Including the Ancient Near East as “Western Identity”: The Case of Enochic Traditions in Early Christian Literature

Abstract

The study of early Christianity has often been approached from the perspective of the Graeco-Roman world, with its acculturation being determined by Rome more than by Jerusalem, and by Hellenists more than by Hebrews. This teleological perspective tends to overlook settings of ancient Near Eastern traditions which remain understudied. A case in point may concern Enochic traditions. Examples range from Enoch being part of the Lucan Jesusʼs genealogy (Luke 3:23–28 at v. 37), to Enochic apocalyptic woes paralleling Lucan woes (Luke 6:24–26), to Enoch being a paradigm of deathless faith (Hebrews 11:5), and to Enochic discourse being quoted in terms of prophecy in Jude 14–15. This chapter will revisit intertextuality and interdiscursivity of early Christian literature with Enochic traditions, taking into account the Enochic writings among the Dead Sea Scrolls. The chapter then evaluates how this adds to the understanding of Christian cultural heritage in the discussion of “Western identity.”

1. Introduction

“Western identity” and “antiquity” are categories that may be interrelated in complex ways.¹ To be sure, “Western identity” is a concept external to antiquity. It constitutes a discourse that may engage cultural heritage, in particular sources of cultural identity, for the construction of a collective self or “imagined community.”² Yet for people in antiquity, the modern concept of “Western identity” would be an outsiderʼs (etic) perspective, not necessarily related to their insiderʼs (emic) perspective. Understood as a sense of belonging, people may have multiple senses of “identity”³ at individual and collective levels, such as, culture, economy, and religion. And yet, “Western identity” has often been understood as built on the foundation of classical antiquity, that is Greek and Roman antiquity.⁴ This essay aims to revisit the cultural ramifications of “East” and “West” related to the study of antiquity from the vantage point of Early Christianity.

From the vantage point of the early Jesus movement rooted in first-century CE Judaism,⁵ this essay will also take into account recent insights about cultural exchange. That is, the study of the early Roman era may benefit from globalization theory in terms of interconnectivity and interdependence. As such, globalization theory understands cultures as “in essence hybrid entities with permeable boundaries.”⁶ In this respect, early Christian texts may be revisited as a body of literature that incorporates traditions of the “East,” as the Jesus movement spread its mission from Roman Palestine to the western hemisphere of the Roman empire. Revisiting early Christian literature in this respect also implies a change of focus, away from exclusive notions of “acculturation” of emerging Christianity.⁷ The “acculturation” approach has often implied a unidirectional movement from Jerusalem to Rome and from Hebrews to Hellenists as dominant contexts of cultural dialog.⁸ This is illustrated by earlier studies on Acts which emphasized a narrative schema of missionary journeys turning from Jerusalem to Rome and of increasing tension between these two.⁹ Recent studies show a unidirectional sense of “acculturation” into Graeco-Roman civilization is no longer self-evident.

Contexts of globalization in the early Roman empire may be illustrated by the presence of the “East” in the “West.” This is apparent from documentary evidence of, for instance, Phoenician/(Neo-)Punic,¹⁰ Nabatean, and bilingual inscriptions¹¹ in western parts of the Roman empire; from material evidence for the presence of eastern cults in Italy (e.g., the Isis cult in Pompeii)¹²; and from literary evidence of “Orientals” in second-century CE Rome, as exemplified by Juvenalʼs metaphor, stating that “already long ago the Syrian Orontes has flowed into the Tiber, secreting language and customs.”¹³

Which concepts of “Antiquity” did people use in the early Roman era? The antiquity of ancestral traditions could be a source of authority and respectability in the Roman world, a tested foundation on which people relied for their cultural practices. For instance, in his digression on “the Jews” (Histories [=Hist.] 5) which includes an ethnic bias of anti-Jewish legends,¹⁴ the Roman historian Tacitus yet observed that their religious observances “are sanctioned by antiquity,” antiquitate defenduntur in Latin (Hist. 5.5.1), at the point where he just lined Jewish religion with its observance of the seventh day up with the Idaei and Saturn (Hist. 5.4). “Antiquity,” archaiologia or archaiotēs in Greek, could encompass history and foundation myth,¹⁵ legends and tales,¹⁶ “time-honored customs, laws, and institutions”¹⁷ of a community. In the realm of religion, antiquity, archaiotēs, could bestow an aura of “sanctity” (hagneia) or worthiness of “reverence” (sebasmos) on a cult.¹⁸ This is not to say that there was ever any monolithic concept of “antiquity,” for archaiotēs could also have pejorative overtones in certain rhetorical contexts of discourse, associating it with “simplicity” (Plutarch, Lycurgus 1.3), “things old-fashioned and trite” (Dio Chrysostom, Oration [=Or.] 13 29 ll. 1–2), or “ignorance” (Dio Chrysostom, Or. 13 29 l. 5). Yet even so, “antiquity,” archaiotēs, could be a frame of reference of recognizability, as it was also associated with name and renown (Dio Chrysostom, Or. 33 46).

“Antiquity,” archaiologia,¹⁹ was also the domain of the imagined ethnic community with its foundation legends and history. Thus, historians in antiquity could be occupied with writing, for instance, “Attic antiquities” (Phanodemus), “Roman antiquities” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus), “Jewish antiquities” (Flavius Josephus), “Egyptian antiquities” (Manetho), “Phoenician antiquities” (the Egyptian Jerome), “Chaldaean antiquities” (Berossus), and “Arabian antiquities” (Glaucus).

So what impeded the incorporation of the “East” into more Western concepts of cultural identity, which often concerned Graeco-Roman antiquity? And why does it matter to revisit early Christian literature for a case study in this regard?

Regarding the first question, several reasons may be adduced from the early Roman era. One reason concerns cultural bias in the discourses of power politics, which we can highlight right away, while another first-century CE reason concerns a context of conflict, the Jewish war against Rome (66–70 CE), to which I will turn in due course (§ 2.2 below). Regarding cultural bias, the first-century CE Jewish historian Flavius Josephus addressed the dichotomy between Greeks and “barbarians” in his apologetic treatise Against Apion (=Ag.Ap.). That is, Josephus aimed to counter ignorance about and bias against non-Greek antiquities, citing examples from Egyptians, Chaldaeans, and Phoenicians as keepers of historical records (Ag.Ap. 1.8). That which Josephus countered was his “intense astonishment at the current opinion (tous oiomenous dein) that, in the study of primeval history, the Greeks alone deserve serious attention” (Ag.Ap. 1.6).²⁰ The matter of “current opinion” would probably not so much involve cultural ignorance of non-Greek antiquities on the part of other historians,²¹ as it concerned the cultural rhetoric surrounding power politics. For instance, when identifying the cultural backgrounds of Romeʼs foundation, the first-century BCE historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus insisted that Rome descended from “Greek colonies, sent out from the most famous places, and not, as some believe, barbarians and vagabonds” (Roman antiquities [=Rom.ant.] 7.70.1).²² Dionysius argued for this hypothesis by connecting Roman ritual observances with “the customs of the Greeks” (Rom.ant. 7.71.3). While cultural biases may have been present on both ends of East and West,²³ these examples from Josephus and Dionysius illuminate the cultural distance which one would need to bridge to incorporate the “East” into “Western identity.”

Regarding the latter question about the relevance of early Christian literature in this matter, it should be noted from the outset that first-century CE emerging Christianity was perceived by Roman authorities as a Fremdkörper coming from Roman Palestine²⁴ and as an internal division among Jews according to Acts 18:12–17 (cf. Acts 28:22). As a movement originating from Judaism in Roman Palestine, Christianity spread westwards, but its earliest literature attests affiliations with the antiquity of the Near East. This essay will illustrate this point with reference to Enochic traditions as a case study. The reasons for selecting this topic for a case study are as follows. The figure of Enoch is rooted in biblical and other early Jewish traditions about the primeval ancient Near East, and yet Enoch was also the subject of discursive concerns about archetypes and myths in western Jewish diasporas (cf. § 3 below). As a movement originating from Early Judaism, early Christianity incorporated Enochic traditions, ranging from Jesusʼs genealogy (Luke [=Lk] 3:37) to possible echoes of Enochic woes in Jesusʼs discourses (Lk 6:24–26), to exhortations on faith (Hebrews 11:5), to explicit quotations from Enochic writings in Jude 14–15), and to other early Christian literature beyond the canonical New Testament (§ 4 below). As such, Enochic traditions merit the attention as a case study, where “East” meets “West,” even if they concern an archetypical figure from a distant, primeval past, where history receded to a realm of myths and legends. These traditions were considered significant to merit early Christian discursive attention in various ways. This went beyond the established intra-Greek framework of the Greek Bible among Greek-speaking Jews and Christians.

