Andrei A. Orlov (Marquette University)
As has been already mentioned, our study of the heavenly counterpart traditions found in the Jewish pseudepigrapha will be organized around the major mediatorial trends prominent in the Second Temple period and associated with protological characters found in the Hebrew Bible – patriarchical, prophetic, and priestly figures, like Enoch, Noah, Melchizedek, Jacob, Joseph, and Moses, whose stories become greatly expanded in Jewish extra-biblical accounts. We will begin our exploration of the Doppelgänger symbolism with an analysis of some currents found in the early Enochic lore.
The choice of the Enochic legends as the first step in our analysis of heavenly counterpart imagery is also dictated by the fact that nowhere in early Second Temple literature can one find such ardent attention to the realities of the heavenly world and opportunities for a human being to breach the boundaries between earthly and celestial realms.
Scholars have previously noted that the interest of the Enochic tradition in the heavenly realities and the possibilities for breaching the boundaries between realms manifest a striking contrast with conceptual currents reflected in the body of the early Jewish literature gathered in the Hebrew Bible, a collection, which according to some studies, was profoundly shaped by the Zadokite priestly ideology.1 In contrast to the corpus of early Enochic writings the student of the Hebrew Bible finds very limited information about the possibility for human beings to traverse the heavens. Few heroes of the biblical accounts are said to be translated into the heavenly abode. Among these unique figures, Enoch and Elijah are notably singled out, yet the biblical references about their translations are quite abbreviated and they do not provide any details about the content of their heavenly journeys and celestial initiations. Such marked disinterest in the realities of the heavenly world, manifested in the Hebrew Bible, appears to represent a distinctive ideological tendency. Traversing the upper realms is clearly discouraged in such a theological framework and an attentive reader of the biblical accounts soon learns that all portentous formative encounters between human beings and otherworldly characters take place not in heaven or hell but instead in the terrestrial world, in the wilderness or on a mountain. Thus, Ezekiel receives his vision of the Merkavah not in the heavenly throne room, like Enoch, but instead on the river Chebar and the son of Amram obtains his revelations from the deity on the mountain. Scholars previously reflected on the topological peculiarities of biblical accounts which attempt to discourage any depiction of humans ascending to upper realms in order to receive the divine revelation. Gabriele Boccaccini rightly observes that in “the primeval history, as edited in the Zadokite Torah (Gen 1-11) … any attempt to cross the boundary between humanity and the divine always results in disaster.”2
Yet, despite these topological proclivities, the possibility of the existence of heavenly counterparts was not entirely abandoned in the Hebrew Bible. In view of the pronounced sacerdotal tendencies of the Zadokite ideology, its application of the counterparts’ imagery became permeated by cultic concerns manifesting itself in the idea of a heavenly correlative to the earthly sanctuary.3 Such traditions of the heavenly counterparts first unfold in the paradigmatic revelation given to Moses on Mount Sinai. Several biblical passages from Exodus and Numbers4 insist that “the earlier pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern of all its furniture was made after the [heavenly] pattern … which was shown … on the mountain.”5 A passage from 1 Chronicles 28:19 further affirms the possibility that the plan of the earthly sanctuary came from above.6 All these passages postulate the idea that earthly cultic settings ought to be faithful imitations of heavenly ones.7 As one scholar rightly observes, “the goal of history … is that the cultus will be ‘on earth as in heaven.’”8 This notion that the earthly sanctuary is a replica of the heavenly one makes its first appearance not in the texts of the Hebrew Bible, but in early Mesopotamian traditions.9 There, earthly temples are repeatedly portrayed as counterparts of heavenly realities.10
Yet, despite these specimens of sacerdotal counterparts’ traditions in biblical accounts, it appears that the conceptual developments pertaining to heavenly identities of human seers play a more prominent role in early Enochic lore with its marked interest in the realities of the celestial world. We therefore must direct our attention to some of these developments.
Already in one of the earliest Enochic booklets, the Book of the Watchers,11 the reader notices the facination of the Enochic writers about the heavenly counterparts of the earthly realities, especially the cultic ones. Thus, in 1 Enoch 14, which portrays the patriarch’s travel to the heavenly sanctuary located in the heavenly abode, the structure and the attributes of the celestial shrine are markedly reminiscent of the features of the Jerusalem temple. 1 Enoch 14:9-18 details the following intriguing portrayal of the heavenly structures:
And I proceeded until I came near to a wall which was built of hailstones, and a tongue of fire surrounded it, and it began to make me afraid. And I went into the tongue of fire and came near to a large house which was built of hailstones, and the wall of that house (was) like a mosaic (made) of hailstones, and its floor (was) snow. Its roof (was) like the path of the stars and flashes of lightning, and among them (were) fiery Cherubim, and their heaven (was like) water. And (there was) a fire burning around its wall, and its door was ablaze with fire. And I went into that house, and (it was) hot as fire and cold as snow, and there was neither pleasure nor life in it. Fear covered me and trembling, I fell on my face. And I saw in the vision, and behold, another house, which was larger than the former, and all its doors (were) open before me, and (it was) built of a tongue of fire. And in everything it so excelled in glory and splendor and size that I am unable to describe to you its glory and its size. And its floor (was) fire, and above (were) lightning and the path of the stars, and its roof also (was) a burning fire. And I looked and I saw in it a high throne, and its appearance (was) like ice and its surrounds like the shining sun and the sound of Cherubim.12
Commenting on this passage, Martha Himmelfarb draws attention to the description of the celestial edifices which Enoch encounters in his progress to the divine Throne. She notes that the Ethiopic text reports that, in order to reach God’s heavenly Seat, the patriarch passes through three celestial constructions: a wall, an outer house, and an inner house. The Greek version of this narrative mentions a house instead of a wall. Himmelfarb observes that more clearly in the Greek, but also in the Ethiopic this arrangement echoes the structure of the earthly temple with its vestibule, sanctuary, and the Holy of Holies.13
God’s throne is located in the innermost chamber of this heavenly construction and is represented by a throne of cherubim (1 Enoch 14:18). This is a heavenly counterpart to the cherubim found in the Holy of Holies in the Jerusalem temple. In drawing parallels between the descriptions of the heavenly temple in the Book of the Watchers and the features of the earthly sanctuary, Himmelfarb observes that the fiery cherubim which Enoch sees on the ceiling of the first house (Ethiopic) or middle house (Greek) of the heavenly structure represent not the cherubim of the divine throne, but images that recall the figures on the hangings on the wall of the tabernacle mentioned in Exod 26:1, 26:31, 36:8, 36:35 or possibly the figures which, according to 1 Kings 6:29, 2 Chr 3:7 and Ezek 41:15-26, were engraved on the walls of the earthly temple.14 As one can see the structure of the heavenly sanctuary and its features are reminiscent of the earthy temple, and thus can be viewed as corresponding counterparts, one celestial and another – terrestrial.
Moreover in the course of this encounter, Enoch himself becomes a heavenly counterpart of the earthly sacerdotal servant, the high priest, who once a year on Yom Kippur was allowed to enter the divine presence. Scholars previously noted these correspondences. For example, George Nickelsburg suggests that Enoch’s progressions through the chambers of the celestial sanctuary might indicate that the author(s) of the Book of the Watchers perceived him as a servant associated with the activities in these chambers.15 Similarly, Nickelsburg argues that Enoch’s vision of the Throne in the Book of the Watchers is “qualitatively different from that described in the biblical throne visions” because of the new active role of its visionary.16
Himmelfarb also points to the possibility that in the Book of the Watchers the patriarch himself becomes a priest in the course of his ascent,17 similar to the angels.18 In this conceptual development the angelic status of patriarch and his priestly role19 are viewed as mutually interconnected. Himmelfarb stresses that “the author of the Book of the Watchers claims angelic status for Enoch through his service in the heavenly temple” since “the ascent shows him passing through the outer court of the temple and the sanctuary to the door of the Holy of Holies, where God addresses him with his own mouth.”20
Helge Kvanvig highlights another aspect of Enoch’s dream-vision in 1 Enoch 14 which is very important for our study of the heavenly counterpart traditions. Kvanvig argues that the dream about the celestial temple “is told by Enoch from two perspectives. The first tells the whole series of events, emphasizing that Enoch stays on the earth during the entire dream…. The second perspective focuses on Enoch as the protagonist of the dream itself, and he is carried away to the heavenly temple.”21 If Kvanvig is correct in his assessment of the peculiarities of Enoch’s dream, the seer appears to be simultaneously in both realms: dreaming in his sleep on the earth and at the same time installed as the sacerdotal servant in the heavenly temple. As will be shown below such depiction of the double identity of a human adept is widespread in various accounts of the heavenly counterparts. It especially evokes the memory of the rabbinic accounts about Jacob’s heavenly identity where angels behold this patriarch as sleeping on the earth and at the same time installed in heaven.
Kvanvig sees these early Enochic developments found in the Book of the Watchers as a crucial conceptual step in shaping of the subsequent tradition of Enoch’s Doppelgänger in the Book of the Similitudes where the patriarch will be openly identified with his heavenly persona in the form of the Son of Man. He notes that “in 1 Enoch 13-14 Enoch sees himself as a visionary counterpart in heaven. In [the Similitudes] 70-71 Enoch is actually taken to heaven to be identified as the Son of Man.”22
As will be shown below, in the Similitudes one also finds two aforementioned perspectives of the dream’s report where Enoch first describes the Son of Man’s mighty deeds and then later becomes identified with this celestial figure.23 Kvanvig notices that “the two perspectives thus constitute two ways of reporting a dream experience where the dreamer sees himself. In the first the dreamer reports what happened in retrospect, depicting how he sees himself acting in the dream; in the second he remains in the dream experience itself, where only one of the figures is involved, the figure seen in the dream.”24
Other early Enochic booklets also imply the existence of the human beings’ heavenly identities. Thus, for example, in the Animal Apocalypse,25 Noah’s and Moses’ metamorphoses from animal forms to the form of the human being signify, in the zoomorphic code of this book, the transition from human to celestial condition.26
The parallelism between heavenly and earthly identities of the various characters of the Enochic lore is further reaffirmed inversely in the destiny of the antagonists of the story – the fallen angels, called the Watchers, who during their rebellious descent into the lower realm were bound to encounter their lower “earthly” selves by assuming human roles of husbands and fathers.
All these features demonstrate that already in the earliest Enochic booklets the protagonists and the antagonists of the story are depicted as making transitions between their upper and lower personalities. Yet, in the Book of the Similitudes such imagery comes to a new conceptual level when the seer becomes openly identified with his celestial Self. We should now draw our close attention to these portentous conceptual developments.
Scholars have previously suggested27 that the Book of the Similitudes entertains the idea of a heavenly counterpart of the visionary when it identifies Enoch with the Son of Man in chapter 71. Although this Enochic text is not found among the Qumran fragments of the Enochic books, the current scholarly consensus holds that the book is likely to be composed before the second century C.E.28 An account Enoch’s celestial metamorphosis found in Similitudes 71, offers the following perplexing depiction:
And it came to pass after this that my spirit was carried off, and it went up into the heavens. I saw the sons of the holy angels treading upon flames of fire, and their garments (were) white, and their clothing, and the light of their face (was) like snow. And I saw two rivers of fire, and the light of that fire shone like hyacinth, and I fell upon my face before the Lord of Spirits. And the angel Michael, one of the archangels, took hold of me by my right hand, and raised me, and led me out to all the secrets of mercy and the secrets of righteousness. And he showed me all the secrets of the ends of heaven and all the Storehouses of all the stars and the lights, from where they come out before the holy ones. And the spirit carried Enoch off to the highest heaven, and I saw there in the middle of that light something built of crystal stones, and in the middle of those stones tongues of living fire. And my spirit saw a circle of fire which surrounded that house; from its four sides (came) rivers full of living fire, and they surrounded that house. And round about (were) the Seraphim, and the Cherubim, and the Ophannim; these are they who do not sleep, but keep watch over the throne of his glory. And I saw angels who could not be counted, a thousand thousands and ten thousand times ten thousand, surrounding that house; and Michael and Raphael and Gabriel and Phanuel, and the holy angels who (are) in the heavens above, went in and out of that house. And Michael and Raphael and Gabriel and Phanuel, and many holy angels without number, came out from that house; and with them the Head of Days, his head white and pure like wool, and his garments indescribable. And I fell upon my face, and my whole body melted, and my spirit was transformed; and I cried out in a loud voice in the spirit of power, and I blessed and praised and exalted. And these blessings which came out from my mouth were pleasing before that Head of Days. And that Head of Days came with Michael and Gabriel, Raphael and Phanuel, and thousands and tens of thousands of angels without number. And that angel came to me, and greeted me with his voice, and said to me: “You are the Son of Man who was born to righteousness, and righteousness remains over you, and the righteousness of the Head of Days will not leave you.” And he said to me: “He proclaims peace to you in the name of the world which is to come, for from there peace has come out from the creation of the world; and so you will have it forever and for ever and ever. And all . . . will walk according to your way, inasmuch as righteousness will never leave you; with you will be their dwelling, and with you their lot, and they will not be separated from you, forever and for ever and ever. And so there will be length of days with that Son of Man, and the righteous will have peace, and the righteous will have an upright way, in the name of the Lord of Spirits for ever and ever.”29
For a long time, students of the Enochic traditions were puzzled by the fact that the Son of Man, who in the previous chapters of the Similitudes has been distinguished from Enoch, becomes suddenly identified in this chapter with the seventh antediluvian patriarch. James VanderKam, among others,30 suggests that this puzzle can be explained by the Jewish notion, attested in several ancient Jewish texts, that a creature of flesh and blood could have a heavenly double or counterpart.31 To provide an example, VanderKam points to Jacob’s pseudepigraphical and targumic accounts in which the patriarch’s “features are engraved on high.”32 He stresses that this theme of the visionary’s ignorance of his higher angelic identity is observable, for example, in the early Jewish pseudepigraphon known to us as the Prayer of Joseph.33 In view of these traditions VanderKam suggests that “Enoch would be viewing his supernatural double34 who had existed before being embodied in the person of Enoch.”35
If indeed in the Book of the Parables the Son of Man is understood as the heavenly identity of the seer, in the Similitudes, like in some Jacob currents,36 the unification of the adept with his heavenly archetype seems to be conflated with the imagery of God’s Kavod. 1 Enoch 71:5 reports that Enoch was brought by the archangel Michael to the fiery structure, surrounded by rivers of living fire, which he describes as “something built of crystal stones, and in the middle of those stones tongues of living fire.”37
There is no doubt that the fiery “structure” in the Similitudes represents the Throne of Glory, which, in the Book of the Watchers, as we remember, is also described as the crystal structure issuing streams of fire.38 An explicit reference to the deity’s Seat in 1 Enoch 71:8,39 immediately after the description of the fiery “crystal” structure, makes this clear. The appearance of the four angels of the Presence is also noteworthy since they will constitute a constant feature in other accounts of the heavenly counterparts overshadowed by the Kavod imagery. We will see later in our study that the Kavod imagery featured in the Book of the Similitudes will continue to exercise its crucial role in other accounts of the heavenly counterparts found in various mediatorial trends.
