Michael was "the Angel of the Lord", who was sent to Moses and Jacob and Abraham and to other people throughout the history of the world. Another Archangel was Lucifer, who was so beautiful that the other Angels called him the Son of the Morning. Well, everybody was very happy because they were with God, and they all loved him, because he had made them so Strong and Shining and Lovely. Why, shouldn't I be? I can fly and I can change into other things, and I am beautiful and I am powerful.
I shall fight Him and have Heaven for mine! So, Lucifer went around Heaven, and he collected a lot of other Angels who also didn't want to be less Important than God, until he had a Great Army. Why should You be the King of Heaven any more than one of us? Be sensible now, and think about what you are doing. Long live Lucifer! Let him reign over us in Heaven! This request for intercession before God appears to allude to the unique role of the seventh antediluvian hero reflected already in the earliest Enochic booklets where he is depicted as the envoy bringing petitions of intercession to God on behalf of this rebellious angelic group.
John Reeves suggests 17 that the petition pressed upon the exalted patriarch by the imprisoned angels in 2 Enoch 7 is reminiscent of the language found in the Book of the Watchers 1 Enoch 18 where the Watchers ask the patriarch to write for them a prayer of intercession.
Finally there is another piece of evidence that further confirms the identity of the mysterious imprisoned group as the Watchers. Although the angelic group kept under guard in the second heaven is not directly identified in chapter seven as the Watchers, this chapter connects the unnamed angels with another celestial gathering which the patriarch will encounter later in the fifth heaven.
And similar to them are those who went down as prisoners in their train, who are in the second heaven, imprisoned in great darkness. We began our study by mentioning that the Watchers account situated in chapter 18 exhibits the clear features of Adamic tradition when it names Satanail as the leader of the fallen Watchers. In the light of this later reaffirmation, it is also possible that the subtle traces of the Adamic template may already be present even in the description found in chapter seven.
If it is so, here for the first time in the Slavonic apocalypse the chief negative protagonist of the Adamic lore becomes identified as the leader of the fallen Watchers. Another possible piece of evidence that hints to the presence of the Adamic mythology of evil in 2 Enoch 7 is connected with the motif of the imprisoned angels bowing down before Enoch. Both recensions of 2 Enoch portray the incarcerated angels in the second heaven as bowing down before the translated patriarch asking him to pray for them before the Lord.
I previously argued 26 that this tradition of angels bowing down before Enoch appears to stem from an Adamic mythology of evil 27 since it invokes the peculiar details of the Satan story attested in the Primary Adam Books 28 and some other Jewish, Christian and Muslim materials. In the later Enochic composition, known to us as the Sefer Hekhalot or 3 Enoch , the Adamic motif of the angelic veneration similar to 2 Enoch also appears to be placed in the context of the Watchers tradition s.
Thus, 3 Enoch 4 depicts the angelic leaders Uzza, Azza, and Azael, the characters whose names are reminiscent of the names of the leaders of the fallen Watchers, 30 as bowing down before Enoch-Metatron. There are scholars who view this motif of angels bowing down before Enoch found in Sefer Hekhalot as a relatively late development which originated under the influence of the rabbinic accounts of the veneration of humanity.
One of these scholars, Gary Anderson, previously noticed the early pseudepigraphical matrix of this peculiar development present in Sefer Hekhalot and its connections with the primordial veneration of the Protoplast in the paradigmatic Adamic story where Satan and his angels refuse to bow down before the first human.
Scholars previously suggested that the Adamic motif of angelic veneration was transferred in the Enochic context not in the later Hekhalot or rabbinic materials but already in 2 Enoch where the angels are depicted as bowing down several times before the seventh antediluvian hero.
Besides the previously mentioned tradition of the imprisoned angels bowing down before Enoch found in chapter seven there is another, even more explicit appropriation of the motif of angelic veneration, found in 2 Enoch 22 where God tests angels by asking them to venerate Enoch.
There, God invites Enoch to stand before him forever. Further comparing the similarities between Adamic and Enochic accounts, Stone observes that the order of events in 2 Enoch exactly duplicates the order found in the primary Adam books. Stone concludes that the author of 2 Enoch 21—22 was cognizant of the traditions resembling those found in Armenian, Georgian, and Latin versions of the Life of Adam and Eve.
He also emphasizes that these traditions did not enter 2 Enoch from the Slavonic Life of Adam and Eve , because this form of the tradition does not occur in the Slavonic Vita. Several details of the story from 2 Enoch 7 seem also to be alluding to the Adamic template:.
As we remember, the longer recension of 2 Enoch directly identifies the prisoners of the second heaven as the angels of Satanail. Finally, in the text the imprisoned angels bow down before a human being Enoch. It is time now to proceed to the second textual unit dealing with the Watchers traditions situated in chapter 18 of the Slavonic apocalypse.
