Texts in Conversation
Jude calls the false teachers wayward stars doomed to darkness, treating the stars and planets as living beings that can become disobedient and be punished. Philo similarly describes the stars as living, divine souls that fill the heavens.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Philo On the Giants 1:2
Classical
"And when the angels of God saw the daughters of men that they were beautiful, they took unto themselves wives of all of them whom they Chose." Those beings, whom other philosophers call demons, Moses usually calls angels; and they are souls hovering in the air. And let no one suppose, that what is here stated is a fable, for it is necessarily true that the universe must be filled with living things in all its parts, since every one of its primary and elementary portions contains its appropriate animals and such as are consistent with its nature; --the earth containing terrestrial animals, the sea and the rivers containing aquatic animals, and the fire such as are born in the fire (but it is said, that such as these last are found chiefly in Macedonia), and the heaven containing the stars: for these also are entire souls pervading the universe, being unadulterated and divine, inasmuch as they move in a circle, which is the kind of motion most akin to the mind, for every one of them is the parent mind. It is therefore necessary that the air also should be full of living beings. And these beings are invisible to us, inasmuch as the air itself is not visible to mortal sight. But it does not follow, because our sight is incapable of perceiving the forms of souls, that for that reason there are no souls in the air; but it follows of necessity that they must be comprehended by the mind, in order that like may be contemplated by like. Since what shall we say? Must we not say that these animals which are terrestrial or aquatic live in air and spirit? What? Are not pestilential afflictions accustomed to exist when the air is tainted or corrupted, as if that were the cause of all such assuming vitality? Again, when the air is free from all taint and innocent, such as it is especially wont to be when the north wind prevails, does not the imbibing of a purer air tend to a more vigorous and more lasting duration of life? It is then natural that that medium by which all other animals, whether aquatic of terrestrial, are vivified should itself be empty and destitute of souls? On the contrary, even if all other animals were barren, the air by itself would be bound to be productive of life, having received from the great Creator the seeds of vitality by his especial favour.
Date: 20-50 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
Jude 1:13
New Testament
12 These men are dangerous reefs at your love feasts, feasting without reverence, feeding only themselves. They are waterless clouds, carried along by the winds; autumn trees without fruit—twice dead, uprooted; 13 wild sea waves, spewing out the foam of their shame; wayward stars for whom the utter depths of eternal darkness have been reserved. 14 Now Enoch, the seventh in descent beginning with Adam, even prophesied of them, saying, “Look! The Lord is coming with thousands and thousands of his holy ones,
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Notes and References
... At the same time stars were depicted as sentient beings in the Second Temple period. Bruce Malina describes stars, as well as other celestial phenomena like the sun and moon, as "nonhuman personages obedient to God and of service to him." Malina illustrates his point with Baruch 3:34-35, a passage that describes the stars as participants in worship of the divine. Philo also depicts stars as living creatures endowed with mind and soul. 1 Enoch 18:14-16 and Jude 13 preserve traditions, however, about disobedient stars that eventually are punished. These accounts bear witness to a tradition in Judaism that understood stars to be creatures with awareness and with will. Stars also appear in Greco-Roman literature as divine souls or as fiery beings that are souls in the afterlife. Plato (i.e. Phaedrus), Aristophanes (Peace) and the Stoics especially understood stars as sidereal beings connected to the afterlife. ...
Bautch, Kelley Coblentz
A Study of the Geography of 1 Enoch 17-19: “No One Has Seen What I Have Seen.”
(p. 47) Brill, 2003
* 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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