Within this series, beginning with part 1, part 2, part 3, you will find info from The Gospel of Peter, The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, The Epistle of Barnabas aka Pseudo-Barnabas, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Origen, Anatolius of Alexandria, Jerome plus Alfred Loisy. See my previous articles Did the prophet Enoch write the Book of Enoch? and 1, 2, 3 Books of Enoch and Methuselah.
May generic statements can be found online, may repeated again and again, which reference certain early church leaders with regards to the Book of Enoch. However, most do not provide quotations or citations and until such a time as I can track more references down these will make due.
In this segment we will consider Anatolius of Alexandria, Jerome and some statement by Alfred Loisy.
ANATOLIUS OF ALEXANDRIA (early 3rd century AD)
Paschal Canon V:
…But that the first month among the Hebrews is about the equinox, is clearly shown also by what is taught in the book of Enoch.
JEROME (circa 347-420 AD)
De Viris Illustribus aka Lives of Illustrious Men aka On Illustrious Men IV, “Jude, the brother of James”:
Jude the brother of James, left a short epistle which is reckoned among the seven catholic epistles, and because in it he quotes from the apocryphal book of Enoch it is rejected by many. Nevertheless by age and use it has gained authority and is reckoned among the Holy Scriptures.
ALFRED LOISY:
Alfred Firmin Loisy references Apocalypse of Peter thusly in The Birth of the Christian Religion, chap I:
A Greek fragment of the apocalypse, with a passage from Enoch and a part of the Gospel of Peter, was found at Akhmim in Egypt, while the whole text, perhaps a little touched up and interpolated, has been preserved in an Ethiopian version.
Dead Sea Scroll 1 Book of Enoch fragment
In chapter IX, Loisy writes:
The first point on which we have to remark is that Simon the Magician, a contemporary of Jesus and of the first missionaries, is presented in Christian tradition as the father of heretical gnosis. There is a sense, however, in which the gnostic crisis had its birth in Judaism long before the preaching of the Gospel, and had long been a factor in the religious syncretism which arose in the Eastern world as a result of the successive conquests of the Persians and the Greeks, and in which mysteries of salvation were nourishing elements. Writings such as the Book of Enoch and Book of Daniel may be truly described as monuments of Jewish gnosis influenced by science and mystic speculation of foreign parentage.
In chapter VIII, Loisy writes:
These impious scoundrels repeat the crimes of others who stand accused — Cain, Balaam, Korah, of whom Enoch wrote; and a quotation follows which can be found at the beginning of the Book of Enoch (Ethiopian version). The false teachers are finally characterized as drivelling critics, pompous orators and flatterers with an eye to the main chance…[in] The First Epistle of Peter…The romance of the descent into hell is borrowed from the Book of Enoch and mediately from old Eastern mythologies. The “spirits that were in prison” are the fallen angels who, mating with women, produced the giants and provoked the punishment of the Deluge. To these fallen spirits the Christ-Spirit goes with the good news; they are the first to submit to the immortal Christ, the other celestial powers being conquered by his ascent into heaven, as these others are by his descent into hell.
The preaching of the Gospel to the general mass of the dead was accomplished by the Christ himself on the occasion of his instructing the fallen angels. Thus all who lived on earth before the coming of the Christ have had their chance of salvation; condemned to death as “men of the flesh” and as punishment for their sins, the grace of God has enabled them to live again in spiritual glory. It would seem, then, that this author knew only of a spiritual resurrection, whether for the Christ himself or for the human believer.
That Jesus instructed the fallen angels seems to be a stretch as Jesus likely went into Abraham’s Bosom to proclaim His victory of sin and death to those therein (see Luke 16).
In chapter IX, Loisy writes:
St. Jerome [347-420 AD] expresses himself rather freely on some of the catholic Epistles. On James he writes as follows (De Viris, 2):
He wrote only one Epistle, which is one of the seven Catholics. It is said that this letter was written by another under his name, although it gradually gained authority with the lapse of time.
This is the best that could be said. On Jude he wrote (De Viris, 4):
Jude, brother of James, has left a short Epistle, which is of the seven Catholics; and because he brings in a quotation from the book of Enoch, which is apocryphal, the letter had been rejected by most people; notwithstanding, it deserved credit by its antiquity and by usage, and was counted among the Holy Scriptures.
So, it “is apocryphal” and also is “counted among the Holy Scriptures”; but by whom? The quotation above, that of section 4 of De Viris Illustribus, was quoted in full; Jerome does not elucidate.
