Wide Shut

“Turning to the contents of the Book of Enoch, the  announce the condemnation of transgressors and the blessings of the righteous, through the triumphal advent of the Messiah, forecast in the famous prediction quoted by the author of the Epistle attributed to Jude. 

Chapters . to . record the descent of two hundred angels on the earth, their selection of wives, the birth of their gigantic offspring, and the instruction of mankind in the manufacture of offensive and defensive weapons, the fabrication of mirrors, the workmanship of jewellery, and the use of cosmetics and dyes, combined with lessons in sorcery, astrology, divination, and astronomy -- all which Tertullian accepts as Divine revelation, when he denounces woman as the "Devil's Gateway,"  and assures her, on the authority of the inspired Enoch, that Tyrian dyes, Phrygian embroidery, Babylonian cloth, golden bracelets, gleaming pearls, flashing onyx-stones, and brilliant emeralds, with all the other adjuncts of an elegant toilette, are the special gifts of fallen angels to female frailty. The advent of the angels multiplies transgressions on earth, they are condemned to "the lowest depths of the fire in torments," and Enoch, as the messenger of God, announces to them the eternity of their punishment. Chapters . to . give a graphic description of the miraculous journeys of Enoch in the company of an angel, from whom he learns the secrets of creation and the mysteries of Infinity. From the top of a lofty mountain "which reached to heaven," he beheld the receptacles of light, thunder, and lightning, "the great darkness or mountains of gloom which constitute winter, the mouths of rivers and of the deep, the stone which supports the corners of the earth, and the four winds which bear up the earth, and constitute the pillars of heaven."  

Is not this obviously the inspired cosmology, through which the author of the Book of Enoch unconsciously condemned mediaeval physicists to the stake for impiously proclaiming the mobility of the earth? If an inspired prophet saw the stone which supports the corners of the earth, how inexpiable the guilt of men, who fostered scepticism through the heliocentric theory of a world coursing swiftly round the sun! But had not the Book of Enoch disappeared for centuries out of Europe, before the persecution of Galileo and the martyrdom of Bruno? We answer that its teaching had survived, as numerous other superstitions have passed from generation to generation long after all knowledge of their origin has been lost to the theologians who accept them as Divine.

In the "Evolution of Christianity" we cite the following passage from Irenaeus: "It is impossible that the Gospels can be more or less than they are. For as there are four zones in the world which we inhabit, and four principal winds, while the Church is spread abroad throughout the earth, and the pillar and basis of the Church is the gospel and the spirit of life, it is right that she should have four pillars exhaling immortality on every side, and bestowing renewed vitality on men. 

From which fact it follows that the Word has given us four versions of the Gospel, united by one spirit." We now recognize that this fanciful theory of a limited number of Evangelists is based on the cosmology of Enoch; and if in the second century, Irenaeus accepted the visions of an antediluvian patriarch as facts, the traditional survival of the earth's "corner stone" doubtless controlled the orthodox astronomy of mediaeval theologians. 

Proceeding on his journey with the angel Uriel, Enoch furthermore beheld the prison of the fallen angels, in which struggling columns of fire ascended from an appalling abyss. He saw the regions in which the spirits of the dead await the day of judgment; he looked upon the trees of knowledge and of life, exhaling fragrant odours from leaves which never withered, and from fruit which ever bloomed; and he beheld the "great and glorious wonder" of the celestial stars, coming forth through the "gates of heaven." 

Chapters . to . record the second vision of wisdom, divided into three parables. The first depicts the future happiness and glory of the elect, whom Enoch beheld reclining on couches in the habitations of angels, or standing in thousands of thousands and myriads of myriads before the throne of God, blessing and glorifying Him with celestial song, as the Holy, Holy Lord of spirits, before whom righteousness eternally dwells. As Enoch uttered his prophecies respecting the elect, before the existence of Christianity, it is important to learn in what sense he understood the doctrine of election. The language of the first parable happily leaves no room for doubt--"The righteous will be elected for their . good works duly weighed by the Lord of Spirits."  Election, therefore, traced to its original source, means nothing more than Divine "selection of the fittest"--a theory more consistent with the justice of God, than the capricious choice of the metamorphical potter, whose arbitrary fashioning of plastic clay symbolized, in Pauline theology, the doctrine of predestination. The second parable (.-.) demands the absorbed attention of modern Jews and Gentiles; for it is either the inspired forecast of a great Hebrew Prophet, predicting with miraculous accuracy the future teaching of Jesus of Nazareth, or the Semitic romance from which the latter borrowed His conceptions of the triumphant return of the Son of Man, to occupy a judicial throne in the midst of rejoicing saints and trembling sinners, expectant of everlasting happiness or eternal fire : and whether these celestial visions be accepted as Human or Divine, they have exercised so vast an influence on the destinies of mankind for nearly two thousand years, that candid and impartial seekers after religious truth can no longer delay inquiry into the relationship of the Book of Enoch with the revelation, or the evolution, of Christianity. 