In what follows, before turning to Enochic traditions in Early Judaism (§ 3) and to specific cases of Enochic traditions in early Christian literature (§ 4), I will first survey cultural perceptions of “East” and “West” in the early Roman era, to situate “ancient Eastern traditions” more generally in this period (§ 2). Finally, my essay will then turn to an evaluation and conclusions (§ 5).

2. Cultural perceptions of east and west in the early Roman era

What did concepts of “East” and “West” mean in the early Roman period? In order to situate the case study of Enochic traditions more broadly in historical and cultural geographies of the time,²⁵ I will highlight these concepts across corpora of texts (§ 2.1), turn to these concepts in a first-century CE context of conflict and the concomitant question of gaps to be bridged (§ 2.2), and then consider early Christian settings of understanding “East” and “West” (§ 2.3).

2.1 East and west across corpora of texts

In Greek literature of the early Roman era, the “West” could variously stand for western parts of the empire. As such, Hesperia denoted “western land” and had allegedly served as a primeval Greek appellation of Italy, as Dionysius of Halicarnassus recounts in his survey of legends around the origin of this countryʼs name (Rom.ant. 1.35.1–3 at 1.35.3). By the turn of the common era, “the western world,” to hesperion (Strabo, Geography 1.1.8, 3.1.2) or hē hesperios gē (Josephus, Ag.Ap. 1.67), was recurrently associated with the Iberians.²⁶ Other early Roman associations with “western nations” were “the Gauls and some other western nations” (hesperia ethnē)²⁷ or “the Celts, the Germans, and Britain” as the “West” (ta hesperia) subdued by Caesar.²⁸ On a generalized plane of continents, Philo of Alexandria conceived of “West” as related to Europe and of “East” as related to Asia. We may infer this from his chiastic formulation ethnē ta heōia, ta hesperia, Eurōpēn, Asia, “the eastern nations, and the western, Europe and Asia” (On the Life of Moses 2 20). The “western ocean,” ho hesperios Ōkeanos, was a Roman term for the Atlantic Ocean.²⁹ In his Description of Greece 7.8.9, the second-century CE geographical guide Pausanias refers to the Romans, who subdued the Macedonian empire, as inhabiting the western part of Europe, ta pros hesperan nemomenoi tēs Eurōpēs.

By comparison, earlier Semitic evidence of an Aramaic composition, 4Q552-553a (4QFour Kingdoms^a−c ar), dated to the early Hellenistic age (late 4th-mid-2nd century BCE),³⁰ was still entangled with an ancient Near Eastern perspective of empires, which yet envisioned a westward movement of dominion. That is, 4QFour Kingdoms includes concepts of “East,” ma[dnkhā] (4Q552 1 ii 4) and “West,” ma’arba (4Q552 1 ii 7) in a visionary context of trees symbolically representing kingdoms. The “East” refers to the dominion of Babylon over Persia (4Q552 1 ii 5–6), while the “West” refers to dominion over the lands, the sea, and the harbors under Persian dynasties (4Q552 1 ii 7–10).³¹

In the first-century CE Roman world, notions of East and West were further embedded in the cultural geography of a Mediterranean Greek-speaking Levant. This may be illustrated by two quotes from Charitonʼs Greek novel Callirhoe, dated to the early Roman period.³²

As far as Syria and Cilicia Callirhoe readily put up with the journey, for she still heard Greek spoken and could look upon the sea which led to Syracuse. But when she arrived at the River Euphrates, the starting point of the Great King’s empire, beyond which lies the vast continent, then she was filled with longing for her home and family and despaired of ever returning (Callirhoe 5.1.3).

“There (in Ionia) the land which you gave me, though foreign, was still Greek, and I had the great consolation of living by the sea. But now you cast me forth from familiar surroundings and I am separated from my home by a whole world. This time you take Miletus from me, as before you took Syracuse. Carried off beyond the Euphrates, I, an islander born, being enclosed in the depths of a barbarian continent where no sea exists” (Callirhoe’s direct speech; Callirhoe 5.1.5–6).

These quotations indicate that, for a Greek-speaking citizen of Syracuse (Sicily) and, discursively speaking, for the Greek audience of Callirhoe, the eastern Mediterranean coastal regions would still be within a recognizable environment in terms of language (Greek) and mobility (travel by sea). Yet the lands “beyond the Euphrates” would be wholly non-Greek and unfamiliar as a “vast continent” to the East of the Mediterranean, and “barbarian” regarding the historicizing setting of the Persian empire as opposed to Greek dominion.

This Greek cognitive dissonance regarding the ancient Near East would not necessarily apply to religious notions of the “East” in early Jewish and Jewish Hellenistic contexts. For instance, in the philosophical thought of Philo of Alexandria (ca. 20 BCE-ca. 50 CE), the “East,” anatolai, could symbolically stand for both the best and the worst. Paradise, planted in the East (kata anatolas), archetypically stands for “right reason (which) never sets, and is never extinguished, but it is its nature to be always rising (anatellein)” (Allegorical Interpretation 1 46).³³ Referring to Zechariah 6:12 as a prooftext, Philo further associates the appellation “East,” anatolē, with the “incorporeal being” and with the “divine image” (On the Confusion of Tongues [=Confusion] 62). Yet the “East” may also be an example of a “worse kind of dawning,” tou de cheironos anatolēs eidous hypodeigma (Confusion 64). Philo associates this with the biblical Balakʼs willingness to curse the people blessed by God (Numbers 23:7). In this connection, Philo symbolically associates Balakʼs dwelling place in Mesopotamia with a mind being overwhelmed by the depth of a river (Confusion 64–66).

As a mythical place in the East, paradise was also a recurrent topic across other ancient Jewish literature, including Enochic literature. For instance, as part of his visionary eastward journey (1 Enoch 20–36), the protagonist Enoch encounters the “paradise of righteousness” (1 Enoch 32.3) in the East. Yet the Qumran book of Astronomical Enoch (= 4QEnastr^a−d ar) associates the “[Paradi]se of Righteousness,” [pard]es qushtha, with a “third space,” assigned to the deserts, “seven mountains,” and the paradise of righteousness, within a tripartite division, which allots a first place to the abodes of human beings and a second place to all the seas and rivers (4Q209 [4QEnastr^b ar] frg. 23 ll. 8–10).³⁴

2.2 East and west in a first-century CE context of conflict

The first-century CE Graeco-Roman world in which emerging Christianity spread its mission westwards was also a world ultimately characterized by conflict between “East” and “West,” which culminated in the Jewish war against Rome (66–70 CE). This war has been conceptualized as an “ancient clash of civilizations.”³⁵ Yet long-term diachronic perspectives on Jewish-Roman relations have recently been revisited, turning from a conflict model to cultural competition.³⁶

In this context of conflict, concepts of “East” and “West” did play a significant role in both pre-70 CE apocalyptic discourses and post-70 CE historical discourses. In pre-70 CE settings, Qumran sectarian literature has yielded evidence of apocalyptic applications of prophecy from Isaiah 10:34–11:5 to ideas of war. Originally related to the envisioned fall of Assur, these Qumran texts applied it to war against the “Kittim” (4Q161 [4QIsaiah Pesher^a] frgs. 8–10; 4Q285 frg. 5), which ultimately became a biblical code-word for Romans.³⁷ The apocalyptic perspective of a war of “the sons of light” against “the sons of darkness” in the War Scroll (1QM 1.1) further envisions “great panic among the sons of Japhet,” when Assur falls (1QM 1.6). “Sons of Japhet” would also be western nations, in view of the biblical table of the nations (Genesis 10:1–32 at vv. 2–5) and its explanation by Flavius Josephus (Jewish Antiquities [=Ant.] 1.122–129).

In a post-70 CE context of Roman victory against the Jews, having culminated in the destruction of Jerusalem, Tacitus writes that “the majority were convinced that the ancient scriptures of their priests (antiquis sacerdotum litteris) alluded to the present as the very time when the Orient would triumph (ut valesceret Oriens) and from Judaea would go forth men destined to rule the world. This mysterious prophecy referred to Vespasian and Titus” (Hist. 5.13.2).³⁸ Further, Flavius Josephus also described “an ambiguous oracle,” chrēsmos amphibolos, mistakenly interpreted by “many of their wise men” (polloi tōn sophōn) as applying to world hegemony by someone from the country of the Jews (Jewish War [=J.W.] 6.312), which yet applied to Vespasianʼs proclamation as emperor in Judaea (J.W. 6.313). In his Jewish War 4.618, Josephus explicitly stated that Vespasian had been proclaimed the new emperor in the East (ton epi tēs anatolēs autokratora).

