Book of Enoch (Part 2)
Presented on: Tuesday, February 26, 1985
Presented by: Roger Weir
Ancient Rome: Rome, Essenes, Alexandria, and the Book of Enoch
Presentation 11 of 54
Book of Enoch (Part 2)
Presented by Roger Weir
Tuesday, February 26, 1985
Transcript:
Last week was an introduction, and this week we'll attempt to get to Enoch. It's very difficult to tone our minds to this peculiar quality of regard and so I begin tonight with a quotation again, most useful for orientation, from Abraham Heschel's book on The Prophets. This is the Burning Bush Press first edition of it, but it's available from Harper Torchbooks in paperback on page 483. Heschel gives us in his conclusion under the sub-entitlement, "Involvement and Concern," the following, "Pathos is always disclosed as a particular mode or form. There are, as we have seen, many and variable modes of pathos, such as love and anger, grief and joy, mercy and wrath. What is the basic feature they have in common? What is the ultimate significance of pathos? Pathos in all of its forms reveals the extreme pertinence of man to God, His world-directness, attentiveness, and concern. God looks at' the world and is affected by what happens in it; nan is the object of His care and judgment. The basic feature of pathos and the primary content of the prophet's consciousness is a divine attentiveness and concern. Whatever message he appropriates, it reflects that awareness. It is a divine attentiveness to humanity, an involvement in history, a divine vision of the world in which the prophet shares and which he tries to convey. And it is God's concern for man that is at the root of the prophet's work to save the people... In the light of prophetic insights, we are faced not merely with a relation to God, but also with a living reality which is a relationship, having its origin in God. The a priori of man's relationship to Him is the fact of His relationship to man."
The reason why the overwhelming concern, the poignancy of the attentiveness, is that there is a relationship obtaining from the beginning from, in fact, before any beginning. That in describing this, one has to approximate to the descriptive language of an eternal form an eternal regard in Josephus, who is more Greek than a Jew, writing from the Greek standpoint on his Antiquities of the Jews. He mentions in the very beginning, talking about Adam... for Adam is the first to symbolically embody this primal regard. And because the regard has a consciousness tone, which in its effective designation, we may use the Greek terms from Greek derived terms, pathos. Adam has a pathos quality to his nature. The question is, does that quality extend to his children? And the answer most surely is yes. And this, in fact, is the paradox. The paradox of the fortunate fall as it's known in archetypal forms.
Josephus writes concerning Adams children after writing about Abel, and Cain brings up Seth. Now this Seth, when he was brought up and came to those years in which he would discern what was good, became a virtuous man, and as he was himself an excellent character, so did he leave children behind him who imitated his virtues. All these proved to be of good dispositions. They also inhabited the same country without dissensions, and in a happy condition, without any misfortunes falling upon them till they died. They also were the inventors of that peculiar sort of wisdom which is concerned with the heavenly bodies and their order - astrology - and that their invention might not be lost, that their invention might not be lost before they were sufficiently known. Upon Adam's prediction that the world was to be destroyed at one time by the force of fire, and at another time by the violence and quantity of water, they made two pillars. These will be called the pillars of Heaven. Two pillars. One pillar was of brick, and one was of stone, and they were covered with duplicate hieroglyphics of the order of the patterning of the celestial order in terms of human significance, of the divine pattern, in terms of its applicability, its regard for man. These two pillars later on will reappear in Kabbalistic thought. Mercy and severity. The attempt.
Increasingly, as we have seen as Hellenic tides of cultural influence began to sweep over the Jewish consciousness, a nascent division began to be exploited in terms of the social structure. And by the time we get to the Enochian literature, which begins about 180 BC and runs till about 100 BC, so that the largest part of the second century BC becomes effectively traceable in the five parts of the Book of Enoch, five separate parts.
Whenever you have five, in a Semitic mold, this is a sacred configuration - the Pentateuch, five books, the structure of the Psalms, the structure of Matthew five. There's a graspable there. There's a quintessential completeness. The origins of the difference we have seen occurred after the establishment of the kingship by David. That in fact there were two kingdoms. There was the kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judah. And we have seen that the son of Solomon, Ahab, marshaled the soldiers effectively enough to stop around 880 BC, the incursions of the Assyrians. And it wasn't until about 720 BC, under Sargon the Second, Shalmaneser, that they were able to finally come in and take over the people and the landmass that was known as Israel, but that incursion did not include the people of Judah, that the tradition the kingship held in Judah for another 130 years, those persons from Israel that were taken into captivity by the Assyrians were largely uprooted, effectively in terms of their sociological comportment, and, most tragically, in terms of their religion.