Several words should be said about the Son of Man figure as the heavenly alter ego of the seventh antediluvian hero in the Book of the Similitudes. How novel is this association found in the Similitudes’ account? In this respect it is intriguing that already in its first appearance in Daniel 7, the Son of Man’s figure might be envisioned as a Doppelgänger.40 Thus, John Collins previously suggested that already in Daniel 7 the Son of Man is understood as a heavenly counterpart. Yet, in Collins’ opinion, in Daniel the Son of Man is not a celestial alter ego of a single human being but instead an entire human community.41 Reflecting on the imagery found in chapter 7, Collins offers the following explanation:
Son of Man] ... is not a man, at least in the usual sense of the word, but is rather a heavenly being. A closer analogy is found with the patron deities of nations in Near Eastern mythology. These deities have a representative unity with their peoples, although they are definitely distinguished from them. While “the gods of Hamath and Arpad” (Isa 36:19) cannot be conceived apart from the nations they represent, there is no doubt that any divinity was assumed to have greater power than his people and to be able to act independently over against them. The heavenly counterparts of nations played an important part in apocalyptic literature, most notably in Daniel 10 where the angelic “princes” of Persia and Greece do battle with Michael, “the prince of your people.” I have argued elsewhere that the “one like a son of man” in Daniel 7 should be understood in this sense, as the heavenly counterpart of the faithful Jews.42
It is also noteworthy that this tendency to depict the otherworldly figures as the representatives of human social bodies also appears to be reaffirmed43 in the functions and attributes of the antagonistic figures found in the Book of Daniel, namely, the four infamous beasts who are understood as the otherworldly representatives of the hostile nations.44
If we return again to the Son of Man imagery one should note that this prominent mediatorial trend was closely intertwined with the imagery of the heavenly counterparts not only in Jewish materials but also in early Christian accounts. According to some scholarly hypotheses, we can find such a conceptual link already in the canonical Gospels where the Son of Man title becomes Jesus’ self-definition. Dale Allison posits an intriguing question, asking if it is possible that “some of Jesus’ words about the Son of Man were about his heavenly twin or counterpart, with whom he was one or would come one?”45 He further notes that “already David Catchpole46 had suggested, with reference to Matt 18:10, that in Luke 12:8—9, the Son of Man is Jesus’ guardian angel.”47 Allison concludes that “if Jesus and the heavenly Son of Man were two yet one, this would neatly explain why in some sayings the Son of Man is Jesus on earth, while in others he is a heavenly figure who for now remains in heaven.”48
Indeed, Luke 12:8-9 represents a distinguished conceptual nexus where the Son of Man seems to be envisioned as the heavenly counterpart of the earthly Jesus. As one may recall, Luke 12:8-9 presents the following words of Jesus:
And I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before others, the Son of Man also will acknowledge before the angels of God; but whoever denies me before others will be denied before the angels of God.49
In his attempt to clarify a possible concept of earthly Jesus’ heavenly double in the form of the Son of Man found in this Lukan fragment, David Catchpole brings attention to Matt 18:10, a portentous passage for future Christian elaborations of the heavenly counterpart imagery, where the μικροί on earth are depicted as Sar ha-Panim who are situated in God’s immediate presence.50 Comparing Lukan and Matthean traditions, Catchpole suggests that
...the point here is that the angel in God’s presence is presumed to act either favorably or un-favorably in relation to the person addressed by the saying, depending on whether that person treats the μικρός favorably or unfavorably. For the angel is the guarantor of the μικρός. In the light of such a scheme Lk. 12:8 makes perfect sense. It suggests that the Son of man will act either favorably or unfavorably in respect of the person addressed who either confesses or denies Jesus, precisely because the Son of Man is the heavenly guarantor of the earthly Jesus.51
Catchpole further notes that this idea of the heavenly angelic sponsor or guarantor is not unique to Luke’s passage and can be found in other Jewish writings, such as Tobit 12:15 and 1 Enoch 104:1, and therefore “represents an individualizing of the old idea of an angelic ruler for each nation (cf. Dan. 10:12; 12:1; Sir. 17:17).”52
Fletcher-Louis then offers some additional illustrations from the Enochic lore which, in his opinion, reinforce53 the plausibility of Catchpole’s hypothesis. He notes that
the Similitudes offer a very close comparison to this human being/heavenly counterpart structure, particularly as they have been read by J.C. VanderKam. Enoch is the human being who was in pre-existence, who is, and then fully realizes his identity as the heavenly Son of Man. VanderKam’s own analysis can now be supported by comparison with this gospel tradition. In the gospel Jesus, not Enoch, is the earthly manifestation of the heavenly Son of Man. This pattern is itself parallel to that in the Prayer of Joseph, where Jacob and Israel are names for the earthly and heavenly identities of the same individual.54
We should note here that the concept of the Son of Man as Jesus’ heavenly identity is not limited only to the Gospel of Luke. Thus, in a number of passages from the Gospel of John, namely, John 1:18, 1:51 and 3:1355 the speculation about Jesus’ heavenly identity appears to be again conflated with the Son of Man tradition.56 We will explore these important Christian developments later in our study.
Further development of Enoch’s heavenly counterpart imagery continues in another early Jewish pseudepigraphon – 2 Enoch, where the symbolism of earthly and otherworldly correspondences reaches a new conceptual threshold. This text, which was probably written in the first century C.E., before the destruction of the Second Jerusalem Temple,57 depicts Enoch’s heavenly journey to the throne of God where the hero of faith undergoes a luminous transformation into a celestial creature. Akin to the developments found in the Book of the Similitudes, the scene of the seer’s metamorphosis takes place near the deity’s Kavod, described in 2 Enoch’s account as the divine Face.58 According to the story, after his dramatic transformation in the upper heaven the patriarch must then return back to the human realm in order to convey the revelations received in the upper realm. Here the heavenly counterpart traditions enter their new conceptual dimension by depicting its protagonist as temporarily abandoning his celestial identity and a luminous heavenly garment associated with it, in order to return to his earthly community.
2 Enoch 39:3-6 depicts the patriarch arriving on earth and describing to his children his earlier dramatic encounter with the divine Face. In the shorter recension of the Slavonic text the following account can be found:
You, my children, you see my face, a human being created just like yourselves; I am one who has seen the face of the Lord, like iron made burning hot by a fire, emitting sparks. For you gaze into my eyes, a human being created just like yourselves; but I have gazed into the eyes of the Lord, like the rays of the shining sun and terrifying the eyes of a human being. You, my children, you see my right hand beckoning you, a human being created identical to yourselves; but I have seen the right hand of the Lord, beckoning me, who fills heaven. You see the extent of my body, the same as your own; but I have seen the extent of the Lord, without measure and without analogy, who has no end.59
It appears that Enoch’s description reveals a contrast between the two identities of the visionary: the earthly Enoch (“a human being created just like yourselves”) and his heavenly counterpart (“the one who has seen the Face of God”). Enoch describes himself in two different modes of existence: as a human being who now stands before his children with a human face and body and as a celestial creature who has seen God’s Face in the heavenly realm. These descriptions of two conditions (earthly and celestial) occur repeatedly in tandem. It is possible that the purpose of Enoch’s instruction to his children is not to stress the difference between his human body and the deity’s body, but to emphasize the distinction between this Enoch, a human being “created just like yourselves,” and the other angelic Enoch who has been standing before the deity’s Face. Enoch’s previous transformation into a glorified form and his initiation into the service of the divine Presence in 2 Enoch 22:7 supports this suggestion. It is unlikely that Enoch has somehow completely abandoned his supra-angelic status and his unique place before the Face of God granted to him in the previous chapters. An account of Enoch’s permanent installation can be found in chapter 36 where the deity tells Enoch, before his short visit to the earth, that a place has been prepared for him and that he will be in the front of God’s face “from now and forever.”60 What is significant here for our research is that the identification of the visionary with his heavenly double involves the installation of the seer into the office of the angel (or the prince) of the Presence (Sar ha-Panim). The importance of this account for the idea of the heavenly counterpart in 2 Enoch is apparent because it points to the simultaneous existence of Enoch’s angelic double, who is installed in heaven and its human counterpart, whom God sends periodically on missionary errands.
A similar state of affairs is observable in the Testament of Isaac where the archangel Michael serves as angelic double of Abraham. Thus, Testament of Isaac 2:1-9 reads:
It came to pass, when the time drew near for our father Isaac, the father of fathers, to depart from this world and to go out from his body, that the Compassionate, the Merciful One sent to him the chief of the angels, Michael, the one whom he had sent to his father Abraham, on the morning of the twenty-eighth day of the month Misri. The angel said to him, ‘Peace be upon you, O chosen son, our father Isaac!’ Now it was customary every day for the holy angels to speak to him. So he prostrated himself and saw that the angel resembled his father Abraham. Then he opened his mouth, cried with a loud voice, and said with joy and exultation, ‘Behold, I have seen your face as if I had seen the face of the merciful Creator.’ Then the angel said to him, ‘O my beloved Isaac, I have been sent to you from the presence of the living God to take you up to heaven to be with your father Abraham and all the saints. For your father Abraham is awaiting you; he himself is about to come for you, but now he is resting. There has been prepared for you the throne beside your father Abraham; likewise for your beloved son Jacob. And all of you shall be above everyone else in the kingdom of heaven in the glory of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.’” 61
In this pseudepigraphical account one can see a striking distance between the angelic messenger in the form of Abraham sent here on a missionary journey to the lower realm to instruct Isaac and “other” Abraham’s identity which is awaiting Isaac in heaven.
As will be demonstrated later in our study, some targumic and rabbinic accounts about Jacob also attest to similar concept of the heavenly counterpart when they depict angels beholding Jacob as one who is simultaneously installed in heaven and is sleeping on earth.62 In relation to this paradoxal situation where the seer is not only unified with his heavenly correlative in the form of the angel of the Presence but also retains the ability to travel back to the earthly realm, Jonathan Smith observes that “the complete pattern is most apparent in the various texts that witness to the complex Enoch tradition, particularly 2 Enoch. Here Enoch was originally a man (ch. 1) who ascended to heaven and become an angel (22:9, cf. 3 Enoch 10:3f. and 48C), returned to earth as a man (33:11), and finally returned again to heaven to resume his angelic station (67:18).”63
What is also important in 2 Enoch’s account for our ongoing investigation of the heavenly counterpart traditions is that while the “heavenly version” of Enoch is installed permanently in heaven in the form of an angelic servant of the divine Presence, his “earthly version” is dispatched by God to a lower realm with the mission to deliver the handwritings made by the translated hero in heaven. Thus, in 2 Enoch 33:3-10 God endows Enoch with the task of distributing those heavenly writings on earth:
And now, Enoch, whatever I have explained to you, and whatever you have seen in heavens, and whatever you have seen on earth, and whatever I have written in the books - by my supreme wisdom I have contrived it all.... Apply your mind, Enoch, and acknowledge the One who is speaking to you. And you take the books which I have written.... And you go down onto the earth and tell your sons all that I have told you.... And deliver to them the books in your handwritings, and they will read them and know their Creator.... And distribute the books in your handwritings to your children and (your) children to (their) children; and the parents will read (them) from generation to generation.64
This account is striking in that while commanding the adept to travel to the lower realm with the heavenly books, God himself seems to assume the seer’s upper scribal identity. The deity tells Enoch, who is previously depicted as the scribe of the books,65 that it is He who wrote these books. As we will witness later in our study, this situation is reminiscent of some heavenly counterpart developments found in the Mosaic tradition, namely in the Book of Jubilees, where the angel of the Presence also seems to take on the celestial scribal identity of Moses. It is also noteworthy that in the Jubilees, like in 2 Enoch, the boundaries between the upper scribal identity of the visionary who claims to be the writer of “the first law” and the deity appear blurred.66 In 2 Enoch 33 where the divine scribal figure commands the seventh antediluvian hero to deliver the book in his [Enoch] handwritings, one possibly witnesses the unique, paradoxal communication between the upper and the lower scribal identities.
