherds in the field, the apostles on the Mount of Transfiguration, etc., all were "sore afraid" in the presence of heavenly glory. Italics added.] |
1 Enoch 71:1. And . . . my spirit was translated and it ascended into the heavens: and I saw the holy Sons of God. 10. And with them the Head of Days, His head white and pure as wool, and his raiment indescribable. 11. And my spirit was transfigured. [Italics added.] BHM 5:170. The Metatron [Enoch] . . . said to me: Come in peace, . . . and they guided me to see the Shekinah and presented me before the Throne of Glory to contemplate the Merkabah; and when the Princes of the Merkabah saw me, and the Seraphim of flame, they placed their eyes upon me and I trembled and became ill and fell from my stand and swooned before the Zohar, the sight of their eyes, and the glory of the appearance of their faces. 172. And when the Seraphim turned their faces towards me I feared and trembled and fell from my standing-place and swooned. Gizeh 14:24. And I was upon my face . . . and trembling, and the Lord with his own mouth called me, and said: Come here, Enoch, and listen to my word. 25. . . . one of the holy ones raised me up and stood me on my feet . . . and I held my face down and covered. [After this interview when Enoch went down to the people, they could not bear to look upon him. See Moses' similar experience after descending Mount Sinai, Exodus 34:30.] |
Accordingly, when the higher glory is withdrawn and the individual reverts to his own nature, he finds himself weak and helpless:
| Moses 1:9. And the presence of God withdrew from Moses, that his glory was not upon Moses; and Moses was left unto himself. And as he was left unto himself, he fell unto the earth. 10. And it came to pass that it was for the space of many hours before Moses did again receive his natural strength like unto man. |
1 Enoch 39:14. And my face was changed; for I could no longer behold. The Combat of Adam and Eve 1:301. And the Lord said to Adam: While you obeyed me the light was with you and you could see the most distant things but now you cannot even see what is near to you by the power of the flesh. Then Adam and Eve fell down helpless.365 Apocalypse of Abraham 30:1 And as he was still speaking, I found myself already upon the earth, 2. and said . . . 3. I am no more now in the glory in which I was above, and what my heart sought to know I did not understand. |
The early Jewish and Christian traditions are full of accounts in which Satan tried to beguile men by counterfeit glory, even appearing as an angel of light. The righteous however are given the discernment of spirits, and are able to endure true glory—their "confidence wax[es] strong" even "in the presence of God." (D&C 121:45.) Accordingly Satan's false glory never deceives the patriarchs:
| Moses 1:12. . . . Satan came tempting him, saying: Moses, son of man, worship me. 13. And . . . Moses looked upon Satan and said: Who art thou? For behold, I am a son of God, . . . and where is thy glory, that I should worship thee? |
Book of Adam 1:170. After the Angel of Life departed . . . Enoch arose in joy, clothed in glory to preach to the world. But the seven planets conspired against their brethren and announced that the real glory was only a trick crying out: They have stolen our glory! They threw all the elements into confusion. |
| 14. For behold, I could not look upon God, except his glory should come upon me, and I were transfigured before him. But I can look upon thee in the natural man. Is it not so, surely? 15. . . . where is thy glory, for it is darkness unto me? And I can judge between thee and God. . . . 16. Get thee hence, Satan; . . . deceive me not; . . . |
Falasha Anthology, 100. [Abraham:] I do not know whether thou art a great angel . . . in this glory, because I cannot see thy praise. When angels come to me I feel strong, my soul is fortified . . . but when thou camest my soul was troubled my tongue became heavy and weak. |
| 18. . . . his glory has been upon me, wherefore I can judge between him and thee. Depart hence, Satan. 19. And now, when Moses had said these words, Satan cried with a loud voice, and ranted upon the earth, and commanded, saying: I am the Only Begotten, worship me! |
Apocalypse of Elijah, p. 197. The Son of Destruction shall show himself and say: I am anointed! though he is not. Do not believe him! [Ephraim Syr., 9. He will surely make all the signs which our Lord performs in the world; the dead however, he will not rise up, because he has not power over the spirits.] |
| 20. And . . . Moses began to fear exceedingly; and as he began to fear, he saw the bitterness of hell. Nevertheless, . . . he commanded, saying: Depart from me, Satan, for this one God only will I worship, which is the God of glory. 22. And . . . with weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth, . . . he[Satan] departed hence. 25. And calling upon the name of God, he [Moses] beheld his glory again, for it was upon him. |
Gizeh 13:1. But Enoch (manuscript much confused) said to Azael, Depart! [poreyou], there is no peace in thee! Great offence [krima] hath gone forth from thee . . . 2. And I will no longer detain you or discuss with you because of your trickery and your evil works . . . 3. Then going forth among them [the people] I [Enoch] told them all, and they all feared and a great fear and trembling seized them. |
| Zechariah 3:2. And the Lord said unto Satan: The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan; . . . 4. Take away the filthy garments from [Joshua] . . . Behold, . . . I will clothe thee with change of raiment. 5. . . . They set a fair mitre upon his head, and clothed him with garments. And the angel of the Lord stood by. Apocalypse of Abraham 12. (The angels take Abraham to the top of Horeb) 13:7. [The angel:] This one you see is godlessness—it is the [fallen Angel] Azazel [Satan]. 8. Then he said to him: Shame on thee, Azazel! 9. For Abraham's part is in the heaven, but thy part is on earth, 10. which thou hast chosen for thy home . . . 14. Depart from this man . . . 15. for behold his garment [of glory] which once belonged to thee in heaven is now lain aside for him, and the corruption that is his shall pass over to thee! 1 Enoch 63:7. [The kings of the earth say]: We have not believed before him, nor glorified the name of the Lord of spirits . . . but our hope was in the sceptre of our kingship, and in our glory. 8. And in the day of suffering and tribulation he saves us not. [Italics added.] |
The faithful cannot escape a cosmic view of things because it is the creation that declares the glory of God:
| Moses 6:63. . . . all things are created and made to bear record of me, . . . all things bear record of me. |
1 Enoch 69:21—24. The stars . . . winds, lightnings, . . . and all these believe and give thanks before the Lord of Spirits, and glorify Him with all their power. |
| 7:28. . . . and Enoch bore record of it . . . saying: . . . without30. . . . were it possible that man could number the particles of the earth, . . . it would not be a beginning to the number of thy creations. |
Secrets 10 (Vaillant). And resting I wrote down the signs of all the creation. Secrets 10 (Vaillant). And the Lord called Berebel[Brabeusel, Thoth] . . . who was skilled in writing down all the works of the Lord. And the Lord said to Berebel: Take a book from the deposit [khranilnitz], and give a pen to Enoch, and explain to him and dictate the books to him. [So the angel taught Enoch] all the works [doings, makings] of the heavens and the earth and the sea and all the elements and time-periods and commandments and instructions . . . while I wrote down all the signs [znamienia, semiea = notes]. So he wrote the 360 books of the creation. Jubilees 2:1. And the Angel of the Presence spake to Moses according to the word of the Lord, saying: Write the complete history of the Creation. 4:17. And [Enoch] was the first among men that are born upon the earth who learnt writing and knowledge and wisdom and who wrote down the signs of heaven. [The Greek adds: "and arithmetic and geometry, and all the Sophian."] |
Creation is presented as a universal ongoing process:
| Moses 1:37. . . . The heavens . . . cannot be numbered unto man; . . . 38. And as one earth shall pass away, and the heavens thereof even so shall another come; and there is no end to my works. |
Zohar iii: 61a, b (Brody).366 This we have learned: Before the Holy . . . created this world, He had created worlds and destroyed them. |
The creation as process is emphasized by the frequent occurrence of the word creation in the plural, usually in proclaiming the greatness and majesty of God—"millions of earths like this . . . would not be a beginning to the number of thy creations" (Moses 7:30); "And thou hast taken Zion to thine own bosom, from all thy creations" (7:31); "I can stretch forth mine hands and hold all the creations which I have made; and mine eye can pierce them also" (7:36); ". . . and all the creations of God mourned" (7:56); ". . . Zion . . . shall come forth out of all the creations which I have made" (7:64). Such passages clearly imply that creation is an ongoing drama:
| Moses 1:38. And as one earth shall pass away, and the heavens thereof even so shall another come; and there is no end to my works. |
bin Gorion, 1:286. Seven imperfect worlds were all destroyed because of wickedness. 1:59. There are 18,000 worlds known only to God. Book of Adam, 1:225. The life-span of each planet is different: Fire and water form circles around the 18,000 worlds. |
The same idea is conveyed in the Secrets of Enoch 11 (Charles, Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha 2:436), where the heavenly bodies in their "successive going" are "ever going and returning, [having] rest neither by day nor by night." Thus (Secrets of Enoch 16) "the sun is a great creation, whose circuit lasts twenty-eight years and begins again from the beginning." "Hear Enoch, . . . not to My angels have I told . . . their rise, nor my endless realm, nor have they understood my creating, which I tell thee today." (24:3.) "There is born light from light, there came forth a great age, and showed all creation." (25:3.) "I want to create another world . . . [31:3] . . . and there is no counsellor nor inheritor to my creations." (33:4.) In manuscript R, chapter 10, of the Slavonic Enoch, he sees "the exchanges of all the elements and their progressions, and their manner of changing according to the signs of the Zodiac, and the progress of their changes," and so on.
The idea of creation as an ongoing process involving many participants was, of course, offensive to the doctors with their monistic obsession. "It is a constant concern of the Midrash," writes E. Hahn, "why God needed six days and ten words for the creation when a single gesture would have sufficed."367 And so they effectively silenced the old teaching of creation as a process.