But by the time that Judah, the land of Judah, was overrun militarily, there had been a profound transformation in the religious consciousness. And that transformation can be hearkened in the writings of Jeremiah. And the difference between Jeremiah and Isaiah are the difference between a call back to basic religious forms because they are in danger, in jeopardy, of being lost. That's what we find in Isaiah. In Jeremiah we find the recognition that some new transformation has been affected. Some radical change in the nature of the religious comportment has happened, and that it focuses itself on the portability of the Temple. That if one went by the old Law, the Temple there at that site must be reinstated.
Now the Temple is mobile and may be carried within oneself. This is a major change, a major transformation. It puts the focus of correct sacrifice, correct worship. That is within the interior of the individual, so that his acceptance and his responsibility for maintaining that direct link with God becomes the acid test, as it were. And this becomes increasingly the hallmark of classical Hellenistic Judaism, which, incidentally, has carried over even till today.
This is Abraham Heschel's book on Israel, subtitled An Echo of Eternity [Israel: An Echo of Eternity]. And he writes in here on, in a section called "Waiting": "Trust is not an irrespective attitude of reliance on another person's integrity." "Trust is not an irrespective attitude of reliance on another person's integrity. Trust is the intimate reflection and outcome of another person's integrity, continuously dependent upon it. The person in whom I trust is present in my trust." "The person in whom I trust is present in my trust. Our waiting for the restoration of Jerusalem is a reflection of God's integrity, continuously depending upon it. Our trust is His presence." The quotation then comes from Jeremiah, "'Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord.' Trust in God is God."
If I maintain my trust, the covenant is still intact. No matter what happens to me physically on the outside, no matter where I may be taken, no matter what captivity or exile may occur, I reinstate and put into effect the covenant by my capacity to recognize consciously the presence of the divinity made in veracity by the integrity of my trust. This is a relationship which comes at the time of Jeremiah, and which develops in the Babylonian captivity and becomes refined, and this refinement is rather an internal as opposed to an external observation of form, an internal code of honor.
When the period of the Second Temple comes, and the wellsprings are opened up for this to be expressed again. The Second Temple. Let's re-found the Temple. It is sought to be remade in the configuration of this new perspective, pouring out again, and was so overpowering that it was seen at the time as a new covenant. In fact, we'll see either next week or the week after when we come to the Zadokite Fragments again and again. In the Zadokite fragments, we find indications that the description of the new orientation is in fact a new covenant, and that the historical capacity to reestablish the continuing line of integrity through a new covenant, through a new expression, comes into - I hate to use the term vogue, but becomes - the idea of its time in the Maccabean period.
The Book of Enoch occurs just before this period becomes manifest and continues on about a generation after it had come up to its final resolutions. So, the Enochian literature in fact, gives for us a tremendous insight into the development of a new sense of the law based upon the internal integrity of the individual. But one of the difficulties there was that this emphasis upon an individual internal integrity ran perilously close to the Greek idea of the individual. And so, a discrimination had to be made, a conscious discrimination. And we will see that increasingly the difficulty was parlayed so that from the movement of the Wisdom of Ben Sira to the book of the Wisdom of Solomon, Sophia becomes personalized as that interior quality, that wisdom becomes that essential inner quality of integrity and wisdom is a feminine, an anima, a soul of man. And this becomes, for the Jewish Hellenistic sage, a very deep problem and the consciousness of the intricacies, the metaphysical subtleties, if you like. But for the people at the time, it was a religious problem; it wasn't metaphysical at all. But a religious problem was to keep the confusion from proliferating. And we'll see that those individuals who became affinities to the Greek individual, to the Sophia projection, became Christians. And those who held this differentiation before themselves became Gnostics, and those who junk the whole issue of the individual in favor of going back to the original Law as laid down, maintained the Talmudic tradition; instituted and maintained the Talmudic tradition.