The fact that in 2 Enoch 33 the patriarch is dispatched to earth to deliver the books in “his handwritings,” the authorship of which the text assigns to the deity, is also worthy of attention given that in the traditions attested in Jubilees, one also encounters the idea of Moses’ Doppelgänger in the form of the angel of the Presence. This angelic servant claims authorship of the materials that the Jewish tradition explicitly assigns to Moses. Here, just like in 2 Enoch, the authoritative writings’ production can be seen as a process executed simultaneously by both earthly and heavenly authors, though it is the function of the earthly counterpart to deliver them to humans.
Before we proceed to the in-depth investigation of some conceptual developments common to several texts of the Enochic lore it is worth pausing for a moment to reflect on another crucial, this time rabbinic, document which also entertains the idea of the heavenly alter ego of the seventh antediluvian hero. This text, known to us as 3 Enoch, or Sefer Hekhalot (the Book of [the Heavenly] Palaces), unambiguously identifies Enoch with his upper identity in the form of the supreme angel Metatron. Separated by many centuries from the early Second Temple Enochic booklets,67 this enigmatic rabbinic text attempts to shepherd early apocalyptic imagery into a novel mystical dimension. Thus, an attentive reader of 3 Enoch soon learns that the apocalyptic resume of the seventh antediluvian hero has not been forgotten by the Hekhalot authors.
Indeed, some of Metatron’s roles and titles elaborated in Sefer Hekhalot appear to be connected with those already known from the previous analysis of early Enochic traditions. These offices, in fact, represent the continuation and, in many ways, consummation of the roles of the seventh antediluvian hero. As one remembers, the hero was endowed into these multiple duties upon his dramatic metamorphosis in heaven. In reference to these conceptual developments, Crispin Fletcher-Louis observes that “3 Enoch’s account of the transformation of Enoch into the principal angel Metatron represents something of the climax of earlier Enoch traditions.”68
It should be noted that the Metatron tradition found in Sefer Hekhalot does not stem solely from the Enochic conceptual currents, but without a doubt is informed by other mediatorial streams. In this respect Hugo Odeberg’s early hypothesis that the identification of Metatron with Enoch represented a decisive formative pattern in the Metatron tradition was criticized by a number of distinguished students of Jewish mystical traditions, including Moses Gaster, Gershom Scholem, Saul Lieberman, and Jonas Greenfield. These experts noted that the concept of Metatron cannot be explained solely by reference to early Enochic lore because Metatron has taken many of the titles and functions that are reminiscent of those that the archangel Michael, Yahoel, and other elevated personalities possess in early Jewish traditions. But as we remember even in early Enochic booklets, including the Book of the Similitudes, the seventh antediluvian patriarch already was endowed with the titles and roles of other mediatorial trends’ heroes, including the Son of Man. Some scholars even suggested that the Son of Man traditions might play a crucial role in Enoch’s acquisition of his celestial alter ego in the form of Metatron. Thus, in relation to these conceptual currents, Alan Segal observes that
in the Third or Hebrew Book of Enoch, Metatron is set on a throne alongside God and appointed above angels and powers to function as God’s vizier and plenipotentiary. These traditions are related to the earlier Enoch cycle in apocalyptic literature because Enoch is described by the mystics as having been caught up to the highest heaven (based on Gen 5:24), where he is transformed into the fiery angel, Metatron. This is clearly dependent on the ancient “son of man” traditions which appear in Ethiopian Enoch 70 and 71, but they have been expanded in Jewish mysticism so that Enoch and Metatron are now alter egos, while neither the titles “son of man” nor “son of God” appear at all.69
Besides the Son of Man traditions the influence of other apocalyptic mediatorial figures like Yahoel or the archangel Michael should not be forgotten. Gershom Scholem’s classic study differentiates between two basic aspects of Metatron’s legends which, in Scholem’s opinion, were combined and fused together in the rabbinic and Hekhalot literature. These aspects include the Enochic tradition and the lore connected with the exalted figures of Yahoel and Michael. Scholem writes that
...one aspect identifies Metatron with Yahoel or Michael and knows nothing of his transfiguration from a human being into an angel. The talmudic passages concerned with Metatron are of this type. The other aspect identifies Metatron with the figure of Enoch as he is depicted in apocalyptic literature, and permeated that aggadic and targumic literature which, although not necessarily of a later date than Talmud, was outside of it. When the Book of Hekhaloth, or 3 Enoch, was composed, the two aspects had already become intertwined.70
Despite the aforementioned critique of Hugo Odeberg’s position, the possible influence of the Enochic tradition on the Metatron imagery has never been abandoned by the new approaches, mainly in the view of the evidence preserved in Sefer Hekhalot. For example, Gershom Scholem repeatedly referred to several conceptual streams of the Metatron tradition, one of which, in his opinion, was clearly connected with early Enochic developments. Scholars, however, often construe this Enochic stream as a later development that joined the Metatron tradition after its initial formative stage.
Indeed, in Sefer Hekhalot Metatron appears in several new roles previously unknown in the early booklets included in 1 (Ethiopic) Enoch such as the “Youth,” the “Prince of the World,” the “Measurer/Measure of the Lord,” the “Prince of the divine Presence,” the “Prince of the Torah,” and the “Lesser YHWH.”71 It is possible that some of these designations might have already originated in premishnaic Judaism under the influence of the various mediatorial traditions in which Michael, Yahoel, Adam, Moses, Noah, Melchizedek, and other characters were depicted as elevated figures.
Also in comparison to the early Enochic booklets, Sefer Hekhalot provides more elaborate descriptions of how Enoch’s earthly identity was dramatically changed into his transcendental Self. One of the most striking portrayals in this respect is situated in 3 Enoch 15 (Synopse §19) which describes the metamorphosis of the patriarch’s earthly body into the fiery celestial form of the supreme angel. 3 Enoch 15 reads:
R. Ishmael said: The angel Metatron, Prince of the divine Presence, the glory of highest heaven, said to me: When the Holy One, blessed be he, took me to serve the throne of glory, the wheels of the chariot and all the needs of the Shekinah, at once my flesh turned to flame, my sinews to blazing fire, my bones to juniper coals, my eyelashes to lightning flashes, my eyeballs to fiery torches, the hairs of my head to hot flames, all my limbs to wings of burning fire, and the substance of my body (ytmwq Pwgw) to blazing fire.72
Moreover, unlike in the early Enochic writings, the heavenly identity of the seer is presented in Sefer Hekhalot not simply as angelic but as divine, since he is designated there as the lesser representation of the divine Name.
This concept of Enoch’s heavenly archetype as a preexistent divine being who transcends creation and history is very important for understanding the relationship between the patriarch and his Doppelgänger. It appears, however, that Enoch might not be the only earthy identity of the great angel.
Despite that Metatron’s title “youth” found in Sefer Hekhalot points to the fact that the great angel joined the angelic company quite late73 another salient passage found in chapter 48 posits that Metatron’s upper identity appears to precede Enoch’s earthly existence. Thus, 3 Enoch 48C:1 (Synopse §72) details the following tradition:
The Holy One, blessed be he, said: I made him strong, I took him, I appointed him, namely Metatron my servant (ydb(), who is unique among all denizens of the heights. “I made him strong” in the generation of the first man.... “I took him” – Enoch the son of Jared, from their midst, and brought him up.... “I appointed him” – over all the storehouses and treasures which I have in every heaven…74
Here, Metatron appears to be envisioned as a divine being who was first incarnated during the generation of Adam and then during the generation of the Flood in the form of the seventh antediluvian hero. Thus, analyzing an excerpt from 3 Enoch 48, Moshe Idel observes that
...two stages in the history of Metatron are described in this passage: the first in the generation of Adam, the second in the generation of the Flood, when he was “taken” and later “appointed.” Metatron’s status in respect of the generation of Adam is not made clear; possibly he is regarded as an entity different from Adam, as we learn from another source as well. This understanding too, however, cannot blur the connection, from the historical aspect, between two conditions of Metatron: an earlier condition in the generation of Adam and a later condition during the Flood generation.75
This development is similar to the tradition of Jacob’s heavenly counterpart found in the Prayer of Joseph, where Jacob is also understood as an incarnation of the primordial angel who “tabernacled” on earth in the body of the patriarch.
It is time to discern common conceptual tenets of the Enochic trajectory related to the idea of the heavenly counterpart. We will start our exploration with the theophanic imagery found in the Enochic accounts.
It has already been noticed in our study that the imagery of the divine Glory, Kavod, appears to be playing a crucial role in several scenes where human adepts become united with their heavenly identities. Often such Kavod imagery is rendered through the symbolism of the divine Face, a portentous terminological interchange, which was first manifested in the biblical Mosaic stories. As one remembers the imagery of the divine Kavod also plays a significant role in early Enochic accounts. Both 2 Enoch and the Similitudes demonstrate striking similarities in their rendering of the Kavod imagery and the angelic retinue that surrounds this glorious extent of the deity. Also the seer’s approach to the divine Form and his striking metamorphosis are very similar in both narrations, several details of which are noteworthy.
a. In both accounts (1 Enoch 71:3-5 and 2 Enoch 22:6), Enoch is brought to the Throne by the archangel Michael.
b. Angelology of the Throne in 1 Enoch 71, similarly to 2 Enoch76 include three classes of angelic beings: ophanim, cherubim and seraphim.
c. Both Enochic accounts speak about the transformation of the visionary. Enoch’s metamorphosis in 1 Enoch 71 recalls the description of the luminous transformation of Enoch into a glorious heavenly being in 2 Enoch 22:8-9.
d. The transformation takes place in front of a fiery “structure,” a possible source of both transformations.
e. Studies in the past have noted that in both accounts the transformation of the visionary takes place in the context of the angelic liturgy (1 Enoch 71:11-12; 2 Enoch 21:1-22:10).77
f. In both accounts Enoch falls on his face before the Throne.78
g. The manner in which Enoch is greeted near the Throne of Glory in 1 Enoch 71:14-17 evokes the scene from 2 Enoch 22:5-6 where the deity personally greets Enoch. In both accounts we have an address in which the visionary is informed about his “eternal” status.79
These features of both accounts point to the importance of the encounter with the Kavod in the process of acquiring knowledge about, and attaining the condition of, the seer’s heavenly identity. Similarly in Jacob’s Doppelgänger lore, the vision of God’s glory also becomes an important theophanic motif. As we will see later, these motifs are clearly recognizable in the targumic Jacob accounts and in the Ladder of Jacob, where reports about Jacob’s angelic counterpart are creatively conflated with theophanic traditions about the vision of God’s Kavod.
Notably, both the Book of the Similitudes and 2 Enoch depict angelic guides who acquaint the seers with their upper celestial identity and its corresponding offices as angels of the Presence. It is well known that the earliest Enochic materials already portray numerous appearances of the angel of the Presence under the name Uriel, who is also known in various traditions under the names of Phanuel and Sariel. In one of the earliest Enochic booklets, the Astronomical Book, this angel is responsible for initiating the seventh antediluvian hero into the utmost mysteries of the universe, including astronomical, calendarical, and meteorological secrets.
In 2 Enoch 22-23, the angel Uriel (whose name is rendered in that apocalypse as Vereveil) also plays a primary role during Enoch’s initiations near the Throne of Glory.80 He instructs Enoch about various subjects of esoteric knowledge in order to prepare him for his celestial offices, including the office of the heavenly scribe. During these initiations Vereveil transfers to the adept celestial writing instruments and heavenly books. Here the transference of books/scribal tools/office of the celestial scribe further reaffirms the process of the gradual unification of the seer with his heavenly alter ego.81 As will be shown later, such constellations will also play prominent role in Mosaic traditions of the heavenly double.
1 Enoch 71 also refers to the same angel of the Presence who appears to initiate Enoch into the Son of Man, but names him Phanuel.82 In the Similitudes, he occupies an important place among the four principal angels, namely, the place usually assigned to Uriel. In fact, the angelic name Phanuel might be a title, which stresses the celestial status of Uriel/Sariel83 as one of the servants of the divine Panim.84 As we will see later in our study, the importance of the angels of the divine Presence in the process of the seer’s unification with his heavenly counterpart will be reaffirmed in the accounts of Moses’ and Jacob’s transformations. Thus, the aforementioned title “Phanuel” will play a prominent role in various Jacob accounts of the heavenly correlative. In view of these connections it is possible that the title itself might have originated from Jacob’s lore. As one remembers, in Gen 32:31, Jacob names the place of his wrestling with God as Peniel - the Face of God. Scholars believe that the angelic name Phanuel and the place Peniel are etymologically connected.85
This reference to Uriel/Sariel/Phanuel as the angel who instructs/wrestles with Jacob and announces to him his new angelic status and name is widely documented in Jacob’s lore dealing with the idea of the heavenly counterparts, including Targum Neofiti and the Prayer of Joseph. In the Prayer of Joseph, Jacob-Israel reveals that “Uriel, the angel of God, came forth and said that ‘I [Jacob-Israel] had descended to earth and I had tabernacled among men and that I had been called by the name of Jacob.’ He envied me and fought with me and wrestled with me....”86
In the Ladder of Jacob, another portentous pseudepigraphical text dealing with the idea of the heavenly counterpart, Jacob’s identification with his Doppelgänger, the angel Israel, again involves the initiatory encounter with the angel Sariel: the angel of the divine Presence or the Face. The same state of events is observable in Enochic materials where Uriel serves as the principal heavenly guide to another prominent visionary who has also acquired knowledge about his own heavenly counterpart, namely, Enoch/Metatron.