In a post-70 CE context, the Matthean narration about magicians coming from the East, magoi apo anatolōn, to worship a king of the Jews (Matthew [=Mt] 2:1) could also have ambiguous political overtones in the Roman world. Magicians could have varying roles of divination and omens attributed to them, as a collective part of the perplexed entourage of magicians, enchanters, Chaldaeans, and sages at the Babylonian court of Nebuchadnezzar in the book of Daniel³⁹ or as an individual who, according to tradition attributed to Aristotle, had come from Syria to Athens and predicted a violent end for Socrates (Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers 2.45). This ambiguity probably added to the sense of imminence of the Matthean birth and infancy narrative of Jesus (Mt 1:18–2:23).

2.3 East and west as part of early Christian perspectives

There are no explicit indications of cultural perceptions of “East” and “West” in representations of Jesus in the Gospels, but discourses of Jesus do yield implications of a cultural and religious framework of Jewish audiences in Syro-Palestinian regions in the early Roman era which differed from the dominant culture of the Graeco-Roman world. Except for perhaps Matthew, the canonical Gospels have recurrently been understood as authored by Gentile Christians writing for Gentile readers,⁴⁰ for whom information on “the Jews” and their “tradition of the elders” (Mark 7:3) would be an etic perspective. Yet the originator of the gospel movement, with its varying appellations as “the Way” (Acts 9:2, 19:9.23, 22:4, 24:14), “Christians” (Acts 11:26), and the “sect of the Nazoreans” (Acts 24:5), was the Jew Jesus. For Jesus and his earliest followers, Judaism of Roman Palestine would be a familiar world, perceived from an emic perspective. The fact that the Judaism of Jesus did not exactly coincide with the dominant culture of the Graeco-Roman world may be apparent from the language of Jesus (traces of Aramaic words)⁴¹ as well as his religious and cultural affiliations with the Scriptures of Israel rather than with the literary canons of the Graeco-Roman world. For Jesus, people gathering into the kingdom of God “from east and west, and from north and south” (Lk 13:29) would be seeing “Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets” at the heart of this kingdom (Lk 13:28).

To be sure, Jesus was open-minded to Jews as well as Gentiles as audiences of his teachings in the Syro-Palestinian regions, even to the point of Jesusʼ amazement about a centurionʼs faith as compared with all Israel (Lk 7:9 par. Mt. 8:10).⁴² Yet even after his earthly death, Jesus of Nazareth was perceived as a mighty prophet by his Jewish followers (Lk 24:19) upon whom they had fixed their hopes to redeem Israel (Lk 24:21) and to restore its kingdom (Acts 1:6). In other words, Jesus and his earliest followers cannot be disentangled from this movementʼs early Jewish hopes for Israel.

Turning to Paul the Apostle, whose Letters approximately dating between 50 and 60 CE constitute the earliest documents of Christianity,⁴³ “East” and “West” were part of the scope of his missionary activities. These included obviously Eastern localities in his early years, such as Arabia and Damascus (Galatians [=Gal] 1:17), ranged from Jerusalem to Illyricum (Romans [=Rom] 15:19), and envisioned more Western itineraries by way of Rome to Spain (Rom 15:28). Yet no unidirectional sense of exchanging Jerusalem for Rome as destination can have been on the apostleʼs mind, when he wrote his Letters. For he repeatedly refers to a collection as service for the holy ones of the Jerusalem church (1 Corinthias [=1 Cor] 16:1–4; 2 Cor 8–9; Gal 2:10; Rom 15:25–32). Furthermore, a Greek-Aramaic bilingual outlook of some of Paulʼs words (abba ho pater, Gal 4:6, Rom 8:15; marana tha, 1 Cor 16:22)⁴⁴ imply that the apostle wrote as a man of two worlds, coming from the Semi-Hellenized Semitic-speaking Near East⁴⁵ and addressing Greek-speaking congregations as part of the westward spread of Christianity.

“East” and “West” are also in the picture in the Acts of the Apostles. Luke describes the Jewish festival of Pentecost (Acts 2:1) as the occasion at which the Jerusalem church sought to address assembled pilgrims regarding the gospel. Eastern and Western diasporas of Jewish communities are among the Lucan description of pilgrims to Jerusalem: “Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians” (Acts 2:9–11, RSV). This enumeration of peoples, which has been associated with an “inherited list” to emphasize a long-standing Jewish tradition,⁴⁶ includes a heavy Levantine and Eastern component, in terms of geographical provenance as well as languages, which would certainly not coincide with the dominant culture of the Graeco-Roman world. The Lucan description indicates no unfamiliarity or dissonance from the peoples of the “East” among the gathered people as “barbarians,” such as illustrated in Callirhoe (5.1.5–6; § 2.1 above), but instead refers to them as “Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven” (Acts 2:5, RSV).

Christianity never was a purely “Western” phenomenon of Graeco-Roman acculturation even long after the first century CE.⁴⁷ The Near Eastern settings of the early Christian movement remained in place with the spread of eastern Christianity,⁴⁸ even though the canonical Greek New Testament writings attest the westward spread of Christianity in the Graeco-Roman world. In the patristic imagination of Eusebius of Caesarea (263–340 CE), even the Jewish-Christian leadership⁴⁹ of the Jerusalem church continued for some time after 70 CE until the defeat of the Bar Kokhba revolt under Hadrian in 135 CE. And Christian presence in Roman Palestine continued with Theophilus, bishop of Caesarea, in the second century CE and with Sextus Julius Africanus (160–240 CE), living at Emmaus near Jerusalem.

These observations on cultural perceptions of “East” and “West” in the early Roman era should set the stage for our discussion of traditions from the ancient Near East as incorporated in the early Jewish context of emerging Christianity, focusing on the case of Enochic traditions.

3. Enochic traditions in early judaism between east and west

3.1 Enoch in biblical tradition

The Enoch, Chanoch in Hebrew, to whom subsequent Enochic traditions were attributed is a biblical figure of the age before the Flood, mentioned in Genesis (=Gen) 5:21–24. Son of Jared, Enoch is the seventh generation after Adam in “the book of the generations of Adam” (Gen 5:1–32). Even though he is only tersely described, the biblical verses about him twice refer to his “walking with God” (Gen 5:22.24), which the Greek Bible renders as “well pleasing to God” (LXX Gen 5:22.24).⁵⁰ Enochʼs end is somewhat mysteriously described as “and he was not, for God took him” (Gen 5:24, RSV), which the Greek Bible renders as “and he was not found, because God transferred him” (LXX Gen 5:24, [43]). The biblical genealogy with Enoch as the seventh generation since Adam recurs in 1 Chronicles 1:1–3.

Yet Genesis also provides a twilight perspective on primeval genealogy.⁵¹ It mentions one “Enoch” as the descendant of Cain (Gen 4:17), with a city named after him, and as ancestor of one “Lamech” who became a proverb of degeneration from Cainite sevenfold vengeance toward seventy-sevenfold blood revenge (Gen 4:18.23–24). Genesis 5:1–24 mentions another “Enoch” as the descendant of Seth, who walked with God (Gen 5:21–24) and was the grandfather of another “Lamech,” the father of Noach (Gen 5:22.25–29).

3.2 Enochic literature in the second temple period

As compared with the terse biblical account of Enoch, Enochic literature, pseudepigraphically named after this biblical literature, is vast, including various books of 1 Enoch: the Book of Watchers (1 Enoch 1–36), the Book of Parables (1 Enoch 37–71), the Book of the Luminaries (1 Enoch 72–82), the Dream Visions (1 Enoch 83–90), the Epistle of Enoch (1 Enoch 91–105), the Birth of Noah (1 Enoch 106–107), and a final book (1 Enoch 108), of which the dates of composition range from the late fourth century BCE to the turn of the common era.⁵² In its totality, 1 Enoch has only been transmitted as a complete text through late medieval Ethiopic manuscripts.⁵³ However, Greek fragments and especially Aramaic fragments from Qumran have made it possible to relate 1 Enoch to antiquity, more specifically to the Second Temple period. The Qumran evidence also helps to situate Enochic traditions about ancient Near Eastern settings, as I will briefly highlight below.

