...."fringe evangelicalism". That is, an evangelicalism that promotes every oddball theory, every new heresy that is currently in vogue. The most recent example would be the high strangeness connected to the Book of Enoch. There are literally hundreds of websites and videos on Nephilim, Watchers and secret cabals linked to them. Some dubious "apologists" have made this sort of silliness their livelihood.
Book of Enoch? This book was once revered by Jews and Christians alike, and was quoted by some
of the Church Fathers. The book gradually fell into disfavor with many of the theologians of the early Church. The reason? It was because of its controversial teachings on the nature and activities of a completely separate group of fallen angels, distinct from those mentioned in Isaiah. Its teachings were considered so heretical by at least one Church Father, Filastrius. So much so that he publicly condemned it as heresy. Rabbis too spoke out against it. Rabbi Simeon ben Jochai in the 2nd century A.D. pronounced a curse upon those who believed it.
So the book was denounced, banned, cursed, no doubt burned and shredded for a very long time. But the book survived and found its way back into the public eye two centuries ago. In 1773, rumors of a surviving copy drew Scottish explorer James Bruce to distant Ethiopia. There he found that the Book of Enoch had been preserved by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, and that it formed part of their Biblical canon. Bruce secured three copies and took them back to Europe. Fifty years later, when the first English translation was produced, the modern world gained its first glimpse of the forbidden mysteries of Enoch.
Book of Enoch? This book was once revered by Jews and Christians alike, and was quoted by some
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So the book was denounced, banned, cursed, no doubt burned and shredded for a very long time. But the book survived and found its way back into the public eye two centuries ago. In 1773, rumors of a surviving copy drew Scottish explorer James Bruce to distant Ethiopia. There he found that the Book of Enoch had been preserved by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, and that it formed part of their Biblical canon. Bruce secured three copies and took them back to Europe. Fifty years later, when the first English translation was produced, the modern world gained its first glimpse of the forbidden mysteries of Enoch.
The trouble, according to apocryphal Enoch, began when a group of angels known as Watchers, and their leader named Samyaza, developed an insatiable lust for the 'daughters of men' and an irrepressible desire to beget children by these women. Samyaza didn't want to descend alone, and so he convinced two hundred other angels to accompany him on his mission of debauchery and blasphemy. Then the Watchers took oaths and bound themselves to the undertaking by "mutual execrations" - curses. Once such a pact was sealed, betrayal was punishable by unnamed horrors. In their arrogance, the Watchers descended and took wives from among the daughters of men. They taught the women sorcery, incantations, and divination - twisted versions of the secrets of heaven. The women conceived children from these Watchers – the Nephilim, evil giants. The Nephilim
devoured all the food that the men of earth could produce. Nothing satisfied their hunger. They killed and ate birds, beasts, reptiles, and fish. Soon even humans become a delicacy. One of these Watchers named Azazyel created unnatural accouterments, such as eye makeup and fancy bracelets, to enhance the sexual appearance and desirability of women. As for the men, Azazyel taught them "every species of iniquity," including the means for making swords, knives, shields, breastplates; every instrument of war imaginable. There, long ago, Enoch explained war not as a human invented or God sent plague, but as an evil act of the fallen Watchers.
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The mighty archangels Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, Suryal, and Uriel appeal on behalf of earth's inhabitants before the Most High God, the King of kings. The Lord orders Raphael to bind Azazyel hand and foot. Gabriel is sent to destroy the "children of fornication," the off-spring of the Watchers, by inciting them to their own self-destruction, in mutual slaughter. Michael is then authorized to bind Samyaza and his wicked offspring "for seventy generations underneath the earth, even to the day of judgment." And God sends the Great Flood to help wipe out the evil Nephilim, the children of the Watchers. But some of the Nephilim survive, and later return to haunt humanity.
It appears that some of the Ante-Nicene Fathers accepted the words of the Book of Enoch as authentic scripture, especially the part about the fallen angels and their prophesied judgment. This acceptance was bolstered by a particular passage in the Epistle of Jude, which clearly discusses a portion of the content of the Book of Enoch (verses 14-15):
Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons in the third century, makes several direct references to the apocryphal Enoch story, including Enoch's announcement of the condemnation of the fallen Watchers. Irenaeus accuses a magically inclined Gnostic of his day of obtaining wonders of power that “is utterly severed from God and apostate, which Satan, thy true father, enables thee still to accomplish by means of Azazel, that fallen and yet mighty angel.” Azazel (or Azazyel), in the Book of Enoch, is the fallen Watcher to whom the Lord "ascribes the whole crime" of the corruption of earth by his wicked inventions, including the instruments of war in the Book of Enoch. Irenaeus believed Azazyel was still around.
"And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him."
It must be said that we cannot say whether the Enochian passage quoted by Jude does indeed come from the same writing we know as the Book of Enoch. The book we possess today may well have relied on a common text used by Jude. It also should be understood that the church, though it had lists of books considered authoritative and canonical, had yet to actually deal with the issue of the use of apocryphal works, such as the Book of Enoch.
The turning point of opinions came halfway through the era of the Church Fathers. Once the church
began developing a coherent systematic theology, things changed dramatically. As I noted earlier, some Fathers devoted much attention to apocryphal Enoch, convinced that these ancient Nephilim were still quite active in the world. In the second century A.D., for example, Justin Martyr ascribed all evil to demons whom he alleged to be the offspring of the angels who fell through lust for the daughters of men - precisely the apocryphal Enochian story.
Two Christian apologists, Lactantius and Tatian, had speculated in detail on that idea of the incarnation of the fallen angels in matter.
*Lactantius believed that the fall resulted in a degradation of the angelic nature itself - that the once heavenly angels, in fact, had become quite earthly.
