Fallen Angels and the Origins of Evil (24 page)

2
I have seen
that all goodness, joy, and glory has been prepared for you, and been written down for the spirits of them who die eminently righteous and good. To you it shall be given in return for your troubles; and your portion
of happiness
shall far exceed the portion of the living.

3 The spirits of you who die in righteousness shall exist and rejoice. Their spirits shall exult; and their remembrance shall be before the face of the mighty One from generation to generation. Nor shall they now fear disgrace.

4 Woe to you, sinners, when you die in your sins; and they, who are like you, say respecting you, Blessed are these sinners. They have lived out their whole period; and now they die in happiness and in wealth. Distress and slaughter they knew not while alive; in honour they die; nor ever in their lifetime did judgment overtake them.

5
But
has it not been shown to them, that,
when
to the receptacle of the dead their souls shall be made to descend, their evil deeds shall become their greatest torment? Into darkness, into the snare, and into the flame, which shall burn to the great judgment, shall their spirits enter; and the great judgment shall take effect for ever and for ever.

6 Woe to you; for to you there shall be no peace. Neither can you say to the righteous, and to the good who are alive, “In the days of our trouble have we been afflicted; every
species of
trouble have we seen, and many evil things have suffered.

7 Our spirits have been consumed, lessened, and diminished.

8 We have perished; nor has there been a possibility of help for us in word or in deed: we have found none, but have been tormented and destroyed.

9 We have not expected to live day after day.

10 We hoped indeed to have been the head;

11 But we have become the tail. We have been afflicted, when we have exerted ourselves; but we have been devoured by sinners and the ungodly; their yoke has been heavy upon us.

12 Those have exercised dominion over us who detest and who goad us; and to those who hate us have we humbled our neck; but they have shown no compassion towards us.

13 We have been desirous of escaping from them, that we might fly away and be at rest; but we have found no place to which we could fly, and be secure from them. We have sought an asylum with princes in our distress, and have cried out to those who were devouring us; but our cry has not been regarded, nor have they been disposed to hear our voice;

14 But rather to assist those who plunder and devour us; those who diminish us, and hide their oppression; who remove not their yoke from us, but devour, enervate, and slay us; who conceal our slaughter, nor remember that they have lifted up their hands against us.”

1 I swear to you, ye righteous, that in heaven the angels record your goodness before the glory of the mighty One.

2 Wait with patient hope; for formerly you have been disgraced with evil and with affliction; but now shall you shine like the luminaries of heaven. You shall be seen, and the gates of heaven shall be opened to you. Your cries have cried for judgment; and it has appeared to you: for an account of all your sufferings shall be required from the princes, and from every one who has assisted your plunderers.

3 Wait with patient hope; nor relinquish your confidence; for great joy shall be yours, like that of the angels in heaven. Conduct yourselves as you may, still you shall not be concealed in the day of the great judgment. You shall not be found like sinners; and eternal condemnation shall be far from you, so long as the world exists.

4 And now fear not, ye righteous, when you see sinners flourishing and prosperous in their ways.

5 Be not associates with them; but keep yourselves at a distance from their oppression; be you associated with the host of heaven. You, ye sinners, say, All our transgressions shall not be taken account of, and be recorded. But all your transgressions shall be recorded daily.

6 And be assured by me, that light and darkness, day and night, behold all your transgressions. Be not impious in your thoughts; lie not; surrender not the word of uprightness; lie not against the word of the holy and the mighty One; glorify not your idols; for all your lying and all your impiety is not for righteousness, but for great crime.

7 Now will I point out a mystery: Many sinners shall turn and transgress against the word of uprightness.

8 They shall speak evil things; they shall utter falsehood; execute great undertakings [literally, “create a great creation” (Laurence, p. 173)]; and compose books in their own words. But when they shall write all my words correctly in their own languages,

9 They shall neither change or diminish them; but shall write them all correctly; all which from the first I have uttered concerning them.
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10 Another mystery also I point out. To the righteous and the wise shall be given books of joy, of integrity, and of great wisdom. To them shall books be given, in which they shall believe;

11 And in which they shall rejoice. And all the righteous shall be rewarded, who from these shall acquire the knowledge of every upright path.

1 In those days, saith the Lord, they shall call to the children of the earth, and make them listen to their wisdom. Show them that you are their leaders;

2 And that remuneration
shall take place
over the whole earth; for I and my Son will for ever hold communion with them in the paths of uprightness, while they are still alive. Peace shall be yours. Rejoice, children of integrity, in the truth.

1 After a time, my son Mathusala took a wife for his son Lamech.

2 She became pregnant by him, and brought forth a child, the flesh of which was as white as snow, and red as a rose; the hair of whose head was white like wool, and long; and whose eyes were beautiful. When he opened them, he illuminated all the house, like the sun; the whole house abounded with light.

3 And when he was taken from the hand of the midwife, opening also his mouth, he spoke to the Lord of righteousness. Then Lamech his father was afraid of him; and flying away came to his own father Mathusala, and said, I have begotten a son, unlike
to other children.
He is not human; but, resembling the offspring of the angels of heaven, is of a different nature
from ours,
being altogether unlike to us.

4 His eyes are
bright
as the rays of the sun; his countenance glorious, and he looks not as if he belonged to me, but to the angels.