Qumran Aramaic manuscripts contain three types of Enochic literature: (a) Enoch manuscripts paralleling 1 Enoch (4Q201–202, 204–207, 212 [4QEnoch^a−g ar])⁵⁴; the Enochic Book of Giants (1Q23–24 [1QEnGiants^a−b ar], 2Q26 [2QEnGiants ar], 4Q203 [4QEnGiants^a ar], 4Q530–533 [4QEnGiants^b−e ar], 6Q8 [6QpapEnGiants ar])⁵⁵ with tales about the imagined primeval age; and (c) Astronomical Enoch (4Q208–211 [4QEnastr^a−d ar]) with observations about the stars.⁵⁶ The Qumran fragments parallel various sections of 1 Enoch, except for the Book of Parables (1 Enoch 37–71).⁵⁷

The Aramaic 1 Enoch manuscripts from Qumran (4Q201–202, 204–207, 212), which are palaeographically dated to the second and first centuries BCE, parallel sections from the Book of Watchers,⁵⁸ the Dream Visions,⁵⁹ the Epistle of Enoch,⁶⁰ and the Birth of Noah.⁶¹

The Book of Watchers as witnessed in the Qumran Aramaic fragments envisions the rebellion of the Watchers “in the days of Jared,” b^eyome Yared (1 Enoch 6:6, 4Q201 col. 3 l. 4), at Mount Hermon, begetting giants, whose rate of growth surpassed available sustenance, after which all flesh started to become consumed by them (1 Enoch 7:1–5).⁶² Enochʼs ultimate role in the Book of Watchers is that of intermediary between the angels, who pass on exhortation of divine judgment against lawlessness, and the fallen Watchers on earth (1 Enoch 12:3–14:7).⁶³ This archetypical story mentions four archangels, Michael, Sariel, Raphael and Gabriel, who take up the case of bloodshed on the earth (1 Enoch 9:1–11). Two of them, Michael and Gabriel, also occur in Danielʼs apocalyptic prophecies with a view to an unfolding history of wars and dominions of successive kingdoms in the ancient Near East (Dan 9–12 at 9:16.21, 10:13.21, 12:1).⁶⁴ As such, 1 Enoch constitutes an archetypical story with an eschatologically oriented discourse of admonition against lawlessness rooted in ancient Near Eastern antiquity.

As compared with biblical tradition, which tersely narrates that Enoch was taken by God (Gen 5:24), the Book of Watchers elaborates on this (1 Enoch 12:1–2), extensively narrating Enochʼs heavenly ascent (1 Enoch 13:8–16:4) and otherworldly journeys (1 Enoch 17–36). These otherworldly journeys include an eastward localization of the “Paradise of Justice” (1 Enoch 32:3; 4Q206 frg. 3 l. 21). The representation of Enoch as the seventh antediluvian generation in a total of ten generations between Adam and Noach, with his closeness with the divinity and his heavenly ascent, has distant parallels from Mesopotamian cultural backgrounds. Ancient Mesopotamian texts also attributed distinct roles to seventh-generation antediluvian protagonists. These reportedly concern Sumerian primeval king lists⁶⁵ and various myths of seventh-generation antediluvian sages Adapa-Oannes and Enmeduranki.⁶⁶ Long-standing Mesopotamian contexts affirm the impression that the Enochic writings were embedded in Near Eastern antiquity.

Turning to the Book of Giants, a unique Qumranite addition to the corpus of Enochic writings, ancient Mesopotamian contexts become even more pronounced. That is, 4QBook of Giants^b ar mentions one “Gilgamesh” (4Q530 frgs. 2 ii + 6 + 7 i + 8–12 l. 2), thereby referring to a legendary Mesopotamian hero, to whom the Gilgamesh epic is attributed.⁶⁷ According to the reconstruction by É. Puech, a further figure, “Kh[o]babish,” further accompanied Gilgamesh (4Q530 frgs. 2 ii + 6 + 7 i + 8–12 l. 2). Puech associates Khobabish with the Assyrian Khubaba or Sumerian Khuwawa, who in ancient Babylonian tradition would be “the living, the immortal,” a divinely commissioned guardian of a forest of cedars, an adversary of Gilgamesh.⁶⁸ This text further turns to ominous dream visions of a watered garden going up in flames and of divine judgment by the “Ruler of the heavens” descending to the earth, which Enoch had to interpret for an assembly of Nephilin⁶⁹ and giants (4Q530 frgs. 2 ii + 6 + 7 i + 8–12 ll. 1–24 // 6Q8 frgs. 3 + 2). In Puechʼs reconstruction, the first dream also alludes to the “flood,” [mabul]ah (4Q530 frgs. 2 ii + 6 + 7 i + 8–12 l. 12).⁷⁰ The larger setting of this narration clearly implies interdiscursivity with Mesopotamian traditions and protagonists in the Enochic Book of Giants.

Palaeographically dated between the early second century BCE and the late first century BCE, the Astronomical Enoch (4Q208–211) at Qumran has been compared with the Book of the Luminaries in 1 Enoch 72–82 as concerning observations on sun, moon and calendrical practices. References to the solar year in terms of 364 days (1 Enoch 72:32, 74:10.12)⁷¹ may constitute an astrological background to the symbolical age of 365 years attributed to Enoch in Gen 5:23.⁷² The focuson astronomical observations may also be situated against broader cultural backgrounds of the ancient Near East, where the Chaldaeans were reputedly the most ancient and renowned experts in the field of astrology.⁷³Astronomical Enoch further contains references to “East” and “West,” as part of Enochʼs explanation to his son Methuselah how they are related to the movements of the heavenly bodies (4Q209 frg. 23 ll. 1–7 // 4Q210 frg. 1 col. 2 ll. 14–18; 1 Enoch 76:13–77:3) and to beneficial and harmful winds from various wind directions (4Q210 frgs. 1 col. 2 ll. 1–9; 1 Enoch 76:3–10). As already noted before, 4Q209 frg. 23 l. 9 refers to the “Paradise of Justice” as a probably mythical “third space” (cf. § 2.1 above).⁷⁴

3.3 Enochic traditions in other second temple Jewish literature

Beyond the Enochic writings and their ancient Near Eastern contexts, Enoch and Enochic traditions were also broadly represented in other Jewish literature of the Second Temple period. The survey below highlights four examples, ranging from Sirach to Jubilees, Philo of Alexandria and Flavius Josephus. These examples also illustrate their significance across various settings of Early Judaism, including Jewish Hellenism.

3.3.1 Sirach

The biblical figure of Enoch is not confined to apocalyptic tradition,⁷⁵ but he is also part of sapiential tradition, as his presence in the Book of Sirach, a Jewish wisdom book from the early second century BCE,⁷⁶ illustrates. As part of his “hymn to the fathers” (Sir 44:1–50:24), concerning famous ancestors of Judaism, Sirach also praises Enoch. Enoch figures at the beginning of his survey of primeval figures, patriarchs, Moses and Aaron, Phinehas, Joshua and Caleb, judges, kings, prophets, and high priests up to Simon son of Onias. Sirach 44:16 reads: “Henoch pleased God, and he was changed, an example of repentance for generations” (NETS [43]). In this setting of sapiential praise, Enoch has become a positive biblical stereotype, an example (hypodeigma) across generations. This also accords with words in the introduction to the Enochic Book of Watchers that Enochʼs discourses were not “[for thi]s generation, but for a [fu]ture generaton” (4Q201 col. 1 l. 4; 1 Enoch 1:2).⁷⁷ Enoch not only figures at the beginning of Sirachʼs “hymn to the fathers,” but also stands out as a unique character after praise of Nehemiahʼs memory in Sirach 49:13. Sirach 49:14 reads, “No one was created on the earth such as Henoch, for he too was taken up from the earth” (NETS [43]), after which Sirach 49:15–16 honors Joseph, Shem, Seth, and Adam. It has been argued that 1 Enoch and Sirach share certain thematic and social connections.⁷⁸ This further illustrates that the interdiscursivity of Early Judaism with Enochic traditions cannot be limited to apocalyptic thought.