In chapter VII, Loisy writes:
Once raised to the heavens, Jesus became immediately the Son of Man presently to come on the clouds. Up to that time it would have been a hard task for the historian to identify the Son of Man with a definable personality. But faith settled the matter: Jesus in heaven was the Son of Man making ready to come again…The notion of “the Man” was easy to assimilate; a passage of the Book of Enoch applies it to Enoch himself (Ixxi, 14).
This pertains to Enoch LXXI:14 which states:
And he (i.e. the angel) came to me and greeted me with His voice, and said unto me: ‘This is the Son of Man who is born unto righteousness, And righteousness abides over him, And the righteousness of the Head of Days forsakes him not’…And so there shall be length of days with that Son of Man, And the righteous shall have peace and an upright way In the name of the Lord of Spirits for ever and ever.’
The term son of man is actually found quite frequently in the Bible and means two different things. Context, not etymology, always determined meaning and so we find that in the following usages it merely means, literally, a son of a man (ben ‘adam); a human:
God is not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent; Has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good? (Numbers 23:19).
How then can a man be just with God? Or how can he be clean who is born of woman?…How much less man, that maggot, And the son of man, that worm! (stated by Bildad the Shuhite whom YHVH rebuked Job 25:4-6).
What is man that You take thought of him, And the son of man that You care for him? (Psalm 8:4).
I kept looking in the night visions, And behold, with the clouds of heaven One like a Son of Man was coming, And He came up to the Ancient of Days and was presented before Him. And to Him was given dominion, Glory and a kingdom, That all the peoples, nations and men of every language Might serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not pass away; And His kingdom is one Which will not be destroyed (Daniel 7:13-14).
This portion is written in Aramaic and thus has son of man as bar ‘enash. Daniel 7 begins by stating:
In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon Daniel saw a dream and visions in his mind as he lay on his bed; then he wrote the dream down and related the following summary of it.
Thus, it may be that it is in Aramaic because Daniel was an official, the record of his dream and visions were made part of official records. The terms ben ‘adam and bar ‘enash are the same which is why, as is clear from the texts, context determines meaning. In this case the son of man came “with the clouds of heaven” appearing “like a Son of Man” and this being approached “the Ancient of Days and was presented before Him” and was “given dominion, Glory and a kingdom” which is to be “everlasting.” This is how we know that this is no mere human.
Daniel 7:28 states that therein ends the account of the record of the dreams and visions. Daniel 8:7 goes back to Hebrew and back to addressing a mere human:
So he came near to where I was standing, and when he came I was frightened and fell on my face; but he said to me, “Son of man, understand that the vision pertains to the time of the end.”
Jesus appears to have emphasized that He is the Son of Man so as to emphasize the description of Him in Daniel as being the one who “was given dominion, Glory and a kingdom…an everlasting dominion which will not pass away,” etc. Of course, that He is the Son of God is also made evidence in the New Testament. Actually, there are various son(s) of God in the New Testament and, of course, context determined meaning and Jesus is referred to as the one and only unique Son of God:
The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God (Mark 1:1).
The angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy Child shall be called the Son of God (Luke 1:35).
Thus, from the beginning, Jesus is the Son of God and v. 32 also refers to Him as the Son of the Most High. Note the logic that Jesus is the Son of God since Mary was “with child by the Holy Spirit…conceived…of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 1:18 & 20) and as we just read the “Holy Spirit will come upon” her and “the power of the Most High will overshadow” her thus, since Jesus is the Son of God, the Father-the Most High and the Holy Spirit are God; the Trinity (find more info on the Trinity here).
In another context, Luke 3:38, notes that Adam is “the son of God” apparently because he was directly created by God. Angels are sons of God as they were created directly by God, Christians are sons of God as they were recreated directly by God; born again, Jesus was the son of God as His humanity was created directly by God within Mary.
Matthew 5:9 “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”
Luke 20:36 “they cannot even die anymore, because they are like angels, and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection.”
Romans 8:14, 19 “For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God…For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God.”
Galatians 3:26 “For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.”
John 1:12-13 “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, [even] to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”
1 John 3:2 “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.”
Matthew 8:28-29 “When He came to the other side into the country of the Gadarenes, two men who were demon-possessed met Him as they were coming out of the tombs. They were so extremely violent that no one could pass by that way. And they cried out, saying, ‘What business do we have with each other, Son of God? Have You come here to torment us before the time?’”
Mark 3:11 “Whenever the unclean spirits saw Him, they would fall down before Him and shout, ‘You are the Son of God!’”
Luke 22:70 “And they all said, ‘Are You the Son of God, then?’ And He said to them, ‘Yes, I am,’ the Council of elders of the people assembled, both chief priests and scribes, and they led Him away to their council chamber.”
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