1 Enoch 9:6

Pseudepigrapha

5 Thou hast made all things, and power over all things hast Thou: and all things are naked and open in Thy sight, and Thou seest all things, and nothing can hide itself from Thee. 6 Thou seest what Azâzêl hath done, who hath taught all unrighteousness on earth and revealed the eternal secrets which were (preserved) in heaven, which men were striving to learn: 7 And Semjâzâ, to whom Thou hast given authority to bear rule over his associates. 8 And they have gone to the daughters of men upon the earth, and have slept with the women, and have defiled themselves, and revealed to them all kinds of sins. 9 And the women have borne giants, and the whole earth has thereby been filled with blood and unrighteousness. 10 And now, behold, the souls of those who have died are crying and making their suit to the gates of heaven, and their lamentations have ascended: and cannot cease because of the lawless deeds which are wrought on the earth.

Irenaeus Against Heresies 1.15

Patristic

6 With good reason, therefore, and very fittingly, in reference to your rash attempt, has that divine elder and preacher of the truth burst forth in verse against you as follows: Marcus, you former of idols, inspector of portents, Skill'd in consulting the stars, and deep in the black arts of magic, Ever by tricks such as these confirming the doctrines of error, Furnishing signs unto those involved by you in deception, Wonders of power that is utterly severed from God and apostate, Which Satan, your true father, enables you still to accomplish, By means of Azazel, that fallen and yet mighty angel — Thus making you the precursor of his own impious actions. Such are the words of the saintly elder. And I shall endeavour to state the remainder of their mystical system, which runs out to great length, in brief compass, and to bring to the light what has for a long time been concealed. For in this way such things will become easily susceptible of exposure by all.

 Notes and References

"... Irenaeus exhibits his familiarity with the angel story in several passages of his Against Heresies. The following were cited above in the first part of the chapter: 1.10.1; 1.15.6; 4.16.2; and 4.36.4. He also mentions it in 'In Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching 18' ..."

VanderKam, James C. The Jewish Apocalyptic Heritage in Early Christianity (p. 66) Fortress Press, 1993


"... In the second century CE, a number of Christians were re-reading the Book of the Watchers’ traditions about the fallen angels through the lens of Hellenistic and Roman ideas about magoi and mageia. One is hard-pressed, however, to find any explicit appeals to this association in relation to women. Where we find “magical writings” associated with the fallen angels, for instance, it is in connection to “pagan” polytheism, idolatry, and animal sacrifice, with no concern to specify the gender of the worshipers (so, e.g., Justin, 2 Apology 5.4), and when fallen angels are placed at the origins of “magical arts,” it is with reference to male “heretics” (so, e.g., Irenaeus, Against Heresies 1.15.6), consistent with what Stratton has shown for the early Christian gendering of “magic” as male. In the third century, Julius Africanus mentions traditions about the fallen angels as teaching their wives “concerning magic and sorcery, as well as the numbers of the motion of astronomical phenomena,” but he does so only in passing and in the context of dismissing these traditions as unbelievable; in fact, the implausibility of the whole complex of traditions is pivotal for the logic of the passage in question, which is the first known Christian source to promote the euhemeristic interpretation of the “sons of God” as human Sethians ..."

Reed, Annette Y. "Gendering Heavenly Secrets? Women, Angels, and the Problem of Misogyny and Magic" in Stratton, Kimberly B.and ‎Dayna S. Kalleres (eds.) Daughters of Hecate: Women and Magic in Antiquity (pp. 108-151) Oxford University Press, 2014


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