Fallen Angels and the Origins of Evil (4 page)

When Jesus returned from the temptation in the wilderness to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, he went into the synagogue at Nazareth and announced his ministry as the fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah 61:1–2.
[17]
Since the Master was obviously familiar with the Book of Enoch in some form, might not his reference to the law and the prophets have included the great work of the prophet who was the father of Methuselah and the great-grandfather of Noah?

I believe that Jesus came to pick up the mantle of Enoch as the messenger of the Ancient of Days and his ongoing prophecy to the Watchers. I believe that the son of David came with the authority of our Father Enoch, who said, “So has He created and given to me the power of reproving the Watchers, the offspring of heaven” (En. 14:2) Indeed, Jesus came to fulfill the law and the prophecy of the judgment by the incarnate Word!

Both in his fierce rebuke of those scribes and Pharisees who prated the letter but had not the spirit of Moses and in his concise statement of his mission: “For judgment I am come,” (John 9:39) Jesus made clear that he knew of the prophesied judgment and saw it occurring both in his time and at the end of the age. He studiously understood the mechanism of the judgment of the fallen angels as an authority given by the Father to the Son.

For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son:

That all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father. He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father which hath sent him....

For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself;

And hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man. (John 5:22–23, 26–27)

This power to execute judgment Jesus transferred to his apostles (Enoch’s
elect
)
[18]
because he was the Son of man.

Verily I say unto you, that ye which have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. (Matt. 19:28)

And I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed unto me; that ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel. (Luke 22:29–30)

In addition to the familiar references to the Old Testament, Jesus may have even alluded to prophecies in apocryphal texts not included by the Church Fathers or the rabbis who selected the books that comprise our current Christian Bible and Judaic Scriptures. A number of previously unknown texts discovered at Qumran and Nag Hammadi indicate that Jesus taught from other writings in the manner of an ancient wisdom teacher.

Yale professor Charles Cutler Torrey cites evidence that Jesus quoted from a now-lost apocryphal work.
[19]
He points to Luke 11:49–51, which reads:

Therefore also said the wisdom of God, I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they shall slay and persecute:

That the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation;

From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, which perished between the altar and the temple: verily I say unto you, It shall be required of this generation.

Although partial phrases and some of the above subject matter may be found in the Old Testament,
[20]
this statement of Jesus is not to be found intact anywhere in the Hebrew Scriptures. It is Torrey’s contention that Luke’s introductory phrase “said the wisdom of God” indicates that Jesus is quoting directly from a source that is now apparently lost.

It is my opinion that not only did Jesus quote material from sources not included in the Old Testament but that he did so in order to further elaborate on the judgment as the coming due of the accountability of the Watchers for their murder of the lightbearers, which these fallen ones had carried on continuously “from the foundation of the world.”

Furthermore, Torrey notes there are other references in the New Testament to scriptural works that have now vanished but which were known to the apostles. One such reference can be found in Matthew 27:9–10:

Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value;

And gave them for the potter’s field, as the Lord appointed me.

The text Matthew says he is quoting from Jeremiah is not in the prophet’s book found in the Old Testament today. But the fourth-century Church Father Jerome wrote that a member of the Nazarene sect showed him an “apocryphal” text of Jeremiah in which Matthew’s quotation could be seen in its exact form.
[21]
Thus, it appears that Matthew’s version of the Book of Jeremiah had teachings that had been deleted by the time of the fourth century.

The idea that Jesus might have quoted from a book he felt was inspired with the spirit of the patriarch Enoch just as readily as he might quote from the Torah of Moses is not as preposterous as Deane chose to believe. Why else would the apostle Jude (who is believed to be the brother of Jesus) base an entire epistle on the story of fallen angels as told in Enoch?

I believe he was quoting his Lord’s emphatic exegesis on the patriarch’s work and that Jesus saw himself as one who came to expose the generation of the seed of the wicked (the Watchers), whom he and John the Baptist called vipers,
[22]
among other epithets, and to save from the intrigue of the incarnate angels the descendants of Adam through Seth, the sons of Jared—the children of the seed of Light. Jesus came to pick up the thread of Enoch—to build upon the very teaching, the crux in theological history, where Enoch left off.

Enochian scholar Dr. R. H. Charles noted at the turn of the twentieth century that “the influence of Enoch on the New Testament has been greater than that of all the other apocryphal and pseudepigraphal books taken together.”
[23]
Although scarce few had even heard of the influential book until the modern era, Dr. Charles points out that “all the writers of the New Testament were familiar with it, and were more or less influenced by it in thought and diction.”
[24]

For example, Dr. Charles Francis Potter notes that “with Paul, it [the Book of Enoch] is said to have been his
vade mecum,
literally, his ‘go with me,’ his pocketbook, his manual for frequent reference.”
[25]
Perhaps Paul quotes the Book of Enoch indirectly in I Timothy 6:16 in his description of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Immortal One. He speaks of him as the one

who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting.