Moreover in some Enochic accounts, including 2 Enoch, the patriarch is not only initiated by the angel of the Presence, but himself becomes the servant of the divine presence. Enoch’s new designation is unfolded primarily in Chapters 21-22 of 2 Enoch in the midst of the Kavod imagery. In these chapters, one can find several promises from the mouth of the archangel Gabriel and the deity himself that the translated patriarch will now stand in front of God’s Face forever.87 The adept’s role as the servant of the divine Presence and its connection with the traditions of the heavenly counterpart will be explored in detail later in this study.
As we have already learned in this study, the concept of the heavenly alter ego of Enoch was not forgotten in the later Enochic lore where the heavenly persona of the seventh patriarch was often identified with the supreme angel Metatron, a character, designated in Hekhalot and rabbinic texts as the celestial “Youth,” the title rendered in the Merkavah lore with the Hebrew term r(n.88 This designation is intriguing since in many accounts of the heavenly counterparts, found in early Jewish and Christian texts, a celestial double of a human protagonist is often portrayed as a child or a youth. For example, in early heterodox Christian developments Jesus’ heavenly identity is often rendered through the imagery of a child.89 Such imagery is widely dissipated in various apocryphal Acts, including, the Acts of John 8790 and 88-89,91 the Acts of Andrew and Matthias 1892 and 33,93 the Acts of Peter 21,94 and the Acts of Thomas 27.95 Other early Christian apocryphal materials are also cognizant about Jesus’ heavenly identity in the form of the “youth.” Thus, such imagery can be found in the Gospel of Judas 33:15-20,96 the Apocryphon of John,97 the Concept of Our Great Power 44:32-33,98 the Apocalypse of Paul 18:6,99 and other early Christian accounts.100
The identity of Jesus as a “youth” often has been understood by scholars as a reference to his “immaterial” heavenly Self. Thus, for example, reflecting on Jesus’ identity as a child in the Gospel of Judas Paul Foster argues that…
...it is against this broader theological outlook of the text that the ability of Jesus to change into the form of a child needs to be understood. Here polymorphic power is not used to illustrate transcendence over death, as in the post-resurrection examples of this phenomenon; rather it declares the possessor’s transcendence over the material world. Physical form is not a constraint on such a being, for in essence he does not belong to the material world. Therefore, a fundamental difference needs to be emphasized. The property of polymorphy was particularly attractive in gnostic theology since it allowed for reflection on a divine being able to defy the limitations of the transitory and material world. Here, unlike previous examples, the author of the Gospel of Judas wishes to show that Jesus not only defeats the power of death through his ability to metamorphose, but in fact he is beyond the control of what is viewed as being the inherently corrupted mortal realm.”101
The symbolism of a child as Jesus’ heavenly identity was received into the Manichaean lore which often speaks of a divine figure under the name “Jesus-Child.”102 Moreover, in some Kephalaia’s passages, “Youth” appears to be representing only one of Jesus’ multiple identities which is clearly distinguished from his other selves.103
The idea of Jesus’ heavenly identity as the “youth” might have its roots already in the New Testament materials. Thus, it is possible that a mysterious “youth” (νεανίσκος) who appears in Mark 14:51-52104 and 16:5105 might represent Jesus’ Doppelgänger. In Mark 14:51-52 this “youth” is depicted as initially wearing linen clothes (περιβεβλημένος σινδόνα) from which he was then stripped naked in the course of struggle with his persecutors. In Mark 16:5 the “youth” appears before women in the empty tomb dressed in a white robe (στολὴν λευκήν). The women’s amazement and terror might hint to the fact that the youth’s attire signifies an angelic garment. The youth’s knowledge about Jesus’ resurrection also points to the fact that he was not an ordinary earthly being. Since there are only two instances of this term in the Gospel of Mark, and in both of these instances the mysterious “youth” is defined through the clothes he wears, scholars often argue that it refers to the same person.
Scholars previously noticed that details of the young man’s passages appear to be mirroring some events of Jesus’ story. Harry Fleddermann summarizes these scholarly suggestions by noting that
Mark associates the young man closely with Jesus. He does not use his usual akolouthein but the rare synakolouthein. Mark also uses the word kratein to link the young man with Jesus. Jesus is arrested (14:46); and the young man is arrested (14:51). The word sindōn ‘linen cloth’ links this passage with the pericope of the burial of Jesus. The word is used twice in each pericope and nowhere else in Mark. The young man follows with only a linen cloth about his naked body (14:51). He is arrested, and he flees leaving the linen cloth (14:52). Joseph of Arimathea buys a linen cloth and, taking the corpse down from the cross, he wraps it in the linen cloth (15:46). Finally, Mark links the passage with the account of the empty tomb. The word neaniskos ‘young man’ is used only twice in Mark, in the present passage and in the account of the empty tomb (16:5). In both cases the young man’s clothing is described using the perfect participle middle of periballō. These are the only two uses of the verb in Mark.106
In view of these connections some scholars see this character as a “symbolic representation” of Jesus. Raymond Brown notes that in “in chap. 16 the risen Jesus is represented symbolically once more as this young man, only now clothed in heavenly garments, even as the transfigured Jesus appears in garments that have been made white in Mark 9:3.”107 Brown further suggests that the youth here, like in some “Gnostic” materials, might represent the heavenly identity of Jesus. He notes that “a gnostic variation of this symbolism would involve a distinction between the Christ (the heavenly principle) and Jesus (the earthly shell or human appearance).”108
If the youth is indeed envisioned in the Gospel of Mark as Jesus’ Doppelgänger, his disrobing in Mark 14:52 is especially noteworthy.109 The protagonist’s unclothing in some heavenly counterpart accounts often signifies an entrapment by negative forces, like in the Hymn of the Pearl, where the loss of garment is associated with the transition to the lower demonic realm, symbolically represented by Egypt. The conceptual roots of such an understanding of unclothing is connected with the protoplast’s story where the loss of original garments is interpreted as an ominous event coinciding with the exile to a lower realm. It might be not coincidental that in Mark 14:51-52 the νεανίσκος becomes “unclothed” in the very episode which inaugurates Jesus’ passion. Endowment with the luminous garment, on the other hand, signifies rebirth and acquisition of new, heavenly, identity. In this respect it is not by happenstance that the “youth” who is present at the scene of the empty tomb, which signifies Jesus’ resurrection, is donning the “white robe,” the raiment that might suggest the protagonist’s new heavenly status. While in Mark’s the actual status of the mysterious “youth” remained concealed, in Matthew, Luke, and John his heavenly identity will be “revealed” when he will be openly turned into an angel.110
The “youth,” as the heavenly identity of Jesus, also has a long tradition of representation in later Christian iconography where the child Jesus is depicted as sitting on the angelic throne represented by the Theotokos.
Moreover, in early Christian traditions not only is the heavenly identity of Jesus rendered through the imagery of the “youth,” but the upper selves of other historical and mythological figures are also depicted through similar symbolism. For example, in various materials, which were circulated in early Christian milieus under the name of the apostle Thomas, the heavenly identity of a protagonist is often described as a child.111 Similarly, in the Hymn of the Pearl found in the Acts of Thomas, where the heavenly twin’s imagery comes to the fore, the main hero is depicted as an anonymous child. It is noteworthy that this symbolism is envoked in a scene of the adept’s reunification with his upper identity.112
Some scholars trace this symbolism of children as the heavenly counterparts of humans to the passage in Matthew 18:10,113 where the imagery of the μικροί is tied to the symbolism of the angels of the Presence who perpetually behold the Face of the heavenly Father in heaven. Here we find a familiar cluster of the peculiar motifs usually associated with the concept of the heavenly correlatives in apocalyptic accounts where one also often encounters the themes of the divine Face and angelic servants of the Presence.
The concept of the heavenly identities of human beings in the form of children might not make its first appearance in early Christian lore, but instead has its ancient roots in Second Temple Jewish materials. Thus, the Jewish pseudepigrapha portray some biblical patriarchs and prophets as miraculous children, whose features and attributes are reminiscent of the celestial beings. This distinguished cohort of the “wonder children,” which includes the figures of Seth,114 Noah, Melchizedek, and Moses, among others, appears to be understood in some cases as related to the heavenly identities of the protagonists. In view of these developments, the imagery of the “youth” in Enochic literature, and especially in 2 Enoch, should be explored more closely.
The Jewish esoteric lore derives Metatron’s title “Youth” from an exegesis of Prov 22:6 (r(nl Kwnx), which is interpreted as “Enoch was made into the r(n, i.e. Metatron.”115 The title “Youth” has several possible theological meanings in the Jewish legends. According to one of them, the name may be explained by the fact that Metatron is constantly rejuvenated upon reaching old age.116 The information about Metatron’s title “Youth” is widely disseminated in the rabbinic and Hekhalot materials.117 Despite the abundant information about the title provided by other Hekhalot evidence, 3 Enoch appears to contain a substantial bulk of the unique knowledge pertaining to this sobriquet of Metatron. The appellation occurs several times in the text and becomes a locus of extensive theological deliberation. It is significant for our study that the authors of Sefer Hekhalot construe the context and even the origin of the title on the basis of the motifs associated with the Enochic traditions.
The title is first introduced in 3 Enoch 2:2 (Synopse §3) in the context of the angelic opposition to the ascension of R. Ishmael. There the designation “Youth” in relation to Enoch-Metatron first comes from the mouth of the angelic hosts who challenge the exalted angel on the subject of the legitimacy of his protégé, Rabbi Ishmael, “the one born of woman,” to enter God’s presence and behold the Chariot:
Then the eagles of the chariot, the flaming ophanim and the cherubim of devouring fire, asked Metatron, “Youth (r(n), why have you allowed one born of woman to come in and behold the chariot? From what nation is he? From what tribe? What is his character?” Metatron replied, “He is of the nation of Israel, whom the Holy One, blessed be he, chose from the seventy nations to be his people. He is of the tribe of Levi, which presents the offering to his name. He is of the family of Aaron, whom the Holy One, blessed be he, chose to minister in his presence and on whose head he himself placed the priestly crown on Sinai.” At once they began to say, “This one is certainly worthy to behold the chariot, as it is written, Happy is the nation of whom this is true, happy is the nation whose God is the Lord.”118
The story from 3 Enoch 2:2, which revolves around the theme of the humanity of the visionary, alludes to Enoch’s situation, underscored in Sefer Hekhalot by the parallel story of the angelic opposition to the seventh antediluvian patriarch.119 According to already mentioned in this study 3 Enoch 4:5-10 (Synopse §6) he encountered a similar challenge from the three ministering angels cUzzah, cAzzah, and cAza’el at the time of his ascension in the generation of the Flood.
In that passage, as in the account found in 3 Enoch 2, the angelic opposition is provoked by the human origin of the visionary who attempts to enter into the celestial realm, violating the boundaries separating human and angelic regions. Both stories also have an identical structure, since in both of them the angels who initially opposed the visionary eventually become persuaded and pacified by the argumentation of the seer’s patrons (God and Metatron) and are finally obliged to deliver a similar address praising the social or physical (nation/parents) pedigree of the invader.
It is significant that 3 Enoch 4 contains a reference to the Adamic tradition by recalling the protoplast’s situation. This motif might reflect the Adamic provenance of the stories from 3 Enoch 2 and 4 and their possible connection with the tradition about the veneration of Adam by some angels and the rejection of such obeisance by others, a tradition which was widespread in early Adamic literature. This motif and its connection with the concept of the heavenly double will be explored in detail later in our study.
In light of our previous investigation it is noteworthy that the title “youth” also plays an important role in 2 Enoch where it possibly designates the patriarch’s heavenly persona. Some Slavonic manuscripts of the shorter recension, including A, B, and V, apply this title several times solely to the patriarch Enoch.
The reader encounters the title already in the first few chapters of the Slavonic apocalypse, which describe the patriarch’s celestial voyage through the heavens. In fact manuscripts B and V use the title “Youth” at the outset in the first chapter of the text. The very first address Enoch’s celestial guides utter in these manuscripts is: “Be brave, Youth!” (derzai junoshe).120 This designation is then occasionally repeated by the celestial guides as they lead the seer through the heavens, providing him with detailed explanations of the heavenly surroundings. Thus, in chapter 9 of the shorter recension, an angelic being accompanying the seer on his way through the heavenly realm addresses Enoch as “Youth”: “This place has been prepared, Youth (junoshe),121 for the righteous.…”122 Shortly after this in chapter 10, the angel captures the visionary’s attention with the same title: “This place, Youth (junoshe), has been prepared for those who practice godless uncleanness on the earth….”123
It should be noted that, in contrast to 3 Enoch, where the information about the origin and usage of the title is unfolded through the narrative framework of the conversation between R. Ishmael and Metatron, in 2 Enoch the title appears in the direct speech of the angels and the deity. Thus, in the shorter recension of 2 Enoch 24, God directly addresses the patriarch with the title “Youth”:
And the Lord called me [Enoch] and he placed me to himself closer than Gabriel. And I did obeisance to the Lord. And the Lord spoke to me: “Whatever you see, Youth (junoshe), things standing still and moving about were brought to perfection by me and not even to angels have I explained my secrets...as I am making them known to you today...”124
Some manuscripts of 2 Enoch 22 also attest to the same direct address of the deity:
And the Lord with his own mouth called me [Enoch] and said: Be brave, Youth! (junoshe).125 Do not be frightened! Stand up in front of my face forever. And Michael, the Lord’s archistratig, brought me in front of the Lord’s face. And the Lord tempted his servants and said to them: “Let Enoch come up and stand in the front of my face forever.” And the glorious ones bowed down and said: “Let him come up!”126
The differences between the uses of the title in 2 Enoch and in Sefer Hekhalot might indicate that, in its handling of the adept’s sobriquets, the Slavonic apocalypse stays very close to the early Enochic booklets in which the titles are often introduced in the same fashion, that is, as direct addresses of main characters. Therefore, in the early Enochic materials, the patriarch’s scribal honorifics often come from the mouth of other characters, including God127 and angels.128 This feature indicates that the tradition about the title “Youth” in the Slavonic apocalypse does not represent an interpolation from the later Merkavah accounts since this new title is used similarly to other early Enochic titles as an address of other characters.