But for a while, for about 150 to 200 years, this was one white hot center of religious controversy, and the Books of Enoch are our best guide to thread our way through this incredible complexity. The Books of Enoch are divided into five parts, and we'll do just the first part tonight. This is how it begins. The Parable of Enoch and the Future. Lot of the wicked and the righteous. The words of the blessing of Enoch, wherewith thee blessed the elect and righteous, who will be living in the day of tribulation, when all the wicked and godless are to be removed. So, this is for a future time. This then is written about 180 BC for a future time which is coming - an apocalyptic time is coming. There's going to be a winnowing between the elect and the godless. And he took up his parable and said, Enoch, a righteous man whose eyes were opened by God, saw the vision of the Holy One in the heavens. So here, right away is a direct contact. Enoch is lifted up. His eyes are opened. He has a direct contact, a direct vision, which the angel showed me. And from them I heard everything. And from them I understood as I saw. But not for this generation, but for a remote one which is for to come.
And so, Enoch gives us then, surprisingly, very similar to the Divine Comedy, Dante is taken by a guide through the realms transcendent to life. Enoch is taken, but his guide is not some person but seven angels, seven archangels. As a matter of fact, in the early parts of the Book of Enoch, we have again and again the kind of tremulous rhetoric that Enoch is throwing out, saying this is a cosmic happening, that my vision and my journey are not a personal journey, though I personally vouch for the veracity of it. And that the core of this is a what we would call today a mythos, a myth, a story. And central to this mythos is Mount Hermon. When we talked last week a little bit about Mount Hermon, about the name meaning essentially that it was a place apart. It was a sanctuary. It is forbidden. It is not part of normal life. It is not to be taken in a colloquial, common way that Mount Hermon is special. We talked about the shape of Hermon and how on the, from the top, one can see out across Lebanon all the way to the Mediterranean, one can see almost as far as, Haifa, Haifa. One can see almost to Damascus.
The phrase in the exile period was that we are being taken beyond Damascus. Whatever was beyond Damascus was the unknown. This was the region of trial, and we have to be able to take our integrity into that unknown region and maintain it for an unknown duration of time. All we know is that doing this will eventually deliver us eventually in Enoch. Mount Hermon is the site where angelic beings called the watchers had contact with man. And in fact, there were about 200 of them. Chief among them was an angel named Sam Jones or Semjaza. These angels who were to help man to keep contact with man. They were the point of contact, and we get in the Book of Enoch for the first time, an angelic hierarchy, and you'll see that the angelic hierarchy is also polarized, will become polarized, and yields a demonology, so that angels and demons, that whole polarity, that whole continuum of celestial structure, an eternal celestial structure that permeates time space comes into definition in the Book of Enoch for the first time. These angels fell in love with the daughters of men. And they said, let us take them to wife and they began having children by them. And the mixture of angels and men produced a catastrophe. And later on, this is explained to Enoch that the angels were of an eternal order and had no need in terms of their nature for wives, and by taking wives they defiled themselves.
Not that women were unclean, but that having relations with man on a physical level was unclean. That it mixed blood and spirit that they were two different orders. That man is able to have a covenant with the spirit by virtue of his blood. But man can do that. But the mixing of blood and spirit together was a monstrosity. It produced a chimera which came into being. Then these children of the now fallen angels and the men. So that the watchers become fallen angels, became giants. Not so much physically large, although they are described as being 3000 meters tall. But there are giants in the sense that they have more pride. And they began to take over the things of man to such an extent that they milk man dry. They squeeze him dry. They're empire builders, and they begin devouring man himself. The death of these people out of season, as it were, creates a haunting of the universe. The early form - let's see if I can deliver it this way - the early form of understanding of man with that God's Spirit in man was the breath of his life and when he died a natural death, the spirit returned immediately and was a part of the divine. Only temporarily could one speak of the soul. The soul was the temporary form given to the spirit, the divine spirit in man's corporeality. But when the angels, the fallen angels, mixed their nature with men, it produced a blemish. It produced the factual soul and by killing men out of season, out of nature, in an unnatural way, or in a supernatural way, their spirits did not return. They were not free to return. But that portion of the divinity that had been in those people was trapped in that soul form. And these soul forms could not return to the divinity and could not return to life. And so there had to be some place made where they could collect. It became a problem, and they were complaining. The souls of these unjust, righteous men who died in an unrighteous way, in a supernatural way, called out, and their plea was heard in high heaven.
This is the way the myth runs, and it was because of this response, because of the pathos. In the divine attentiveness to man, recognizing that man had become perverted, not physically perverted - that would be small potatoes compared to the kind of perversion that had happened. This was a universal radical change in structure, and man's spirit was no longer natural nor divine. He was no longer of the body made in the image of the divine, and no longer was his spirit free to return to the divine, and no longer was there a direct contact between corporeal man and the spiritual godhead that a layer of cancer had been introduced in between which was the entrapped souls.