Equally offensive was the idea of a plurality of worlds, countering, as it did, a basic teaching of Aristotle and the evidence of common sense that this world, being heaviest, must necessarily be in the center of everything and mankind the only rational animal, not only on earth, but in all the immensity of the universe. "Millions of earths like this" was quite unthinkable—even comical. "Since God didn't even need this world," as Jonathan Edwards vociferously proclaimed, "why should he want to create even more?" Since "the fullness of good is attained once for all in God . . . ," ran the official argument, "God has no need of a world and is indifferent to it and all that goes on in it."368 Quite the opposite with Enoch:
| Moses 7:30. And were it possible that man could number the particles of the earth, yea, millions of earths like this, it would not be a beginning to the number of thy creations. |
Mishnat ha-Zohar 1:127ff.369 God's creations are en sof, "without end." |
| 1:37. . . . The heavens[galaxies], they are many, and they cannot be numbered unto man. |
Apocryphon of John, p. 27. The heavens, they cannot be numbered to man. |
| 1:33. . . . worlds without number have I created. |
bin Gorion 1:59. The heavens are without number, and every one of the vaults is like an independent world which in turn contains 1,000 other worlds. Berayta fol. 54a. The foolish Minaeans believe that this is the only world there is! Actually there are worlds without number. Secrets 13 (Vaillant). And now, my children, I know all things. . . . I have written of the extremities of the heavens and what is in them. I have measured the movements of their hosts. I have completed the counting of the stars, a vast multitude without number. No man can conceive of their revolutions [or orbits]; the angels themselves do not know their number. 2 Enoch 40:2. I have measured and described the stars, the great countless multitude of them. 3. Not even the angels see their number. |
With all its pluralism we are never allowed to forget that "from first to last one mind alone dominates the whole boundless complex," since all receive the instructions and their inspiration from a single source:370
| Moses 1:35. But only an account of this earth, and the inhabitants thereof, give I unto you. For behold, there are many worlds that have passed away by the word of my power. And there are many that now stand, and innumerable are they unto man; but all things are numbered unto me, for they are mine and I know them. 37. . . . The heavens . . . cannot be numbered unto man; but they are numbered unto me, for they are mine. |
Gizeh 9:5. For thou hast made them all, and hast all authority [exousian], and all things appear before thee and are plainly revealed [akalypta], and thou seest all things. 1 Enoch 84:3. Thou hast made and rulest all things, . . . wisdom departs not from the place of thy throne, nor turns away from thy presence, and Thou knowest and seest and hearest everything. |
| 7:30. . . . millions of earths like this . . . and yet thou art there and thy bosom is there. |
1 Enoch 39:11. He knows before the world was created what is forever, and what will be from generation unto generation. |
| 7:36. Wherefore, I can stretch forth mine hands and hold all the creations which I have made; and mine eye can pierce them also. |
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| Origen, P.G. 11:409. He made all things according to number and measure. For with God nothing is without limit and measure, since by his mind he comprehends all things. Clement of Alexandria, P.G. 9:721f. Psalm 18:2 refers to the plurality of the heavens, where even the demons all recognize that Christ is the Lord. The teaching is from Enoch. |
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| 6:61. . . . the Comforter. . . which maketh alive all things; that which knoweth all things, and hath all power. . . |
Clement quotes Daniel, quoting Enoch: (P.G. 9:700) And I saw all substance. For the Abyss which is boundless, comes under the same hypostasis [definition] [as matter], being limited and controlled by the power of God. |
One of the most remarkable teachings of the Joseph Smith book of Enoch as found in the Pearl of Great Price book of Moses is the doctrine of a spiritual creation of all things that preceded the creation of this earth. Significantly, this doctrine finds its fullest support in the Slavonic Enoch text and is not found in the Ethiopian:
| Moses 3:5. . . . For I, the Lord God, created all things. . . spiritually, before they were naturally upon the . . . earth. . . |
Secrets 17 (Vaillant). And Enoch answered the people saying: Hear my children! Before anything was [prezhdye dazhe vsya nye byila], and before the whole creation took place, the Lord established the Age |
| 3:7. . . . and man became a living soul. . . . nevertheless, all things were before created; but spritually were they created. |
of Creation [n. 2, Adoil], and after that he made all the Creation, both visible and invisible; and after all that he created man in his own image. He gave him eyes to see, ears |
| 6:51. I am God; I made the world, and men before they were in the flesh. |
to hear with, and a mind to counsel; and then he prepared the set times and places. 13. I swear unto you my children |
| 6:44. . . . the earth . . . the . . . foundation thereof . . . he laid it, an host of men hath he brought in upon the face thereof. |
that before man was in the womb of his mother we were prepared, each individual, and a place for each spirit . . . and that each should sojourn [here] in his proper time, that man thereby might be tested in the balance. Yea my children . . . there has been prepared in advance a place for every soul. |
| 6:45—46. . . . we . . . cannot deny, . . . for a book of remembrance we have written among us. |
And I have put in writing the work of every man, and no living person can hide himself or dissimulate his works. |
| Ms. R, ch. 11. I created man with a nature both visible and invisible; and reason recognized his image as another and lesser creation within the greater, and inversely the greater contained the lesser. [Referring to spirit and body as two separate creations.] |
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| bin Gorion, 1:281. The world was created in two stages, the first being a spiritual creation. 2 Enoch 24:4. Before all things were visible, I [God] used to go about in the invisible things. . . . 5. And I conceived the thought of placing foundations and of creating a visible creation. Secrets 10 (Vaillant). Then the angel Braboil said: Sit down and write all the spirits of men, all those who have not been born yet, and the places which have been prepared for them. All these things were prepared since before the foundation of the world. Zohar iii: 61 s-b Brody: "And everything which is found in this world has been before, and has passed before him and has been arranged [organized] before Him . . . all the creations of the world which have existed in each generation, before they came into this world, have existed before Him in their true form [d'yaqnah], even all the souls of the children of man have been before they came down to the world, have all been formed before Him in heaven in the very likeness that they have in this world. |
The council in heaven described in the fourth chapter of Moses is reflected again in the Enoch section, confirmed by other Enoch texts:
|
Moses 6:51. . . . I am God; I made the world, and men before they were in the flesh. 52. . . . If thou wilt turn unto me, . . . in [his] name . . . whatsoever ye shall ask, it shall be given you. 57. . . . the name of his Only Begotten is the Son of Man. . . . 62. . . . This is the plan of salvation unto all men, through the blood of mine Only Begotten, who shall come in the meridian of time. |
Secrets 11 (Vaillant). Enoch went to the Lord who taught him all about the Creation and his works . . . He saw matter unorganized before the Creation . . . the Council in Heaven . . . He saw Satan Arouchaz aspire and get cast out to become the foundation of lower things, beyond which there is great darkness and nothing. 1 Enoch 48:2. And at that hour the Son of Man was named in the presence of the Lord of spirits. . . . 3. Yea, before the sun and the signs were created, . . . his name was named before the Lord of spirits. 4. He shall be a staff to the righteous whereon to stay themselves and not fall. . . . 5. All who dwell on earth shall fall down and worship before him. BHM 5:174. [The angels:] God our Lord of the Universe! It is not good what the First Ones say before thee. Wilt thou never create Adam again? [God answered:] I have made and I remove, and I am long- suffering and I deliver! And forthwith they saw me [Enoch], and they said before his face: What is the merit of this one, that he should come up to the highest heights? |
A little-known part of the creation story is the great Creation Hymn sung in the great assembly. We hear it reverberating in Enoch's declaration, "All things are created and made to bear record of me." (Moses 6:63.) "At dawn," says the Slavonic Enoch, "the elements sing the Creation Hymn, and all the birds sing and he who gives the light arrives and gives light to his creation," for the morning hymn is the Creation Hymn. (Job 38:7; IQS Manual of Discipline, pl. 10.) Enoch joins in with "Holy, holy, holy! is the Lord of spirits: he filleth the earth with spirits." (1 Enoch 39:12.) A vision was opened up to Enoch by God (Secrets 31:1): "I made the heavens open to him, that he could see the heavens sing the song of victory and the gloomless night," or as the Gizeh text (1:2) puts it, "A vision of the Holy One in heaven. He showed me and I heard the holy acclamations of him, and as I heard I also understood everything by seeing it." That the acclamation is repeated in the Joseph Smith Enoch is clearly shown in a fragment from the Dead Sea Scrolls:
| Moses 7:31. . . . from all thy creations, from all eternity. . . and naught but peace, justice, and truth is the habitation of thy throne; and mercy shall go before thy face and have no end. |
11 Q Psa Creat. Grace and truth surround his presence; truth and justice are the foundation of his throne. . . . By the knowledge of his mind he brought the dawn, and all the angels who saw it happen sang aloud. For he showed them what they had not known. |
| Apocalypse of Abraham17:14. O Light, which shone before the morning light appeared to thy creatures . . . 15. In thy heavenly abode no other light is necessary. |
In the ongoing creation the establishment of new worlds is accompanied or represented by a stretching out of curtains. These would seem to keep each world in its proper relationship to the others. A commonplace of apocalyptic literature is that God himself is necessarily screened from sight by a veil, as by the cloud on the Mount of Transfiguration.
| Moses 7:30. . . . millions of earths like this . . . would not be a beginning to the number of thy creations; and thy curtains are stretched out still. |
Clement of Alexandria, P.G. 9:677. That place itself is one of fire [eternal burnings]. Therefore it is said that it has a veil, lest things be consumed by the sight of [Him]. Only the Archangel can enter into his presence, as a type of which the High Priests once a year entered the Holy of Holies. |
| T.U. 8:368. The topos of Jeu, where Jeu, "the Father of the Treasure of Light" rules as "King of the Treasure of Light," is separated from other beings by a veil [katapetasma]. Gospel of Philip 132:23. The veil at first concealed how God controlled the Creation, but when the veil is rent [we will know]. 133:14. If some are of the tribe of the Priesthood, these will be able to go within the veil with the High Priests. 1 Jeu 39. At this topos the Watchers move the veils aside and you enter into the presence of the Father, who gives you His name and His seal. |
The purpose of numerous curtains or veils is to apportion to each world the light it is ready to receive. When Moses asked about the other worlds, the Lord informed him that he was not to know about them at the present and Moses agreed to be satisfied with learning "concerning this earth, and the inhabitants thereof, and also the heavens, and then thy servant will be content."