The tradition of the visionary’s Doppelgänger in the form of the “youth” appears to be found also in another pseudepigraphical account that will be explored later in our study. This account is Joseph and Aseneth, where the female seer, in the course of her transformation and unification with a heavenly counterpart, acquires the form of a “young man.” Thus, in Jos. Asen. 15:1-2 the heavenly visitor tells Aseneth that she can now remove the veil from her head because her head is as a young man (ἡ κεφαλή σού ἐστιν ὡς ἀνδρὸς νεανίσκου):
And she went to the man into her first chamber and stood before him. And the man said to her, “Remove the veil from your head, and for what purpose did you do this? For you are a chaste virgin today, and your head is like that of a young man.” And Aseneth removed the veil from her head.129
It is significant that this acquisition of the seer’s “youth” identity goes simultaneously with the attainment of her new heavenly persona.
Furthermore, the authors of Joseph and Aseneth also appear to be cognizant about the identity as “youth” of another portentous exemplar of the heavenly counterpart lore – the patriarch Jacob. In Jos. Asen. 22:7130 when Aseneth encounters the angelomorphic father-in-law, he appears to her as the young man (ὤσπερ νεότης ἀνδρός).131 We will explore these traditions later in our study.
It has been established already in our study that in early Jewish and Christian accounts the protagonist’s heavenly alter ego sometimes is envisioned in the identity of a “youth.” In view of this important conceptual development we should now direct our close attention to the imagery of angelomorphic children that often appear in the Second Temple Jewish materials, since these traditions might also pertain to the concept of the Doppelgänger.
One of the earliest specimens of the lore about an angelomorphic “youth” can be found in the Noachic materials.132 The early Jewish materials strive to portray Noah as a wonder child: 1 Enoch 106,133 the Genesis Apocryphon,134 and possibly 1Q19135 depict him with a glorious face and eyes “like the rays of the sun.” 1 Enoch 106:2 relates that when the newborn Noah opened his eyes, the whole house lit up.136 The child then opened his mouth and blessed the Lord of heaven. Scholars have previously noted137 that the scene of the glorious visage of the young hero of the Flood delivering blessings upon rising up from the hands of the midwife has a sacerdotal significance and parallels the glorious appearance and actions of the high priest.138
It is not coincidental that that the angelomorphic child who might be envisioned here as the heavenly identity of the Flood’s hero is endowed with priestly credentials. It already has been noted in our study that early Enochic materials, where Noah first appears in his “youth” identity, were cognizant of the peculiar sacerdotal counterparts that exist simultaneously in heaven and on earth and include sanctuaries and their cultic servants. Here, like in many Doppelgänger accounts already explored in this study, the sacerdotal settings serve as fertile ground for unfolding the lore about the celestial identities. For example, the story of Enoch’s heavenly identity plays a very important role in 2 Enoch’s sacerdotal debates where the earthly sanctuary is specifically built on the site of Enoch’s second ascension to heaven. The Slavonic apocalypse also appears to unveil the heavenly identity of another important priestly character – Melchizedek, who becomes, not coincidently, envisioned in the Slavonic apocalypse, like Noah, as an angelomorphic child. Scholars noted that Melchizedek’s birth in Slavonic Enoch recalls some parallels with the birth of Noah in 1 Enoch and in the Genesis Apocryphon.139 The Melchizedek narrative occupies the last chapters of 2 Enoch.140 A host of interesting overlaps between the birth of Noah in the early Enochic accounts and the birth of Melchizedek in 2 Enoch have been previously noticed by scholars.141 It has been also suggested that the author of 2 Enoch might want to diminish the extraordinary qualities of Noah’s person and transfer these qualities to Melchizedek.142 The text therefore can be seen as an account drawing on original Noachic themes. Yet, the Melchizedek story of 2 Enoch seems to bring the concept of the “youth” as the heavenly identity of an exemplar on a new level in comparison with the Noachic developments. Thus, while in the aforementioned Noachic accounts the miraculous child is not translated to heaven, 2 Enoch’s authors depict the voyage of the angelomorphic “youth” to the paradise Eden on the wings of Michael. In this respect the wunderkind tradition found in 2 Enoch appears to be more transparent about the heavenly identity of its youngster.
But how valuable are these miraculous child traditions for our explorations of the seventh patriarch’s celestial alter ego and what are their possible connections with Enoch’s role as “youth”? Notably, in 2 Enoch the story of the miraculous child Melchizedek parallels in some details the story of the main protagonist – the patriarch Enoch. Thus, Enoch and Melchizedek are the only two characters of the apocalypse who undergo translation to heaven. Like Enoch, Melchizedek then returns to the earth after his visitation of heaven in order to become a priest after the Flood. In view of these similarities and also Noachic parallels mentioned before it is possible that the miraculous child Melchizedek fulfils here the same functions as the child Noah in early Enochic accounts.
In this respect it is intriguing that there are no stories of the miraculous child Enoch in early Enochic booklets or in 2 Enoch, although his chief ideological contender, Moses, is often endowed with such a story.143 Why then is an account of Enoch’s miraculous birth so markedly absent from early Enochic lore? It is possible that such a miraculous birth account is rendered in early Enochic materials through the imagery of the child Noah (in 1 Enoch and possibly in the Genesis Apocryphon) 144 and the child Melchizedek (in 2 Enoch). Scholars previously noted that, in the early Enochic booklets, Enoch and Noah often appear in the same roles when Noah serves as the conceptual double of the seventh antediluvian hero.145 It is possible that in 2 Enoch Melchizedek fulfills similar functions, implicitly elucidating the heavenly identity of Enoch as the “youth.” The choice of Melchizedek for illustrating the heavenly “youth” identity of the story’s main protagonist in this respect appears not to be coincidental since in some early Jewish and Christian materials this enigmatic priest is often understood as a human being who has his own Doppelgänger.
Scholars previously noticed that Melchizedek appears to be envisioned in some Qumran materials as a double of the archangel Michael. For example, Florentino García Martínez suggests the following:
If in 11QMelch Melchizedek is neither God nor a divine hypostasis, he is definitely a heavenly and exalted being.146 The text attributes to him dominion over the heavenly armies: he is the chief of all the angels and of all the sons of God. In addition, he is one who leads the battle against Belial and the spirits of his lot, and carries out divine vengeance against them. Melchizedek is described with the same features used in the Rule of the Community and the Damascus Document to describe the ‘Prince of light’ and as a double of the archangel Michael, exactly as described in the War147 Scroll.148
Similarly David Frankfurter argues that “a figure of extensive lore in early Judaism, by the early Christian period Melchizedek had already become a heavenly double for the archangel Michael at Qumran (11QMelch), for Christ among the audience of Hebrews (5:5-6; 7), and for the spirit of God among others.”149 Another scholar, James Dunn, arguing along similar lines, pointed out that “the name Melchizedek (king of righteousness) could have been formed as a titular description of the archangel Michael, just as Melchiresha (king of wickedness) seems to have been formed as a titular description of Belial.”150
Further, some scholars suggested that the peculiar bond between Melchizedek and the archangel Michael appears to be reminiscent of the relationships between Enoch and the Son of Man – the prominent pair of the Doppelgänger lore, which has already been explored in this study. Thus, Michael Knibb draws attention to the parallels between the tradition of Melchizedek’s heavenly alter ego and Enoch’s identification with the Son of Man in the Book of Similitudes.151 James Dunn makes another significant comparison by bringing into the discussion the prominent pair of a seer and his heavenly identity in the form of Enoch-Metatron. He notes that Melchizedek’s apotheosis in 11QMelch “is only paralleled in the (later) equation of Enoch with the Son of Man in 1 Enoch 71:14 and with Metatron in 3 Enoch 3-16....”152 It is also noteworthy that various early Jewish and Christian Melchizedek materials feature prominent lists of antediluvian figures that might suggest that these figures are understood in these traditions as the earthly reincarnations of the king of Salem.153
In light of these conceptual developments it is intriguing that in the longer recension of 2 Enoch the child Melchizedek is transported to heaven on the wings of Michael.154 Here the earthly priest and his angelic double are paradoxically unified in the course of the human protagonist’s transition to the heavenly realm.
To conclude our investigation into Enochic traditions of the heavenly correlatives we should now draw our attention to another important feature of 2 Enoch, namely the motif of the seer’s endowment with the glorious garment during his acquisition of his upper identity.
It should be noted that the symbolism of garments plays a paramount role in many apocalyptic accounts, signaling ontological transitions endured by the human beings who attempt to cross the threshold between their earthy and celestial states, conditions which often become rendered through respective sets of clothing metaphors. In this regard scholars noticed that “clothing ... helps to bridge the gap between the worlds above and below. At the very outset one should note that both the heavenly creatures and God appear in the Bible clothed, even if their garments are frequently metaphorical.”155
It is not coincidental that in the Slavonic apocalypse the clothing metaphors loom large especially in the scene of the adept’s celestial transformation in the upper heaven. Thus, 2 Enoch 22:9 portrays the archangel Michael extracting Enoch from his earthly “clothes” and anointing him with delightful oil. The text says that the oil’s appearance is “greater than the greatest light and its ointment is like sweet dew, and the fragrance [like] myrrh; and it is like rays of the glittering sun.”156 Anointing with oil appears to be understood here as the patriarch’s transition from his garments of skin to the luminous garment of an immortal angelic being, one of the glorious ones. This exchange of attire has been previously noted by scholars who suggested that Enoch’s covering with the shining oil might represent investiture.157
The endowment of the seventh antediluvian hero with the glorious raiment is reiterated in later Enoch tradition. There too the acquisition of the celestial garments coincides with the human seer’s transition to his upper identity. Thus, for example, Sefer Hekhalot unveils that during Enoch’s transition to the state of the supreme angel, Metatron, his earthy attires of skin were altered in a dramatic fiery metamorphosis158 and as result of such transformation the patriarch acquired the celestial luminous robe and crown:
R. Ishmael said: Metatron, Prince of the divine Presence, said to me: Out of the love which he had for me, more than for all the denizens of the heights, the Holy One, blessed be he, fashioned for me a majestic robe, in which all kinds of luminaries were set, and he clothed me in it. He fashioned for me a glorious cloak in which brightness, brilliance, splendor, and luster of every kind were fixed, and he wrapped me in it. (3 Enoch 12:1-2).159
Jarl Fossum observes that in 3 Enoch “as part of his installation as God’s vice-regent in heaven, Enoch is given new clothes … a robe of honor on which were fixed all kinds of beauty, splendor, brilliance, and majesty.”160 As one can see in various Enochic accounts, the clothing metaphors help to highlight the process of the subject’s transition from his earthly identity to the celestial alter ego thus accentuating the portentous link between two identities represented by the respective set of “ontological” clothes. In such perspective the various identities are understood as the “garments” of the adept suitable for different realms of his or her habitation.
Another pseudepigraphical Doppelgänger account that will be explored in detail later in our study also attests to the motif of change of the seers’ garments: in Joseph and Aseneth the female initiate changes her garments in the process of identifications with her upper identity. Joseph and Aseneth 14:12-15 offers the following description of the seer’s re-clothing:
And Aseneth rose and stood on her feet. And the man said to her, “Proceed unhindered into your second chamber and put off your black tunic of mourning, and the sackcloth put off your waist, and shake off those ashes from your head, and wash your face and your hands with living water, ‘and dress in a new linen robe (as yet) untouched’ and distinguished and gird your waist (with) the new twin girdle of your virginity. And come (back) to me, and I will tell you what I have to say.” And Aseneth hurried and went into her second chamber where the chests (containing) her ornaments were, and opened her coffer, and took a new linen robe, distinguished (and as yet) untouched, and undressed the black tunic of mourning and put off the sackcloth from her waist, and dressed in her distinguished (and as yet) untouched linen robe, and girded herself with the twin girdle of her virginity, one girdle around her waist, and another girdle upon her breast.” And she shook off the ashes from her head, and washed her hands and her face with living water. And she took an (as yet) untouched and distinguished linen veil and covered her head.161
Here, like in 2 Enoch, the angelic guide directs the seer’s reclothing into the new garment. Reflecting on the adept’s transformation in Joseph and Aseneth, Ross Kraemer draws attention to the actions of Aseneth’s angelic instructor by noting that
as a result of her encounter with the angelic double of Joseph, Aseneth changes her clothing twice. In the first instance, at the angel’s command, she removes the filthy garments of mourning she has worn during her week of penance and replaces them with a “στολὴν καινὴν ἄθικτον” - a new, immaculate robe (14.13). The remainder of her encounter with the angel takes place while she wears this garment. But in 15.10, the angel instructs her to change into a wedding garment, which she only does after the angel departs back up to the heavens.162
In the Mosaic traditions of the heavenly counterpart, attested in the Exagoge of Ezekiel the Tragedian, the son of Amram might also receive the luminous garment of the Doppelgänger. Although a garment of the seer is not explicitly mentioned in that account, some implicit details in the description of Moses’ heavenly correlative and Raguel’s reaction to Moses’ changed identity might suggest such a possibility. In its description of Moses’ heavenly identity sitting on the lofty throne, the Exagoge uses the Greek word φως. Scholars previously reflected on the ambiguity of this Greek term that can signify not only man, but also light – possibly pointing to the luminous nature of the seer’s heavenly identity. Raguel’s reaction at the end of the account when he calls Moses a “stranger” also might point to the possibility of the seer’s luminous transformation. Moreover, the transference of the celestial man’s regalia (a scepter and a crown) to Moses might also suggest the conveyance of the celestial accoutrement to a new “owner.”
