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1 Enoch

About this book
Chapter 64

1 I saw other forms hidden in that place.⁠ 2 I heard the voice of the angel explaining: 'These are the angels who descended to the earth and revealed secrets to humans, leading them into sin.'

Texts in conversation

Compare 1 Enoch 64:2 and 2 Enoch 18:3

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses

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Summary

1 Enoch describes the condemnation of the angels who came down, revealed hidden secrets, and led humans into sin, with no single leader named. 2 Enoch reshapes this tradition to describe one prince, Satanail, or Satan, over the rebel angels.

Passages

1 Enoch 64:2

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses
1 I saw other forms hidden in that place. 2 I heard the voice of the angel explaining: 'These are the angels who descended to the earth and revealed secrets to humans, leading them into sin.'
300 BCE – 100 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in 1 Enoch

2 Enoch 18:3

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses · Secrets of Enoch
3 And they said to me: These are the Grigori, who with their prince Satanail rejected the Lord of light, 4 and after them are those who are held in great darkness on the second heaven, and three of them went down onto earth from the Lord's throne, to the place Ermon, and broke through their vows on the shoulder of the hill Ermon and saw how good the daughters of men are, and took wives for themselves, 5 and fouled the earth with their deeds, who in all the times of their age made lawlessness and mixing,
1–100 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in 2 Enoch

References

... One of the pieces of evidence that catches the eye here is the peculiar title “prince” by which the passage describes the leader of the incarcerated angels. Already Robert Henry Charles noticed that although the passage found in chapter 7 does not directly name Satanail as the leader of the rebellious angels, the reference to the fact that they “turned away with their prince” (Slav. с князем своим) invokes the similar terminology applied to Satanail later in chapter 18:3 which tells that the Watchers (Grigori) turned aside from the Lord together with their prince (Slav. с князем своим) Satanail. Charles’ suggestion appears to be plausible, and in light of the identical formulae attested in chapter 18 it is possible that the Satanail tradition is already present in 2 Enoch 7. If it is so, here for the first time in 2 Enoch the chief negative protagonist of the Adamic lore becomes identified as the leader of the fallen Watchers. ...
Andrei A. Orlov, “The Watchers of Satanail: The Fallen Angels Traditions in 2 Enoch,” in New Perspectives on 2 Enoch: No Longer Slavonic Only, ed. Andrei A. Orlov, Gabriele Boccaccini, and Jason M. Zurawski (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 155–157.

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 64:2 and 2 Enoch 18:3

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