Texts in Conversation
2 Enoch 19 locates bright angels governing the world in the sixth heaven. The Apocalypse of Abraham echoes their location but describes them as bodiless spirits serving the fiery angels above, arranging heavenly work through distinct levels of authority.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
2 Enoch 19:6
Secrets of Enoch
Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses
3 And when they see evil-doing they make commandments and instruction, and sweet and loud singing, and all songs of praise. These are the archangels who are above angels, measure all life in heaven and on earth, 4 and the angels who are appointed over seasons and years, the angels who are over rivers and sea, and who are over the fruits of the earth, and the angels who are over every grass, giving food to all, to every living thing, 5 and the angels who write all the souls of men, and all their deeds, and their lives before the Lord's face; 6 in their midst are six Phoenixes and six Cherubim and six six-winged ones continually with one voice singing one voice, and it is not possible to describe their singing, and they rejoice before the Lord at his footstool.
Apocalypse of Abraham 19:6
Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses
4 And while He was yet speaking (and) behold! the expanses opened, and beneath me the heavens. And I saw upon the seventh firmament upon which I stood a fire widely extended, and light, and dew, and a multitude of angels, and a power of invisible glory over the living creatures which I saw; but I saw no other being there. 5 And I looked from the mountain in which I stood [downwards] to the sixth firmament, 6 and saw there a multitude of angels, of (pure) spirit, without bodies, who carried out the commands of the fiery angels who were upon the eighth firmament, as I was standing suspended over them. 7 And behold, upon this firmament there were no other powers of (any) other form, but only angels of (pure) spirit, like the power which I saw on the seventh firmament.
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Notes and References
“... In 2 Enoch xix. the seer describes what he saw in th e sixth heaven: legions of angels more
resplendent than the sun, the archangels set over the sun, stars, seasons, rivers, vegetation, the living
things and the souls of men, with six phœnixes, seven cherubim, and seven hayyoth in the midst, all
singing with a voice indescribably beautiful; cf. also Asc. Is. viii. 1 ff, 6 ff., where the sixth heaven is
described as full of hosts of angels uttering praise. In our passage apparently the angels of service
(ministering angels) are located in this heaven. ...”
Box, G. H., with J. I. Landsman
The Apocalypse of Abraham
(p. PDF 41) Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1918
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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