(Moses 1:36.) Numerous ancient documents attest to the curtains' existence:
| "And . . . all the powers of the universe [Pleroma] . . . sang a great hymn of praise, . . . and he received the [creation] hymn, and made a veil for their worlds, surrounding them like . . . a wall." (2. Gnostic Work, 47a., in T.U. 8:260.) "And that mystery knows . . . why the stars . . . and the disks of the light-givers have arisen, and why the firmament [has come into existence] with all its veils." (Pistis Sophia 214.) "The world is a system of concentric shells, veils, or vestments, each a Hekal or palace or room of the temple. Man is organized on the same principles." (Old Hebrew Book of Enoch was the Hekhaloth, a term explained in the Zohar, Bereshith 20a.) "There is a place from which all aeons and all worlds take their origin and prototype: a place of shadowless light and indescribable joy; . . . and there is a veil between the worlds." (Apocryphon of John 60:116, 118.) "The 24 invisible [bodies of heaven] are 10,000 times brighter than the Sun, . . . whose light must pass through many veils [to reach us]" so that we do not see it as it really is. (Pistis Sophia 186.) "[If] the Guardian of the Inhabited earth [did not spread out its wings to absorb the fire-like rays of the sun] the human race could not survive, nor any other form of life." (3 Apocalypse of Baruch 6:3, 5—6.) "Fire and water form a circle around the 18,000 worlds [making them a type of unity] . . . Above the veil are the heavens." (For "heavens" read "fire and water," the enveloping cloud; N. Sed. REJ 124:75, 39.) |
As a place of probation (2 Nephi 2:21), this world must be isolated, both as a testing-ground and as quarantine to avoid infecting others:
| Moses 7:36. . . . among all the workmanship of mine hands there has not been so great wickedness as among thy brethren. |
Sophia Jesu Christi, 118—19. He has created the veil [curtain, katapetasma] between what is imperishable and those who later came into being, so that which is set apart [marked off, numbered] to come into existence might follow after all the other ages and the [primal] chaos, that this flesh might be tested [in struggle] for error. But these formed a veil of spirit. Sophia Jesu Christi 120. [Light reaches] all the inhabitants of the world of chaos . . . that he might place the veils which were there in their proper order [hormazein]. T.U. 8:402. [Jeu:] The Firmament is equipped with veils and gates that are guarded, far removed from the world in which men dwell. Hypostasis of the Archons142:9. There exists a curtain between the upper and the lower aeons and shadow beneath the curtain from which shadow came matter at the creation. |
| 1:35. But only an account of this earth . . . give I unto you. |
4 Ezra 4:21. The dwellers upon the earth can understand only what is upon the earth, and they who are in the heavens that which is above the heavenly height. Book of Adam 1:185. There are curtains and veils, an impregnable barrier of living fire, between the creatures of a celestial order and those of the second estate. Apocryphon of John 1:58. Adam's deep sleep was really the putting of a veil between him and his former knowledge. 59. The veil shut Adam off from his memory, as if he were drugged. 60. His mind being separated by a veil from what is really going on in the universe. |
When Moses and Enoch ventured to ask what lay beyond their veil they were properly reprimanded: to want to know everything in a single lesson is a human weakness which is not to be pampered—it is all too easy to ask the "why" of everything as small children do, but God knows that we are not ready for it:
| Moses 1:30. . . . Tell me, I pray thee, why these things are so, and by what thou madest them? 31. . . . And the Lord God said unto Moses: For mine own purpose have I made these things. [Italics added.] Here is wisdom, and it remaineth in me. |
Secrets 11 (Vaillant). And now, Enoch all that I have explained to thee, and all that thou hast seen on earth, and all that I organized and made. . . there was no counsellor nor assistant; it was I alone . . . who was my own adviser, |
| 32. And by the word of my power, have I created them. . . . |
and it was by my word that it was carried out, and my eye beheld it all. |
| 33. And worlds without number have I created; and I also created them for mine own purpose; and by the Son I created them, which is mine Only Begotten. |
Secrets 24:3 (Vaillant). Hear, Enoch, for not to My angels have I told my secret, . . . nor have they understood my creating, which I tell thee today. 4. For . . . I alone used to go about the invisible things, . . . 5. and I conceived the thought of placing foundations and of creating a visible creation. Secrets 11 (Vaillant). He asked for no counsel, his work executed everything, just as his mind conceived everything [Vaillant, n. 14 refers to the Greek version, pas logos autou ergon.] 1 Enoch 14:22. Ten thousand times ten thousand [stood] before Him, yet He needed no counsellor. 2 Enoch 25:3. And I [God] was in the midst of the great light, and as there is born light from light, there came forth a great age, and showed all creation which I had thought to create. And I saw that it was good. 4. And I placed for myself a throne, and took my seat on it. Secrets 11 (Vaillant). And now, Enoch, all that I have explained to thee, and all that thou hast seen on earth, and all that thou hast written in thy books, it is by my wisdom that I organized and made all these things . . . there was no adviser [counsellor] nor executive [continuer], it was I alone . . . who was my only counsellor, and it was by my word that it was carried out[lit., "the thing was my word"], and my eyes beheld all. [See F. Lachover & I. Tishby, The Wisdom of the Zohar (Jerusalem: Byalik Foundation, 1971), 1:127ff, on how God alone conceives his "works without end."] |
The Zion of Enoch
Enoch was not, of course, the only preacher of righteousness in his dispensation, and like the others met puzzlement, fear, resentment, and then a measure of success. People began not only to fear him but to believe him, "for he walked with God." Some of the accounts speak of "all the people" or "everybody" going after Enoch, just as we read that "all the land of Judea" followed John the Baptist into the wilderness to be baptized. (Mark 1:5.) It soon becomes apparent in both cases that this is a manner of speaking; only a select number followed those leaders all the way.
| Moses 6:23. And they were preachers of righteousness, . . . and called upon all men, everywhere, to repent; and faith was taught unto the children of men. |
BHM 4:129. And [all the people] gathered together to Enoch . . . to hear this thing; and Enoch taught the children of men the way of God. . . . And the spirit of God was upon Enoch, and he taught all |
| 6:26. . . . [As] Enoch journeyed . . . among the people . . . the Spirit of God . . . abode upon him. |
his people the wisdom of God and his ways. 130. . . . And all the people were astonished and awed by his wisdom and knowledge, and bowed down |
| 6:38. And they came forth to hear him,. . . saying . . . we [will] go yonder to behold the seer. . . . |
to the earth before him. 131. . . . And all the people gathered together unto Enoch . . . and he taught them again |
| 39. And . . . when they heard him, . . . fear came on all them that heard him; for he walked with God. |
to keep the ways of the Lord and gave them all his peace [etc., etc.]. |
| Secrets 16 (Vaillant). When Enoch spoke to his children and the princes, then all the other people in the neighborhood heard that the Lord had called Enoch, and they all assembled to the number of 2,000 men, and came to Azouchan [or Achuzan] where Enoch and his sons and the elders of the people were, and saluted him: Thou blessed of the Lord . . . bless now thy people and glorify us before the Lord, because the Lord has chosen to establish thee [as] one who takes away our sins.371 |
|
| 6:54. Hence came the saying abroad among the people, that the Son of God hath atoned for original guilt. |
Ms. R: For the Lord has chosen thee before all other men on earth . . . to establish thee [as] one who takes away the sins of men, and as a helper [savior] to the people of the house. |
| 6:36. . . . and from thenceforth came the saying abroad in the land: A seer hath the Lord raised up unto his people. |
BHM 4:129. . . . and the saying went forth to every region of the children of Adam: Who is the man who desires to know the ways of the Lord and good works? Let him come to Enoch!372 |
The picture of two thousand men coming to recognize and acclaim Enoch at the place where he "and his sons and the leaders of the people were" suggests the modest nucleus of an organization. Their gathering together is the first step in a long process of withdrawing from a wicked world.373 Enoch himself had already withdrawn, then returned. He joins Adam, Abraham, Job, the Twelve Patriarchs, and Moses, all of whose apochryphal "Testaments" tell how the hero is first carried to heaven in a vision, then returns and describes the vision to his family and followers, then takes a final leave. The sequence of these heroic deaths later developed into a literary genre in which monkish scribes dwell with morbid fascination and dismay on the terrors of death. Enoch's departure is undeniably the most spectacular, setting the standard for fiery chariots and sky-borne hosts later. At the same time, it is the most sober and "scientific," with the exception of Joseph Smith's version, to which we shall refer shortly.
The Jewish sources tell of Enoch's departure with his people from the world's point of view—those who remained behind: "And at that time the children of men sat down before Enoch and he spoke to them. And they raised their eyes and saw something like a great horse coming down from heaven, and the horse moving in the air [wind] to the ground, And they told Enoch what they had seen. And Enoch said to them, 'That horse has come down to the earth to take me; the time and the day approach when I must go from you and no longer appear among you.' And at that time that horse came down and stood before Enoch, and all the people who were with Enoch saw it. And then Enoch went forth, and there came a voice to him saying, 'Who is the man who rejoices in the knowledge of the ways of the Lord God? Let him come this day to Enoch before he is taken from us.' And all the people gathered together and came to Enoch on that day. . . .And after that he mounted up and rode on his way, and all the people went forth and followed him to the number of 800,000 men. And they went with him for a day's journey. And behold, on the second day he said to them, 'Return back from following me lest ye die.' But none of them turned back but went with him. And on the sixth day the number of people had increased, and they stuck with him. And they said to him, 'We will go with thee to the place where thou goest; as the Lord liveth, only death will separate us from thee!' And it came to pass that they took courage and went with him, and he no longer addressed [remonstrated with] them. And they went after him and never turned back from him. And those kings who did turn back ordered a count to be made of all the remnant of men who went out after Enoch. And it was on the seventh day, and Enoch went up in a tempest [whirlwind] of the heavens with horses of fire and chariots of fire. And on the eighth day all the kings who had been with Enoch sent to take the number of the men who had stayed behind with Enoch [when the kings left him] at the place from which he had mounted up into the sky. And all the kings went to that place and found all the ground covered with snow in that place, and on top of the snow huge blocks [stones] of snow. And they said to each other, 'Come, let us break into the snow here to see whether the people who were left with Enoch died under the lumps of snow.' And they hunted for Enoch and found him not because he had gone up into the sky." (BHM 4:131.)
One thing that makes this story so noteworthy is the association with other ascensions. The parallels with Elijah are obvious down to the party of searchers Elisha sent. (See 2 Kings 2:11—18.) Adam, Moses, and other worthy men were mysteriously caught up or away at various points in their missions. (Moses 6:64, 1:1, 7:27.) The prophet Baruch, in an account first published in 1866, assembled his people, counseled them to remember Zion since "it must be renewed in glory . . . when the Mighty One will renew His creation," and named seven elders to guard the people who remain until "the new world comes which does not turn to corruption those who depart to its blessedness. . . . For in the heights of that world shall they dwell. And they shall be made like unto the angels,. . . [with] excellency . . . surpassing that in the angels." (2 Baruch 31:1—51.)
The lamentation of his people, "Truly we shall be left in darkness, and there shall be no light to the people who are left" (46:2), is a standard element in the departure of other prophets and apostles. (See the Assumption of Moses, chapter 11.) When the prophet Ezra assembles his people, they mourn: "[Why] hast [thou] forsaken us and sittest in this place? For of all the prophets thou alone art left to us . . . as a lamp in a dark place." Ezra consoles them, mourns for the passing of Zion, sees an apocalyptic vision of great destructions to come, then is "caught away and taken up into the place of such as were like him, after having written all these things. And he is called the scribe of the knowledge of the Most High [a title applied to Enoch, too] for ever and ever." (4 Ezra 12:40—14:50.)
A prophet is thus someone experienced in the process of withdrawal. The Joseph Smith version of Enoch, found in the book of Moses, chronicles Enoch's withdrawal in three stages: (1) After Enoch's return, he gathered his followers and led them out of a dangerous world to a place of safety in the mountains. The Lord fought for them, mountains fled, rivers altered their courses, and all nations feared them. (See Moses 7:13—17.) (2) Safe, the people prospered, finally building a city that lasted 365 years. (See Moses 7:17—20.) (3) At last the entire divine government was of necessity moved clear out of the world—either the blessed Zion or the cursed world would have to leave, and so "Zion, in process of time, was taken up into heaven." (Moses 7:21.) But what happened in the earthly city of Zion, between the lines of those three brief verses?
The interest of the Latter-day Saints in the city of Enoch is not simply a literary or even a scientific one. It is historic and prophetic. The city of Enoch is very much our concern. As we read of Enoch's community, a chorus of persistent questions hums in the background: Just how literally is all this to be taken? How are we to imagine the almost unimaginable events of that far-off time?
We cannot dodge such questions, since we are committed to forming as quickly as possible the closest possible partnership with that society.
The first step in dealing with Enoch's reality is to ask just what, according to the written record, Enoch's city is supposed to have been. Ancient records do not, contrary to a once popular belief, simply spring into existence out of wild Oriental imaginations but, as ever-expanding research makes ever plainer, must always be assumed to have some kind of a historical kernel of reality. So we ask, under what circumstances did Enoch's city come into existence. How did it operate? What really became of it? What does the record say?
