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AND THE BOOK OF THE SECRETS OF ENOCH
BY
MADELEINE SCOPELLO
ascended to the seventh heaven, is put before the face of the Lord. The
Lord exhorts his Glorious Ones to let Enoch stand before Him: "and the
Lord said to Michael: take Enoch and take him out of his earthly gar-
ments and anoint him with good oil and clothe him in garments of glory.
And Michael took me out of my garments and anointed me with good
oil,... and I looked at myself and I was as one of his Glorious Ones and
there was no difference of aspect" .4 The relation between the two formulae
is evident:
Zostrianos II Enoch
I received the image of the Glories I looked at myself and I was as
there. I became like one of them. one of his Glorious Ones and
there was no difference of aspect.
These formulae call for some commentary. The two passages tell us
that both Zostrianos and Enoch become equal to the Glories (or the
Glorious Ones in II Enoch). First of all, who are these Glories and what is
the consequence for the initiate of becoming himself a Glory? According
to the angelology of the author of II Enoch, the Glorious Ones are the
highest order of the Archangels: we read in II Enoch IX: "they serve the
Lord, not leaving him by night, nor going away by day, standing before
the Lord's face and doing his will".5 Michael and Gabriel have to be
counted, according to this text, among the Glorious Ones. Also in
Zostrianos, the class of the Glories has a privileged position among the
angelic categories: the Glories are the positive counterpart of each aeon
and it is their mission to save the initiate: "they are perfect thoughts that
do not perish, being models of salvation" (VIII. I.46.20).s 6
The identification of the initiate with the Glories is found at two differ-
ent moments of the heavenly trip in II Enoch and in Zostrianos.
In the Jewish Pseudepigraphon, the identification with the Glorious
Ones is the final result of the Patriarch's ascent. Enoch, having by then
reached the seventh heaven and after having overcome the hostility of the
angels, is clothed with heavenly garments and anointed by Michael. From
this moment on, Enoch can understand the divine revelations that Vreveil
communicates to him on the order of God, and write them down. Having
accomplished this task, Enoch will have the right to sit on the left of God,
closer to God than Michael.
In Zostrianos, on the contrary, the identification with the Glories takes
place at the beginning of the heavenly trip. To become like a Glory is, in
378
the gnostic treatise, the conditio sine qua non for passing through the
copies of the aeons (VIII. 1.5.19) and attaining knowledge.
The allusion to the passage of II Enoch concerning the identification
with the Glories, is loaded in Zostrianos with a typical gnostic content: it
is the opposition of the archons that Zostrianos can overcome by his
identification with the Glories. This idea was already announced in II
Enoch, which alluded to the hostility of the angels surrounding God at the
sight of the privileged ascent of a man, Enoch.7 It is probable that the
mention of the angels's hostility in the Jewish Pseudepigraphon, led the
gnostic author of Zostrianos to insert the formula of the identification
with the Glories from the Book of the Secrets of Enoch into his own text.
With the help of an angel of light, Zostrianos passes through the thir-
teen aeons of the atmosphere without being seen. This provokes the reac-
tion of the archons, but Zostrianos, now like a Glory, can face the wicked
guardians of laeimarmene and say : "I became like one of them, I left the
airy earth and passed by the copies of aeons" (VIII. 1.5.18-20). The theme
of the unnoticed ascent to heaven which appears in Jewish-Christian
literature, e.g., in the Ascension of Isaiah,8 probably goes back to more
ancient times. However, it becomes in Gnosticism the object of a partic-
ular reinterpretation, being applied to the figure of the Savior. 9
The Apocalypse of Zostrianos exemplifies this gnostic tendency of inter-
pretation : Zostrianos assumes the characteristics of a Savior; it is his role
to be a mediator between the highest world and the elect seed of Seth; the
seed will be saved by the revelations that Zostrianos will communicate to
him, after having come back to earth.
moves, and that has been accomplished by me, I shall explain to you even
before it appeared in the beginning, all that I created from non-being, and
from invisible to visible. For not to my angels have I explained my secret
and I have not told them their rise and they have not known my endless
and unknowable creation, and to you I explain it today".11 The central
part of the two formulae is strikingly similar:
'
Zostrianos II Enoch
Behold, Zostrianos, you have Not to my angels have I explain-
heard all these things that the ed my secret and to you I explain
gods do not know and which are it today.
unattainable to the angels.
However, the Book of the Secrets of Enoch is not the only instance of
contact between Zostrianos and Jewish intertestamental literature. In
fact the language of Zostrianos is partly built on expressions and formulae
that have a clear Jewish background. In this perspective, let us read the
passage of Zostrianos VIII. 1.3.15-24. After having left the somatic dark-
ness and the femininity of desire, Zostrianos judges negatively the dead
creation within him and the Cosmocrator of this world. This guilty con-
science leads him to question himself about the upper world and the
nature of God:
"I was meditating to understand these matters / and I kept bringing
them up daily, according / to the custom of my race, to the God / of my
fathers. I kept uttering the praise / of all these, because my Patriarchs /
and my fathers have sought (and) have found. / As for me, I did not cease
seeking / a place of rest worthy of my spirit / as I was not yet bound in the
perceptible world."