This description is much like that of the Book of Enoch, which reads:

No angel was capable of penetrating to view the face of Him, the Glorious and the Effulgent; nor could any mortal behold Him. A fire was flaming around Him.... Not one of those who surrounded Him was capable of approaching Him. (14:23–24)

The same book also seems to be the source of Paul’s chastisement of the Gentiles “They sacrifice to devils, and not to God,” (I Cor. 10:20) as did the profane men in Enoch’s book, which reads:

And being numerous in appearance [the fallen angels] made men profane, and caused them to err; so that they sacrificed to devils as to gods. (19:2)

Paul’s story of a “man in Christ” who was “caught up to the third heaven,” either in the body or out of the body (Paul could not tell), may reference Enoch’s description of several heavens, implied in the main book of Enoch and directly stated in the Book of the Secrets of Enoch.
[26]

Furthermore, one apocryphal New Testament work called the Revelation of Paul describes Paul’s journey through those several heavens, including Paul’s meeting with a hoary-headed man of joyful countenance—who turns out to be none other than the patriarch Enoch. This is how the author tells his story:

And the angel says to me: Hast thou seen all these things? And I answered: Yes, my lord. And again he said to me: Come, follow me, and I shall show thee the place of the righteous. And I followed him, and he set me before the doors of the city. And I saw a golden gate, and two golden pillars before it, and two golden plates upon it full of inscriptions. And the angel said to me: Blessed is he who shall enter into these doors; because not every one goeth in, but only those who have single-mindedness, and guiltlessness, and a pure heart.... And straightway the gate was opened, and there came forth a hoary-headed man to meet us; and he said to me: Welcome, Paul, beloved of God! and, with a joyful countenance, he kissed me with tears. And I said to him: Father, why weepest thou? And he said to me: Because God hath prepared many good things for men, and they do not His will in order that they may enjoy them. And I asked the angel: My lord, who is this? And he said to me: This is Enoch, the witness of the last day.
[27]

The apostle John, author and amanuensis for the biblical Revelation of Jesus Christ, came even closer to Enochian symbolism, tone, and description. Many of his visions familiar to lovers of the Bible can also be found in the Book of Enoch: the “Lord of lords, and King of kings,” the casting down of the devil into the lake of fire, the vision of the seven Spirits of God, the tree whose fruit is for the elect, the four beasts round the throne, the horse wading up to his breast in blood, and the book of life.
[28]

Some believe it was Revelation’s close similarity to the apocryphal Book of Enoch that nearly prevented it from becoming canonical scripture—which status it gained by a very close call. (In the third century, Dionysius of Alexandria, along with many others from the churches in Syria and Asia Minor, rejected the Revelation on literary grounds as being inauthentic.)
[29]

Acts 10:34 quotes Peter as saying that “God is no respecter of persons”—a phrase also used by Paul which is found in the Book of Enoch as well as in Deuteronomy, Chronicles, and intermittently throughout the Old Testament. The Book of Enoch may have been the source of all of these biblical usages.

Both of Peter’s letters in the New Testament seem to be predicated upon the Book of Enoch.
[30]
Peter’s second letter, discussing the binding and casting down to hell of the angels who sinned, denounces the wicked in terms Enoch himself might have used. Peter writes:

Spots they are and blemishes, sporting themselves with their own deceivings while they feast with you;

Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls: an heart they have exercised with covetous practices; cursed children.... (II Pet. 2:13–14)

Greek specialists Rendel Harris and M. R. James, among others, have speculated that Peter’s first epistle may have originally contained an explicit reference to Enoch by name which was deleted—whether by error or direct intent—in later copies of Scripture.
[31]

Yet there is even more dramatic evidence of the early Christian acceptance of the Book of Enoch. The Epistle of Jude clearly discusses the content of the Book of Enoch, noting that

there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness....

These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots;

Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever. (Jude 4, 12–13)

Jude actually
quotes
Enoch directly and refers to him by name, saying:

And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints,

To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him. (Jude 14–15)

Note that the entire premise and conclusion of the Book of Enoch—i.e., the judgment of the Watchers as the key to the liberation of the souls of Light and as a necessary planetary purge prior to the Lord’s kingdom come—is predicated to occur “in a generation which is to succeed at a distant period,
on account of the elect.
” (En. 1:2)

Who are the elect? We define the elect as those who elect to be instruments of God’s will, according to their calling from the Father and the Son to be bearers of the Light of the Elect One—keepers of the flame of the prophecy of the Holy and Mighty One, the God of the World.

We take Enoch 1:2 to mean that the judgment is a direct and inevitable consequence of the coming of the Elect One—the incarnate Word—and his chosen in this and succeeding centuries.

The judgment prophesied by Enoch will come through the Christ Light that the Son has ignited in the hearts of his own. The Light is of the “inner man,” known to Paul as “
Christ in you,
the hope of glory.”
[32]
Our hope is in Christ the eternal Judge; for if he come, and he will surely come ‘quickly’ with “ten thousands of his saints,”
[33]
then the glory of the Lord will shine on earth through the anointed hearts who confirm the Word of the Lord—on earth as it is in heaven.

Enoch’s prophecy on the judgment is quoted by Jude as acceptable scriptural evidence of “the ungodly.” Jude based his entire epistle upon this Enochian theme. But when Enoch’s book was later questioned, Jude himself also became suspect, his letter barely remaining among the canonical books of the Bible.