All the eschatological references in the scriptures to the Zion of Enoch are found in the Prophets and the Psalms of the Old Testament—the New Testament simply quotes them.374 In the book of Moses, the word Zion appears only in chapter 7, where, however, it occurs no fewer than sixteen times, making this chapter the most significant single treatise on the subject. Scholars have long noted that the Prophets emphasize the moral aspect of Zion, while the Psalms, with their royal imagery and archaic ritual background, favor the political. Yet both are speaking of a very real earthly community, nailed down by references in both to "bringing again" Zion—recognizing that Zion actually has been on the earth in the past and can be enjoyed by the Saints again as soon as they are willing to "return to the original relationship with Yahweh," a condition "in which alone Israel's filial relationship to God can be renewed and which God . . . will reestablish in the future."375 The familiar picture of the Lord "taking possession again of the seat in Jerusalem" as he collects "his scattered people from all quarters of their heritage, at a time of gathering" is ordinarily couched in the classic terms of the book of Enoch.376
The best news—indeed the only wholly good news that can come to the inhabitants of this wicked earth—is the bringing again of Zion to bless the earth with the only order of society acceptable to God and unreservedly beneficial to man. Zion is any society in which the celestial law is operative, "and though we cannot claim these promises which were made to the ancients, for they are not our property," the Prophet Joseph reminded his people, ". . . yet if we are . . . called with the same calling . . . and embrace the same covenant . . . we can . . . obtain the same promises . . . because we, ourselves, have faith . . . even as they did." (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 66.) Zion is a glorious ideal, albeit a rare reality, in the world's history; it is "the Holy Order that God has established for his people in all ages of the world when he has had a kingdom upon the earth. We may call it," said Brigham Young, "the Order of Enoch, the Order of Joseph, the Order of Peter, or Abraham, or Moses, and then go back to Noah . . .", who, of course, takes us to Enoch. (Journal of Discourses 17:113.)
Indeed, it has been said that a happy condition perhaps similar to Zion prevailed in Eden itself when Adam faithfully followed God's instruction: "The Holy One of Zion . . . established the foundations of Adam-Ondi-Ahman." (D&C 78:15.)
"The Garden of Eden is the Holy of Holies, and the dwelling of the Lord . . . and Mount Zion [is] the center [or] navel of the earth." (Jubilees 8:19.)
Though the people of Moses' day were not qualified to receive it, nevertheless "God gave him the pattern of Zion and its measure." (2 Baruch 59:4.) The early Christian church is said by R. H. Charles to have modeled itself after Enoch's community, designating its leader as Enoch. The sections about Zion and the New Jerusalem in the Enoch literature are, according to Charles, "the most complete and most consistent of all the sections"377 and were a great favorite of all those separatist groups, both Jewish and Christian, who took to the desert, fancying themselves to be the one and only true representatives on earth of the church and kingdom of Enoch.378 As persecuted minorities, they all looked forward with longing to a time when they would come to their own with the glorious return of both the Lord and the city of Enoch. Passages in the Psalms of Solomon establishing a definite association between early Christians in the East and Dead Sea communties like Qumran seem to describe the migration of those eastern communities from Palestine more in terms of Enoch's migration than Moses': "Jerusalem,. . .behold thy children being gathered from the East and West, the North [and South,]. . .and from the distant islands. . . . Lofty mountains he has humbled and made plain before them. (Psalms of Solomon 11:2—4.)
"They that love the assemblies of the Saints fled away from them: and they flew like sparrows from their nests. . . . And the everlasting fountains were restrained, both the abysses and they from the lofty mountains; because none among them did righteousness. . . . At his rebuke the gentiles shall flee from before His face. . .That He may gather together all the children of God. . . . And He shall purify Jerusalem in holiness, as it was of old time. . . . And their King is the Lord's Messiah. (Psalms of Solomon 17:16, 19, 25, 26, 30.)
In the Psalms, the royal coronation has a central place, with the king representing the Lord and the people his Zion. (See Mosiah 2—5 for a well-known year-rite in which the king, though a weak mortal, figures as God's representative.) Enoch's transcendent virtue qualifies him as a vital link in "the order" of the Lord himself. Compare these verses from Doctrine and Covenants 76:56—58 with the apocryphal Slavonic Enoch:
| "They are they who are priests and kings, who have received of his fulness, and of his glory; And are priests. . . after the order of Melchizedek, which was after the order of Enoch, which was after the order of the Only Begotten Son. Wherefore, as it is written, they are gods, even the sons of God." |
"And when all the people in the region about heard that the Lord had chosen Enoch, they took counsel together and said: Let us go and acclaim [tsyelyim] Enoch. . . . And they hailed Enoch, saying, Blessed art thou of the Lord the king of the eternities! Now bless thy people and glorify them before the face of the Lord, inasmuch as the Lord has established thee as one taking away our sins." (Secrets [Vaillant, pp. 60f.].) |
The Hebrew Life of Enoch has the kings of the earth hailing Enoch as their supreme head,379 while the book of Jasher simply repeats the same story, concluding: "And they assembled in all, one hundred and thirty kings and princes, and they made Enoch king over them and they were all under his power and command."380 All this is according to a principle that was quite unknown only a few decades ago. As stated by Egyptologist J. Zandee, "Not only in Israel, but in all the ancient Near East, every king is a Messiah. . . .There is no difference in principle between the eschatological Messiah and the ruling King as the bearer of salvation. . . . The King is a god,. . .the King is the son of God. . . . The King is as the image of God on earth. . . . The King brings justice to earth. . . .[The King is] the Good Shepherd,. . . . [The King is the man of Wisdom]. . . . The King is the [High] Priest [endowed with power]. . . . The King is a cosmic deity." 381 In short, the king is an Enoch, to whom God has promised his own throne.
| Moses 7:59. . . . Forasmuch as thou art God, and I know thee, . . . thou hast made me, and given unto me a right to thy throne, and not of myself, but through thine own grace. |
BHM 5:174. The Metatron [Enoch] said: . . . God made for me a throne modeled after the Throne of Glory, I being clothed upon with glory [a wrapping of radiance] and Light [Zohar] . . . and beauty and mercy like that of the throne of thy glory. . . . And he caused me to sit upon it, and a herald proclaimed in all the firmament of firmaments, saying, Enoch is proclaimed as a divine King! [175. He puts a crown on his head.] |
| 7:68. And all the days of Zion, in the days of Enoch, were three hundred and sixty-five years. |
This is the pattern of the year-king of which Enoch is a prime representative.382
Above all, Zion is the community of the Saints, the Elect, "the pure in heart" (D&C 97:26), who are "of one heart and one mind" so that there are "no poor among them." (Moses 7:18.) This is the Zion envisioned by the prophets; the book of Moses, the Doctrine and Covenants, and apocryphal works all expressly call it the Zion of Enoch:
| Moses 7:62. . . . to gather out mine elect. . . unto . . . an Holy City, . . . looking forth for the time of my coming; for there shall be my tabernacle, and it shall be called Zion, a New Jerusalem. 64. . . . Zion, which shall come forth out of all the creations which I have made. |
Gizeh 1:3. [This is] about the Elect . . . receive my parable about them; and my Great Holy One will come out of his dwelling-place, 4. and the God of the Age [aeon] shall walk upon the earth, even upon Mount Zion . . . and he will appear in the power of his might from the heaven of heavens. |
| 66. . . .he [Enoch] saw great tribulations among the wicked; and he also saw the sea, that it was troubled, and men's hearts failing them. |
5. And all shall be afraid . . . great trembling and fear shall seize them,. . .6. and the mountains shall be shaken down . . . and dissolve . . . 7. and the earth shall be rent . . . |
| 67. . . . and he saw the day of the righteous, the hour of their redemption; and received a fullness of joy. |
8. But with the righteous shall peace be made, and upon the Elect oneness of heart [synteresis] and peace . . . and He will bless them all, and a light will appear and bring peace unto them. 1 Enoch 45:4. Then will I cause Mine Elect One to dwell among them . . . 5. and I will transform the earth and make it a blessing; and I will cause Mine elect ones to dwell on it . . . to dwell before me. 51:15. And the earth shall rejoice, and the righteous shall dwell upon it, and the elect shall walk thereon. Secrets 17 (Vaillant). All the righteous who shall escape the great judgment will be united in the Great Age, . . . and they shall be eternal, and they shall no longer know weariness or suffering or affliction, nor be in any danger of violence, nor fears of the night nor any darkness, but they shall have a great light forever . . . a great paradise, a place of safety for them to dwell in forever . . . and their faces shall shine like the Sun! |
The Mandean writings equate Zion to heavenly "firmaments, habitations, worlds, and Jordans," giving the most vivid and appealing descriptions of such holy places, which, they say, are to be enjoyed only by the "spirits of good people . . . the wise and the prudent of the families of Abel, Seth, and Enoch." There the Saints live without discord or dissension; they are angelic beings, wise and gentle, without malice or deceit, constantly visiting each other. There is perfect agreement among the worlds, each having its particular glory and rejoicing in the glory of the others as all share their treasures of knowledge with each other. They are vast distances removed from each other, but through their common Lord and God they all share a common glorious awareness of each other. All are incorruptible and hence without death; they do not grow old or wear out; their nature is unfading. Their number is fixed because it is infinite—beyond counting. Each of these worlds is a Zion, having no law courts, no hunger or thirst no cold or heat, no hatred or fear, no war, no slavery, no harmful creatures or plants. Magnificent buildings stand beside tranquil seas; flowing springs give life-giving water. Everything vibrates with joy. The wants of the people are few. They move through the air by an effortless power of flight; they are at home in the firmaments and the worlds and among all the dominions and powers. Their beauty is within them and shines out, as if they were of pure crystal. Force also flows through them from the King as they open themselves to it by persevering in prayer and song. They study and meditate constantly; they exhale the fragrance of divine happiness. Each is more remarkable than the other, each more illustrious.383
It was natural for the church in every age to identify itself with the Order of Enoch if only because that order is the only one acceptable to God at any time: "The Lord spake unto Enoch [Joseph Smith, Jun.] saying: Hearken . . . [ye] who are ordained unto the high priesthood. . .who have assembled yourselves together. . . . the time has come . . . ; it must needs be that there be an organization of my people . . . in the land of Zion—[or in other words, the city of Enoch (Joseph)], for a permanent and everlasting establishment and order unto my church, . . . to the salvation of man. . . . If ye are not equal in earthly things ye cannot be equal in obtaining heavenly things." (D&C 78:1, 3, 6.)
For "Zion cannot be built up unless it is by the principles of the law of the celestial kingdom; otherwise I cannot receive her unto myself." (D&C 105:5.) "If my people observe not this law, . . . it shall not be a land of Zion unto you." (D&C 119:6.)