It appears that the symbolism of the seers’ luminous garments is deeply rooted in the Adamic traditions where the acquisition of a celestial raiment is often understood as the return to the prelapsarian heavenly nature of the protoplasts.163 The Adamic conceptual developments are very important for our investigation of the heavenly counterpart traditions since in these protological currents the transition of the human being from their heavenly identities in the Garden of Eden to their earthly identities on earth became rendered through a set of distinctive clothing metaphors. We, therefore, must explore these Adamic legends more closely.
Biblical developments found in Genesis 1:26-27 and Genesis 3:21 represent pivotal starting points for subsequent Jewish and Christian interpretations about the glorious garments of humanity. Genesis 1:26 describes the creation of humanity after the likeness (twmd) of the image (Mlc) of God. Notably Genesis 1:26-27 refers to the Mlc (tselem) of Adam, the luminous image of God’s glory according to which Adam was created.164 It is often understood that Adam’s tselem was created after God’s own tselem (wnmlcb, literally “in our tselem”)—a kind of luminous “imitation” of the glorious tselem of God. Later rabbinic interpretations often argue that the likeness that Adam and God shared was not physicality, in the usual sense of having a body, but rather luminescence.165 In this context, the first humans’ clothing in garments of glory was often taken by later interpreters as a replication of the state of the deity, who, according to some biblical passages, was also clothed in glory and majesty.166 It is noteworthy that in rabbinic tradition the imagery of tselem became very closely intertwined with the terminology of the face (panim).
It is therefore especially noteworthy that, amidst such major conceptual developments, Genesis 3 contains a cluster of motifs pertaining to the first humans’ attire. According to Genesis 3:21, the deity fashioned for his beloved creatures a set of enigmatic clothes — “garments of skin.” This passage is usually understood to refer to God’s clothing of Adam and Eve’s nakedness after the Fall. Some scholars, however, argue that sufficient evidence exists to suggest another interpretation of the time reference in Genesis 3:21. According to this alternative reading, the verbs in Genesis 3:21 are to be taken as pluperfects referring to the status of Adam and Eve at their creation before the Fall.167
Several extra-biblical materials also show familiarity with the traditions of the glorious garments of the first humans.168 The motif is apparent, for example, in the elaborations of the protoplasts’ story found in some versions of the Primary Adam Books which allude to the story of the original garments of light once possessed by the first humans. In the Armenian version of the Primary Adam Books (at 20:1), a testimony about the tragic loss of the garments comes directly from the mouth of one of the protoplasts, when Eve recollects the dramatic moment of the garments’ disappearance: “At that hour I learned with my eyes that I was naked of the glory with which I had been clothed.”169 This passage hints not only at the protoplasts’ original possession of the glorious clothes,170 but also at their ominous stripping after the Fall.171
Despite this unhappy memory, humanity’s return to the glorious garments of the protoplast seems, already in the Primary Adam Books, to have been eschatologically foreshadowed.172 A suggestive hint appears at the scene of Adam’s burial (which is found in the section dealing with Adamic funerary rites). His body is covered with linen vestments brought from Paradise, imagery which serves as a sign of the eschatological re-clothing of humanity and its return to the protoplasts’ original attire:
After this, God spoke to Michael and said, “Go to the Garden of the [third] heaven and bring [me] three linen cloths.” When he had brought them, God said to Michael and to Ozel and to Gabriel, “Bring these linen cloths and cover Adam’s body, and bring sweet oil.” They brought them and set them around him and wound him in that garment. 173
The rabbinic materials reaffirm the tradition of the first humans’ glorious garments. The targumic traditions, both Palestinian174 and Babylonian,175 while rendering Genesis 3:21 “the Lord God made for Adam and his wife garments of skin and clothed them,” read “garments of glory” instead of “garments of skin.” This targumic interpretation is supported by a wide array of midrashic sources. Thus, for example, Genesis Rabbah 20:12 says that the scroll of Rabbi Meir read “garments of light” (rw) twntk) instead of “garments of skin” (rw( twntk):
In R. Meir’s Torah it was found written, “Garments of light: this refers to Adam’s garments, which were like a torch [shedding radiance], broad at the bottom and narrow at the top.”176
Another midrashic compilation, Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer 14, also knows the motif of the protoplast’s glorious garment:
What was the dress of the first man? A skin of nail and a cloud of glory covered him. When he ate of the fruits of the tree, the nail-skin was stripped off him and the cloud of glory departed from him, and he saw himself naked….177
Indeed, this motif continued to be developed in the rabbinic context for millennia. In one of the later Jewish mystical compendiums, the Book of Zohar I.36b, one finds an echo of the same tradition about the luminous garments. As was the case at Genesis Rabbah 20, this Zoharic passage also uses the same word play, rw) / rw(:
At first they had had coats of light (rw)), which procured them the service of the highest of the high, for the celestial angels used to come to enjoy that light; so it is written, “For thou hast made him but little lower than the angels, and crowns him with glory and honor” (Ps. viii, 6). Now after their sins they had only coats of skin (rw(), good for the body but not for the soul.178
In Christian materials the notion of various garments corresponding to various identities (earthly or heavenly) of the seer receives further development. Moreover, in some texts the garment itself becomes envisioned as the heavenly counterpart of the visionary. Thus, in the Hymn of the Pearl 76-80, as we saw above, the following tradition can be found:
...on a sudden, when I received it, the garment seemed to me to become like a mirror of myself. I saw it all in all, and I too received all in it, for we were two in distinction and yet again one in one likeness. And the treasurers too, who brought it to me, I saw in like manner to be two (and yet) one likeness....179
Analyzing this arcane passage Gerard Luttikhuizen suggests that here “the poetic story is interlarded with references to the religious meaning of self-knowledge which the prince attains when he is reunited with his precious garment,180 apparently a metaphor for his better half or heavenly twin.”181
In Mandaean texts the adept’s heavenly twin (dmuta) is also understood as the celestial “garment.” Thus, Left Ginza II.5 unveils the following imagery:
I shall take you out of the world and cause you to ascend. I shall take you out of it and cause you to ascend and shall leave all behind. I shall leave all, they shall all die and disappear. You are my counterpart (dmuta), I shall cause you to ascend and keep you safe in my garment. In my garment, which the Great (Life) gave to me, and in the pure fragrance which is entrusted to me.182
The aforementioned Christian and Mandaean traditions of the garment as the heavenly counterpart of a human being can be compared with the tradition of “clothing into the image” found in later Jewish mystical accounts where the tselem itself is understood as the attire. Gershom Scholem’s research demonstrates that in Jewish mysticism tselem became envisioned as a sort of “garment” of the soul which “floats” over it. He observes that “this garment also becomes the soul’s heavenly attire when it returns to Paradise after death.”183 These conceptual currents that try to connect tselem with the garment will be very important for our study when we turn to Jacob materials where the heavenly counterpart of Jacob will be envisioned as his tselem. The concept of the image as the hero’s Doppelgänger will be explored in detail later in our study.
As we already witnessed in our study, in some Adamic accounts the stripping of garments of light from the protagonists and the antagonists of the protological story coincide with their exile into the lower regions where they assume a different set of roles. It is possible that in these legends about stripped garments of light one can encounter a tradition of parting with respective heavenly identities.
Thus, in the Primary Adam Books, Satan’s exclusion from the heavenly realm coincides with stripping of his garments of glory. In this text the demoted antagonist repeatedly describes his original celestial condition through metaphors of glory and light. These are precisely the formulae often used in the Primary Adam Books to describe the first humans’ celestial attire. Thus, in the Latin version of the aforementioned text (12.1-16:2), the Adversary describes his lost condition through the symbolism of “glory”:
O Adam, all my enmity, jealousy, and resentment is towards you, since on account of you I was expelled and alienated from my glory (gloria mea), which I had in heaven in the midst of the angels. Then the Lord God grew angry with me and sent me forth with my angels from our glory (gloria nostra). On account of you we were expelled from our dwelling into this world and cast out upon the earth. Immediately we were in grief, since we had been despoiled of so much glory (gloria), and we grieved to see you in such a great happiness of delights.184
Here the motif of stripping off glorious garments coincides with the transition to a lower realm. Moreover, the demoted antagonist’s alienation from his former glorious state is set several times in parallel to the exaltation and gifts given to the protoplast: “since we had been despoiled of so much glory (gloria), and we grieved to see you in such a great happiness of delights.”185
The same transitional situation, as we already witnessed in this study, can be seen in the story of the protoplasts reflected in various Adamic materials including the Primary Adam Books.
Moreover, it appears that not only fallen creatures but even characters in a good standing, like the patriarch Enoch, are also required to “strip” their luminous garments off before their departure into the lower regions. 2 Enoch 37 recounts the unusual procedure performed on Enoch’s “face” at the final stage of his encounter with the deity in the seventh heaven. After the patriarch’s glorious transformation and after the utmost mysteries of the universe are revealed to him, God orders Enoch to go back to the realm of humans in order to convey these revelations to the people of the earth. His recently acquired radiant celestial attire, however, appears to pose some problems for his return to earth. In order to remedy this obstacle God calls one of his senior angels to chill the “face” of Enoch. From the longer recension of 2 Enoch 37:1-2 we learn the following:
And the Lord called one of the senior angels, terrifying and frightful (strashna i grozna), and he made him stand with me. And the appearance of that angel was as white as snow, and his hands like ice, having the appearance of great frigidity. And he chilled my face, because I could not endure the terror of the Lord, just as it is not possible to endure the fire of a stove and the heat of the sun and the frost of death. And the Lord said to me, “Enoch, if your face had not been chilled here, no human being would be able to look at your face.”186
The text says that the angel was “terrifying and frightful,” and appeared frozen; he was as white as snow, and his hands were as cold as ice. With these cold hands he then chilled the patriarch’s “face.” Right after this chilling procedure, the Lord informs Enoch that if his “face” had not been chilled, no human being would have been able to look at him. In view of terminological peculiarities of the text, the “face” here, similar to panim in some Mosaic accounts, signifies the whole luminous extent of the protagonist.
The conceptual currents found in 2 Enoch 37 are important for our study since they again affirm the connection between the heavenly identity of the seer and his glorious garment. In this respect it does not appear coincidental that Enoch’s transition to the earthly identity during his short visit to the earth requires temporary parting with his luminous attire.
1 In relation to this enigmatic priestly group Gabriele Boccaccini observes that “after the Babylonian exile and the end of the Davidic monarchy, the leadership of the Jewish people was provided by the Zadokites. They claimed descent from Zadok, according to the ancient Jewish historiography a priest and companion of David (2 Sam 8:17), who supported Solomon as the legitimate heir and anointed him king (1 Kgs 1:32-46). For around 350 years, the high priesthood in Jerusalem was held by individuals who asserted themselves, and were recognized by their subjects, as members of a single family line. From the construction of the Second Temple to the eve of the Maccabean Revolt, Flavius Josephus gives a list of 14 names .... Whether the list is accurate and complete, and whether the continuity of blood was never broken, are matters of scholarly debate, yet there are no doubts about the historicity of Zadokite supremacy.” G. Boccaccini, Roots of Rabbinic Judaism: An Intellectual History from Ezekiel to Daniel (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002) 43.
2 G. Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis: The Parting of the Ways between Qumran and Enochic Judaism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998) 71.
