Book(s) of Enoch ... acceptable?

[Stylite Nous]

Is there any value in a pious Orthodox person reading 1Enoch or 2Enoch (I'm pretty sure I know the verdict on rabbinic-mystical 3Enoch)? Yes I know, it's not even Deuterocanon.

I have noticed just in the last few years that world-orthodox people have warmed up to these books esp. because The Lord of Spirits podcast (which contains many errors) is so popular.

[Unseen.Warfare]

5B86D3B6-AC31-4BB4-8980-01C0B035071F.jpeg (82.27 KiB) Viewed 3254 times

Is there any value in a pious Orthodox person reading 1Enoch or 2Enoch (I'm pretty sure I know the verdict on rabbinic-mystical 3Enoch)? Yes I know, it's not even Deuterocanon.

I have noticed just in the last few years that world-orthodox people have warmed up to these books esp. because The Lord of Spirits podcast (which contains many errors) is so popular.

Revelation 1:10

10 I was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day, and I heard behind me a loud voice, as of a trumpet,†

1:10 In the Spirit may mean John received the revelation in a visionary ecstasy (see Ezk 3:12), but more probably that he was in the worship (“in Spirit and in truth”) of the Lord. The Lord's Day is the earliest reference to the Christian name for Sunday. The Didache and St. Ignatius of Antioch show this name was used very early for the day when Christians gathered to celebrate the Resurrection in the Holy Eucharist. As a fulfillment of the first day of the week of the old creation, Sunday becomes the “eighth day,” the “first day of the new creation.” The term “eighth day” is seen in 2En 33:1 and inaugurates the first day of the timeless age to come. The loud voice, as of a trumpet is a traditional, eschatological, apocalyptic introduction describing an appearance of the Lord (see Ex 19:16, 19; Mt 24:31; 1Co 15:52; 1Th 4:16).

2 Enoch 33:1

33 |God shows Enoch the epoch of this world, the existence of 7000 years, and the eighth thousand is the end, neither years nor months nor weeks nor days. Word “29.”|
“On the eighth day I likewise appointed, so that the 8th day might be the 1st, the first-created of my week, and that it should revolve in the revolution of 7000; 〈|so that the 8000|〉 might be in the beginning of a time not reckoned and unending, neither years, nor months, nor weeks, nor days, nor hours 〈like the first day of the week, so also that the eighth day of the week might return continually〉.

An Israelite entered into God’s Covenant by being circumcised on the 8th day.
The priestly ordination of Aaron and his sons was completed on the 8th day.
With livestock, your sacrifice of first fruits to God was to be on the 8th day. In general, any lamb, goat or bullock was not acceptable for offering until the 8th day of its life.
A healed leper was declared clean on the 8th day.
Ceremonial cleansing after an issue of blood reached completion on the 8th day.
Ceremonial cleansing of a defiled Nazarite reached completion on the 8th day.
The Feast of Tabernacles reached its climax on the 8th day.
King Hezekiah’s cleansing of the Temple was completed on the 8th day.
Ezekiel’s purification of the altar climaxed in God’s acceptance on the 8th day.
When the Ark of the Covenant was brought to Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem, on the 8th day, the people blessed the king and went into their tents joyful and glad of heart for all the goodness that the Lord had done for David His servant and for Israel His people.
We also remember that, in Noah’s Flood, eight souls were saved by water, and King David himself was the 8th son of Jesse.

Around the year 150 AD, there were still people alive in the Church who had lived during the same time as the Apostles. At this time, St. Justin the Martyr had a written dialogue with Trypho the Jew. In this dialogue, St Justin said,

“For righteous Noah, along with the other mortals at the deluge, i.e. with his own wife, his three sons and their wives, being eight in number, were a symbol of the eighth day, wherein Christ appeared when He rose from the dead forever the first in power.”

In Noah’s Ark, why were eight people saved? According to St. Justin, the number eight was prophetic. It pointed forward to when Jesus Christ, the Son of God would rise from the dead on the 8th day.

About 100 years later, around the year 250 AD, St. Cyprian was in Carthage in a council of 66 bishops. They considered a question that had been posed by a man named Fidus in a letter. Fidus had suggested that infant baptism should be delayed until a child is eight days old, because in the Old Testament circumcision had always been delayed until the 8th day. This was the response given from this council of 66 Orthodox bishops:

For in respect of the observance of the eighth day in the Jewish circumcision of the flesh, a sacrament was given beforehand in shadow and in usage, but when Christ came, it was fulfilled in truth. For because the eighth day, that is, the first day after the Sabbath, was to be that on which the Lord should rise again and should quicken us and give us circumcision of the spirit, the eighth day, that is the first day after the Sabbath, and the Lord’s day, went before in the figure; which figure ceased when by and by the truth came and spiritual circumcision was given to us.