In the longer recension of 2 Enoch 18 the following description can be found:. Already in the very beginning of this passage the angelic hosts situated in the fifth heaven are designated as Grigori Slav. Enoch, who appears to be puzzled by the view of this silent and depressive angelic company, then asks his angelic guides about their strange dejected looks and their non-participation in the angelic liturgy.
Two significant details here are the references to the number of the descended Watchers as two hundred myriads 40 and the designation of the place of their descent on earth as Mount Hermon Slav.
The passage found in chapter 6 of the Book of the Watchers 1 Enoch unveils the motifs of mysterious promises and curses with which the rebellious angels decided to bind themselves, thus securing their ominous mission and fellowship. All aforementioned details point to familiarity of the authors of the Slavonic apocalypse with the features of the original Enochic template. One of the puzzles here is a discrepancy about the location of the angelic group encountered by the patriarch earlier — the incarcerated rebels, whose memory is invoked again and again in chapter Later, in verse seven, Enoch himself reaffirms this connection between the two angelic groups when he unveils to the Watchers in the fifth heaven the sad destiny of their rebellious brothers in the lower realm:.
It is apparent that both passages about angelic rebellious groups in chapters 7 and 18 are interconnected by a series of allusions and familiar motifs intended to persuade the reader that both groups are interrelated and now are separated because of their previous deeds.
It is possible that the discrepancy pertaining to the location of the imprisoned angels can be explained by the topological peculiarities of the Slavonic apocalypse whose main theological emphasis is centered on the ascension of the translated hero into the heavenly realm.
It appears that this phrase strives to underline the otherworldly, possibly even subterranean, nature of the darkness encountered by the patriarch in the second heaven. Moreover, it appears that the interaction between the two paradigmatic templates in 2 Enoch can be seen not merely as an attempt at mechanical mixture of the elements of both trends but rather the progressive movement toward their organic union when the mutual interaction is able to generate a qualitatively different tradition which is not equal anymore to their initial parts.
One of the crucial signs of such qualitative transition can be seen in the literary destiny of the main protological and eschatological opponent of the Adamic tradition — Satan ail , 52 who is now invited into the new unfamiliar entourage of the rival mythological trend, where he is being fashioned as the leader of the rebellious Watchers. The fact that this identification represents not just an accidental slip of the pen or an interpolation, but a sign of the consistent and well-designed theological strategy of the text becomes evident if we compare the description found in chapter 18 with the Watchers tradition found in chapter 7.
There again the group of the incarcerated Watchers is described by the authors as the rebellious group who turn away with their prince :. Both passages are interconnected through identical Slavonic terminology since the leader of the rebellious angels in both cases is designated as a prince Slav. But how really novel and original was this conceptual move for the Enochic trend?
It should be noted that the leadership of Satan over the fallen Watchers is unknown in the earliest Enochic booklets. Yet, in the late Second Temple Enochic text, the Book of the Similitudes , one can see the extensive appropriation of the Satan terminology, both in the generic and in the titular sense.
Yet, despite its promising nature, the origin of the Satan tradition found in the Parables remains clouded in mystery. It is really difficult to discern from this terse and enigmatic passage found in the Similitudes 54 if the authors of the book did really have the knowledge of the full-blown Adamic template, including the story of the angelic veneration, or if they were merely borrowing the titular usage of Satan from the biblical materials.
Now it is time to return to the Slavonic apocalypse where the mutual interaction between two mythologies of evil appears to be exercising a lasting influence not only on the story of the Watchers but also on the account of the negative protagonist of the Adamic stream - Satan ail who is now acquiring some novel features from the Enochic tradition. It describes that after his transgression described there as the violation of the ranks of the angelic hierarchy in an attempt to exalt himself Satanail was cast out from heaven with his angels.
Here again one can see the profound dialogue between two formative traditions of the fallen angels that alters or enhances the features of the original templates, reshaping the stories of their infamous heroes. Our investigation of the mixed demonological template found in 2 Enoch is important not only because it witnesses to the portentous dialogue between Enochic and Adamic mythologies of evil but also because it helps to illuminate another important theological transition taking place for the first time in the Slavonic apocalypse - that is the paradigm shift from the Jewish apocalypticism to early Jewish mysticism, thus in many ways anticipating future developments inside the Enochic lore and serving as a blueprint for the later Watchers traditions reflected in the Sh c iur Qomah and Hekhalot lore.
In this respect it is therefore useful to discuss some early signs and facets of this ideological transition taking place at the end of the Second Temple period through the exploration of several pioneering aspects of the Watchers traditions found in 2 Enoch and the afterlife of these novel developments in later Jewish mysticism. I have previously argued about the formative value of Enochic traditions reflected in the Slavonic apocalypse for late Jewish mysticism and particularly for the Enochic developments attested in Sefer Hekhalot.