3 On the heavenly temple and heavenly priesthood traditions, see J.L. Angel, Otherworldly and Eschatological Priesthood in the Dead Sea Scrolls (STDJ, 86; Leiden: Brill, 2010); V. Aptowitzer, “The Celestial Temple as Viewed in the Aggadah,” in Binah: Studies in Jewish Thought (ed. J. Dan; Binah: Studies in Jewish History, Thought, and Culture, 2; New York: Praeger, 1989) 1-29; M. Barker, The Gate of Heaven: The History and Symbolism of the Temple in Jerusalem (London: SPCK, 1991); J.J. Collins, “A Throne in the Heavens: Apotheosis in Pre-Christian Judaism,” in Death, Ecstasy, and Other Worldly Journeys (eds. J.J. Collins and M. Fishbane; Albany: SUNY, 1995) 43-57; B. Ego, “Im Himmel wie auf Erden” (WUNT, 2.34; Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1989); R. Elior, “From Earthly Temple to Heavenly Shrines: Prayer and Sacred Song in the Hekhalot Literature and its Relation to Temple Traditions,” JSQ 4 (1997): 217-267; D.N. Freedman, “Temple Without Hands,” in Temples and High Places in Biblical Times: Proceedings of the Colloquium in Honor of the Centennial of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Jerusalem, 14-16 March 1977 (ed. A. Biran; Jerusalem: Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, 1981) 21-30; I. Gruenwald, Apocalyptic and Merkavah Mysticism (2nd ed.; Leiden: Brill, 2014); D. Halperin, The Faces of the Chariot: Early Jewish Response to Ezekiel’s Vision (TSAJ, 16; Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1988); idem, “Heavenly Ascension in Ancient Judaism: the Nature of the Experience,” SBLSP 26 (1987): 218-231; R.G. Hamerton-Kelly, “The Temple and the Origins of Jewish Apocalyptic,” VT 20 (1970): 1-15; M. Himmelfarb, “From Prophecy to Apocalypse: The Book of the Watchers and Tours of Heaven,” in Jewish Spirituality: From the Bible Through the Middle Ages (ed. A. Green; New York: Crossroad, 1986) 145-165; idem, “Apocalyptic Ascent and the Heavenly Temple,” SBLSP 26 (1987) 210-217; idem, Ascent to Heaven in Jewish and Christian Apocalypses (New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993); idem, “The Practice of Ascent in the Ancient Mediterranean World,” in Death, Ecstasy, and Other Worldly Journeys (eds. J. J. Collins and M. Fishbane; Albany: SUNY, 1995) 123-137; C.R. Koester, The Dwelling of God: The Tabernacle in the Old Testament, Intertestamental Jewish Literature and the New Testament (CBQMS, 22; Washington, D.C.: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1989); J.D. Levenson, “The Temple and the World,” JR 64 (1984) 275-298; idem, “The Jerusalem Temple in Devotional and Visionary Experience,” in Jewish Spirituality: From the Bible Through the Middle Ages (ed. A. Green; New York: Crossroad, 1987) 32-59; A.J. McNicol, “The Heavenly Sanctuary in Judaism: A Model for Tracing the Origin of the Apocalypse,” JRelS 13 (1987) 66-94; C.R.A. Morray-Jones, “Transformational Mysticism in the Apocalyptic-Merkabah Tradition,” JJS 43 (1992) 1-31; idem, “The Temple Within: The Embodied Divine Image and its Worship in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Jewish and Christian Sources,” SBLSP 37 (1998) 400-431; C. Newsom “‘He Has Established for Himself Priests’: Human and Angelic Priesthood in the Qumran Sabbath Shirot,” in: Archaeology and History in the Dead Sea Scrolls: The New York University Conference in Memory of Yigael Yadin (ed. L.H. Schiffman; JSPSS, 8; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1990) 101-120; G.W.E. Nickelsburg, “The Apocalyptic Construction of Reality in 1 Enoch,” in Mysteries and Revelations: Apocalyptic Studies since the Uppsala Colloquium (ed. J.J. Collins; JSPSS, 9; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1991) 51–64; R. Patai, Man and Temple in Ancient Jewish Myth and Ritual (New York: KTAV, 1967); C. Rowland, “The Visions of God in Apocalyptic Literature,” JSJ 10 (1979) 137-154; idem, The Open Heaven: A Study of Apocalyptic in Judaism and Early Christianity (London: SPCK, 1982); A.F. Segal, “Heavenly Ascent in Hellenistic Judaism, Early Christianity and Their Environment,” ANRW II/23.2 (1980) 1333–94; M.S. Smith, “Biblical and Canaanite Notes to the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice from Qumran,” RevQ 12 (1987) 585-588.
4 See Exod 25:8-9: “… And have them make me a sanctuary, so that I may dwell among them. In accordance with all that I show you concerning the pattern of the tabernacle and of all its furniture, so you shall make it….” Exod 25:40: “And see that you make them according to the pattern for them, which is being shown you on the mountain….” Exod 26:30: “Then you shall erect the tabernacle according to the plan for it that you were shown on the mountain…..” Exod 27:8: “You shall make it hollow, with boards. They shall be made just as you were shown on the mountain….” Num 8:4: “Now this was how the lampstand was made, out of hammered work of gold. From its base to its flowers, it was hammered work; according to the pattern that the Lord had shown Moses, so he made the lampstand.” All biblical quotations are taken from the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) unless otherwise indicated. Cf. also Bereshit Rabbah 69:7: “R. Simeon b. Yohai said: The celestial Temple is higher than the terrestrial one only by eighteen miles.” H. Freedman and M. Simon, Midrash Rabbah (10 vols.; London: Soncino, 1961) 2.634.
5 G. Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission (NSBT, 17; Downer Grove: Intervarsity Press, 2004) 32. Beale and Ego also drew attention to the later rabbinic elaborations of this idea of correspondence between the earthly and heavenly sanctuary found in Tg. Onk. on 2 Chr 6:2; Tg. Ps.-Jon. on Exod 15:17; Num. Rab. 4:13; 12:12; Midrash on Psalms 30:1. See Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission, 32, footnote 7; Ego, “Im Himmel wie auf Erden.”
6 1 Chr 28:19: “All this, in writing at the Lord’s direction, he made clear to me - the plan of all the works.”
7 Gabriele Boccaccini observes that “as the temple so closely mirrors the divine order of heaven, ‘to enter the Temple and take part in the Temple cult is therefore to participate in some degree in the unceasing worship going on in heaven.’” Boccaccini, Roots of Rabbinic Judaism, 80. On this see also J. Blenkinsopp, Sage, Priest, Prophet; Religious and Intellectual Leadership in Ancient Israel (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1995) 113.
8 J.M. Scott, On Earth as in Heaven: The Restoration of Sacred Time and Sacred Space in the Book of Jubilees (JSJSS, 91; Leiden: Brill, 2005) 217.
9 On Mesopotamian traditions of the heavenly sanctuaries, see Smith, “Biblical and Canaanite Notes to the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice from Qumran,” 585-588.
10 Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission, 32, footnote 5.
11 The Book of the Watchers represents a multi-layered composition, of which the earliest strata are usually dated to the third century B.C.E. On the date of the Book of the Watchers see J.H. Charlesworth, “A Rare Consensus among Enoch Specialists: The Date of the Earliest Enoch Books,” Henoch 24 (2002) 255-34; J.J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to Jewish Apocalyptic Literature (2nd ed.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998) 44; T.M. Erho and L.T. Stuckenbruck, “A Manuscript History of Ethiopic Enoch,” JSP 23 (2013) 87–133; G.W.E. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch. Chapters 1-36; 81-108 (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001); M.E. Stone, “The Book of Enoch and Judaism in the Third Century B.C.E.,” CBQ 40 (1978) 479-492 at 484.
12 M. Knibb, The Ethiopic Book of Enoch. A New Edition in the Light of the Aramaic Dead Sea Fragments (2 vols.; Oxford: Clarendon, 1978) 2.98-99.
13 Himmelfarb, “Apocalyptic Ascent and the Heavenly Temple,” 210.
14 Himmelfarb, “Apocalyptic Ascent and the Heavenly Temple,” 211.
15 Other pseudepigraphical accounts (Jubilees, Aramaic Levi Document) and some Qumran materials (Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice, 4QInstruction, 4QVisions of Amram, 11QMelchizedek) also develop the concept of the heavenly temple and associate it with the notion of the heavenly priesthood.
16 G. W. E. Nickelsburg, “Enoch, Levi, and Peter: Recipients of Revelation in Upper Galilee,” JBL 100 (1981) 575-600, esp. 579.
17 David Halperin’s research also stresses the “apocalyptic” priestly function of Enoch in the Book of the Watchers. He observes that “Daniel and Enoch share an image, perhaps drawn from the hymnic tradition of merkavah exegesis (think of the Angelic liturgy), of God surrounded by multitudes of angels. But, in the Holy of Holies, God sits alone .... The angels, barred from the inner house, are the priests of Enoch’s heavenly Temple. The high priest must be Enoch himself, who appears in the celestial Holy of Holies to procure forgiveness for holy beings.” Halperin, Faces of the Chariot, 81-2. Helge Kvanvig also argues for Enoch’s priestly role in 1 Enoch 14. On this see H. Kvanvig, “The Son of Man in the Parables of Enoch,” in: Enoch and the Messiah Son of Man: Revisiting of the Book of Parables (ed. G. Boccaccini; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007) 182-3. For criticism of this position see J. Collins, “Enoch and the Son of Man: A Response to Sabino Chialà and Helge Kvanvig,” in: Enoch and the Messiah Son of Man: Revisiting of the Book of Parables (ed. G. Boccaccini; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007) 219.
18 Himmelfarb, “Apocalyptic Ascent,” 213.
19 Enoch’s sacerdotal duties in the Book of the Watchers also involve his intercession on behalf of the Watchers and transmission of the judgment against Asael. Crispin Fletcher-Louis observes that “Enoch’s intercession and transmission of the judgment against Asael is thoroughly priestly and related closely to that of the high priest on the Day of Atonement whose ministry involves the sending of a scapegoat into the wilderness to Azazel (Lev 16).” C. Fletcher-Louis, All the Glory of Adam: Liturgical Anthropology in the Dead Sea Scrolls (STDJ, 42; Leiden: Brill, 2002) 40.
20 Himmelfarb, “Apocalyptic Ascent,” 212.
21 Kvanvig, “The Son of Man in the Parables of Enoch,” 181.
22 Kvanvig, “The Son of Man in the Parables of Enoch,” 182. For criticism of this position see Collins, “Enoch and the Son of Man: A Response to Sabino Chialà and Helge Kvanvig,” 218.
23 Both James VanderKam and Helge Kvanvig have argued that “Enoch sees the Son of Man in visions of the future, not in disclosures of the present. He is seeing what he will become.” Kvanvig, “The Son of Man in the Parables of Enoch,” 201.
24 Kvanvig, “The Son of Man in the Parables of Enoch,” 181.
25 The Animal Apocalypse is usually dated to the second century B.C.E. In relation to the date of the text Daniel Olson notes that “fragments of the An. Apoc. from Qumran provide a terminus ad quem before 100 B.C.E., but greater precision is possible since the allegory appears to describe the ascendancy of Judas Maccabee (90:9), but says nothing about his death (90:12). Based on this, most scholars agree that the An. Apoc. was written between 165–160 B.C.E., and they further agree that the author was probably a member of or a sympathizer with the reform group described in 90:6–9 and a supporter of the Maccabean revolt when it broke out, expecting it to evolve into earth’s final battle, God’s direct intervention in history, and the inauguration of the eschatological age (90:9–20). If this is correct, one may suppose that one reason the An. Apoc. was published was to encourage readers to back the Maccabean revolt.” D. Olson, A New Reading of the Animal Apocalypse of 1 Enoch: “All Nations Shall be Blessed” (SVTP, 24; Leiden: Brill, 2013) 85-86. See also D. Assefa, L’Apocalypse des animaux (1Hen 85–90): une propagande militaire? Approches narrative, historico-critique, perspectives théologiques (JSJSS, 120; Leiden: Brill, 2007) 220–232.
26 Thus, for example, 1 Enoch 89:36 depicts Moses as the one who was transformed from a sheep into a man at Sinai. In the metaphorical language of the Animal Apocalypse, where angels are portrayed as anthropomorphic and humans as zoomorphic creatures, the transition from the sheep to man unambiguously indicates that the character has acquired an angelic form and status.
27 See J. VanderKam, “Righteous One, Messiah, Chosen One, and Son of Man in 1 Enoch 37-71,” in: The Messiah: Developments in Earliest Judaism and Christianity. The First Princeton Symposium on Judaism and Christian Origins (eds. J.H. Charlesworth, et al.; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992) 182-3; M. Knibb, “Messianism in the Pseudepigrapha in the Light of the Scrolls,” DSD 2 (1995) 177-80; J. Fossum, The Image of the Invisible God: Essays on the Influence of Jewish Mysticism on Early Christology (NTOA, 30; Fribourg: Universitätsverlag Freiburg Schweiz. Göttingen: Vanderhoeck & Ruprecht, 1995) 144-5; C.H.T. Fletcher-Louis, Luke-Acts: Angels, Christology and Soteriology (WUNT, 2.94; Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1997) 151; A. Orlov, The Enoch-Metatron Tradition (TSAJ, 107; Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 2005) 167-168.
28 In his conclusion to the Enoch Seminar’s volume devoted to the Similitudes Paolo Sacchi writes: “In sum, we may observe that those scholars who have directly addressed the problem of dating the Parables all agree on a date around the time of Herod. Other participants of the conference not addressing the problem directly nevertheless agree with this conclusion.” P. Sacchi, “The 2005 Camaldoli Seminar on the Parables of Enoch: Summary and Prospects for Future Research,” in: Enoch and the Messiah Son of Man: Revisiting of the Book of Parables (ed. G. Boccaccini; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007) 510. See also D. Suter, “Enoch in Sheol: Updating the Dating of the Book of Parables,” in: Enoch and the Messiah Son of Man: Revisiting the Book of Parables (ed. G. Boccaccini; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007) 415–443; G.W.E. Nickelsburg and J.C. VanderKam, 1 Enoch 2: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch. Chapters 37–82 (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2012) 58–63.
29 Knibb, The Ethiopic Book of Enoch, 2.165-167.
30 Crispin Fletcher-Louis argues that “the identification of Enoch with the Son of Man is intended throughout [the text], and thus chapter 71 is the climax of the whole... already in 37:1 the Ethiopic of Enoch’s genealogy presents him as the ‘walda henos, walda ‘adam, both of which mean ‘son of man.’” Fletcher-Louis, Luke-Acts, 151.