And so, Enoch, is sent by the watchers because of his visionary capacity, because he has not yet been perverted. He's not yet become an ensouled prisoner because his spirit is still free. He is sent to plead their case because they begin to realize that they're out on a limb. That they have really no final recourse. And so, the Book of Enoch records, this records the journey. And Enoch comes into a visionary house, as it were - palace, temple - which is made of crystal and fire. And as he comes in, he relates to the structure, the crystalline structure of this palace through its flame emanations, and passing via those flame emanations into the structure, he beholds a vision within his vision. This is the only way to express it. A play within a play. That the quality of intensity of the second vision is so great, it is super real, and it occurs as a vision within a vision, as a vision would be super real to ordinary life. So, this vision within a vision is thrice greatest, thrice removed and it's in that vision that he is able finally to perceive the throne of God. Within the vision, he perceives the throne of God, which is also made of fire and crystal, but the emphasis is on fire, whereas in the first vision the emphasis on structure was always crystal.
The second vision, the emphasis is on flame, on fire. Enoch, in perceiving the throne of God, hearkens back to just a few designations in the in the Old Testament. The first designation of the throne of God comes in Kings, the Book of Kings. If you recall, the Book of Kings is about the development from Samuel of the kingship. In fact, the first Book of Samuel, if you'll inspect it, is usually called the First Book of Kings. And the First Book of Kings is usually called the Third Book of Kings. So, if you go back to the old tradition, there were four Books of the Kings. Plus, later on the Chronicles, there were two Chronicles, the chronicles of the Kingdom of Israel and the chronicles of the Kingdom of Judah. But in second Kings is the first time that the throne of God is envisioned. It occurs later on in Ezekiel and in 1 or 2 other places.
So, in the Book of Enoch, these early allusions are brought together, and a vision of the throne of God is made, and in this inflamed structure sets the divine. And Enoch says, though there were 10,000 times 10,000 angels before him, he was a presence in need of no counselor, but who speaks directly to Enoch with no one in between. And Enoch is shaken. "Who am I to be able to speak directly to such a power?" And the throne being assures him that he has the right to directly hear and receive the communication. And Enoch says, "I have been sent to represent the watchers, and the throne presence says they should have been here to represent you."
This is exactly the perversion that has happened, that the ethical responsibility for reinstating the natural order in its divine plan now rests with man and not with the angelic orders. This is the overwhelming context of realization. But Enoch and in 180 BC, those writing the Enochian literature are not able to consciously entertain this all of a sudden. This is not a realization that can be engendered, can be thought of, and so it begins to permeate the structure of the Book of Enoch, which means that the vision is stretched out as elaborated. And so, in order to show Enoch that he does indeed have the capacity as a man for accepting this responsibility, he is shown more and more the structure of the eternal pattern of heaven. And not only of heaven, but of those auxiliary creations that have had to be made. Now that there has been a radical change in the nature of the universe, now that there are fallen angels who have cohabitated with women, with mortal women, whose children are giants when they live, but when they die, their souls are evil spirits because the angels are eternal.
This quality of lasting beyond the mortal is passed on to their children, but they're not able to return to the Godhead because they're mixed and because they can't return to the Godhead, they are bound on Earth. And so, there's a proliferation happening of evil spirits - demons are beginning to inhabit the earth. And because this has happened, this is a radical change from the creation that happened in Genesis. So that the Laws given in Genesis, which are totally sufficient for a natural universal creation, have to be amended now, amended, and changed, not displaced, but changed to take in this new situation, this new reality, as it were. There are new conditions. And so, Enoch is shown all of these new conditions with the overwhelming awareness that the reason you are being shown this is that man has to accept this responsibility, because the manifestation of divine trust within the Earth's realm rests upon man's capacity to state it and mean it and maintain it. And now man's plight has become doubly dangerous because he not only has his own capacities for error to deal with his own incapacities to understand his nature but now there are active demonological influences leading him astray, subtly playing on him, as it were. And so, he has to have help. He has to have an increased consciousness of what is happening to help.