A telling mark of authenticity for the Joseph Smith version is that Enoch's Zion is defined as a society where "there was no poor among them." (Moses 7:18.) The Greek Enoch, which for the first time showed how the ancient sectaries related themselves to the city of Enoch, "shows a great partiality for the lowly and humble. Here we are confronted with the ethics of the poor man; . . . these needy and humble people have to seek solace in the fact that unto them the knowledge of these mysteries will be revealed."384
The presence of such a society is a standing rebuke to the rest of the world. As Brigham Young puts it, "We are following the customs of Enoch and the holy fathers, and for this we are looked upon as not being fit for society. We are not adapted to the Society of the wicked, and do not wish to mingle with them." (JD 10:306.) Enoch was hopeful that his Zion, "a city of refuge, a place of safety for the saints of the Most High God" (D&C 45:66), was here to stay; the Lord indicated to him that this was not to be: "Enoch . . . said unto the Lord: Surely Zion shall dwell in safety forever. But the Lord said unto Enoch: Zion have I blessed, but the residue of the people have I cursed." The separation would have to continue until finally "Zion, in the process of time, was taken up into heaven." (Moses 7:20—21; italics added.) We see the division of the people at every stage of the history: when "their enemies came to battle against them," Enoch "led the people of God," while "all nations feared greatly" (Moses 7:13); the most dangerous of them "stood afar off" and even fled to the new land that had risen from the sea. (Moses 7:14—15.) The result was two worlds, Zion, inhabited by people "of one heart and one mind" (Moses 7:18), the other wracked by continual "wars and bloodshed." (Moses 7:16.)
The completeness of the division is strikingly expressed by one of the most ancient of literary devices, rhetorical antithesis:
| Moses 7:20. . . . Zion have I blessed, |
but the residue of the people have I cursed. |
| 5:15. . . . believed in the Son, and repented of their sins |
. . . believed not and repented not. |
| 7:16. . . . but the Lord came and dwelt with his people, and they dwelt in righteousness |
And from that time forth there were wars and bloodshed among them. |
| 7:18. . . . they were of one heart and one mind. |
7:33. . . . they are without affection, and they hate their own blood. |
| 7:18. And the Lord called his people Zion, because they . . . dwelt in righteousness. |
7:36. . . . among all the workmanship of mine hands there has not been so great wickedness as among thy brethren. |
When the sectaries of the Dead Sea labeled their society the Yachad (lit. unity, oneness) it was a reminder that unity is the first law of Enoch's society by which the Saints are expected to live in every dispensation.
| Moses 7:18. And the Lord called his people ZION, because they were of one heart and one mind, . . . and there was no poor among them. |
Zohar, Noah 76b. R. Jose. From [the Tower story] we learn that as long as the people of the world lived in harmony, being of one mind and one will, although they rebelled against the Holy One, the supernal judgment could not touch them; but as soon as they were divided, "the Lord scattered them abroad." |
| 2 Baruch 30:2. Then all who have fallen asleep in hope of Him shall rise again. . . . And they shall come forth . . . in one assemblage of one thought. (Italics added.) |
Even after the removal of Enoch's city, the work of redemption continued among "the residue of the people. . . . And after that Zion was taken up into heaven, Enoch beheld, and lo, all the nations of the earth were before him; And there came generation upon generation; and Enoch was high and lifted up, even in the bosom of the Father, . . . and behold, the power of Satan was upon all the face of the earth." (Moses 7:22—24.) According to this perspective, Noah's sailing was only the last step in a process of evacuation that had lasted for generations. Even after the people had chosen sides—Enoch and the Lord, or Satan—the missionary work still went on.
| Moses 7:27. And Enoch beheld angels descending out of heaven, bearing testimony . . . and the Holy Ghost fell on many, and they were caught up by the powers of heaven into Zion. |
Apocalypse of Adam (Copt.) 69—70. Downpourings of rain will destroy all flesh, "but mighty angels will come down from heaven and lead away those men to a place where the Spirit of life is to be found." |
| 7:28. And . . . the God of heaven looked upon the residue of the people, and he wept. |
Gizeh 8. (And there was a great wickedness in the earth, Satan [Azael and Semiazas] teaching men all manner of ungodliness. 9. Then the great angels . . . went and reported to God, saying, What shall we do?) 10:1. So the Highest sent Istrael [Ms. Gs Uriel] to the Son of Lamech [Noah]. 2. Tell him in My name to hide himself [Ms Gs 3. Teach the righteous what to do . . . to preserve his soul and escape.] because all the earth is going to be destroyed . . . 3. And teach him how he may escape. . . . 4. (God sent Raphael . . . 9. Gabriel, 11. Michael, to minister in this emergency.) 15. [When God sends down the angels to] destroy all the bastard spirits . . . 17. . . . all the righteous shall flee and go on living [safely] for a thousand generations. 1 Enoch 105:1. In those days the Lord bade them [angels] . . . testify to the children of earth . . . show [it] unto them; for ye are their guides. Beatty, 100:4. And angels shall come down, descending into secret places in that day. . . . 5. And over all the righteous and holy he will set a guard of the holy angels and they shall be preserved as the apple of his eye until tribulations and wickedness shall pass by. . . . 2 Enoch 23:80. [God to Enoch:] I will send my archangel Michael, and he will take the boy [Methuselah] to a place of safety. |
| 7:60. . . . in the last days, in the days of wickedness and vengeance, . . . 62. . . . truth will I cause to sweep the earth as with a flood, to gather out mine elect . . . unto a place which I shall prepare, an Holy City, that my people may . . . be looking . . . for the time of my coming; . . . and it shall be called Zion, a New Jerusalem. |
Apocalypse of Abraham 29:15f. (Great tribulations will come) . . . 17. [But] of thy people righteous men will be spared . . . hastening in the glory of my name to a place which I have prepared for them ahead of time [Jerusalem]. |
Until the separation is completed the powers of destruction are held in check. As the book of Moses describes: "Great tribulations shall be among the children of men, but my people will I preserve; . . . [I will] gather out mine elect . . . unto a place which I shall prepare." (Moses 7:61—62.)
Apocryphal documents present that same idea: "And the earth shall be rent, and everything which is upon the earth shall be destroyed. . . . But there shall be great peace for the righteous, and upon the elect shall be security [synteresis] and peace, . . . and I will bless them all." (Gizeh 1:7—8.)
"In the days of Enoch . . . God gave them [the wicked] respite all the time that the righteous men Jared, Methuselah, and Enoch were alive; but when they departed from the world, God let punishment descend." (Zohar, Bereshith 56b; cf. Genesis 7:23.)
"Why art thou [Enoch] discomforted with such a vision? Until this day has lasted the day of His mercy; and He hath been merciful and long-suffering towards those who dwell on the earth." (1 Enoch 60:4—6.)
When the angels beg God to get on with the work and wipe out the unworthy human race, he replies, "I have made and I remove, and I am long-suffering and I rescue!" (BHM 5:172.)
"And after that [Enoch] showed me the angels of punishment who are prepared to come and let loose all the powers of the waters . . . to bring judgment and destruction on all who dwell on the earth. And the Lord of Spirits gave commandments to the angels who were going forth, that they should not cause the waters to rise, but should hold them in check." (1 Enoch 66:1.)
The angels, then, for many years were a kind of shuttle service, preaching repentance and offering escape to all who were willing to listen. Their diligence clears God of the charge of being capricious and cruel in sending the Flood, a favorite argument of skeptics and atheists in every age. According to Jellinek, the primary object of the old Hebrew book of Enoch was to expose that argument's emptiness: "The work of the angels testified that God was just. . . . Enoch testified that he became an angel in heaven, instructed by the angels Shemashasi and Asael, in order to bear personal witness to man that God in sending the Flood was not cruel."385 This point is clearly brought home in the Joseph Smith version, in which Enoch and the Lord discuss the whole problem frankly and thoroughly, to Enoch's complete satisfaction. (See Moses 7:28—67.)
According to apocryphal writings, Abraham, Ezra, and Baruch, among others, questioned the wisdom and charity of sending total destruction on the human race. "Dost thou think," says the Lord to Baruch, "that in these things the Most High rejoices, or that His name is glorified? . . . Go therefore . . . and instruct the people so far as thou art able, that they may learn so as not to die at the last time, but may learn in order that they may live at the last times."386 To Ezra God gives a gentle reprimand, "Thou comest far short of being able to love my creation more than I!" 387 And, as we have seen, Enoch in the Joseph Smith account gives the strongest testimony of all—that he actually saw God weep! (Moses 7:28.)
All who were willing to repent were duly removed to a place of safety; it was only those who doggedly refused to listen over a period of years, the wicked "residue of the people," who had to be left behind to perish. Those who took refuge in the ark were by no means all who were saved; many had gone before. This is another interesting phase of the Noah-Enoch relationship.
| Moses 7:25. . . . [Enoch] saw angels descending out of heaven. . . . 26. And he beheld Satan; and he had a great chain in his hand, and it veiled the whole face of the earth with darkness. . . . 27. |
Beatty 102:2. And while all the earth was shaking . . . and in confusion, 3. the angels were busy carrying out what had been assigned [syntachthen] to them. |
| And Enoch beheld angels descending out of heaven, . . . and the Holy Ghost fell on many, and they were caught into Zion. |
Apocryphon of John, pp. 73:7. Noah was not alone [in being saved] but men of the faithful [the "unshaken ones"] came to a special place, 11. and there they were enveloped in a cloud of light. 13. And Noah was aware of his divine calling along with those with him when the light enlightened them. For darkness had been poured out over every place upon the entire earth. He took counsel with his angels, 74:1. and the angels were sent down to the children of men. Apocalypse of Adam, pp. 69—70. After that shall come great angels in high clouds, and take away those people to the place where the spirit of life is . . . and they will come from heaven to earth and all the multitude of flesh will perish in the water. |
Though communities aspiring to the glory of Zion have been on earth a number of times, it is the final return of Zion in the last days toward which all the prophets have looked. And while the church in every dispensation had certain aspects that resembled the Zion of Enoch, the closest parallel will be the Zion of the End-time.
| Moses 7:62. I shall prepare . . . an Holy City, that my people may . . . be looking forth for the time of my coming; for there shall be my tabernacle, and it shall be called Zion, a New Jerusalem. 64. And there shall be mine abode, and it shall be Zion, which shall come forth out of all the creations which I have made; and for the space of a thousand years the earth shall rest. |
Jubilees 1:27. And He [God] said to the angel of the presence [Sar hā-Panīm or Enoch]: Write for Moses from the beginning of creation till my sanctuary has been built among them for all eternity. And the Lord will appear to the eyes of all, and all shall know that I am the God of Israel . . . and King on Mount Zion for all eternity. And Zion and Jerusalem shall be holy . . . until the sanctuary of the Lord shall be made in Jerusalem on Mount Zion, and all the luminaries be renewed for healing and for blessing for all the elect of Israel, and that thus it may be from that day unto all the days of the earth. |
That the city "shall be called Zion, a new Jerusalem" seems an obvious anachronism in a book written supposedly before the Flood; yet the idea is strikingly confirmed in the Testament of Levi, a very early Jewish writing totally ignored until the present century, 388 in which is a prophecy expressly attributed to Enoch: "For the house [oikos] which the Lord shall choose for himself shall be called Jerusalem, as is contained in the book of Enoch the Righteous." (Testament of Levi 10:5.)