3.3.2 Jubilees

Enoch and his works also figure in the parabiblical account of discourses attributed to Moses in Jubilees, of which the composition has been dated to the mid-second century BCE.⁷⁹ Like 1 Enoch, the only virtually complete textual witness to Jubilees is in Ethiopic.⁸⁰ The Dead Sea discoveries also include Hebrew fragments of Jubilees (4Q216–224 [4QJub^a−h]; 4Q225–227 [4QpsJub^a−c]), and the book of Jubilees appears to be quoted as an authoritative text in the Damascus Document (CD 16.3–4 // 4QD^f frg. 4 col. 2 l. 5)⁸¹ and in 4Q228 frg. 1 col. 1 ll. 9–10. In its review of the biblical past, Jubilees 4.16–26 narrates Enochʼs birth, his learning regarding the signs of heaven, his dream visions, his witness against the Watchers, his transference to the garden of Eden and his witness regarding judgment of the world. The Hebrew text 4Q227 (4QpsJub[?]^c) frg. 2 ll. 1–6 further mentions Enochʼs witness against the Watchers for the broader purpose of admonition “[so t]hat the j[ust] would not stray” (l. 6).⁸² Perspectives on the genre of Jubilees range from “a borderline case for the apocalyptic genre”⁸³ to “Rewritten Scripture.”⁸⁴ As such, the significance of Enoch in Jubilees further illustrates the importance of Enochic traditions in Second Temple Judaism.

3.3.3 Philo

Enoch also figures in the Jewish Hellenistic philosophy of Philo of Alexandria. In his treatise On the Life of Abraham 17, Philo describes repentance from sins and improvement as a matter of importance next after hope. In this connection, he mentions Enoch as the embodiment of a better way of life, introducing him as follows: “who is called Enoch by the Hebrews, as Greeks would say ʻpleasingʼ”.⁸⁵ Philo subsequently cites the Greek Bible translation of Genesis 5:24. Enoch thereby appears a figure of discursive importance between East and West, between the world of the Hebrews and that of the Greeks.

In his treatise On the Posterity of Cain, Philo also presents a philosophical understanding of the figure of Enoch. He introduces an understanding of the name Enoch, Enōkh, as “your gift,” kharis sou, which may yet be interpreted in two directions. That is, in Posterity 40–43, Philo distinguishes two Enochs, one the descendant of Cain (Gen 4:17–18),⁸⁶ the other the descendant of Seth (Gen 5:21.25).⁸⁷ Philo juxtaposes these two in terms of Cainite self-perception of everything as “a free gift of their own soul” over against a Sethic race of people “who do not claim as their own all that is fair in creation, but acknowledge all as due to the gift of God” (Posterity 42).⁸⁸ In Philoʼs understanding of the biblical Enoch, the latter type comes to stand for “the better people” (hoi ameinones, Post. 41), “lovers of virtue” (philaretoi, Post. 42), “a race of those who escape the treacherous, reckless, and perverse (way of) life which is amassed with passions and full of vices” (Post. 43). Interpreting Genesis 5:24,⁸⁹ Philo generalizes this to a “sort which is very hard to find (dyseureton)” in the following way: “For those who have been well-pleasing (euarestēsantas) to God, and whom God has translated and removed (metebibase kai metethēken) from perishable to immortal races, are no more found among the multitude (para tois pollois ouketh’ heuriskontai)” (Post. 43).⁹⁰ Philoʼs interpretation elaborates on the well-pleasing (euērestēsen) character of Enoch toward God, on the situation of Enoch not being found (ou hēurisketo), and on the divine agency of taking Enoch up (metethēken), all of which occur in LXX Genesis 5:24.

Philoʼs philosophical digression on the two biblical Enochs in Genesis 4–5 also implies a sense of ambiguity, which opens a discursive space for reflection about the “gift” of humankind and how people could be disposed to it, either in a self-centred, anthropocentric way or open-minded to the “primary cause” (prōton aition, Confusion 123) behind creation (Posterity 40–43; Confusion 122–123).

3.3.4 Josephus

In the Greek Jewish Antiquities of Flavius Josephus, Enoch, called Anōkhos, is really more a footnote to the lineage and genealogy of Noach than an extensively described protagonist by himself (Ant. 1.79, 1.85, 1.86). When Josephus mentions seven generations (hepta geneas) since Adam, who “continued to believe in God as Lord of the universe and in everything to take virtue for their guide,”⁹¹ after which degeneration took hold of subsequent generations who abandoned ancestral customs (Ant. 1.72),⁹² he omits reference to Enoch as that “seventh generation.”⁹³ Josephus does describe astronomical discoveries by the descendants of Seth in the antediluvian age (Ant. 1.69), which conforms with the literary agenda of incorporating astronomical lore in Enochic writings (cf. § 3.2 above). According to Josephus, these generations also erected two pillars, of brick and stone, “in the land of Seiris,” possibly an ancient Near Eastern locality,⁹⁴ to teach posterity about these discoveries in case of destruction through deluge or fire, as allegedly predicted by Adam (Ant. 1.70–71). The historianʼs approach of Josephus cuts back legendary layers of biblical tradition, such as the incredible ages of antediluvian generations in terms of hundreds of years, including that of Enoch (Gen 5:23). In this connection, Josephus makes the following reader-oriented observation: “The reader should not examine the ages of the individuals at death, for their lifetimes extended into those of their sons and their sonsʼ descendants, but should confine his attention to their dates of birth” (Ant. 1.88).⁹⁵ Yet the figure of Enoch is not entirely depleted of mystery. For in Ant. 9.28, Josephus singles out Elijah and Enoch, “who was before the flood,” tou genomenou pro tēs epombrias, as the two about whom no one knew of their death.

The above survey may illustrate the breadth of Enochic writings and traditions in Early Judaism between the ancient Near East and the Graeco-Roman world. A recurrently attested tradition in Early Judaism pictures Enoch as the progenitor of astrological observation relating to calendrical knowledge and to claims of visionary disclosure of events through the lens of eschatological judgment.⁹⁶ The latter aspect also looms largely in Old Testament pseudepigrapha with a distinctly Christian transmission history, such as the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs.⁹⁷

Beyond the Second Temple period, the Jewish reception history of Enochic traditions in late antiquity ultimately became submerged in Merkavah mysticism with Enoch transformed into the angel “Metatron” in 3 Enoch.⁹⁸ This was an altogether different world of thought from that versed in ancient sciences in the Astronomical Book of Enoch (1 Enoch 72–82, 4QEnastr^a−d ar) of the early Hellenistic age.⁹⁹

4. Enochic traditions in early Christianity between east and west

Within this broader context of cultural perceptions of East and West and of Enochic discourse in Judaism and Jewish Hellenism, it is time to turn to the discussion of Enochic traditions in Early Christianity. It is beyond the scope of this essay to investigate all possible forms of intertextuality and interdiscursivity with Enochic traditions in early Christian literature in their broadest sense, which may be a project by itself.¹⁰⁰ This essay instead focuses on three canonical New Testament writings, where Enoch is explicitly mentioned: Luke, Hebrews, and Jude. These three texts also contain evidence of strongly implied intertextuality and/or interdiscursivity with Enochic traditions. Next to these writings, this essay will briefly highlight where Enoch is further mentioned in other early Christian literature. This section will highlight in which ways Enochic traditions are part of early Christian discourse and how this may be significant for the subject of including the Ancient Near East as “Western identity.”

4.1 Luke

At first hand, it would seem strange to look for ancient Eastern traditions in Lukeʼs Gospel among all Synoptic Gospels. There is a long-standing tendency to attribute to Luke a “Greek instinct” with the more polished use of Greek language as compared to supposedly more local Semitic colors in Mark and Matthew.¹⁰¹ And yet there is an equally long-standing qualification of Lukeʼs Gospel in terms of literary interchange, i.e. code-switching, between standard and Semitized (“Hebraistic”) registers of Greek.¹⁰² The idea that Lukeʼs Gospel would systematically lessen Semitic colors of narrative discourse and of poetic discourses of Jesus has been greatly nuanced and corrected in recent years.¹⁰³

In his genealogy of Jesus (Lk 3:23–38), Luke traces Jesusʼ ancestry ultimately back to being “the son of Adam, the son of God” (Lk 3:38), including Enoch (Lk 3:37) along this lineage. This lineage of the Lucan Jesus runs along the lines of Semitic ancestry (“son of Shem”, Lk 3:36) and goes back to the antediluvian age with its setting in the ancient Near East and its mythical Eden.¹⁰⁴ As such, Luke traces Jesusʼ divine sonship (“Son of God”,¹⁰⁵ Lk 3:38, RSV) back to descent from Adam, thereby squarely putting Jesusʼ humanity among all created humankind,¹⁰⁶ even though the Lucan infancy narrative also links Jesusʼ divine sonship with the Holy Spirit (Lk 1:35; cf. Lk 3:22). The genealogical list of Luke 3:23–38 depends on biblical tradition for the timespan of ten generations from Adam to Noah, of whom Enoch counts as the seventh antediluvian generation. This is the Enoch who descended from Adam through Seth (Gen 5:1–24 at vv. 21–24) rather than the Cainite Enoch (Gen 4:17). This implies an emphasis on lineage from Adam “in the likeness of God” (Gen 5:1) through Seth in Adamʼs “likeness” (Gen 5:3) rather than through Cain who had turned away from God (Gen 4:8–17).

