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Apocalypse of Abraham

About this book

The Vision of Creation

Chapter 21

1 And He said to me: "Look now beneath your feet at the heavenly vaults and understand the creation foreshadowed in this expanse, the creatures that exist on it, and the age prepared according to it."⁠ 2 And I looked beneath the heavenly vault at my feet and saw the likeness of heaven and what was in it, 3 and then the earth and its fruits, and what moved on it and its living beings; and the power of its people, and the godlessness of their souls, and their righteous deeds [and the beginnings of their works], and the lower regions and the destruction in it, the Abyss and its torments. 4 I saw there the sea and its islands, and its monsters and its fish, and Leviathan and his domain, and his camping place, and his caves, and the world which lay on him,⁠ and his movements, and the destruction of the world because of him. 5 I saw there streams and the rising of their waters, and their winding courses. 6 And I saw there the Garden of Eden and its fruits,⁠ the source of the stream flowing from it, and its trees and their bloom, and those who behaved righteously. And I saw in it their food and happiness.⁠ 7 And I saw there a great crowd of men and women and children [half of them on the right side of the picture] and half of them on the left side of the picture.

Texts in conversation

Compare 2 Enoch 26:3 and Apocalypse of Abraham 21:4

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses

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Summary

The Apocalypse of Abraham and 2 Enoch describe Leviathan as more than a force of chaos, presenting it as part of the structure of creation itself. Leviathan remains frightening but is also pictured as necessary for the world to be held together.

Passages

2 Enoch 26:3

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses · Secrets of Enoch
1 And I summoned the very lowest a second time, and said: 'Let Archas emerge solid,' and he emerged solid from the invisible. And Archas emerged, solid, heavy, and very red. 2 And I said: 'Open up, Archas, and give birth,' and he came undone, an age emerged, very great and very dark, bearing the creation of all lower things, 3 and I saw that it was good and said to him: 'Go down below, and make yourself firm, and be a foundation for the lower things,' and it happened and he went down and fixed himself, and became the foundation for the lower things, and below the darkness there is nothing else.
1–100 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in 2 Enoch

Apocalypse of Abraham 21:4

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses
3 and then the earth and its fruits, and what moved on it and its living beings; and the power of its people, and the godlessness of their souls, and their righteous deeds [and the beginnings of their works], and the lower regions and the destruction in it, the Abyss and its torments. 4 I saw there the sea and its islands, and its monsters and its fish, and Leviathan and his domain, and his camping place, and his caves, and the world which lay on him, and his movements, and the destruction of the world because of him. 5 I saw there streams and the rising of their waters, and their winding courses.
70–150 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in the Apocalypse of Abraham

References

"... The evidence of Leviathan’s unique status, in comparison with God’s other creatures, receives its most paradoxical expression in his role as the cosmological foundation of the entire universe. Apocalypse of Abraham 21:4 unambiguously identifies him as the axis mundi by placing the whole universe on top of the monster ... One of the instances in which an antagonistic entity appears to be envisioned as a cosmological foundation can be found in 2 Enoch, a Jewish apocalypse written, according to present scholarly consensus, in the first century CE, in the time very close to the composition of the Apocalypse of Abraham, which is usually dated by scholars to the second century CE ... in 2 Enoch one may detect the presence of two foundations - one upper “positive” foundation represented by the luminous aeon Adail, and another lower, negative, “dark” foundation, represented by Arukhas. There is a certain symmetry between the upper and lower foundations. This development is important for our study. We will encounter a similar parallelism between cosmological foundations in our study of later Jewish materials, especially in the Book of Zohar, where the role of Leviathan as a negative cosmological foundation of the universe is juxtaposed with Rabbi Simeon’s role as the positive cosmological “pillar” of the world ..."
Andrei Orlov, Supernal Serpent: Mysteries of Leviathan in Judaism and Christianity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2023), 47–49.

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2 Enoch 26:3 and Apocalypse of Abraham 21:4

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