The third parable (.-.) recurs, with glowing eloquence, to the inexhaustible theme of Messianic glory, and again depicts the happy future of the righteous in contrast with the appalling misery of the wicked. It also records the supernatural control. of the elements, through the action of individual angels presiding over the winds, the sea, hail, frost, dew, the lightning's flash, and reverberating thunder. 

The names of the principal fallen angels are also given, among whom we recognize some of the invisible powers named in the incantations inscribed on the terra cotta cups of Hebrew-Chaldee conjuration. Chapters . to . contain the "book of the revolutions of the luminaries of heaven," the sun, the moon, and the stars, controlled in their movements by the administration of angels. 

In commenting on this section of the Book of Enoch, Archbishop Laurence says, "This system of astronomy is precisely that of an untutored, but accurate observer of the heavens. 

He describes the eastern and western parts of heaven, where the sun and moon rise and set, as divided each into six different gates, through which those orbs of light pass at their respective periods. 

In the denomination of these gates he begins with that through which the sun passes at the winter solstice; and this he terms the first gate. It of course answers to the sign of Capricornus; and is the southernmost point to which the sun reaches, both at rising and setting. 

The next gate, at which the sun arrives in its progress towards the east at rising, and towards the west at setting, and which answers to the sign of Aquarius, he terms the second gate. 

The next, in continuation of the same course of the sun, which answers to the sign of Pisces, he terms the third gate. 

The fourth gate in his description is that which is situated due east at sun-rising, and due west at sun-setting, and which, answering to the sign of Aries, the sun enters at the vernal equinox. 

With this fourth gate he commences his account of the sun's annual circuit, and of the consequent change in the length of day and night at the various seasons of the year. 

His fifth gate is now to be found in the sun's progress northwards, and answers to the sign of Taurus. 

And his sixth gate is situated still further north; which, answering to the sign of Gemini, concludes at the most northern point of heaven to which the sun arrives, and from which it turns at the summer solstice, again to measure back its course southwards. 

“Hence it happens, that the same gates which answers to the six signs alluded to in the sun's passage from the winter to the summer solstice, necessarily also answer to the remaining six of the twelve signs of the Zodiac in its passage back again. 

"The turning of the sun both at the winter and summer solstices, the first at the most southern, the last at the most northern point of its progress, must have always struck the eye of those who contemplated the variety as well as the splendour of its daily appearance. The astronomy of the apocryphal Enoch was perhaps formed in this respect upon the same principles as the astronomy of Homer, who places the situation of the island Syrie under the turning of the sun, othi tropai eelioio (Odyss. lib. xv. 404)." 

Chapters . to . contain a vision of Enoch giving an allegorical forecast of the history of the world up to the kingdom of the Messiah. Chapter . records a series of prophecies extending from Enoch's own time to about one thousand years beyond the present generation. In the system of chronology adopted, a day stands for hundred, and a week for seven hundred years. Reference is made to the deluge, the call of Abraham, the Mosaic dispensation, the building and the destruction of the Temple of Solomon--events which preceded the date at which the Book of Enoch was probably written: but when the author, in his character of a divinely inspired seer, extends his vision beyond the horizon of his own age, he discloses the vanity of his predictive pretensions, through prophecies which remain unfulfilled. If, however, the Book of Enoch had reached us through the Western, as well as the Ethiopic Canon, apologetic theologians would doubtless affirm that centuries are but trifles in prophetic time; and that the predictions of the great antediluvian prophet shall, sooner or later, attain miraculous fulfilment. Chapters . to . contain the eloquent exhortations of Enoch, addressed to his children, in which he follows Buddha in commending the "Paths of Righteousness," and anticipates Jesus in pronouncing the doom of sinners and the joys of saints, and gives utterance to the most emphatic assurance of immortality which has ever flowed from human lips: "Fear not, ye souls of the righteous, but wait with patient hope for the day of your death in righteousness. Grieve not because your souls descend in trouble and sorrow to the receptacle of the dead; for great joy shall be yours, like that of the angels in heaven. And when you die, sinners say concerning you, 'As we die the righteous die. What profit have they in their works? Behold, like us, they expire in sorrow and in darkness. What advantage have they over us? Henceforward are we equal; for behold they are dead, and never will they again perceive the light.' But now I swear to you, ye righteous . . . that I comprehend this mystery; that I have read the tablet of heaven, have seen the writing of the holy ones, and have discovered what is written and impressed on it concerning you. I have seen that all goodness, joy, and glory have been prepared for you. . . . The spirits of you who die in righteousness shall exist and rejoice; and their remembrance shall be before the face of the Mighty One from generation to generation.  How profound the impression necessarily produced on the Semitic imagination by this impassioned language, uttered in an age of faith in inspired dreams and celestial visions by a supposed visitant of the unseen world, who had conversed with angels in the presence of the Lord of spirits! 

The final chapter of the Book of Enoch records the birth of Noah, and the further prophecies of Enoch, addressed to Methuselah on the subject of the birth of Noah and the future deluge.