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1 Enoch

About this book
Chapter 8

1 And Azâzêl taught men⁠ to make swords, knives, shields, and breastplates, and revealed to them the metals of the earth⁠ and how to work with them,⁠ as well as how to make bracelets, ornaments, and the use antimony, beautifying the eyelids, along with all kinds of precious stones and various dyes.⁠ 2 Widespread wickedness arose, and they engaged in fornication, were led astray, and corrupted all their ways. 3 Semjâzâ taught spells and the cutting of roots, Armârôs taught how to break spells, Barâqîjâl taught astrology,⁠ Kôkabêl taught about the constellations,⁠ Êzêqêêl taught about the clouds, Araqiêl taught the signs of the earth, Shamsiêl taught the signs of the sun, and Sariêl taught the course of the moon. 4 And as men died, they cried out, and their cries ascended to heaven.

Texts in conversation

Compare 1 Enoch 8:1 and Cyprian, Treatises 2:14

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses · Early Christian

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Summary

The Christian theologian Cyprian draws on the Watchers tradition from 1 Enoch 8 to tell Christian virgins not to wear dyed wool, jewelry, and makeup, calling them inventions of fallen angels who abandoned their heavenly place.

Passages

1 Enoch 8:1

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses
1 And Azâzêl taught men to make swords, knives, shields, and breastplates, and revealed to them the metals of the earth and how to work with them, as well as how to make bracelets, ornaments, and the use antimony, beautifying the eyelids, along with all kinds of precious stones and various dyes. 2 Widespread wickedness arose, and they engaged in fornication, were led astray, and corrupted all their ways. 3 Semjâzâ taught spells and the cutting of roots, Armârôs taught how to break spells, Barâqîjâl taught astrology, Kôkabêl taught about the constellations, Êzêqêêl taught about the clouds, Araqiêl taught the signs of the earth, Shamsiêl taught the signs of the sun, and Sariêl taught the course of the moon. 4 And as men died, they cried out, and their cries ascended to heaven.
300 BCE – 100 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in 1 Enoch

Cyprian, Treatises 2:14

Early Christian
14 For God did not make sheep scarlet or purple, nor did he teach us to dye and color wool with the juices of plants and with shellfish, nor did he establish necklaces with stones set in gold, or pearls arranged in a woven row with a numerous joining, with which to hide the neck he made, so that what God formed in man might be covered and what the devil invented might be seen on top of it. Or did God will wounds to be inflicted on the ears, by which infancy, still innocent and ignorant of worldly evil, is tortured, so that afterwards precious beads might hang from the scars and holes of the ears, heavy if not by their own weight, then by their great price? All these things the sinful and apostate angels brought forth by their arts, when, sunk down to earthly corruption, they fell away from heavenly strength. They also taught women to paint the eyes by drawing black around them, to stain the cheeks with a false blush, to change the hair with artificial colors, and to assault the natural appearance of the whole face and head with their corrupting practices.
245–260 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Cyprian, Treatises

References

... 6.3.2.10. Cyprian In his treatise De habitu virginum (12-14, ca. 250 C.E.), Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, proscribes the wearing of ornaments and dyed clothes. Dyeing, jewelry, eye paint, and other facial cosmetics sinning and apostate angels put forth by their arts, when, lowered to the contagions of earth, they forsook their heavenly vigor (peccatores et apostatae angeli suis artibus prodiderunt quando ad terrena contagia devoluti a caelesti vigore recesserunt, 14). That Cyprian uses Tertullian’s treatise De cultu feminarum seems beyond dispute; his firsthand knowledge of 1 Enoch is less certain. His reference to their forsaking their heavenly vigor parallels verbatim the same word in Minucius Felix. ...
George W. E. Nickelsburg, A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch Chapters 1-36, 81-108 (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001), 89.

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1 Enoch 8:1 and Cyprian, Treatises 2:14

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