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1 Enoch

About this book
Chapter 104

1 I swear to you, that in heaven the angels remember you for good before the glory of the Great One: and your names are written before the glory of the Great One.⁠ 2 Be hopeful; for previously you were shamed through suffering and affliction; but now you shall shine as the lights of heaven,⁠ you shall shine and you shall be seen, and the portals of heaven shall be opened to you.⁠ 3 And in your cry, cry for judgment, and it shall appear to you; for all your tribulation shall be visited on the rulers, and on all who helped those who plundered you. 4 Be hopeful, and do not cast away your hopes for you shall have great joy as the angels of heaven. 5 What shall you be obliged to do? You shall not have to hide on the day of the great judgment and you shall not be found as sinners, and the eternal judgment shall be far from you for all the generations of the world. 6 And now, do not fear, you righteous, when you see the sinners growing strong and prospering in their ways: do not be companions with them, but stay away from their violence; for you shall become companions of the armies of heaven. 7 And, although you sinners say: 'All our sins shall not be searched out and written down,' nevertheless, all your sins shall be recorded every day. 8 And now I show you that light and darkness, day and night, see all your sins. 9 Don't be godless in your hearts, and do not lie nor alter the words of uprightness,⁠ nor charge with lying the words of the Holy Great One, nor take account of your idols; for all your lying and all your godlessness do not result in righteousness but in great sin.⁠ 10 And now I know this mystery, that sinners will alter and pervert the words of righteousness in many ways, and will speak wicked words, and lie, and practice great deceits, and write books concerning their words. 11 But when they write down truthfully all my words in their languages, and do not change or diminish anything from my words but write them all down truthfully - all that I first testified concerning them. 12 Then, I know another mystery, that books will be given to the righteous and the wise to become a cause of joy and uprightness and much wisdom. 13 And to them the books will be given, and they will believe in them and rejoice over them, and then all the righteous who have learned from all the paths of uprightness will be recompensed.

Texts in conversation

Compare 1 Enoch 104:1 and Matthew 18:10

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses · New Testament

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Summary

In Matthew, Jesus speaks of angels as representatives or guardians who watch over the vulnerable. Jewish writings such as 1 Enoch developed similar themes about angelic protection not found in the Hebrew Bible.

Passages

1 Enoch 104:1

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses
1 I swear to you, that in heaven the angels remember you for good before the glory of the Great One: and your names are written before the glory of the Great One. 2 Be hopeful; for previously you were shamed through suffering and affliction; but now you shall shine as the lights of heaven, you shall shine and you shall be seen, and the portals of heaven shall be opened to you. 3 And in your cry, cry for judgment, and it shall appear to you; for all your tribulation shall be visited on the rulers, and on all who helped those who plundered you.
300 BCE – 100 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in 1 Enoch

Matthew 18:10

New Testament
8 If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire. 9 And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter into life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into fiery hell. 10 “See that you do not disdain one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven. 12 What do you think? If someone owns a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go look for the one that went astray? 13 And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he will rejoice more over it than over the ninety-nine that did not go astray.
70–90 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Matthew

References

"... Catchpole further notes that this idea of the heavenly angelic sponsor or guarantor is not unique to Luke’s passage and can be found in other Jewish writings, such as Tobit 12:15 and 1 Enoch 104:1, and therefore “represents an individualizing of the old idea of an angelic ruler for each nation (compare Daniel 10:12; 12:1; Sirach 17:17).” Fletcher-Louis then offers some additional illustrations from the Enochic lore that, in his opinion, reinforce the plausibility of Catchpole’s hypothesis ..."
Andrei A. Orlov, The Greatest Mirror: Heavenly Counterparts in the Jewish Pseudepigrapha (Albany, NY: State University of New York, 2017), 15.
"... The complexity of the developments in Jewish angelology is reflected in the New Testament. The idea of a multiplicity of heavenly patrons, who are interceding angels of the presence, is retained in Matthew 18:10, which in context is a warning against causing the little ones to sin ..."
George W. E. Nickelsburg, A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch Chapters 1-36, 81-108 (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001), 210.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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1 Enoch 104:1 and Matthew 18:10

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