R. H. Charles quotes parallel passages on this theme from the book of Enoch and the book of Jubilees to show that the latter is in the authentic Enoch tradition, since, as he states, "the resemblance in word and thought . . . can hardly be accidental."389 He underlines key words to establish the relationship:
| 1 Enoch 5:9. They shall complete the number of the days of their life And their lives shall be increased in peace, And the years of their joy shall be multiplied. |
Jubilees 23:27, 29. And the days shall begin to grow many and increase amongst these children of men. . . . 29. And all their days they shall complete and live in peace and joy. |
A recent article in Scientific American indicates that some of the conventional ideas of early Judaism and Christianity must be drastically altered in view of new documentary discoveries; M. E. Stone notes that "chief among these [discoveries] were the Book of Enoch and the Book of Jubilees, both translated from the Ethiopic in the 19th century." Then he places the following passages from Enoch and Jude in parallel to show that "it is evident that the Book of Enoch served as a source for the Letter of Jude . . . and for other early Christian writings."390
| Gizeh 1:9: And behold! He cometh with the myriads of His holy ones, to exercise judgment upon all, and to destroy all the ungodly; And to convict all flesh of all the works of their ungodliness which they have ungodly committed, and of all the hard things ungodly sinners have spoken against them. |
Jude 1:14—15: It was of these also that Enoch in the seventh generation from Adam prophesied, saying, "Behold, the Lord came with his holy myriads, to execute judgment on all, and to convince all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness which they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against him. |
Now are these parallels, given as proof positive of the authentic affinity of ancient writings, any more compelling than these between the same ancient sources and the book of Moses given to us through the Prophet Joseph Smith?
| Moses 7:62. And righteousness will I send down out of heaven; . . . and righteousness and truth will I cause to sweep the earth as with a flood, to gather out mine elect from the four quarters of the earth, unto a place which . . . shall be called Zion, a New Jerusalem. . . . 64. And there shall be mine abode, and it shall be Zion, which shall come forth out of all the creations which I have made; and for the space of a thousand years the earth shall rest. |
1 Enoch 39:5. Here mine eyes saw their dwellings with His righteous angels, And their resting-places with the holy. . . . And righteousness flowed before them as water and mercy like dew upon the earth: Thus it is amongst them for ever and ever. And in that place mine eyes saw the Elect One of the righteousness and of faith, And I saw his dwelling-place . . . |
| 7:66. But before that day he saw great tribulations among the wicked; . . . 67. . . . and he saw the day of the righteous, the hour of their redemption, and received a fulness of joy. . . . |
Apocalypse of Abraham 29:14. But before the Age of Righteousness and abundance begins, the lawless Gentiles must suffer my judgments, through the people of thy tribe, whom I have set apart for myself. 15. In those days I will bring over all the creatures on earth ten plagues. . . . 17. But of thy tribe will righteous men be preserved . . . who will hasten in the name of my glory to a place prepared ahead of time [Jerusalem] . . . 18. [where] they shall live in security . . . in the age of the righteous. |
Of the many striking figures of speech which definitely link the peculiar language of the Joseph Smith Enoch with that of the ancient sources, none is more interesting than that dealing with the preservation of the Ark, a passage which obviously puzzles the Ethiopian scribes, but which stands out clearly in the Joseph Smith text:
| Moses 7:43. Wherefore Enoch saw that Noah built an ark; and that the Lord smiled upon it, and held it in his own hand. |
1 Enoch 67:2. And now the angels are making a wooden [building? R. H. Charles notes: "This account differs from 89:1, where it is said that Noah himself makes the ark"], and when they have completed that task I will place My hand upon it and preserve it. |
The Latter-day Saints have been taught to view their own dispensation as the ushering in of the final restoration of Zion. The Church itself, never again to be taken from the earth, must ever more closely approximate the Zion of Enoch as those "which have been scattered shall return to . . . build up the waste places of Zion . . . to be established, no more to be thrown down." (D&C 103:11, 13.) It is the same work under the same auspices: "I am the same which have taken the Zion of Enoch into mine own bosom; . . . even as many as have believed in my name." (D&C 38:4.) The Latter-day Saints "are they who have come . . . to the general assembly and church of Enoch, and of the Firstborn." (D&C 76:67; italics added.) "The Lord spake unto [Enoch] Joseph Smith, Jr., saying: . . . it must needs be that there be an organization of my people, . . . in the land of Zion—Or in other words, the city of Enoch [Joseph], for a permanent and everlasting establishment and order unto my church." (D&C 78:1—4.)
Zion is the common designation of the Church established in the world: "the land of Zion" being "in other words, the city of Enoch." (D&C 78:3—4.) Even though the work is still in its preliminary stages, one is justified in saying, "this is the new chapel," when only the foundations are in. Thus the Church can be called Zion even though its work has barely begun: "My people must be tried in all things, that they may be prepared to receive the glory . . . of Zion" (D&C 136:31), and if they are faithful "they shall have power after many days to accomplish all things pertaining to Zion" (D&C 105:37). The Saints are told not to despair: "Concern not yourselves about Zion, for I will deal mercifully with her" (D&C 111:6), and "Zion shall be redeemed in mine own due time" (D&C 136:18), "although she is chastened for a little season" (D&C 100:13). Brigham Young constantly reminded the Saints of the preparatory nature of the work in which they were engaged:
"We have commenced to organize, I will say partially, in the Holy Order that God has established for his people in all ages of the world when he has had a kingdom upon the earth. We may call it the Order of Enoch, the Order of Joseph, the Order of Peter, or Abraham, or Moses, and then go back to Noah, and then step to our own position here, and say that we will organize as far as we have the privilege, . . . under the laws of the land. Many branches of industry have been organized here to help to sustain each other, to labor for the good of all, and to establish cooperation in the midst of the Church in this place." (JD 17:113—14.)
In the years following the entrance into the Salt Lake Valley he placed the greatest emphasis on the theme of preparation and the uses of adversity:
"I never attributed the driving of the Saints from Jackson county to anything but that it was necessary to chasten them and prepare them to build up Zion." (JD 13:148.)
"We are not yet prepared to go and establish the Centre Stake of Zion. The Lord tried this in the first place. . . . He gave revelation after revelation; but the people could not abide them." (JD 11:324.)
"Are we fit for Zion? . . . Could we stay in Independence? No, we could not. . . . Can the Saints see? No, or a few of them can." (JD 15:3.)
"Then do not be too anxious for the Lord to hasten his work. Let our anxiety be centered upon this one thing, the sanctification of our own hearts, the purifying of our own affections, the preparing of ourselves for the approach of events that are hastening upon us. This should be our concern, this should be our study, this should be our daily prayer, and not be in a hurry to see the overthrow of the wicked." (JD 9:3.)
"Suppose Joseph had not been obliged to flee from Pennsylvania back to York State, would he have known as much as he afterwards knew? Suppose he could have stayed in old Ontario County in peace, without being persecuted, could he have learned as much as he did by being persecuted? . . .
"Joseph could not have been perfected, though he had lived a thousand years, if he had received no persecution. . . . You may calculate when this people are called to go through scenes of affliction and suffering, are driven from their homes, and cast down, and scattered, and smitten, and peeled, the Almighty is rolling on His work with greater rapidity." (JD 2:7—8.)
It was even so with ancient Israel: "They had to travel to and fro to every point of the compass, and were wasted away, because God was determined to save their spirits." (JD 4:53.)
"While we were in Winter Quarters, the Lord gave to me a revelation. . . . I talked it to my brethren; . . . but with the exception of one or two of the Twelve, it would not touch a man. . . . I would have given [millions] if the people had been prepared to then receive the kingdom of God according to the pattern given to Enoch. But I could not touch them." (JD 18:244.)
The excuse for the Saints' reluctance was clearly their total preoccupation with their own separation from the world, which was violent and forcible but a necessary prelude to Zion—"gather ye together, O ye people of my church, upon the land of Zion. . . . Let them . . . who are among the Gentiles flee unto Zion. And let them who be of Judah flee unto Jerusalem." (D&C 133:4, 12—13.) They were looking for a place of safety, "the land of Zion, . . . for a defense, and for a refuge from the storm, and from wrath when it shall be poured out without mixture upon the whole earth." (D&C 115:6.) Building the city had to come later.
The spectacular departure of Enoch's Zion will be matched by its no less astonishing return. There are things here beyond the scope of men's everyday experience: "The redemption of Zion must needs come by power." (D&C 103:15.) Once established in her place, Zion serves as a sort of bridgehead, preparing the way for the return of Enoch's Zion, when the two shall fuse.
| Moses 7:63. Then shalt thou and all thy city meet them there, and we will receive them into our bosom, and they shall see us; and we will fall upon their necks, and they shall fall upon our necks, and we will kiss each other. |
1 Enoch 39:1. And it shall come to pass in those days that the elect and holy children will descend from the high heavens, and their seed will become one with the children of men. 4 Ezra 13:36. When Zion appears it is completely parata et aedificata—a city wholly finished and perfect—coming like a mountain cut out without hands, whose builder and ruler is God. |
| D&C 45:11. Wherefore . . . let me show unto you even my wisdom of him whom ye say is the God of Enoch, and his brethren, 12. Who were separated from the earth, . . . a city reserved until a day of righteousness shall come. |
Berl. Manich. Copt. Ms. p. 12. Kap. 1:1. When my Apostle [Enoch] shall raise himself up he shall be lifted up along with his church, and they shall be lifted up [elevated] from the earth. 5. It shall take the form of my assembly [ekklesia] and be free in the height. |
The "Enoch" of the Dead Sea Scrolls
Just in time for the latest episode in this examination into the book of Enoch comes the long-awaited translation of the Dead Sea Scroll book of Enoch. (J. T. Milik and M. Black, eds., The Books of Enoch, Aramaic Fragments of Qumran Cave 4, Oxford: Clarenden Press, 1976.) Father J. T. Milik, one of the first scholars on the scene when the scrolls were discovered, was assigned thirty-two fragments of the books of Enoch from Qumran Cave IV; and all scholars working on Enoch have eagerly waited during the last quarter century to see what new information would be added, what theories might be toppled, what hypotheses confirmed by these documents in Aramaic, the earliest of all known Enoch texts.
These documents, dating from the third to the first centuries B.C., corroborate the other Enoch literature that we have. There was a real book of Enoch, which was once written in five parts. This seriously challenges those critics who have claimed for years that ancient sectaries threw everything into Enoch that they wanted to pass off as scripture.
It's an added delight for Latter-day Saints to read that Professor Milik finds the Greek texts to be much superior to the Ethiopian texts—the Joseph Smith account in the Pearl of Great Price is closer to the Greek than to the Ethiopian. Latter-day Saints will also note with interest Professor Milik's deduction that one text, the Gizeh text, was undoubtedly prepared to be buried with the deceased—a parallel with the usage intended for the Abraham text.
Furthermore, Professor Milik works with the fascinating hypothesis that Enoch had prepared an account of the creation and the law of God that naturally predates Moses' account in Genesis and sees Genesis 6:1—4, long a puzzling passage to the biblical scholar, as a quotation from that earlier Enoch source. This is exactly what happens in the Joseph Smith source: Moses quotes Enoch on events shortly after the creation.