This passage cannot but recall the customs of the Essenic Congregation
and some of its elements deserve a commentary. First of all, the medita-
tion. Zostrianos devotes himself to the meditation of divine matters in
order to understand them. The language employed in these lines of
Zostrianos emphasizes the effort of knowledge to comprehend the heaven-
ly secrets. Let us remember that a Book on Meditation is mentioned several
times in the Qumran texts and seems to have constituted the basic instruc-
tion for the members of the Congregation. Meditation in Zostrianos
3.15-24 is described as perpetual, daily, continuous. Some writings
381
describing the customs of the Essenes use the very same language and
accent on meditation as Zostrianos and call for attention : "and let always
be present where are the Ten, a man studying the Law day and night, con-
stantly" (Rule of the Congregation VI.6-7); "I shall bless Him and I shall
meditate on His strength" (ibid., X.16); "according to your knowledge I
shall meditate on your truth the whole day" (Hymn R = X.20) 21 and,
most of all, chapter XXII.5-6 of the Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum of
Pseudo Philo: "et quare non docuistis filios vestros verba Domini quae
audistis ex nobis? Quia si erant filii vestri in meditatione legis Domini,
non seducebantur sensus eorum post sacrarium manufactum... et ideo
nunc euntes effodite sacraria quae edificastis vobis, et docete legem filios
vestros et erunt meditantes earn die ac nocte, ut fiat eis per omnes dies
vitae eorum Dominus in testimonium et iudicem".22
Some Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament have to be
compared with this passage of Zostrianos. Consider Tobit 4.5 ; 4.19 ; 12.
17-19 as well as Judith 11.17 on daily meditation and prayer.
Another expression in the quoted passage of Zostrianos must be ex-
amined. It is the expression "the God of my Fathers", to whom Zostrianos
addresses his prayer. This formula has a clear Jewish origin too, and finds
several parallels: LXX Ode 7.26, Ode 8.51-52, Ode 12.1, I Esdras 1.50;
4.60; 8.25.58; 9.8; 3 Maccabees 7.16 ; 4 Maccabees 12.18 ; Wisdom 9.1;
Tobit 8.5 ; Judith 5.8; 7.28; 9.12; 10.8; Daniel 2.23 ; 3.26; Jubilees 31.31;
44.5; the Testaments of the XII Patriarchs : Ruben 4.10 ; Simeon 2.8 ; Juda
19.3 ; Dan 1.9a; Gad 2.5 ; Joseph 1.4 and 6.7; History of the Captivity of
Babylon 19.5; 34.823. Josephus,24 Pseudo Phil025 and the Story of Joseph
and Aseneth26 also show frequently the formula "the God of my Fathers",
most often in a context of prayer.
The insistence on tradition which can be heard in the expression "the
God of my Fathers" recurs in the allusion to the Patriarchs (Zostrianos
3.19). The Coptic expression sorp neiote (literally: the first fathers)
seems to be a semitism ('aboth harisonim = the first fathers) designating
the Patriarchs (as e.g. in Jeremiah 11.10 and in Isaiah 43.27).27 This ex-
pression, when used by Zostrianos, leads us to understand that its author
saw himself in continuity with a specific tradition, that of the Fathers of
Israel. But besides the use made by the author of Zostrianos of this Jewish
formula, we must emphasize the extent of his reinterpretation. The
Patriarchs become here Adamas, the Primordial Man, and Seth, his son,
from whom an elect seed and genos have been generated (Zostrianos
30.5-10). It is this genos that will be saved, the text tells us in Zostrianos
382
NOTES
blessing .... I sing your graces and meditate the whole day. I shall bless constantly your
Name". Hymn U=XII.3-4: "I shall bless your Name ... with blessings and actions of
grace and with prayer ... supplying you constantly".
22 Ed. C. Perrot, P. M. Bogaert, D. J. Harrington, Pseudo-Philon, Les Antiquités
Bibliques, I-II (Paris 1976). The problem of the controvers (Essenic?) origin of the
LAB is discussed in the vol. II of C. Perrot, pp. 30-31.
23 Ed. K. H. Kuhn, A Coptic Jeremiah Apocryphon in Le Muséon LXXXIII (1970),
95-135 and 291-350.
24 See K. H. Rengstorf, A Complete Concordanceto FlaviusJosephus (Leiden 1975)
II, at vεóς.
25 Liber AntiquitatumBiblicarum 10.4; 22.3.5.7; 25.6; 43.7; 47.1.2.
26 Joseph and Aseneth8.10, ed. M. Philonenko, Joseph et Aséneth(Leiden 1968)157.
27 Isaiah 43.27 has the expression in the singular: "your first father has sinned".
The LXX translate with a plural: oi πατεπες υµων πρωτoi. Cf. also Deuteronomy
19.14where the hebrew "the first" becomes oi πατερεςin LXX.
28 The formula "according to the custom of my race" has a quite evident Jewish
background too. Cf. Judith 13.10:
See also Judith 6.20; 8.33; 9.14; 12.3 on the race. Josephus and
Philo employ often the expressions such as or
(for Josephus, see K. H. Rengstorf, op. cit., II, at εvoς.For Philo, see
I. Leisegang, PhilonisAlexandrini Opera quae supersunt, Indices ad Philonis Alexandrini
Opera (Berlin 1930)VII.2, at εvoς).
29 For the place of rest, cf. Joseph and Aséneth, ed. cit., 22.9; cf. 8.11 and 15.7. For
the perceptible world (6 αiσvητòςκóσµoς), in Greek in Zostrianos, see Philo, De
CongressuEruditionisgratia 117; De Ebrietate 30; Quod Deus sit immutabilis31.
30 Rule of the CongregationV.13.18; VIII.17.23 ;IX.8. Cf. also Psalms of Solomon
III.8b ( ); IV.6.8; VIII.23;
X.6; XIII.10.12; XIV.3.10. On these Psalms, probably of Essenic origin, see A.
Dupont-Sommer, Compte-rendu des conférences, Annuaire de l'École Pratique des
Hautes Études, IVème section, 1964-1965,pp. 137-144.