Enoch: The hero who isn't

 I Enoch is a collection of five separate compositions (Book of the Watchers, Similitudes, Astronomical Book, the Book of Dreams, Epistle of Enoch) that are written at different times but which constitute an “Enochian Discourse”.  Unlike works that are part of a “Mosaic Discourse”, Sinai represents merely the “setting” of revelation but where the authority of the text comes from revelation anew.  It echoes biblical phrases, and creates biblical allusions, but through its pseudepigraphal attribution to the character of Enoch, the setting is primordial humanity and not the Mosaic covenant.  Its focus from the first verse of the Book of the Watchers – and from the beginning of humanity - is on the final judgement and the saving of the chosen elect. This and other aspects of the text (retribution beyond death, heavenly journeys, ex eventu prophecy, angelic interpretation) follow interests reminiscent of the Hellenistic age, and put it in the “apocalypse” (albeit not apocalyptic) genre of literature in which “human life is bounded in the present by the supernatural world of angels and demons and in the future by the inevitability of a final judgement”.

The interest in Enoch is not purely in its pre-Mosaic setting, but in the character of Enoch himself or lack of it.  We do not know a lot from Genesis, other than that he is the seventh generation from Adam, and “walked with Elo-him”.  From the Book of the Watchers we know he is righteous, but what made him righteous is not overly elaborated on.  We meet Enoch “standing, blessing the Lord” which is a very static, non-Action oriented pose; and learn that as a “scribe of truth” he is invited to “come here, and hear my voice”.  As an empty vessel, he becomes the archetypal intercessor between the Watchers, G-d and humans.  On behalf of the watcher he dutifully “recited (to G-d) the memorandum of their petition”; and realises that his sole function is that “he created and destined me to reprimand the watchers, the sons of heaven”.  Collins discusses Competitive histography – a one upmanship of heroism: “Enoch was developed as a Jewish counterpart of such heroes as Enmeduranki – no less than them in antiquity, status, or access to divine knowledge”.  Yet Enoch does not seem heroic in the usual sense, and where his passivity is possibly the point.

The Watchers take an overly activist line, and not at all in line with their creation.  Their creation consisted of “originally exist[ing] as spirits, living forever and not dying for all the generations of eternity therefore I did not make women among you”.  This seems to echo the admirable quality of not changing or acting other than ones nature.  The author marvels: “Contemplate all his works, and observe the works of heaven, how they do not alter their paths; and the luminaries of heaven, that they all rise and set, each one ordered in its appointed time, and they appear on ther feasts and do not transgress their appointed order”.  Yet the watchers joined the earthly realm: “And they began to go into them, and to defile themselves through them, and to teach them sorcery and charms, and to reveal to them the cutting of roots and plants”.  The physical conjugation with humanity, and improper revelation of heavenly power into the earthly realm, corrupts and contaminates the world. 

Boccacini says that this introduces a “[p]articular conception of evil, understood as an automous reality antecedent to humanity’s ability to choose, the result of a ‘contamination that has spoiled nature”.  In this view, large parts of humanity may be corrupt, but it is not necessarily something that they can do much about.  It is perhaps for this reason that G-d instructs Enoch to tell the Watchers: “You should petition in behalf of humans, and not humans in behalf of you”.  This lack of ability to change this nature is reflect in the instruction to Enoch too: “Go to Noah and say to him in my name, ‘Hide Yourself.  And to reveal to him that the end is coming, that the whole earth will perish.”  In Rabbinic literature, Noah is criticised for his passivity (in contrast to Abraham) and yet this “hiding” in Enoch is a positive thing: Wait it out until the end in his own righteousness.

The literature suggests that ideal in Enoch is to leave an angelic life.  I think this is too easy on two grounds: 1. It was precisely the mixing of realms that led to the corruption, and Enoch could only go on this heavenly journey as a tabula rasa; 2. The ultimate aim is  “eternal peace all the days of their life” on earth.  The lesson is perhaps instead a form of quietism.  “Not for this generation do I expound, but concerning one that is distant I speak.  And concerning the chosen I speak now and concerning them I take up my discourse”.  In the apostate generation of post-exilic Judaism, they should wait and “hide themselves” like Noah and Enoch.