According to St. Cyprian and this council of 66 bishops, Old Testament circumcision was prophetic. It always took place on the 8th day pointing forward to when Jesus Christ, the Son of God would rise from the dead on the eighth day.

Long before we even reach the New Testament, we see the 8th day figure into numerous aspects of Israel’s history and Israel’s everyday life:

Whenever you read about Noah’s Ark, you would think about the number eight.
Whenever you circumcised your son
Whenever you offered God sacrifice of the first fruits from your livestock
And whenever you celebrated the annual Feast of Tabernacles you would think about the eighth day
The eighth day finally reveals its significance after the final week of the Old Covenant. From Palm Sunday to Good Friday, Jesus performs his final works for our salvation. On Friday He says, “It is finished,” and gives up His spirit. On Holy Saturday, His body rests in the tomb as He keeps the final Sabbath in the Old Covenant. Then, on the 8th day. . .

On the 8th day death is defeated.
On the 8th day, the gates of Hell are shattered.
On the 8th day, the graves release their captive.
On the 8th day, the Son of God rises from the dead holding the keys of death and hell in one hand and the broken teeth of the devil in the other.
On the 8th day, the old creation begins passing away, and the new creation begins breaking into our present world, for when the Apostles look upon the Risen Christ, they are looking at a human body which has already crossed over from death into life.
They are looking at a human body that will outlive this present universe. When this world burns, and we meet the end of the world as we know it, our Risen Savior will still be there, alive and well on the other side.When the Apostles see the Risen Body of Christ, they are seeing their own future. For in the New heavens and the new earth, our bodies will be like His.

The 8th day, the day of the Resurrection, is such a significant cosmic event that Jesus immediately leads his disciples to commemorate that day. From that day forth, every Lord’s Day is a commemoration of the 8th day. Every Sunday is observed as sort of a “little Easter,” a weekly celebration of the Resurrection of the Son of God. In the Gospel of John, we see that Jesus immediately sets up a pattern for his disciples to follow.

The first Sunday, on the day of the Resurrection, the Apostles were gathered together in one place. Jesus came to meet with them. Jesus said, “Peace be unto you.” The Apostles were able to see the wounds in Jesus’s hands, feet, and side. The Apostles respond with gladness, and their unbelief is gone.

Jesus says, “Even as My Father has sent Me, so send I you.” He’s talking about evangelism. He’s talking about the Gospel being carried out into the rest of the world.

The next Sunday, the week after the Resurrection, you see the same thing. The Apostles are gathered together in one place. Jesus comes to meet with them. Jesus says, “Peace be unto you.” The Apostles, this time including Thomas, were able to see the wounds in Jesus’s hands, feet, and side. Thomas responds, “My Lord and my God!” and his unbelief is gone.

Jesus says, “Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed.” Once again, He’s talking about evangelism. He’s talking about those of us who would believe the words of the Apostles and would believe in the Resurrection of the Son of God and would join His family in the Church.

Early in the Fifth Century, Cyril of Alexandria summed it up well. He said:

With good reason then we are accustomed to have sacred meetings in churches on the eighth day. And, to adopt the language of allegory, as the idea necessarily demands, we indeed close the doors. But Christ still visits us and appears to us all, both invisibly as God and visibly in the Body. He allows us to touch His holy Flesh and gives it to us. For through the grace of God we are admitted to partake of the blessed Eucharist, receiving Christ into our hands, to the intent that we may firmly believe that he did in truth raise up the Temple of His Body . . . Participation of the Divine Mysteries, in addition to filling us with divine blessedness, is a true confession and memorial of Christ’s dying and rising again for us and for our sake. Let us, therefore, after touching Christ’s Body, avoid all unbelief in Him as utter ruin and rather be found well grounded in the full assurance of faith.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Our God is One.

[SavaBeljovic]

No. They're not.

[Stylite Nous]

Would you care to elaborate, Sava? Something official from a saint or synod would be valuable, but if being outside the canon is enough to make it forbidden, I shouldn't read Philo of Alexandria either.

