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2 Enoch

Secrets of Enoch

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Chapter 22

1 On the tenth Heaven, Aravoth, I saw the appearance of the Lord's face, like iron made to glow in fire, and brought out, emitting sparks, and it burns.⁠ Thus I saw the Lord's face, but the Lord's face is beyond description, marvelous and deeply awe-inspiring, and very, very terrifying. 2 And who am I to tell of the Lord's being, which is beyond words, and of his very wonderful face? and I cannot tell the quantity of his many instructions, and various voices, the Lord's throne very great and not made with hands, nor the quantity of those standing around him, troops of cherubim and seraphim, 3 nor their incessant singing, nor his unchanging beauty, and who will tell of the indescribable greatness of his glory? 4 And I fell face down and bowed down to the Lord, 5 and the Lord with his lips said to me: 'Have courage, Enoch, do not fear, rise and stand before my face forever.' 6 And the chief commander Michael lifted me up, and led me before the Lord's face. And the Lord said to his servants testing them: 'Let Enoch stand before my face forever,' 7 and the glorious ones bowed down to the Lord, and said: 'Let Enoch go according to Your word.' 8 And the Lord said to Michael: 'Go and take Enoch out of his earthly garments, and anoint him with my sweet ointment, and put him into the garments of My glory.'⁠ 9 And Michael did so, as the Lord told him. He anointed me, and dressed me, and the appearance of that ointment is more than the great light, and his ointment is like sweet dew, and its smell mild, shining like the sun's ray, 10 and I looked at myself, and was like one of his glorious ones. 11 And the Lord summoned one of his archangels named Pravuil, whose understanding was sharper and wiser than that of the other archangels, who wrote all the deeds of the Lord; 12 and the Lord said to Pravuil: 'Bring out the books from my storehouses, and a reed pen for swift writing, and give it to Enoch, and hand him the finest books, which bring comfort.'⁠

Texts in conversation

Compare 2 Enoch 22:8 and Apocalypse of Abraham 13:14

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses

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Summary

In 2 Enoch, Michael exchanges Enoch’s earthly clothes for garments of divine glory. The Apocalypse of Abraham echoes a similar tradition of heavenly clothing, but the garment Abraham receives once belonged to the fallen angel Azazel.

Passages

2 Enoch 22:8

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses · Secrets of Enoch
6 And the chief commander Michael lifted me up, and led me before the Lord's face. And the Lord said to his servants testing them: 'Let Enoch stand before my face forever,' 7 and the glorious ones bowed down to the Lord, and said: 'Let Enoch go according to Your word.' 8 And the Lord said to Michael: 'Go and take Enoch out of his earthly garments, and anoint him with my sweet ointment, and put him into the garments of My glory.' 9 And Michael did so, as the Lord told him. He anointed me, and dressed me, and the appearance of that ointment is more than the great light, and his ointment is like sweet dew, and its smell mild, shining like the sun's ray, 10 and I looked at myself, and was like one of his glorious ones.
1–100 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in 2 Enoch

Apocalypse of Abraham 13:14

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses
9 and through you comes every evil spirit of lies, and through you come anger and trials for the generations of godless people; 10 for God, the Eternal, Mighty One, has not allowed the bodies of the righteous to be in your power, so that in this way the life of the righteous and the destruction of the unclean may be made certain. 11 Listen, counselor, leave me in shame. For you have not been allowed to tempt all the righteous. 12 Leave this man! 13 You cannot deceive him, because he is an enemy of you and of those who follow you and love what you want. 14 For look, the garment that was once yours in heaven has been set aside for him, and the mortality that was his has been transferred to you."
70–150 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in the Apocalypse of Abraham

References

“... The “heavenly garments” are here referred to “which are now stored up on high in the seventh heaven” according to Asc. Is. iv. 16. The idea, originally a realistic one, was gradually spiritualised, and came to mean the spiritual bodies in which the righteous wil l be clothed in heaven; cf. 1 Enoch lxii. 15 f. (“garments of glory,” “garments of life”); cf. also 2 Enoch xxii. 8 f., where Michael is bidden by God to “take from Enoch his earthly robe . . . and clothe him with the garment of my glory. ...”
G. H. Box with J. I. Landsman, The Apocalypse of Abraham (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1918), PDF 33.

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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2 Enoch 22:8 and Apocalypse of Abraham 13:14

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