It is no longer enough to have a prophet who reminds man to go back to the Law. He now has to have a prophet who is a teacher, who can teach the new considerations that have to be blended into and added to the old Law. And in Enoch we find for the first time the beginnings of the call for a teacher of righteousness. In fact, in the Zadokite Fragments of about 90 BC, he's given a very particular, peculiar name. He is called the unique Teacher of Righteousness'. Not so much that there is one, but that the qualities of a teacher of righteousness are unique, and that any teacher of righteousness would be a unique teacher of righteousness. Uniqueness in the sense of peculiarly exact, not approximate. One must know exactly technically. So, there's a technical addition that comes in here, and knowledge and wisdom are the only guides that can help man to envision this. And Enoch is the first of this new breed of prophets to come and deliver to us an awareness and increased consciousness. He writes in here of the angels, the fallen angels. And I have a list in here. One of the chief fallen angels is named as Azazel, and Azazel is the one who taught enchantments. The whole Earth has been corrupted through the works that were taught by Azazel to him ascribe all sin.
And Gabriel said, "the Lord proceed against the reprobates and against the children of fornication. Destroy the children of the watchers from amongst men, send them one against another, that they may destroy each other in battle." And the Lord says to Michael - Michael is the protector of Israel - "Go bind Semjaza and his associates, who have united themselves with women so as to have defiled themselves with them in all their uncleanness. And when their sons have slain one another, and they have seen the destruction of their beloved ones, bind them fast for seventy generations in the valleys of the earth, till the day of their judgment and of their consummation, till the judgement that is forever and ever is consummated."
Two separate motions are indicated here: (1) a temporary long in terms of human life, but nevertheless limited and temporary, and (2) an eternal happening, a day of judgment where the entire historical process comes to a conclusion and some new cycle is begun. A cycle that has begun or will begin on a cleaned-up situation, radically cleaned-up in the meantime. What is needed, Enoch is told, is an exact accounting of the complications of the evil. So that man must figure out for himself exactly what has gone wrong. Exactly where there is the demonic influence. Exactly what is pure and what is to be maintained. What is natural for man, what is natural for God, and what has been perverted in between. It is up to man to become conscious and sort this out.
And so, he's given an ethical responsibility to untangle the mess. And in the meantime, behind the scenes, as man untangles the mess, the souls of those who are dying are being prepared for their being collected. And Enoch is told, in fact, he is shown. He is shown a region where there are seven mountains, and the middle of the seventh mountain reaches all the way up to heaven and looks somewhat like a throne. And in this region, there is a garden, and beyond the garden is the end and edge of the universe. And when he has taken there, there are these chasms that are infinite, and there are columns of fire that both ascend and descend to abysmal heights and depths. And Enoch and his trembling, but in his doggedness asks what this is for. And the angel Uriel tells him that this is the place that after the final judgment on the fallen angels, this is where they will be taken in this abysmal place, without form, without heaven, without earth, outside of the pattern of reality, and that this is where they will be, that of men, because they are blended with them now. And there are many kinds of men, but especially there are three types of men.
So, he is shown three great chasms, which are like vast hollow tubes, dark and fearful to look at, says Enoch. But in one of them is a fountain with water. And he is told that the souls of the righteous will collect in here. And in the second one, the souls of the unrighteous who were punished on earth will collect here, and in the third, the souls of the unrighteous, which have not been punished yet, will collect there, because the complications have been such that it's very hard to find any pure man left. If there were a pure man, his spirit would immediately return to the Godhead. But because of the impurities that have been introduced by the fallen angels for those centuries and millennia, that almost all human spirits are now entrapped in their souls. So, they're going to be collected here.
I'll try and give you something here from Enoch. This is called sheol. "And I proceeded to where things were chaotic, and I saw there something horrible. I saw neither a heaven above nor a firmly founded earth, but a place chaotic and horrible. And there I saw seven stars of the heaven bound together in it like great mountains and burning with fire. Then I said, for what sin are they bound? And on what account have they been cast in? Hither?' Then Uriel, one of the holy angels who was with me, and who was chief over them, and said, Enoch, why dost thou ask, why art thou eager for the truth? These are the number of the stars of heaven, which have transgressed the commandment of the Lord, and are bound here till 10,000 years.' The time entailed by their sins are consummated. And from thence I went to another place which was still more horrible than the former. And I saw a horrible thing. A great fire there, which burnt and blazed in the place, was cleft as far as the abyss, being full of great descending columns of fire. Neither its extent or magnitude could I see, nor could I conjecture. Then I said, how fearful is the place and how terrible to look upon?' Then Uriel answered me, one of the holy angels who was with me, and said unto me, Enoch, why hast thou such fear and affright?' And I answered, because of this fearful place, and because of the spectacle of the pain.' And he said unto me, this place is the prison of the angels, and here they will be imprisoned forever.'"
