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Apocalypse of Abraham

About this book

Azazel Challenges Abraham

Chapter 13

1 And I did everything as the angel commanded, and gave the angels, who had come to us, the divided animals, but the angel took the birds. 2 And I waited for the evening sacrifice. 3 And an unclean bird flew down on the carcasses, and I drove it away.⁠ 4 And the unclean bird spoke to me, and said: "What are you doing, Abraham, on the holy Heights, where no one eats or drinks, and there is not (any) human food there, but these consume everything with fire, and (will) burn you up. 5 Leave the man who is with you, and run away; for if you go up to the Heights they will destroy you. 6 And when I saw the bird speaking, I said to the angel: "What is this, my lord?" And he said: "This is godlessness, this is Azazel."⁠ 7 And he said to it: "Shame on you, Azazel! For Abraham's lot is in heaven, but yours on the earth. 8 Because you have chosen and loved this as the dwelling(place) of your impurity, the eternal mighty Lord therefore made you live on the earth 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."⁠

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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