As we have already seen, the Enoch story runs into the oldest literature of the human race; and Professor Milik finds links with the mythological heroes of Sumer and Babylonia, with the astronomy of Egypt and Phoenicia, and the ideas about the earth of Mesopotamia. Even though Professor Milik does not seem to recognize the full importance of the "Enoch figure," he provides some evidence that undercuts yet another scholarly supposition: that Enoch was invented out of the hopes and yearnings of Messianic Jews in the second century B.C.; in fact, however, these very people were shunning the Enoch material at that very time. Milik reviews some important texts that show the writers of the Aramaic text gradually losing their interest in Enoch material during the first century, then the Essenes turning away from it, the writers at Masada actually expunging the name of Enoch and putting Noah in its stead, while the Christians, on the other hand, treasured it highly and embellished it with so many astrological flourishes that they unintentionally undermined Enoch's credibility for future generations.
In all of these ways, the Qumran IV Enoch fragments reinforce rather than reinterpret what we as Latter-day Saints already knew about Enoch. But these newly translated pieces add one genuinely new bit of information to our store—something that is probably the most objective test yet of Joseph Smith's prophetic powers.
What always impressed me as the oddest detail of the Joseph Smith account of Enoch was the appearance out of the blue of the name of the only nonbiblical individual named in the whole book—Mahijah. (Moses 6:40.) Mahijah is the one who asks Enoch searching questions, and in answer is told about the place Mahujah, where Enoch began this particular phase of his mission. (Moses 7:2.) It was therefore with a distinct shock of recognition that, after having looked through all but the last of the Aramaic Enoch fragments without finding anything particularly new, and coming to those very last little fragments, I found the name Mahujah leaping out of the pages again and again. (Pp. 300, 302, 305, 311, 314.) Could this be our Mahujah or Mahijah? As a matter of fact it could be either, not only because the semi-vowels w and y are written very much alike in the Aramaic script and are sometimes confused by scribes, but also because the name as written in 4QEn, MHWY, is the same as the MHWY-EL who appears in Genesis 4:18 as the grandfather of Enoch, transliterated in the King James Bible as Mehuja-el, which name also appears in the Greek Septuagint as Mai-el and in the Latin Vulgate as Mavia-el, showing that Mahujah and Mahijah were the same name, since Mai (the Greek had no internal "h") could come only from Mahi-.
So what? A coincidence—a giant or a Watcher called Mahujah or Mahijah. But far more than a coincidence when taken in its context. The only thing the Mahijah in the Book of Moses is remarkable for is his putting of bold direct questions to Enoch, thus giving the patriarch an opening for calling upon the people to repent, referring them to the book of remembrance, and telling them of the plan of salvation. And this is exactly the role, and the only role, that the Aramaic Mahujah plays in the story. The name is found in none of the other Enoch texts and neither is the story: it is peculiar to the version Joseph Smith gave us and the oldest known Enoch manuscripts. The following translation is from Milik and Black, lest the writer be charged with forcing the text.
| Moses 6:39. . . . when they heard him . . . fear came on all them that heard him. |
4QEnGiantsb 1.20. [Thereupon] all the giants [and the nephilim] took fright |
| 6:40. And there came a man unto him, whose name was Mahijah, and said to him: Tell us plainly who thou art and from whence thou comest? |
and they summoned MHWY and he came to them: And the giants asked him and sent him to Enoch [ . . . ] saying to him: Go then [ . . . ] and under pain of death you must [ . . . ] and listen to his voice; and tell him that he is to explain to you and to interpret the dreams. 6Q8 1. [ . . . ] Ohya and he said to MHWY: "[ . . . ] and(I?) do not tremble. Who showed you all (that), tell [us] [ . . . ]" And MHWY said: "[ . . . ] Baraq'el, my father, was with me." |
| 6:41. And he said to them: I came out from . . . the land of my fathers, a land of righteousness unto this day |
4QEnGiantsc. [Ohyah, following MHWY's report]: . . . my accusers [ . . . ] they dwell in [heaven]s, for they live in holy abodes,. . . they are more powerful than I. |
| 6:42. And . . . as I journeyed . . . by the sea east, I beheld a vision: and lo, the heavens I saw. . . . |
4QEnGiantsb. [MHWY . . . rose up into the air] like the whirlwinds, and he flew . . . and crossed Solitude, |
| 7:2—3. . . . As I was journeying . . . I . . . went up on the mount; . . . I beheld the heavens open. |
the great desert [. . .] And he caught sight of Enoch, and he called to him and said to him: "An oracle [. . .]" |
| 6:45. Enoch: . . . we . . . cannot deny. . . . 46. For a book of remembrance we have written among us, according to the pattern given by the finger of God . . . in our own language. |
4QEnGiantsa Frag. ii 7. [. . .] to you, MH[wy] [. . .] the two tablets [. . .] and the second has not been read up till now. 8. The boo[k of [. . .] The copy of the second tablet of the Epistle [. . .] written] by Enoch, the distinguished scribe's own hand [. . .] and the Holy One, to Shemihazah and all [his] com[panions]. |
| 6:47. And as Enoch spake forth the words of God, the people trembled, and could not stand in his presence. |
4QEnGiantsa Frg. 4. [. . .] Ohyah said to Ha[hyah, his brother. . .] . . . they prostrated themselves and began to weep before[Enoch . . .]. |
| 6:48. And he said to them: . . . We are made partakers of misery and woe. |
4EnGiantsa Frg. 8. The longest fragment: The depravity and misery of the |
| 6:49. . . . carnal, sensual, and devilish, and are shut out from the presence of God. |
people described. Their petition is rejected: God has cast them out. All is "for the worst." |
| 6:52. . . . If thou wilt turn unto me . . . and repent . . . asking all things in his name, . . . it shall be given you. |
(Closing line) And now, loosen your bonds (of sin) which tie [you] up [. . .] and begin to pray. |
| 7:13. And . . . he [Enoch] led the people of God, and their enemies came to battle against them; and he spake the word of the Lord, and the earth trembled, . . . |
4QEnGiantsc. (Ohyah the enemy of Enoch): ". . . by the strength of my power, [I had attacked] all flesh and I have made war with them . . . they live in holy abodes, and . . . they are more powerful than I." |
| and the roar of the lions was heard out of the wilderness; and all nations feared greatly. |
[Thereupon . . .] the roaring of the wild beasts came and the multitude of the wild animals began to cry out [. . .]. And Ohyah spoke . . . My dream has overwhelmed [me] [. . . and the s]leep of my eyes [has fled]. |
| 7:37. . . . these shall suffer. . . . 38. . . . these . . . shall perish in the floods; and behold, I will shut them up; a prison have I prepared for them. |
4QEnGiantsa Frg. 7i. Then Ohyah [said] to Hahya[h, his brother . . .]. Then he (sc. God?) punished . . . the sons of the Watchers, the giants, and all [their] beloved ones will not be spared [. . .] he has imprisoned us and you he has subdued (lit. tegaf, seized, confined). |
Bearing in mind that the Aramaic fragments are few and very small and arranged in whatever order the editors think best, it is still possible to see that the themes of the Joseph Smith account emerge clearly amidst all the very obvious changes and vicissitudes that have occurred to the ancient texts.
KEY TO ABBREVIATIONS
The pseudepigraphic works found in this paper—Apocalypse of Abraham, Apocalypse of Adam, Apocalypse of Baruch, Apocalypse of Elijah, 2 Baruch, 1 Enoch, 2 Enoch (Secrets of Enoch), 3 Enoch, Jubilees, 4 Ezra, Psalms of Solomon, Testament of Adam, and Testament of Moses—may all be conveniently found in James Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 2 vols. (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1983—85). The citations frequently represent the author's own translations. Similarly, materials from the Nag Hammadi literature—Apocryphon of James, Apocryphon of John, Gospel of Philip, Hypostasis of the Archons—may be found in James M. Robinson, The Nag Hammadi Library in English (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1977). Other works will be cited according to the edition from which they were taken. The following works are cited in the body of the text:
Apocalypse of Abraham
In Paul Riessler, Altjudisches Schrifttum ausserhalb der Bibel, 2nd ed.
(Heidelberg: F. H. Kerle, 1966).
Apocalypse of Adam
In Douglas M. Parrott, ed., Nag Hammadi Studies,
vol. 11 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1979).
Apocalypse of Elijah
In Herbert P. Houghton, "The Coptic Apocalypse,"
Aegyptus 39 (1959): 195ff.
Apocryphon of John
In Die Gnostichen Schriften des Koptischen Papyrus
8502, ed. Walter C. Till, vol. 60 of Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte
der Altchristlichen Literatur (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1955). Also in James
Robinson, Nag Hammadi Library in English (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1977).
Beatty
Chester Beatty Collection in Campbell Bonner, The
Last Chapters of Enoch in Greek (London: Christophers, 1937). See also Sir
Frederic G. Kenyon, The Chester Beatty Biblical Papyri (London: Emery
Walker, 1933—41).
Berayta
Nicholas Sed, "Une Cosmologie juive du haut moyen
age: La Berayta di Macaseh Bereshit," Revue des Etudes Juives
123 (1964): 259—305.
Berl. Manich. Copt.
Berlin Manichäean Coptic Manuscript, Manichaische
Handschriften der Staatlichen Museen Berlin (Stuttgart: W. Kahlhammer, 1940).
BHM
Bet ha-Midrash, 6 vols. (Jerusalem: Wahrmann Books,
1967).
Bin Gorion
M.J. Bin Gorion, Die Sagen der Juden (Frankfurt:
Kütter & Loening, 1913).
Black
Matthew Black, Apocalypsis Henochi Graece (Leiden:
E.J. Brill, 1970).
Bonner
Campbell Bonner, The Last Chapters of Enoch in Greek
(London: Christophers, 1937).
Book of Adam
Livre d'Adam, in Dictionnaire des Apocryphes,
2 vols. (Paris: Migne, 1856). See note 32.
Cedrenus
Georgius Cedrenus, Compendium Historiarum 1:17
in Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae 4, ed. I. Bekker, 1838.
Combat of Adam and Eve
Livre du Combat d'Adam et Eve, in Dictionnaire
des Apocryphes, 2 vols. (Paris: Migne, 1856).
Dictionnaire
Dictionnaire des Apocryphes, 2 vols. (Paris:
Migne, 1856). See note 32.
Ethiop. Bk. Mysts.
Silvain Grébaut, Livre des Mystères
du ciel et de la Terre, in Patrologia Orientalis.
Ev. Verit.
Micel Malinine, ed., Evangelium Veritatis (Zurich:
Rascher Verlag, 1956).
Falasha (Anthology)
W. Leslau, ed., Falasha Anthology (New York:
Yale University Press, 1951).
Gizeh
Gizeh Fragment in appendix 1 of R.H. Charles, The
Book of Enoch (London: Oxford University Press, 1913).
Iesous Besileus
Iesous Besileus ou Basileusas, ed. R. Eisler (Heidelberg:
C. Winter Verlag, 1930).
Jewish Encyclopedia
W. Popper, ed., The Jewish Encyclopedia, 12 vols.
(New York: Funk and Wagnall, 1904).
N. Sed. REJ
Nicholas Sed, "Une Cosmologie juive du haut moyen
age: La Berayta di Ma'aseh Breshit," Revue des Études Juives
123 (1964).
Mid. Rab.
Harry Freeman, Midrash Rabbah (London: Soncino,
1961).
Ms. R.
In Andre Vaillant, Le Livre des Secrets d'Henoch
(University of Paris: Institut d'Etudes Slaves, 1952).