Enoch is told again and again. Slowly it occurs to him that he must accept the responsibility of carrying this vision not only back to man, but back to the fallen angels. That man, the good man, has become the prosecutor of evil in terms of the Law of the world. That before then there were possibilities of angels helping man in terms of the original Law. But now man has to do this work that the angels cannot do this.
And increasingly, as the second century BC wore on, this concern became an overwhelming pressure, and the interiorization of meaning began to structure itself out. Increasingly, in terms of the visionary capacities based upon communities that were seeking both in the towns and outside, both in the cities like Alexandria and out into the desert communities, and again and again we'll find the references to the Enochian literature and the Enochian visions. Remember now that the Book of Enoch was weeded out of the canon by councils and committees sometime after the second century AD. It was in fact at some, for some time, considered by persons like Clement of Alexandria to be the most indispensable link between the Old and the New Testaments in Enoch. And we're only going to the first part here. He is told when he comes to the seven mountains, he is told that in this region, in that garden is the tree of life.
And this is the way it's recounted in Enoch. "And from thence I went to another place of the earth, and he showed me a mountain range of fire which burnt night and day. And I went beyond it, and saw seven magnificent mountains, all differing from each from the other. And the stones thereof were magnificent and beautiful, magnificent as a whole, of glorious appearance and fair exterior. Three towards the east, one founded on the other, and three towards the south, one upon the other, and deep rough ravines none of which joined with any other. And the seventh mountain was in the midst of these, and it excelled them in height, resembling the seat of a throne, and fragrant trees encircled the throne."
Remember, the top of Mount Hermon has three knobs, three protuberances that are like vast, huge chairs, and that in the Transfiguration, when Jesus goes to the top of Mount Hermon with John and James and Peter, he is asked about these protuberances, and he is told that these are thrones. And John says to him, "oh, these are the thrones of the three messengers. And one of these is your throne." And it is at that time that the transfiguration happens, that Jesus ceases to be a man in terms of the old Law and transforms into a luminous light being. Enoch is on the verge of understanding the roots of that transformation.
"And the seventh mountain was in the midst of these, and it excelled them in height, resembling the seat of a throne. And fragrant trees encircled the throne, and amongst them was a tree such as I had never yet smelt. Neither was any amongst them, nor were any others like it. It had a fragrance beyond all fragrance, and its leaves and blooms, and would wither not forever. And its fruit is beautiful, and its fruit resembles the dates of a palm. Then I said, how beautiful is this tree? And fragrant, and its leaves are fair in its blooms. Very delightful in appearance.' Then, answered Michael, one of the holy and honored angels, who was with me, and was their leader. And he said unto me, Enoch, why dost thou ask me regarding the fragrance of the tree? And why dost thou wish to learn the truth?'"
Do you see the refrain that constantly happens? Enoch is able to envision more. He is able to see more. He not, he does not identify more, but more occurs to him that needs to be identified. His awareness is extending itself, but his consciousness is needing to be tutored. And in each time, in each successive wave of being tutored, he has asked directly, poignantly by one of his seven angelic guides, "why do you wish to know the truth?" As if to remind him there is a reason. There is a reason for this. There is a reason for that. But there is overwhelmingly a reason, a rationality which must occur to you behind this whole pattern of events, behind this whole scheme of disclosures. This is show and tell in order to educate you to a certain quality of intensity, your quality of trust now has to become self-conscious. It's no longer enough simply to engender it or to ensure its engendering by others. By priest class, this is no longer safe. The priest may be infected by the by the demons, the sacrifice may be polluted, and you may not know it.
The only way to ensure is to have the quality of self-integrity exacting. And thus, the emphasis here is on purity, inner purity. So, he is asked, "Why do you wish to learn the truth?" "Then I answered him, saying, I wish to know about everything, but especially about this tree.' And he answered, saying, this high mountain which thou hast seen, whose summit is like the throne of God, is his throne, where the Holy Great One, the Lord of Glory, the Eternal King, will sit when he shall come down to visit the earth with goodness. And as for this fragrant tree, no mortal is permitted to touch it till the great judgment, when he shall take vengeance on all, and bring everything to its consummation forever. It shall then be given to the righteous and holy. Its fruit shall be food for the elect. It shall be transplanted to the holy place, to the Temple of the Lord, the Eternal King. Then shall they rejoice with joy and be glad.'"