If genealogy functioned in ancient envisioned communities as legitimation, as “ancestral credentials,” as an assertion of high status in history, even of “divine origins,” as various commentators have asserted,¹⁰⁷ this further invigorates the importance of the primeval figure of Enoch among the ancestral lineage of antiquity in which the Lucan Jesus was rooted.

Beyond the literal mention of Enoch, Lukeʼs Gospel contains evidence for several intersections between Jesus’ traditions and trajectories of thought in the Enochic writings. In the brief survey below, I will highlight three examples from the discourses of the Lucan Jesus, which range from uniquely Lucan passages to verses paralleled in Matthew.

First, the Lucan “Sermon on the Plain” (Lk 6:17–49), which is otherwise paralleled by the Matthean “Sermon on the Mount” (Mt 5–7) in many respects,¹⁰⁸ contains a unique Semitically structured antithetic parallelism between blessings of the poor (Lk 6:20–23) and woes against the rich (Lk 6:24–26).¹⁰⁹ The latter verses with woes are uniquely Lucan, without parallel in Matthew. Luke 6:20–23.24–26 (RSV) reads as follows in translation, schematically presented in terms of poetic parallelism:

Blessed are the poor,      Aa

for yours is the kingdom of God      Ab

Blessed are you that hunger now,      Ba

for you shall be satisfied.      Bb

Blessed are you that weep now,      Ca

for you shall laugh      Cb

Blessed are you when men hate you,      Da

and when they exclude you and revile you,      Ea

and cast out you name as evil, on account of the Son of man!      Eb

Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy,      Ea′

for behold, your reward is great in heaven;      Eb

for so their fathers did to the prophets.      Db

But woe to you that are rich      Aa′

for you have received your consolation.      Ab′

Woe to you that are full now,      Ba′

for you shall hunger.      Bb′

Woe to you that laugh now,      Ca′

for you shall mourn and weep      Cb′

Woe to you, when all men speak well of you,      Da′

for so their fathers did to the false prophets.      Db′

The strongest forms of antithetic parallelism are in Luke 6:20-22a.23f//Luke 6:24–26 (Aa//Aa′, Ab//Ab′, Ba//Ba′, Bb//Bb′, Ca//Ca′, Cb//Cb′, Da//Da′, Db//Db′), while the blessing Luke 6:22b–23 contains a double inversion specifically turning to those who face adverse consequences of following Jesus as the Son of man.¹¹⁰ This antithetic discourse of the Lucan Jesus, which implies a chasm between the miserable poor and the careless rich,¹¹¹ is not without parallel in Enochic discursive traditions with a setting in instruction in the two ways (1 Enoch 94:1–5). The Epistle of Enoch is full of judgment in terms of woes against abusive, violent, and rich people (1 Enoch 94:6–95:2, 95:4–7, 96:4–8, 97:7–10). These woes are interchanged by exhortations of righteous people to be hopeful despite suffering and persecution (1 Enoch 95:7, 96:1–3, 97:1–2). This Enochic discourse also addresses righteous people who have been persecuted as follows: “Fear not, you who have suffered, for you will receive healing, and a bright light will shine upon you, and the voice of rest you will hear from heaven” (1 Enoch 96:3). A comparable tenor of encouragement about the ultimate inversion of stakes of suffering righteous and abusive sinners may underlie the more radically formulated blessing in Luke 6:23. Among the apocalyptic woes, one woe against the rich may further parallel Luke 6:24, namely that in 1 Enoch 94:8: “Woe to you, rich, for in your riches you have trusted; from your riches, you will depart, because you have not remembered theHighest in the days of your riches.”¹¹²

The broader discursive context of a chasm between two groups, abusive rich vs. suffering righteous, as well as the specific formulation of woes alternated by exhortations qualify Enochic traditions as an important context of apocalyptic thought. The interdiscursivity between the discourse of the Lucan Jesus (Lk 6:20–23.24–26) and the discourse of the Epistle of Enoch, including the two against the rich (1 Enoch 94:8),¹¹³ has remained understudied in certain commentaries on Luke.¹¹⁴ The Enochic discursive tradition of apocalyptic woes against rich people who had become godless in their behavior must have been an important undercurrent in the Judaism of Jesusʼ days, for the Epistle of Enoch is otherwise attested in the Qumran Aramaic fragments (§ 3.2 and n. 60 above), dated to the second century BCE, and constituted a significant model for testamentary instruction.¹¹⁵ As such, the Lucan Jesus phrased his beatitudes and woes in language familiar from Scripture and couched in interdiscursive concerns also known in apocalyptic currents of thought to the Judaism of his days, thereby making sure that his message was heard by his earliest audiences in Roman Palestine. Beyond the early Jewish context, ideas about divine providence combined with social criticism had a broader outreach in the Graeco-Roman world from East to West,¹¹⁶ as subsequent audiences to emerging Christianity¹¹⁷ and readershisp of Lukeʼs Gospel may illustrate.

The second Lucan passage which merits interdiscursive comparison with a view to Enochic traditions is Luke 12:54–56. This passage contains an eschatologically loaded admonition of the Lucan Jesus concerning a crisis of right perception of circumstances. It reads as follows in translation:

54 He also said to the multitudes, “When you see a cloud rising in the west, you say at once, ʻA shower is coming’; and so it happens. 55 And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, ʻThere will be scorching heat’; and it happens. 56 You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky; but why do you not know to interpret the present time?” (Lk 12:54: –56, RSV)

This passage is only partly paralleled in Matthew 16:2–3, which also mentions weather circumstances interpreted from the color of the sky, but does not refer to wind directions, as Luke 12:54–56 does. These observations about wind directions and their impact as described in Luke 12:54–56 have been generally characterized as “indigenous to Palestine.”¹¹⁸ Also, in this case, the possibility of interdiscursive connections with Enochic traditions has remained understudied in several commentaries on Luke.¹¹⁹ As a matter of fact, the Enochic Book of the Luminaries (1 Enoch 72–82), paralleled by Aramaic Astronomical Enoch manuscripts from Qumran, contains an extensive chapter on wind directions with beneficial and harmful impacts: 1 Enoch 76. This chapter mentions “gates” from which winds emerge, including a gate toward the “west,” from which “there emerge dew, rain, locusts and destruction” (1 Enoch 76:9), and a gate toward the “south,” from which there “emerge drought, destruction, burning, and devastation” (1 Enoch 76:13).¹²⁰ Thus, the observation of signs of nature was ingrained in the astrological lore of Enochic traditions.

Yet there is more. The moral exhortation with which the Lucan passage concludes in contrast to the ability to observe the signs of nature is not without a formal parallel either. Turning to another Enochic writing, the Book of Watchers (1 Enoch 1–36) provides repeated injunctions to contemplate and observe the ways of nature (1 Enoch 2:1–5:3), including their signs (1 Enoch 2:3, 4:1) as evidence of an appointed order in Godʼs creation, which receive a follow-up in words of indictment. These words, addressing the enemies of righteous people (1 Enoch 1:1), are as follows: “But you have not stood firm nor acted according to the commandments; but you have turned aside, you have spoken proud and hard words with your unclean mouth against his majesty. Hard of heart! There will be no peace for you!” (1 Enoch 5:4).¹²¹ This transition from observance of the signs of nature to moral judgment characterizes both this Enochic discourse and the discourse of Jesus in Luke 12:54–56. In the Enochic context, the indictment concerns unfaithfulness to the commandments and the appointed order of the creation as “works of God” (1 Enoch 2:2, 5:4). This discursively addresses a “distant generation” beyond the fallen Watchers (1 Enoch 1:2.5). In the Lucan context, judgment apparently concerns the lack of a moral compass regarding faithfulness and watchfulness in settings of eschatological anxiety, including matters of war and peace (Lk 12:35–48.49-53.54–56.57-59).