P.G.
J. P. Migne, Patrologiae Graecae, 161 vols. (Paris:
J. P. Migne, 1857).
P.L.
Patrologiae Latinae, 221 vols. (Paris: J.-P. Migne,
1879).
P.O.
Patrologia Orientalis.
Secrets of Enoch (Morfill)
W.R. Morfill, The Book of the Secrets of Enoch
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1896).
Secrets (Vaillant)
Andre Vaillant, Le Live des Secrets d'Henoch
(University of Paris: Institut d'Etudes Slaves, 1952).
Sophia Jesu Christi
In volume 60 of Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte
der altchristlichen Literatur (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1955).
Testament of Abraham
In W. Leslau, ed., Falasha Anthology (New York:
Yale University Press, 1951).
T.U.
Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen
Literatur (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1955).
Zohar
The Zohar, trans. Harry Sperling and Maurice Simon
(New York: Rebecca Bennet, 1958).
11 QPSa Creat.
"Hymn to the Creator," in J.A. Sanders, Discoveries
in the Judeaen Desert of Jordan, vol. 4 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965),
pp. 89—92.
NOTES
"A Strange Thing in the Land: The Return of the Book of Enoch" first appeared in the Ensign from October 1975 to August 1977.
307. The subject has been thoroughly studied by Leo Jung, "Fallen Angels in Jewish, Christian, and Mohammedan Literature," Jewish Quarterly Review, new series 16 (1925—26): 45—88, 171—205, 287—336, and by Bo Reicke, The Disobedient Spirits and Christian Baptism (Copenhagen: E. Mucksgaard, 1946).
308. Thus there are many stories of two fallen angels, going by various names—BHM 4:ix—x:127—28 (Shamkhasi and Asael); 5 (no. 2): xxxix (Harut and Marut); Bin Gorion, Sagen 1:319—21; (Aza and Azael)—whose behavior matches that of the Watchers.
309. Joseph A. Fitzmeyer, Genesis Apocryphon (Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1971), pp. 51—55 (col. 2, lines 1—26).
310. Georgius Cedrenus, Historiarum Compendium 1:18, and P.G. 121:44.
311. Moshe Emanueli, "The Sons of God Took Wives Whomever They Chose," Beth Mikra 60 (October—December 1974): 150—52.
312. Noted by Van Andel, Structuur, p. 15.
313. Gizeh Fragment 15:3—4, in Charles, The Book of Enoch, p. 292.
314. Hippolytus, De Christo et Antichristo, in P.G. 10:733, 737, 925—29, 933.
315. Black, Apocalypsis Henochi, p. 39. 1 Enoch 99:10—12.
316. 2 Enoch 18:7. Ms. R. in Vaillant, Secrets d'Henoch, p. 92. The Watchers "came down and broke their promise, . . . defiling themselves with the wives (zhenami) of men, and so debased themselves." (Ibid., p. 18.)
317. Psalms of Solomon 8:9—11.
318. Black, Apocalypsis Henochi, pp. 23—24.
319. Gizeh Fragment 15:2—4. The passage puzzles Charles, Book of Enoch, appendix 1, p. 294, as it obviously did the Greek scribes.
320. Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, in Migne, P.G. 9:24.
321. Gizeh Fragment 8:1ff, in Charles, Book of Enoch, p. 280, giving Mss. Gg and G3.
322. "Life of Enoch," in BHM 4:130; The Zohar, Bereshith 56a.
323. The Zohar, Bereshith 56a.
324. Ibid., Bereshith 56b.
325. 1 Enoch 97:8—10.
326. "Livre d'Adam," in Migne, Dictionnaire 1:56.
327. E. G. Graeling, "The Significance and Origin of Genesis 6:1—4," Journal of Near Eastern Studies 6 (1947):197.
328. Text in Philonenko, "Une citation manichéenne," 52:338.
329. Text in G. Ricciotti, "Apocalypsis Pauli syriace," Orientalia 2 (1933): 22—24.
330. Vaillant, Secrets d'Henoch, pp. 70f.
331. Ibid., pp. 10f.
332. Commented on by Koch, Ratlos, pp. 25—27.
333. For the changing point of view, three books by Nigel Calder are instructive, namely, The Restless Earth: A Report on the New Geology (New York: Viking, 1972); Violent Universe: An Eye-Witness Account of the Commotion in Astronomy (New York: Viking, 1969); and The Weather Machine (New York: Viking, 1975).
334. The righteous dwell in the mountains and the wicked in the deep, Harry Freedman, Midrash Rabbah (London: Soncino, 1961) 1:257; "Livre du Combat d'Adam," in Migne, Dictionnaire 1:296; Hipploytus, fragment in P.G. 10:709; B. Beer, Leben Abrahams (Leipzig: O. Leiner, 1859), quoting Rabbi Eleaser.
335. Sylvain Grébaut, Les Miracles de Jesus, in P.O. 17:826—29.
336. Text in Nicolas Sed, "Une Cosmologie Juive du haut moyen age: La Berayta di Ma'aseh Bereshit," Revue des Études Juives 123 (1964): 259—305, explaining how the Watchers weep for the evil world here below.
337. Grébaut, Livre des Mystères, in P.O. 6:431.
338. "Livre du Combat d'Adam et Eve," in Migne, Dictionnaire 1:362.
339. For references, Nibley, "Treasures in the Heavens," in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 8 (Autumn 1973): 77—78, 81—84; or Old Testament and Related Studies, The Collected Works of Hugh Nibley, vol. 1 (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1986), pp. 174—75, 181—85; or Nibley on the Timely and the Timeless (Provo, Ut.: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1978), pp. 49—84.
340. F. Tempestini, "Livre d'Adam," in Migne, Dictionnaire 1:118.
341. Weiss, Untersuchungen zur Kosmologie, p. 121.
342. Schmidt, T.U. 8:345.
343. Eusebius, Praeparatio Evangelica 9:17, in P.G. 21:708.
344. Syncellus 1:60 and Cedrenus 1:21, lines 11—13. See note 31 above and P.G. 121:41—42.
345. Clement of Alexandria, Eclogae Ex Scripturis Propheticis, P.G. 53:4.
346. E. Hahn, "Hadîth cosmogonique et Aggadah," Revue des Études Juives, new series, 1 (1937):55.
347. McClintock, "Enoch, Book of," 3:227.
348. Stuart, "Christology," 3:129.
349. Ibid.
350. Hugo Rahner, Spirit and Nature: Papers from the Eranos Year-books, ed. Joseph Campbell (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), Bollingen Series 30:1, 1:145f.
351. Henderson, Myth in the New Testament, p. 16.
352. "Livre d'Henoch," Migne, Dictionnaire 1:397.
353. Grébaut, Livre des Mystères, in P.O. 6:433.
354. Many examples are given in Sheila Ostrander and Lynn Schroeder, Psychic Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain (New York: Bantam Books, 1970), in which the most skeptical scientists in the world find themselves perplexed.
355. Lyall Watson, Supernature (New York: Anchor Press, 1973), pp. 263, 274—76; Carmen Blacker, in Claus J. Bleeker, Initiation, Studies in the History of Religion (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1965), pp. 96ff. Studies have shown that people who live in high mountains are more susceptible to psychic phenomena.
356. Clement of Rome, Recognitiones 1:106, in Migne, P.G. 1:1207—10.
357. Hans Dieter Betz, "Das Verständnis der Apokalyptik in der Theologie der Pannenberg-Gruppe," Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 65 (1968): 265.
358. Schmidt, T.U. 8:345.
359. Weiss, pp. 83—84, citing Jerome, in P.L. 22:546.
360. F. Tempestini, "Livre d'Adam" in Migne, Dictionnaire 1:166.
361. Charles, Book of Enoch, p. 147.
362. Ibid., p. 149f; and Van Andel, Structuur, p. 40.
363. Van Andel, Structuur, p. 41.
364. The cases of Moses and Enoch are particularly interchangeable, either by ancient scribes or modern interpreters, as noted by Montague Rhodes James, Apocrypha Anecdota (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1893), pp. 166—71.
365. Myer, Qabbalah, p. 388.
366. Ibid.
367. Hahn, "Hadîth cosmogonique et Aggadah," p. 62.
368. Arthur O. Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1960), pp. 43—44.
369. F. Lachover, Mishnat ha-Zohar (Jerusalem: Byalik Foundation, 1971), 1:127ff.
370. Nibley, "Treasures in the Heavens," pp. 83—85.
371. Vaillant, Secrets d'Henoch, pp. 60f. The word for establish, appoint (postaviti) means also "ordain" (as a priest), dedicate, appoint as a substitute; reflexively, to take a duty upon oneself, implying that Enoch is not the Savior but one "after the order of him." (Moses 6:67.)
372. An intriguing problem is raised by the occurrence in the Joseph Smith account of Enoch of the names Mahijah (Moses 6:40) and Mahujah (Milik, Books of Enoch, p. 311) in connection with the ritual questions "Tell us plainly who thou art and from whence thou comest?" For by an odd coincidence the first publication of proper names from the Tell Mardikh archives, discovered in 1974 and proven to be by far the oldest library in the world, begins the list with the two names Mi-ka-yah and Mi-ka-il, both asking the question "Who is . . . ?" [G. Pettinato, "The Royal Archives of Tell Mardikh-Ebla," The Biblical Archaeologist 39 [May 1976]: 50.)
373. Martin Buber, "Abraham the Seer," Judaism 5 (1956): 295 gives some indication of why withdrawal is so important.
374. By far the greatest number of passages are found in the Psalms and Isaiah; there are twenty-five references in Jeremiah, including Lamentations. The word occurs only seven times in the New Testament, six of them referring to the Messiah, the King or Ruler of Zion. Of the forty-four occurrences of the name in the Book of Mormon, thirty-four are by Nephi, almost all of them being from Isaiah; the four in Mosiah are all from Isaiah; the five citations in 3 Nephi all deal with the fulfillment of the prophecy.
375. This difference of orientation between the Psalms and the Prophets is discussed by Ulrich W. Mauser, Christ in the Wilderness (London: SCM Press, 1963), pp. 36ff.
376. Ibid., pp. 50f.
377. Charles, Book of Enoch, p. 1.
378. Van Andel, Structuur, pp. 23—26, 31—39.
379. BHM 4:130f.
380. Book of Jasher 3:5—10. Passages such as this which closely follow both the Hebrew and the Slavonic Enoch show that the book of Jasher used very ancient sources and was far more than a medieval romance.
381. J. Zandee, "Le Messie: conceptions de la royauté dans le Religion du Proche-orient," Revue de l'Histoire des Religions 180 (1971): 4ff.
382. F. Tempestini, Livre d'Adam, in Migne, Dictionnaire 1:21, 27f., 232.
383. Van Andel, Structuur, p. 115.
384. BHM 5:24:xlii.
385. Ibid.
386. 2 Baruch 67:3; 76:4.
387. 4 Ezra 8:47.
388. Charles, Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha 2:283. Condemned by the Reformation, it's authenticity "was summarily rejected," until "the twentieth century sees this book at last come into its own."
389. Charles, Book of Enoch, pp. 2—3.
390. Stone, "Judaism at the Time of Christ." p. 80.
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