So, the Tree of Life is available, but the Tree of Life is an interior focus. It's an internal focus. It is not particularly some external bush or some external tree, but it is an eternal occurrence within. Remember now that the quality of having trust manifests the truth, the veracity, it's the quality that we have. We need one more aspect before we can conclude for tonight. And we'll have to go on with it next week to see the proliferation, the name Tzadik comes up again and again and has its transformations. As a word, Tzadik comes from this Zadokite. Tzadik is a high priest, Tzadik is a high priest that who occurs at the end of David's reign. David rules for seven years in Hebron, and he rules for 33 years in Jerusalem. It's an interesting contrast between the two reigns when he rules in Hebron. David has six children by six different women. When he rules in Jerusalem, he has 13 children by the same woman. There's a radical change when he's in Hebron, he's king as a man would be king.
Then Zadok comes, then the priest comes who reminds him of the context which Samuel had engendered him in, had brought him up in. And Bathsheba becomes the wife, and David becomes the king in a new sense. And David is able then to write the Psalms. Before then, David can dance before the Lord with all his might. After that he is able to write the Psalms. It's a difference in expressive capacity between being able to dance and being able to sing and chant the great integrities of the Psalms. Zadok brings back this consciousness, this need for language to express a refined consciousness, that one is simply not a king over men, but that the kingship has a divine purpose, that it has a spiritual element, and that the integrity of the spiritual element is the lifeblood, as it were, the life breath as it seems of the kingdom.
And thus, it's from Zadok, from that priest, that there comes the consciousness then, of having a single life. And it is said then that when David was young it didn't much matter, because the Torah had been hidden, it hadn't been opened and understood. That is to say, it hadn't been opened up in all of its depth and understood for some long time. But now it can be opened up and understood, and man's ethical nature has to become evident to himself. And it's the ethical nature, the conscious reality that becomes the cue, then to his nature. It's no longer the definitions in terms of geography. It's no longer even the definitions in terms of social position, tribal position. It's a definition based upon morality. There are those who are righteous and those who are not. And of those who are not, there are those who are punished in life and those who are punished after. The Book of Enoch shows the differentiation of mankind has become a moral one, an ethical one. For in accepting the responsibility, the consciousness of why, he must sort out the purity of the world in order to reinstate his true past, and thus manifest the divine. He must have an ethical doctrine to support himself.
When we get to the Zadokite Fragments, we'll see more of this. Some of the words associated with this, incidentally, are tzadikim, which is related to Sadducee, and also related somewhat to Zoroaster. And we'll see how some of this comes together. This is how the first part, the first of the five sections of Enoch ends. He goes on a series of journeys, and as he has gone in various directions, he has shown the total pattern. And at the end he goes to the south.
"And from thence I went to the south, to the ends of the earth, and saw there three open portals of the heaven. And thence there come dew, rain, and wind. And from thence I went to the east, to the ends of heaven. And saw here the three eastern portals of heaven open, and small portals above them. Through each of these small portals paths the stars of heaven, and run their course to the west, and the path which is shown to them. And as often as I saw, I blessed always the Lord of Glory. And I continued to bless the Lord of Glory, who has wrought great and glorious wonders, to show the greatness of his work to the angels and to spirits, and to men, that they might praise his work and all his creation, that they might see the work of his might, and praise the great work of his hands, and bless him forever."
And so, the first of the five sections of the Book of Enoch closed with this homiletic blessing. This first Book of Enoch comes from about 180 to about 170 BC. The next sections of Enoch, which we'll see next week, come from the middle of the Maccabean War period, and we'll try and get through all four of them, and we'll see that the final sections of the Book of Enoch come very, very close to a basic transformation that happened in Hellenistic Judaism around 105 BC. And in 105 BC, 106 BC, the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs are gathered together. The visionary Testaments from all of the twelve patriarchs are brought together into one new formulation, and this will become very, very important document, because in 100 AD, almost on the other side of the turn of the millennium will come the earliest Christian church manual, based upon the ritual organization of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs.
One of the surprising things that we'll see is that the early church was a Jewish institution, and it was only because of Roman councils that it became Christian, in the sense that we recognize it retrospectively.
Well, we have to end there. So, I had to select so much and leave so much out, but I hope some of it is coherent. The materials are all here, and you're certainly welcome to look at it on your own.
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