The third example of potential interdiscursivity between Lucan discourses of Jesus and Enochic traditions concerns broader contexts of eschatological ideas and beliefs,¹²² which are also related to apocalyptic exhortations that employ imagery of the primeval Flood. There were interlocking traditions about Enoch and about the Flood in Early Judaism, as may be illustrated by imagery of “deluge” and “Nephilin” in the Qumran Book of Giants and from the incorporation of chapters on the birth of Noah in 1 Enoch 106–107. The apocalyptic discourses of Jesus in Luke 17 and Matthew 24 both include imagery of “the days of Noah” and of the Flood (Lk 17:26–27 par. Mt. 24:37–39), thereby imagining the unexpected future of the kingdom of God and the coming of the Son of man. This use of imagery may perhaps be compared with Isaiah 54:7–10, which also mentions “days of Noah” (Isa 54:9),¹²³ but the Isaianic context emphasizes assurance of the covenant to Israel, swearing that “the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth” (Isa 54:9, RSV), notwithstanding a brief moment of wrath (Isa 54:7–8). The dark overtones of destruction in Luke 17:27.29 as setting for the “the day when the Son of man is revealed” (Lk 17:30, RSV) may also be compared with an Enochic emphasis on “great destruction” in Noahʼs time (1 Enoch 106:15), subsequently increasing evil across generations (1 Enoch 106:19–107:1)¹²⁴ until the rise of “generations of righteousness” (1 Enoch 107:1). Yet the reference to Noah also implies the notion of a remnant saved from destruction, and early Jewish contexts of thought emphasize the unrepeatable phenomenon of the Flood.¹²⁵

4.2 Hebrews

The Letter to the Hebrews provides further evidence from the canonical New Testament about Enoch. The biblical figure of Enoch is one of three primeval figures (Abel, Enoch, Noah; Heb 11:4–7), who set archetypical examples of faith as “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Heb 11:1, RSV). This enumeration of three examples of faith from primeval generations is followed up by an extensive list of further examples of faith from Israelʼs biblical past, including Abraham (Heb 11:8–19), Isaac (Heb 11:20), Jacob (Heb 11:21), Joseph (Heb 11:22), Moses (Heb 11:23–28), the people (Heb 11:29–30), Rahab (Heb 11:31), judges, king David, prophets, martyrs (Heb 11:32–38), all of whom “did not receive what was promised” (Heb 11:39, RSV).

Enoch (Heb 11:5) stands in the opening section of this enumeration in Hebrews 11, representing one of the examples from primeval generations, “men of old” who “received divine approval” by faith (Heb 11:2, RSV). These ancestral examples represent a long chain of being to the addressees of Hebrews, who are “surrounded by so great a cloud of witness” (Heb 12:1, RSV). “Faith” here also means “perseverance” and “endurance” (Heb 12:1–2) in faithfulness to the word of God (Heb 11:3). These examples of faith in Hebrews 11 have also been considered to be part of a larger discourse on “the faithfulness of Jesus and the faithfulness of the ancestors” in Hebrews 10:32–12:13.¹²⁶ This alignment addressed the needs of a community, whose suffering of hardships (Heb 10:32–34) all but alienated them from teachings (Heb 5:11–14).¹²⁷ The retrospective view on ancestral examples for imitation of faith in Hebrews 13:7 has led scholars to date Hebrews to the late first century CE.¹²⁸ The examples of steadfastness in faith from a long line of ancestral tradition probably served to uphold and legitimate the faith life of the addressed community of Hebrews.

Within this larger context, Hebrews 11:5 introduces Enoch as an example of deathless faith: “By faith, Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death; and he was not found, because God had taken him. Now before he was taken he was attested as having pleased God” (Heb 11:5, RSV). These words about Enoch are basically related to Genesis 5:24. Even though Hebrews 11:5 does not go beyond biblical tradition,¹²⁹ the appeal to examples from the ancestral tradition, including primeval forebears in praise of their faithfulness, may have an analogy in the sapiential tradition of “praise of the fathers” in Sirach, which also conceived of Enoch as an example across generations (Sir 44:16; § 3.3 above). The fact that ancestral examples from Israelʼs biblical past are an integral part of Hebrews, of which the structure has been compared with Graeco-Roman rhetorical persuasion through exempla, has led James W. Thompson to situate the author of Hebrews “between cultures, (because) he has adopted elements from the Jewish homily and from Greco-Roman rhetoric.”¹³⁰ As such, Hebrews 11:5 illustrates the biblical example of Enoch as a figure from the distant, mythical past of the ancient Near East. Enochʼs ancestral faith also mattered for the “West,” for a community of addressees that lived in the Graeco-Roman world greeted by “those who come from Italy” (Heb 13:24).

4.3 Jude

The third text from the canonical New Testament writings, the Letter of Jude, may further illustrate that Enoch was not only a biblical figure to early Christianity, but also a discursive tradition. In fact, the citation of a prophetic saying attributed to Enoch in Jude 14–15 indicates that, beyond interdiscursivity with Enochic traditions, early Christian literature also includes a case of intertextuality with Enochic writings. The citation in Jude 14–15 has generally been identified as a quotation from 1 Enoch 1:9, that is, from the beginning of the Book of Watchers.¹³¹ I will turn to this citation in a moment. Yet it should be noted from the outset that there is more intertextuality with Enochic traditions in Jude. The evocative language of fallen angels (Jude 6) and of wild behavior as “wandering stars” (Jude 12–13 at v. 13) presupposes intertextuality with the narrative of rebelling, fallen Watchers in 1 Enoch 6–11,¹³² but also with passages about wandering, “disobedient stars” (1 Enoch 21:1–5). Even beyond 1 Enoch, narrative references to Cain, Balaam, and Moses (Jude 9, 11) have led scholarship to identify Judeʼs familiarity with extrabiblical traditions “otherwise mainly attested in Palestine.”¹³³

The rich intertextuality with Jewish traditions has led scholarship to attribute a Jewish-Christian perspective to Jude, with possible connections to Syro-Palestinian milieus of tradition.¹³⁴ The purpose of Judeʼs exhortations versed in Jewish traditions is to warn against intruders into the addressed community, “ungodly persons” (Jude 4), who have generally been associated with opponents or false teachers.¹³⁵ These opponents are characterized in terms of reviling judgments lacking authoritative understanding (Jude 8, 10) and defiling behavior through immorality (Jude 7–8, 12). The latter aspect is substantiated in Jude 7–8 as oppressive lust¹³⁶ and in Jude 12 as “shameless banqueting” (suneuōkhoumenoi aphobōs) and “self-shepherding” (heautous poimainontes) rather than caring for others. Jude 12 thereby targets opponents as those who pose as leaders, “shepherds,” but instead only care for themselves. In this setting, where intruding opponents disturb the “love feasts,” agapai,¹³⁷ of the congregation (Jude 12), Jude 11–13.14–16 antagonizes these opponents with intertextual references to 1 Enoch, including the citation of 1 Enoch 1:9 in Jude 14–14. Jude 11–13.14-16 reads as follows in translation:

11 Woe to them! For they walk in the way of Cain, and abandon themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam’s error, and perish in Korah’s rebellion. 12 These are blemishes on your love feasts, as they boldly carouse together, looking after themselves; waterless clouds, carried along by winds; fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead, uprooted; 13 wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame; wandering stars for whom the nether gloom of darkness has been reserved forever.

14 It was of these also that Enoch in the seventh generation from Adam prophesied, saying “Behold, the Lord came with his holy myriads, 15 to execute judgment on all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness which they committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.” 16 These are grumblers, malcontents, following their own passions, loud-mouthed boasters, flattering people to gain advantage (Jude 11–16, RSV).

The prophecy of judgment in Jude 14 extensively cites 1 Enoch 1:9 regarding Godʼs judgment of the ungodly with their impious ways. The form of the citation in Jude 14–15, in which the subject “Lord” (Greek kurios) differs from 1 Enoch 1:9, has sometimes led scholarship to interpret it as referring to judgmental overtones of the Parousia of Jesus Christ as Lord.¹³⁸ While these overtones cannot be excluded regarding the Christology of Jude (cf. Jude 25), it should be noted that Lord (kurios) is also a designation for God in the Greek Bible. Enochic traditions also include theocentric appellations of God as Lord, such as “Lord of majesty, the King of the ages” (1 Enoch 12:3).¹³⁹ Lord is an appellation of God in both Hebrew and Aramaic literary contexts, as, for instance, 4Q200 (4QTobit^e) frg. 6 l. 9 (Tobit 13:4)¹⁴⁰ and 4Q529 (4QWords of Michael ar) ll. 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12¹⁴¹ may illustrate. In the Qumran Book of Giants, one passage, which refers to God pronouncing sentence surrounded by a thousand thousands, calls God “the Ruler of the heavens” (4Q530 frgs. 2 ii + 6 + 7 i + 8–12 l. 16).