[Unseen.Warfare]

Would you care to elaborate, Sava? Something official from a saint or synod would be valuable, but if being outside the canon is enough to make it forbidden, I shouldn't read Philo of Alexandria either.

You asked if they are valuable. I think they are too the extent that they were known by the early church fathers and they can give us an idea of what texts they were aware of and maybe pieces of them are inspired. They aren’t in the canon for a reason though. I’d take them with a grain of salt.

nor give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which cause disputes rather than godly edification which is in faith. - 1 Timothy 1:4

I feel like these verses apply towards Enoch.

and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. - 2 Timothy 4:4

“Things would have been better if Seth’s people would have stuck to themselves. But they didn’t. The sixth chapter of Genesis recounts that the “sons of God saw that the daughters of men were fair; and they took to wife such of them that they chose.” The “sons of God” are the people of Seth. And the “daughters of men” are those of Cain. This verse describes, in a short symbolic way, the tragedy of how Seth’s culture got mixed up with Cain’s culture. People not only intermarried, but more importantly, they gave up their belief. Seth’s people -- or most of them -- no longer sought God in their heart. They no longer prayed the old prayer of Adam and Eve that they prayed as soon as they left Eden: “Lord, have mercy on me.” Instead, Seth’s people started living the self-centered life of comfort, technology, power, greatness ... and violence.”

https://orthochristian.com/91971.html

This seems pretty sound.
http://www.burningcoal.com/muse/enoch.h ... al%20canon.

[eish]

Would you care to elaborate, Sava? Something official from a saint or synod would be valuable, but if being outside the canon is enough to make it forbidden, I shouldn't read Philo of Alexandria either.

...

Whichever the correct numberings are, I would reject out of hand the later medieval works attributed to Enoch and discuss only the Ethiopian one. Having said that, Apostolic Canon LX of the Apostles, interpretation of St. Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain:

If anyone reads to the public in churches the books of impious writers bearing false inscriptions and purporting to be holy, to the injury of laity and clergy, let him be deposed.

Other books which were Orthodox and pious, and written by Orthodox Christians and saints, were adulterated by heretics later, just as...and of Enoch.*
...
[Footnote] I said that the apocryphal books of...and Enoch ad still other patriarchs were adulterated, because down to the times of the Apostles they had remained unadulterated and pure. That is why St. Paul toook from the apocryphal writings of Elijah...The Apostle Jude...quotes a whole excerpt from...Enoch...
...if the books of heretics in general ought to be burned up and the readers thereof be punished with the utmost severity, much more, and incomparably more, ought the books of the atheist Voltaire, which openly teach atheism, be utterly burned up. All antichnstian books, in fact..Accordingly, all who write or print or buy or read or listen to them are guilty of grave sin: so let them correct themselves.

The Fathers ultimately rejected the book of Enoch because of inconsistencies with Scripture. The most glaring problem is the claim that fallen angels interbred with humans, which contradicts their immateriality. Some people today think that this is not as big a problem; we may say that people could have intentionally allowed themselves to be possessed and conceived children in this state, or even that they may have had genetic engineering on top. I'm not logically opposed to the idea but it is not found in the Fathers to my knowledge. There are other inconsistencies. The giants are claimed to have been 3000 cubits tall--a mile--or 300 cubits depending on which version you look at.*

*Section 2, Chapter 7. http://www.pseudepigrapha.com/pseudepig ... h_all.html

I'm all for giants but I must say this text appears to be corrupted. On that topic, we have the text from heretics only. This should be obvious, but lives and writings of saints obtained from heretics become suspicious by their source. Canon LXIII of the Sixth Council:

With regards to the falsely composed martyr-lists fabricated by the enemies of the truth, as if with an intention to dishonor the Martyrs of Christ and to lead those paying attention to it into disbelief, we command that it must not be read publicly even in the churches, but that these things must be consigned to fire. As for those who accept them and recognize them as veridical, or those who bestow any attention upon them as true, we anathematize such persons.

Interpretation:

Infidels and enemies of the truth, wishing to bring accusations against Christians' records, composed, it would seem, certain ludicrous and grotesque utterances and deeds with the allegation that the Martyrs of Christ said and did those things, in order that the Martyrs might incur insult as a consequence thereof, and the Orthodox faith be laughed to scorn...

.

Demons fathering mile-tall men with ordinary women illustrate the truth of the interpretation.

[SavaBeljovic]

I don't have much to add to what Eish said. St. Nikodemos mentions it explicitly in a work that should not be read. St. John Cassian also mentioned it as being heretical.