The Book of Enoch the Prophet

‘The book of Enoch is one of the strangest of the books left out of the Biblical canon. Filled with goetic angels and demons, and visions of inconceivable lands beyond the sky…’

The Book of Enoch the Prophet

Translated by the late

Richard Laurence

Modern research sees in the Epistle of Jude a work of the second century: but as orthodox theologians accept its contents as the inspired utterance of an Apostle, let us diligently search the Hebrew Scriptures for this important forecast of the second Advent of the Messiah. In vain we turn over the pages of the sacred Canon; not even in the Apocrypha can we trace one line from the pen of the marvellous being to whom uninterrupted immortality is assigned by apostolic 1 interpretation of Genesis v. 24. Were the prophecies of Enoch, therefore, accepted as a Divine revelation on that momentous day when Jesus explained the Scriptures, after his resurrection, to Jude and his apostolic brethren; and have we moderns betrayed our trust by excluding an inspired record from the Bible?

Reverting to the second century of Christianity, we find Irenæus and Clement of Alexandria citing the Book of Enoch without questioning its sacred character. Thus, Irenæus, assigning to the Book of Enoch an authenticity analogous to that of Mosaic literature, affirms that Enoch, although a man, filled the office of God's messenger to the angels. Tertullian, who flourished at the close of the first and at the beginning of the second century, whilst admitting that the ''Scripture of Enoch'' is not received by some because it is not included in the Hebrew Canon, speaks of the author as ''the most ancient prophet, Enoch,'' and of the book as the divinely inspired autograph of that immortal patriarch, preserved by Noah in the ark, or miraculously reproduced by him through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Tertullian adds, ''But as Enoch has spoken in the same scripture of the Lord, and 'every scripture suitable for edification is divinely inspired,' let us reject nothing which belongs to us. It may now seem to have been disavowed by the Jews like all other scripture which speaks of Christ—a fact which should cause us no surprise, as they were not to receive him, even when personally addressed by himself.'' These views Tertullian confirms by appealing to the testimony of the Apostle Jude. The Book of Enoch was therefore as sacred as the Psalms or Isaiah in the eyes of the famous theologian, on whom modern orthodoxy relies as the chief canonist of New Testament scripture.

Origen (A.D. 254), in quoting Hebrew literature, assigns to the Book of Enoch the same authority as to the Psalms. In polemical discussion with Celsus, he affirms that the work of the antediluvian patriarch was not accepted in the Churches as Divine; and modern theologians have accordingly assumed that he rejected its inspiration: but the extent to which he adopts its language and ideas discloses personal conviction that Enoch was one of the greatest of the prophets. Thus, in his treatise on the angels, we read: ''We are not to suppose that a special office has been assigned by mere accident to a particular angel: as to Raphael, the work of curing and healing; to Gabriel, the direction of wars; to Michael, the duty of hearing the prayers and supplications of men.'' 2 From what source but assumed revelation could Origen obtain and publish these circumstantial details of ministerial administration in heaven?