The strongly implied sense of divine judgment on earth directed against the impious in Jude 14–15 is also that which Jude shares with Enochic traditions. Both the Book of Watchers, which refers to the coming of God to judge the wicked (1 Enoch 1:9; cf. 4QEn^c ar col. 1 ll. 15–17), and the Qumran Book of Giants, which mentions a dream vision that “the Ruler of the heavens came down to earth” to proclaim judgment on all flesh (4Q530 frgs. 2 ii + 6 + 7 i + 8–12 ll. 16–19),¹⁴² have an earth-bound orientation of divine judgment. In this respect, the vision of God surrounded by myriads in his judgment is further paralleled in the throne vision of Daniel 7:10, but this scriptural text is less explicit about the earth-bound setting of judgment than the Enochic traditions, from which Jude 14–15 draws its intertext.

The divided reception of Jude in subsequent early church literature has been related to Judeʼs citation of 1 Enoch, which was not included as a canonical text except in the Ethiopian church, and to its allegedly mythological worldview.¹⁴³ Nevertheless, Jude is attested in ancient textual witnesses and was already mentioned in the “Canon Muratori” dated 200 CE.¹⁴⁴ It has further been emphasized that a “biblical canon” did not yet exist when the letter of Jude was written.¹⁴⁵ Thus Judeʼs citation of 1 Enoch 1:9 witnesses the pluriform situation of authoritative texts in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity, before canonization became part of their dominant cultures. With this pluriformity as background, Jude illustrates openings for transmission of ancient Eastern traditions in more “Western” settings of Graeco-Roman composition of texts.

4.4 Other early Christian literature

In order to illustrate that references to Enoch and Enochic traditions were not a matter of scattered examples in Early Christianity, I will provide a brief survey of further examples from early Christian literature, before turning to an evaluation and conclusions.¹⁴⁶

From as early as the late first century CE and the early second century CE, literature of Apostolic Fathers further includes references to Enoch. 1 Clement 9.3 mentions Enoch as an example of a biblical figure “who was found righteous in obedience and so was taken up and did not experience death.”¹⁴⁷ This reference is part of a survey of biblical examples (1 Clement 9–12), which is perhaps not unlike that in Hebrews 11, except for the fact that Enoch is associated with righteousness in obedience by Clement, as compared with his exemplification of faith in Hebrews 11:5. The Epistle of Barnabas provides an eschatologically oriented exhortation against “the deception of the present age” through lawlessness, which it contrasts with “the age to come” (Barn. 4.1). As part of this exhortation, this text also refers to Enoch, in apposition to “the Scriptures,”¹⁴⁸ to signal that “the last stumbling block is at hand” (Barn. 4.3). In this connection, Enoch or Enochic traditions appear to be a source of encouragement: “For the Master has cut short the times and the days for this reason, that his beloved might make haste and come into his inheritance” (Barn. 4.3).¹⁴⁹ Perhaps Barnabas 4.3 here picks up on elements of Enochic discourse, such as the inheritance of the earthy by the righteous (1 Enoch 5:7), the shortening of years in the days of the sinners (1 Enoch 80:2), and the exhortation to the righteous that they may hope for the quick end of sinners who persecute them (1 Enoch 96:1). Yet broader intertexuality with scriptural and parabiblical sources may not be excluded, in view of the apposition between “the Scriptures” and Enoch in Barnabas 4.3.¹⁵⁰

Various early church fathers also refer to Enoch in their discussions. In his Dialogue with Trypho, the second-century CE author Justin Martyr attributes universal goodness to primeval figures Enoch and Noah (Dialogue 45.4). In his Stromata 4.17.105.3, Clement of Alexandria (150–211/215 CE) again cites the evidence of 1 Clement 9.3 regarding Enochʼs righteousness through obedience. The Pseudo-Clementine Homilies 17.4.3 and 18.13.6 also mention the biblical figure of Enoch. In his fourth-century CE Preparation for the Gospel 5.4, Eusebius of Caesarea further compared the giants of the age of the Flood with demons and legendary lore, albeit in light of Greek mythology of titans.

This brief survey of further references to Enoch in early Christian literature may indicate the significance attributed to the biblical figure of Enoch as a primeval example of goodness and righteousness for humanity in an ancient Near Eastern setting.

5. Evaluation and conclusions

Enoch is a biblical figure with a genealogy from the primeval age, while Enochic writings are pseudepigrapha which does not by themselves belong to the “Antiquity” of the mythical age before the Flood. And yet, many parts of 1 Enoch are also attested among Qumran Aramaic manuscripts, of which the composition is dated between the late fourth and the first centuries BCE. Enochic writings are conversant with the mythical lore and ancient astronomical sciences of the Near East. When Enochic writings refer to “tablets of heaven” (1 Enoch 81:1.2, 103:2), this is also a cultural metaphor related to tablets as writing materials and to scribal culture in the ancient Near East. As such, Enochic writings reimagine the primeval age as an archetypical tale of antiquity in the Near East.

There are late antique demurrals about the extra-canonical status of Enochic writings and their mythological worldviews to exclude it from consideration in terms of antiquity. For instance, Augustine rejected Enochic writings “with fables about the giants” because of an obscure origin in pseudepigraphy (City of God 15.23). Yet one should bear in mind that the canonical Scriptures also incorporate phenomena of pseudepigraphy.¹⁵¹ The argument from canon is relative since 1 Enoch is included along with other pseudepigraphical writings in the canon of the Ethiopian church and even in that of Ethiopian Judaism.¹⁵² It depends on how one understands apocalyptic discourse in 1 Enoch, whether and in which ways labels of a “mythological worldview,” “fables” and “legendary lore” are applicable or not. Apocalyptic discourse has sometimes been understood as being tantamount to fatalism and to abdicating human responsibility.¹⁵³ Upon this understanding, 1 Enoch would have “fallen angels” rather than human beings to blame for sin.

Yet this mistakes the archetypical narrative discourse of 1 Enoch and early Jewish traditions of moral exhortation based on the Flood.¹⁵⁴ The archetypical figure of “giants,” progeny of the “Watchers” who were originally held in high regard as “sons of heaven” (1 Enoch 6:2), provides apocalyptic illustration of what happens when a civilization held in high regard degenerates into a manner of growth which consumes all flesh on earth (1 Enoch 7:1–5), begetting bloodshed, violence, desolation and hate-inducing charms (1 Enoch 9:1.8–9), and moving beyond a realm of “forgiveness of sins and all mercy and peace and clemency” (1 Enoch 5:6).¹⁵⁵ No matter how high and mighty they deemed themselves, the “giants” were held accountable for their deeds and became the ominous prototype of eschatological judgment in the imagination of the Enochic writings. In this primeval domain of antiquity, where lines between myh and history are blurred, Enoch stands out as “the scribe of distinction,” s^ephar parsha, known for his dream interpretation according to the Qumran Book of Giants (4Q530 frgs. 2 ii + 6 + 7 i + 8–12 l. 14).

As we have seen with Enochic traditions, Enochic discourse had its ancient Near Eastern settings regarding ancient sciences and the observance of the solar calendar; regarding primeval myths about ten antediluvian generations of which Enoch was the seventh; and regarding ancient literary heroes called Gilgamesh and Khobabish. Enochic traditions were also part of early Jewish literature oriented toward the “West,” such as in Greek Sirach, Philo and Josephus. Voices that would brush 1 Enoch aside as extra-canonical and mythological fail to recognize the cultural exchange between “East” and “West” in terms of discourses of encouragement and moral exhortation embedded in Enochic traditions. Such voices would further brush aside the pluriformity of Second Temple Judaism among which Early Christianity had its origins.

The significance of Enochic traditions in early Christian literature, starting with the New Testament writings, has been demonstrated about Lukeʼs Gospel, the Letter to the Hebrews, and the Letter of Jude. Enoch is not only a biblical figure whose ancestral lineage is part of the genealogy of the Lucan Jesus, but interdiscursivity with Enochich traditions also plays a part in the discourses of Jesus in Lukeʼs Gospel. Beyond interdiscursivity, the citation of 1 Enoch 1:9 in Jude 14–15 and allusions to other parts of 1 Enoch in the Letter of Jude even illustrate intertextuality with Enochic traditions. If identity is a narrative discourse, the engagement with Enochic traditions in early Christian literature may illustrate that there was an interplay at work between “East” and “West” in Early Christianityʼs discourses of cultural and religious identity. Since the history of Christianity is considered a cultural and religious heritage of the “West,” this interplay should also be recognized in discourses of “Western identity.”

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments are due to the University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa, for the funding of page fees for this Open Access chapter.

Conflict of interest

The author declares no conflict of interest.