Yet, in the light of the current investigation it becomes clear that the lessons which 2 Enoch provides for the later Hekhalot developments appear to be not limited solely to the transformation of the narrative involving the chief positive protagonist of the Enochic tradition — the seventh antediluvian hero, but also involve the peculiar reworking of the story of its anti-heroes — the fallen Watchers.
In this section of my study I would like to concentrate on two motifs found in 2 Enoch that appear to be anticipating future Jewish mystical developments: the motif of the three watchers and the theme of the liturgical duties of Enoch-Metatron. This study has already drawn attention to the intriguing fact that the Slavonic apocalypse operates with the tradition of the descent of the three Watchers.
One of them is situated in chapter four and another in chapter five. It is possible that the influence of the Adamic template in the Hekhalot passage is even more decisive than it might appear at first glance since besides the theme of the angelic veneration of the seer it also invokes the motifs of the protological situation of the creation of humanity and the angelic opposition to this act of the Deity.
Although the tradition of the veneration of Adam is not mentioned directly in this unit — it is indirectly similarly to the Slavonic apocalypse reaffirmed by the veneration that angels offer to Enoch. As has been mentioned already in this study, previous scholars have noticed the presence of the pseudepigraphical matrix of the Adamic tradition in this passage.
It is noteworthy that both passages about three fallen angels from Sefer Hekhalot have distinctive features of the mixed template, very similar to the one found in the Slavonic apocalypse. Both texts are trying to bring the whole array of the Adamic motifs, including the account of the angelic veneration, into the framework of the Watchers story. Although the transmission history of the post-Second Temple Enochic traditions is clouded in mystery — it is possible that the developments detected in the Slavonic apocalypse exercised a formative influence on the later Enochic lore, including Sefer Hekhalot.
Another portentous aspect of the Watchers traditions found in 2 Enoch that appears to exercise a long-lasting influence on later Jewish mystical developments is its liturgical dimension. The repeated and persuasive invocation of the idea of angelic veneration in many ways hints directly and indirectly to this peculiar sacerdotal aspect, since this motif is often placed in the Second Temple and rabbinic materials in the context of celestial worship.
In this respect one should not ignore the persistent liturgical concern that permeates the Watchers story in the Slavonic apocalypse. Indeed, the authors of the Watchers narratives of 2 Enoch do not shy away from expressing their interest in the theme of the heavenly liturgy. The liturgical dimension of the Watchers tradition in 2 Enoch is intriguing and deserves further investigation.
Yet, in order to apprehend the full meaning of this tradition for the later Enochic developments a short excursus in the Hekhalot and Sh c iur Qomah materials is necessary. The later Merkabah materials emphasize the crucial role that Enoch-Metatron occupies in celestial worship by serving as the leader of the angelic hosts. The passages found in the Shi c ur Qomah texts attest to a similar tradition in which Metatron is portrayed as a liturgical leader.
Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him.
When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.
In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth.
And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she bore her child he might devour it. He still holds fast his integrity, although you incited me against him to destroy him without reason. All that a man has he will give for his life. But stretch out your hand and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse you to your face.
How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low! Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? For they are demonic spirits, performing signs, who go abroad to the kings of the whole world, to assemble them for battle on the great day of God the Almighty.
In the third year of Cyrus king of Persia a word was revealed to Daniel, who was named Belteshazzar. And the word was true, and it was a great conflict. And he understood the word and had understanding of the vision. In those days I, Daniel, was mourning for three weeks. I ate no delicacies, no meat or wine entered my mouth, nor did I anoint myself at all, for the full three weeks. On the twenty-fourth day of the first month, as I was standing on the bank of the great river that is, the Tigris I lifted up my eyes and looked, and behold, a man clothed in linen, with a belt of fine gold from Uphaz around his waist.
The sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons,. A new teaching with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.
And there shall be a time of trouble, such as never has been since there was a nation till that time. But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone whose name shall be found written in the book. Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?
For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. And the enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the close of the age, and the reapers are angels. For the Lord will have compassion on Jacob and will again choose Israel, and will set them in their own land, and sojourners will join them and will attach themselves to the house of Jacob.
And the peoples will take them and bring them to their place, and the house of Israel will possess them in the Lord 's land as male and female slaves. They will take captive those who were their captors, and rule over those who oppressed them. The Lord has broken the staff of the wicked, the scepter of rulers, Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord , and Satan also came among them. Do you not know that we are to judge angels?
How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life! No one comes to the Father except through me. It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look.
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. And he called to him his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every disease and every affliction. Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.
And the dragon and his angels fought back,.
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