5 I am afraid, lest something miraculous should take place on earth in his days.

6 And now, my father, let me entreat and request you to go to our progenitor Enoch, and to learn from him the truth; for his residence is with the angels.

7 When Mathusala heard the words of his son, he came to me at the extremities of the earth; for he had been informed that I was there: and he cried out.

8 I heard his voice, and went to him saying, Behold, I am
here,
my son; since thou art come to me.

9 He answered and said, On account of a great event have I come to thee; and on account of a sight difficult
to be comprehended
have I approached thee.

10 And now, my father, hear me; for to my son Lamech a child has been born, who resembles not him; and whose nature is not like the nature of man. His colour is whiter than snow; he is redder than the rose; the hair of his head is whiter than white wool; his eyes are like the rays of the sun; and when he opened them he illuminated the whole house.

11 When also he was taken from the hand of the midwife, he opened his mouth, and blessed the Lord of heaven.

12 His father Lamech feared, and fled to me, believing not that
the child
belonged to him, but that he resembled the angels of heaven. And behold I am come to thee, that thou mightest point out to me the truth.

13 Then I, Enoch, answered and said, The Lord will effect a new thing upon the earth. This have I explained, and seen in a vision. I have shown thee that
in
the generations of Jared my father, those who were from heaven disregarded the word of the Lord. Behold they committed crimes; laid aside their class, and intermingled with women. With them also they transgressed; married with them, and begot children.
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14 A great destruction therefore shall come upon all the earth; a deluge, a great destruction, shall take place in one year.

15 This child which is born to you shall survive on the earth, and his three sons shall be saved with him. When all mankind who are on earth shall die, he shall be safe.

16 And his posterity shall beget on the earth giants, not spiritual, but carnal. Upon the earth shall a great punishment be inflicted, and it shall be washed from all corruption. Now therefore inform thy son Lamech, that he who is born is his child in truth; and he shall call his name
Noah,
for he shall be to you a survivor. He and his children shall be saved from the corruption which shall take place in the world; from all the sin and from all the iniquity which shall be consummated on earth in his days. Afterwards shall greater impiety take place than that which had been before consummated on the earth; for I am acquainted with holy mysteries, which the Lord himself has discovered and explained to me; and which I have read in the tablets of heaven.

17 In them I saw it written, that generation after generation shall transgress, until a righteous race shall arise; until transgression and crime perish from off the earth; until all goodness come upon it.

18 And now, my son, go tell thy son Lamech,

19 That the child which is born is his child in truth; and that there is no deception.

20 When Mathusala heard the word of his father Enoch, who had shown him every secret thing, he returned with understanding, and called the name of that child Noah; because he was to console the earth on account of all its destruction.

21 Another book, which Enoch wrote for his son Mathusala, and for those who should come after him, and preserve their purity of conduct in the latter days. You, who have laboured, shall wait in those days, until the evil doers be consumed, and the power of the guilty be annihilated. Wait, until sin pass away; for their names shall be blotted out of the holy books; their seed shall be destroyed, and their spirits slain. They shall cry out and lament in the invisible waste, and in the bottomless fire shall they burn [literally, “in the fire shall they burn, where there is no earth” (Laurence, p. 178)]. There I perceived, as it were, a cloud which could not be seen through; for from the depth of it I was unable to look upwards. I beheld also a flame of fire blazing brightly, and, as it were, glittering mountains whirled around, and agitated from side to side.

22 Then I inquired of one of the holy angels who was with me, and said, What is this splendid
object?
For it is not heaven, but a flame of fire alone which blazes; and
in it there is
the clamour of exclamation, of woe, and of great suffering.

23 He said, There, into that place which thou beholdest, shall be thrust the spirits of sinners and blasphemers; of those who shall do evil, and who shall pervert all which God has spoken by the mouth of the prophets; all which they ought to do.

For respecting these things there shall be writings and impressions above in heaven, that the angels may read them and know what shall happen both to sinners and to the spirits of the humble; to those who have suffered in their bodies, but have been rewarded by God; who have been injuriously treated by wicked men; who have loved God; who have been attached neither to gold nor silver, nor to any good thing in the world, but have given their bodies to torment;

24 To those who from the period of their birth have not been covetous of earthly riches; but have regarded themselves as a breath passing away.

25 Such has been their conduct; and much has the Lord tried them; and their spirits have been found pure, that they might bless his name. All their blessings have I related in a book; and He has rewarded them; for they have been found to love heaven with an everlasting aspiration.
God has said,
While they have been trodden down by wicked men, they have heard from them revilings and blasphemies; and have been ignominiously treated, while they were blessing me. And now will I call the spirits of the good from the generation of light, and will change those who have been born in darkness; who have not in their bodies been recompensed with glory, as their faith may have merited.

26 I will bring them into the splendid light of those who love my holy name: and I will place each of them on a throne of glory, of glory
peculiarly
his own, and they shall be at rest during unnumbered periods. Righteous is the judgment of God;

27 For to the faithful shall he give faith in the habitations of uprightness. They shall see those, who having been born in darkness unto darkness shall be cast; while the righteous shall be at rest. Sinners shall cry out, beholding them, while they exist in splendour and proceed forwards to the days and periods prescribed to them.

[Here ends the vision of Enoch the prophet. May the benediction of his prayer, and the gift of his appointed period, be with his beloved! Amen.
R. Laurence
]