The Rebellion of the Watchers

Chapter 6

1 And when the population of humans had increased during those times, beautiful and attractive daughters were born to them.⁠ 2 And the angels, the children of heaven, saw them and desired them,⁠ and said to each other: 'Come, let us choose wives from among the humans and father children.'⁠ 3 And Semjâzâ, their leader, said to them: 'I fear that you will not actually agree to do this, and I alone will have to pay the penalty of a great sin.' 4 And they all replied to him and said: 'Let us all take an oath, and all bind ourselves with a solemn promise not to abandon this plan but to carry out this act.' 5 Then they all took an oath together and bound themselves with a solemn promise to do so. 6 And there were in total two hundred who descended on the summit of Mount Hermon⁠ in the days of Jared, and they named it Mount Hermon because they had taken an oath and bound themselves with solemn promises there. 7 And these are the names of their leaders:⁠ Samîazâz, their leader,⁠ Arâkîba, Râmêêl, Kôkabîêl, Tâmîêl, Râmîêl, Dânêl, Êzêqêêl, Barâqîjâl, Asâêl, Armârôs, Batârêl, Anânêl, Zaqîêl, Samsâpêêl, Satarêl, Tûrêl, Jômjâêl, Sariêl.⁠ 8 These are their chiefs of tens.

Texts in conversation

Compare 1 Enoch 6:2 and Tertullian, On Prayer 22

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses · Early Christian

Summary

The Christian theologian Tertullian connects Paul’s instruction about women covering their heads in 1 Corinthians with 1 Enoch where the angels were tempted by human women and took them as wives, showing how he used 1 Enoch as an authoritative source.

Passages

1 Enoch 6:2

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses

1 And when the population of humans had increased during those times, beautiful and attractive daughters were born to them. 2 And the angels, the children of heaven, saw them and desired them, and said to each other: 'Come, let us choose wives from among the humans and father children.' 3 And Semjâzâ, their leader, said to them: 'I fear that you will not actually agree to do this, and I alone will have to pay the penalty of a great sin.' 4 And they all replied to him and said: 'Let us all take an oath, and all bind ourselves with a solemn promise not to abandon this plan but to carry out this act.' 5 Then they all took an oath together and bound themselves with a solemn promise to do so.

300 BCE – 100 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in 1 Enoch

Tertullian, On Prayer 22

Early Christian

As, then, in the male sex, under the name “man,” even the beardless youth is forbidden to be veiled, so in the female sex, under the name “woman,” even the virgin is commanded to be veiled. Let the younger age in both sexes equally follow the discipline of the older; or else let male virgins be veiled too, if female virgins are not veiled, since they too are not bound by name; let “man” and “youth” be different, if “woman” and “virgin” are different. Indeed, he says they must be veiled “because of the angels,” because angels fell away from God on account of the daughters of men. Who, then, would contend that only women, that is, those already married and past virginity, are objects of desire, unless virgins may not excel in beauty and find lovers? Rather, let us consider whether they did not desire virgins only,

200–230 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Tertullian, On Prayer

References

"... As was the case in the Old Testament, angels are not considered infallible. Paul’s comments in 1 Corinthians 11:10 indicate that Paul feared angels could be tempted. In discussing why women should have their head covered and the fact that a woman’s hair was given to her as a “covering,” Paul advises that women should heed his words “because of the angels.” Recent scholarship has shown that in the Greco-Roman worldview, of which Corinth was obviously a part, Paul’s discussion of these items is inherently sexual in nature, ultimately having to do with conceiving children. As Stuckenbruck has observed, the sexual nature of Paul’s teaching in 1 Corinthians 11:2–16 is an echo of the sin of the watchers in 1 Enoch, the well-known Second Temple Jewish retelling of the violation of the cosmic order in Genesis 6:1–4. (Tertullian is an example of an early church leader who made this same connection: “It is on account of the angels, he says, that the woman’s head is to be covered, because the angels revolted from God on account of the daughters of men”'; On Prayer 22.5) Stuckenbruck has analyzed and critiqued the three primary scholarly proposals for understanding 1 Corinthians 11:2–16 in considerable detail. After demonstrating the deficiencies of these approaches, Stuckenbruck marshals a number of primary sources in his defense of a connection between the passage and Genesis 6:1–4 and 1 Enoch’s watcher story ..."

Michael S. Heiser, Angels: What the Bible Really Says about God’s Heavenly Host (Bellingham, WA: Lexham, 2018), 126.

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

The Rebellion of the Watchers

1 Enoch108 chapters

Compare 1 Enoch 6:2 and Tertullian, On Prayer 22

Summary

Passages

1 Enoch 6:2

Tertullian, On Prayer 22

References

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