*The earlier apologist Tatian went into greater detail regarding this degradation. He described how the angels became engrossed in material things, and he believed that their very nature became coarse, gross, and material.
A Catholic scholar, Emil Schneweis, summarizing Tatian's view, says Tatian believed that "the fallen angels sank deeper and deeper into matter, becoming the slaves of concupiscence and lust." He says their bodies were "of fire and air" - not material in the ordinary sense of the word.
*Lactantius believed that the fall resulted in a degradation of the angelic nature itself - that the once heavenly angels, in fact, had become quite earthly.
*The earlier apologist Tatian went into greater detail regarding this degradation. He described how the angels became engrossed in material things, and he believed that their very nature became coarse, gross, and material.
A Catholic scholar, Emil Schneweis, summarizing Tatian's view, says Tatian believed that "the fallen angels sank deeper and deeper into matter, becoming the slaves of concupiscence and lust." He says their bodies were "of fire and air" - not material in the ordinary sense of the word.
Tertullian wrote an entire work discussing the apparel of women in which he adjures women to dress modestly, without adornment or what he calls "the tricks of beautifying themselves." He uses the Book of Enoch as evidence in his case against such "trappings".
Later Church Fathers, however, had difficulty with that viewpoint and sought to teach the more orthodox Biblical explanation for the fall of the angels.
*Perhaps they were rightly uncomfortable with the implications of the story of "men" among us who are not men, but fallen angels.
*Or perhaps they saw the danger in affording what amounts to racial genetics a salvific and ontological import.
*Perhaps they were rightly uncomfortable with the implications of the story of "men" among us who are not men, but fallen angels.
*Or perhaps they saw the danger in affording what amounts to racial genetics a salvific and ontological import.
These astute Church Fathers saw in these verses of Isaiah the story of the fall of an angel (and subsequently of his underlings), drawing, by the tail of his pride, "the third part of the stars of heaven," as noted in Revelation.
Thus they saw the fall as being through pride rather than through lust, as in the apocryphal Enoch account.
The later Church Fathers unanimously chose
*the canonical and Scriptural version of the fall of the angels through pride,
*instead of the mythical Enochian version of the fall through lust.
Thus they saw the fall as being through pride rather than through lust, as in the apocryphal Enoch account.
The later Church Fathers unanimously chose
*the canonical and Scriptural version of the fall of the angels through pride,
*instead of the mythical Enochian version of the fall through lust.
Julius Africanus taught that the "sons of God" in Genesis 6:2 who "saw the daughters of men" and "took them wives" didn't refer at all to angels, but referred instead to the righteous sons of Seth who "fell" (in the moral sense) by taking wives of the inferior daughters of Cain.
Syrian theologian Theodoret simply called believers of the story in Enoch "stupid and very silly."
Then Jerome, Doctor of the Church and scholarly Hebraist, justifiably branded Enoch as apocryphal and declared its teaching similar to the Manichaean teachings - a very clear likeness that should cause anyone who might be inclined to accept the canonicity of the writing to run as far as possible from association with it. Manichaeanism, a powerful competitor of the Church at one time, was founded in about 240 A.D. by a Persian visionary named Mani who claimed apostleship under Jesus Christ, believed himself an embodiment of the promised Paraclete, and preached a synthesis of several major religions including Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, and Christianity. He also taught reincarnation and wrote a book (now destroyed) about the wicked 'giants', based undoubtedly on apocryphal Enoch. He was killed in southwest Persia by fanatical Zoroastrians.
Church Father John Chrysostom took the case against Enoch one step further. Who were those "sons of God" in Genesis 6? Certainly not angels, says Chrysostom. He thought that opinion was totally absurd and refuted it with vigor.
With Chrysostom, the problem presented by the Book of Enoch finally gets fully defined. It was not really just a question of whether angels fell through pride or through lust - it was the bigger question
of whether angels ever took on human bodies in order to have sexual relations with women. This very issue -infuriated Chrysostom and caused him to issue his judgment of the "insane blasphemy" of the account in the Book of Enoch. Chrysostom's edict that angels were spiritual and men were physical was ratified by Caesarius of Aries, who also insisted that angels are incorporeal and therefore could not have mated with women. But the final blow was yet to fall upon the myths of the Book of Enoch.
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Augustine, who rejected the Enochian account as an impossibility for angelic natures. In his City of God, Augustine declares:
"I dare not determine whether there be some spirits embodied in an aerial substance. . . and who are capable of lust and of mingling sensibly with women; but certainly I could by no means believe that God's holy angels could at that time have so fallen... " (City of God 15:23)
Augustine continues with proof that the phrase "sons of God" in Genesis 6 refers to the righteous sons of Seth who married the daughters of Cain, reaching the same conclusion as Julius Africanus.
common consensus of the Church has rejected as heresy. Today we find many books, videos, and "Christian" television programs happily spreading this error, and adding to it the mythology of UFOs and alien beings.
"I dare not determine whether there be some spirits embodied in an aerial substance. . . and who are capable of lust and of mingling sensibly with women; but certainly I could by no means believe that God's holy angels could at that time have so fallen... " (City of God 15:23)
Augustine continues with proof that the phrase "sons of God" in Genesis 6 refers to the righteous sons of Seth who married the daughters of Cain, reaching the same conclusion as Julius Africanus.
The Church's fourth-century Synod of Laodicea struck another sharp blow against the Book of Enoch's heretical angelology, this time, against the holy angels in the book. This council decreed that the only angels which may be named were Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, who are the only angels mentioned in the Church's canon.
Modern Enochian Heresy
None of this has stopped fringe teachers and opportunists from promoting the very ideas the
Let us not fall into an old heresy under a new guise, but let us hold fast to the truths of the canon of Sacred Scripture, universally accepted by common consensus of the Church,...." Paleo-Orthodoxy