31 VanderKam, “Righteous One,” 182-3.
32 VanderKam, “Righteous One,” 182-3. Jacob’s developments will be explored in detail later in our study.
33
Michael Knibb supports VanderKam’s hypothesis by stating the
following: “I would therefore still argue in favor of the view
that a real identification is made between Enoch and the
pre-existent son of man
in
71:14, and I would also argue that the awkwardness of this
identification combined with the literary evidence makes it very
likely that chapters 70-71 are secondary. Perhaps no more need be
said than this. But the awkwardness still remains at the redactional
level, and here the idea, to which VanderKam has drawn attention,
that a human being could have a heavenly double or counterpart is of
relevance in helping to explain the awkwardness.
One of
the texts to which VanderKam refers, Prayer of Joseph
Fragment A is the most important. Here Jacob states: ‘I, Jacob,
who is speaking to you, am also Israel, an angel of God and a ruling
spirit. Abraham and Isaac were created before any work. But, I,
Jacob, who men call Jacob but whose name is Israel am he who God
called Israel which means, a man seeing God, because I am the
firstborn of every living thing to whom God gives life.’ Here
Jacob the man identifies himself as also being the angel Israel, and
it is particularly significant that the angel Israel is conceived of
as being preexistent.” Knibb, “Messianism in the Pseudepigrapha
in the Light of the Scrolls,” 180.
34 In relation to this tradition James Charlesworth observes that “chapter 71:5 continues to clarify that Enoch is the one who speaks in the first person and ‘in the heaven of heavens.’ The conclusion seems to evolve: the “Son of Man” relates to Enoch himself. This title does not focus on Enoch as a human being; he is someone being singled out or set apart for a special purpose. Perhaps the early Jew who composed this masterpiece imagined that the human Enoch finally perceives his heavenly counterpart, his eternal Self and his God-given task to serve as eschatological Judge.” J. Charlesworth, “The Date and Provenience of the Parables of Enoch,” in: Parables of Enoch: A Paradigm Shift (eds. D. Bock and J. Charlesworth; London: T&T Clark, 2013) 37-57 at 42.
35 VanderKam, “Righteous One,” 183.
36 A notable detail in the description is that during his ascension Enoch, in a manner similar to Jacob’s vision of the ladder, sees the angelic movements and the angelic faces. In 1 Enoch 71:1 he reports about “the sons of the holy angels treading upon flames of fire, and their garments (were) white, and their clothing, and the light of their face (was) like snow.” Knibb, The Ethiopic Book of Enoch, 2.165.
37 Knibb, The Ethiopic Book of Enoch, 2.166.
38 In the Book of the Watchers 14:18-19 the Throne of Glory is also described as a crystal structure surrounded by rivers of fire. The reference to “crystal” structure also recalls the depiction of the Throne in Ezekiel 1:26, where it is described as a throne of sapphire (ryps).
39 1 Enoch 71:7: “And round about (were) the Seraphim, and the Cherubim, and the Ophannim; these are they who do not sleep, but keep watch over the throne of his glory.” Knibb, The Ethiopic Book of Enoch, 2.166.
40 In relation to the concept of the Doppelgänger, Collins notes that “the Son of Man is not a personification of the righteous community, but is conceived, in mythological fashion, as its heavenly Doppelgänger. Now it is characteristic of mythological thinking that such a Doppelgänger is conceived to be more real and permanent than its earthly counterpart and prior to it in the order of being. From a modem critical perspective, the reverse is true. It ‘is a question of men before it is a question of angels.’ The human community is the datum of our experience and knowledge. The heavenly counterpart is posited on the basis of this datum. While the Son of Man is conceived as a real being, he symbolizes the destiny of the righteous community both in its present hiddenness and future manifestation.” Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination, 187. Collins also observes that the “close connection between the individual Son of Man and the community of the righteous has led some scholars to invoke the allegedly Hebrew conception of corporate personality. This idea has rightly been criticized insofar as it implies ‘psychical unity’ and rests on outdated anthropological theories that have been widely discredited.” Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination, 185. See also J.J. Collins, Daniel: A Commentary on the Book of Daniel (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993) 82, 310.
41 It is possible that such correspondences can be encountered even in the Book of Similitudes. Thus, Daniel Olson argues that “the Son of Man in the Parables, also called the ‘Chosen One’ and the ‘Righteous One,’ has his earthly counterpart in the congregation of ‘the chosen,’ ‘the righteous,’ and ‘the holy’ (38:1; 41:2; 45:1; 46:8; 53:6; 62:8).” Olson, A New Reading, 96.
42 J.J. Collins, “The Heavenly Representative: The ‘Son of Man’ in the Similitudes of Enoch,” in: Ideal Figures in Ancient Judaism: Profiles and Paradigms (eds. J. Collins and G. Nickelsburg; SBLSCS, 12; Missoula, Montana: Scholars, 1980) 114. See also J.J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Vision of the Book of Daniel (HSM, 16; Missoula, Montana: Scholars, 1977) 144-146.
43 A similar pattern where the Son of Man imagery becomes juxtaposed with the symbolism of the heavenly correlatives of social entities can be found in Rev 1 with its portrayal of the Son of Man figure and seven angelic patrons of seven Christian churches. On this see D.E. Aune, Revelation 1-5 (WBC, 52A; Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1997) 109-11.
44 See Darrell Hannah’s research on heavenly representatives of the nations, both positive and demonic in D. Hannah, “Guardian Angels and Angelic National Patrons in Second Temple Judaism and Early Christianity,” in: Angels, the Concept of Celestial Beings: Origins, Development and Reception (eds. F.V. Reiterer, T. Nicklas, K. Schöpflin; Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature Yearbook; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2007) 413-435
45 D.C. Allison, Jr., Constructing Jesus: Memory, Imagination, and History (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2010) 300. See also Klaus Koch’s paper “Questions Regarding the So-Called Son of Man in the Parables of Enoch: A Response to Sabino Chialà and Helge Kvanvig,” in: Boccaccini, Enoch and the Messiah Son of Man, 237 n. 24.
46 D. Catchpole, “The Angelic Son of Man in Luke 12:8,” NovT 24 (1982) 255-65. On this tradition see also B. Chilton, “(The) Son of (the) Man, and Jesus,” in: Authenticating the Words of Jesus (eds. B. Chilton and C.A. Evans; Leiden: Brill, 1999) 259-288; S.J. Gathercole, The Preexistent Son: Recovering the Christologies of Matthew, Mark, and Luke (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006) 267-268.
47 Allison, Constructing Jesus, 300.
48 Allison, Constructing Jesus, 300.
49 If Luke 12:8-9 indeed speaks about the heavenly counterpart of Jesus in the form of the Son of Man, verse 10 which immediately follows this passage appears also to be important. There Jesus claims that “everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.” As will be shown in our study, in some Christian and Manichaean traditions, the heavenly identity of a human being was often identified with the Holy Spirit.
50 Catchpole, “The Angelic Son of Man in Luke 12:8,” 260.
51 Catchpole, “The Angelic Son of Man in Luke 12:8,” 260.
52 Catchpole, “The Angelic Son of Man in Luke 12:8,” 260.
53 Scrutinizing Catchpole’s hypothesis, Crispin Fletcher-Louis observes that “there are a couple of interrelated weaknesses in Catchpole’s reading. First, he has too rigid a distinction between Jesus and his angelic counterpart, which conflicts with the Son of Man concept we have found elsewhere. Secondly, he fails to provide an example of a text where the distinction between angelic guardian and human being is expressed by means of alternative names or titles.” Fletcher-Louis, Luke-Acts, 235-6.
54 Fletcher-Louis, Luke-Acts, 236. Fletcher-Louis also notes that Catchpole’s comparison with Mt 18:10 poses a risk of reducing the Son of Man to the mere heavenly Self of one individual, i.e. Jesus. In Fletcher-Louis’ opinion “sight should not be lost of the fact that the Son of Man holds a very specific office in the heavenly realm, particularly as judge and intercessor. It is by no means self-evident that Jesus could have said, on analogy with Mt 18:10, ‘whoever confesses one of these little ones on earth, their angelic guardians will confess them before (the other) angels of God ....’ That confession and denial take place before the angels of God, suggests that the Son of Man is set over against those angels. That Jesus/Son of Man is in fact more than angelic in this saying is indicated by an important connection with the Similitudes, hitherto ignored.” Fletcher-Louis, Luke-Acts, 237. In his recent book Fletcher-Louis reaffirms his position by saying that in Luke 12:8-9 “Jesus’ present heavenly identity ... stands behind his empirical earthly identity.” Fletcher-Louis argues that in Luke 12:8-9 “the Son of Man can be taken as a way of talking about Jesus’ true, heavenly identity, which is unrecognized on earth. On analogy to Jesus’ view that disciples have an angelic Self or counterpart in heaven - the most likely import of Matt 18:10, Jesus really is, already in the present, the heavenly Son of Man of apocalyptic tradition. On earth his Son of Man identity goes unrecognized and he is even reviled by some (Luke 12:10), but in heaven his witness is decisive in the divine courtroom (cf. Dan 7:9-14).” C. Fletcher-Louis, Jesus Monotheism: Volume 1: Christological Origins: The Emerging Consensus and Beyond (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2015) 103.
55 Reflecting on these traditions Jarl Fossum observes “Finally coming back to John 1.51, we now have to ask if the Gospel contains the idea that Jesus, like Jacob-Israel, is both in heaven and on earth at the same time. It would seem that this actually is an aspect of John’s Christology which has gone rather unappreciated. John 1.18 says: ‘No one has ever seen God; the Only-Begotten, the one being in the bosom of the Father (ὁ ὢν εἰς τὸν κόλπον τοῡ πατρός), has revealed him.’ It is not improbable that ὢν denotes the continuous timeless existence of the revealer with God: even when he is on earth and brings the revelation, the Son is in the Father’s bosom. The original text of 3.13 would seem to have read: ‘No one has gone up into heaven except the one having come down from heaven, the Son of Man, who is in heaven (ὁ ὢν ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ). In this statement, which is uttered by Jesus, we again find the suggestion of the revealer’s timeless existence with God.” Fossum, The Image of the Invisible God, 149.
56 On the Son of Man as Jesus’ heavenly counterpart in the Gospel of John see C. F. Burney, The Aramaic Origin of the Fourth Gospel (Oxford: Clarendon, 1922) 115; C. H. Dodd, The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953) 245ff.; H. Odeberg, The Fourth Gospel: Interpreted in its Relation to Contemporaneous Religious Currents in Palestine and the Hellenistic-Oriental World (Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1929; repr. Chicago: Argonaut Publishers, 1968) 33-42; C. Rowland, “John 1.51, Jewish Apocalyptic and Targumic Tradition,” NTS 30 (1984) 498–507; Fossum, The Image of the Invisible God, 135-151.
57 On the date of 2 Enoch see R. H. Charles, and W. R. Morfill, The Book of the Secrets of Enoch (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1896) xxvi; R. H. Charles and N. Forbes, “The Book of the Secrets of Enoch,” in: The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament (2 vols.; ed. R. H. Charles; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913) 2. 429; J.T. Milik, The Books of Enoch (Oxford: Clarendon, 1976) 114; C. Böttrich, Das slavische Henochbuch (JSHRZ, 5; Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlaghaus, 1995) 813; Orlov, The Enoch-Metatron Tradition, 323-328; idem, “The Sacerdotal Traditions of 2 Enoch and the Date of the Text,” in: New Perspectives on 2 Enoch: No Longer Slavonic Only (eds. A. Orlov, G. Boccaccini, J. Zurawski; SJS, 4; Leiden: Brill, 2012) 103-116.
58 Yalkut Shimoni depicts the divine Face looking at thousands of visionaries. For this tradition see M. Idel, Old Worlds, New Mirrors: On Jewish Mysticism and Twentieth-Century Thought (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010) 45.
59 F. Andersen, “2 (Slavonic Apocalypse of) Enoch,” The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (ed. J.H. Charlesworth; 2 vols.; New York: Doubleday, 1983-85) 1.163.
60 2 Enoch 36:3. Andersen, “2 Enoch,” 1.161.
61 W.F. Stinespring, “Testament of Isaac,” in: The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (ed. J.H. Charlesworth; 2 vols; New York: Doubleday, 1983-85) 1.905.
62 Targ. Neof. to Gen 28:12: “... and behold, the angels from before the Lord ascended and descended and observed him [Jacob].” Targum Neofiti 1: Genesis (tr. M. McNamara, M.S.C.; ArBib, 1A; Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1992) 140; Gen. Rab. 68:12: “... they ascended on high and saw his features and they descended below and found him sleeping.” Freedman and Simon, Midrash Rabbah, 2.626.
63 J.Z. Smith, “Prayer of Joseph,” in: The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (ed. J.H. Charlesworth; 2 vols.; New York: Doubleday, 1983-85) 2.699-714 at 705. See also J.Z. Smith, “The Prayer of Joseph,” in: Religions in Antiquity: Essays in Memory of Erwin Ramsdell Goodenough (ed. J. Neusner; SHR, 14; Leiden: Brill, 1968) 253-94 at 290-291.
64 2 Enoch 33:3-10 (the shorter recension). Andersen, “2 Enoch,” 1.157.
65 See 2 Enoch 23:6: “I wrote everything accurately. And I wrote 366 books.” Andersen, “2 Enoch,” 1.140.
66 See Jub. 6:22 and 30:12. On the blurred boundaries between the angel of the Presence and the deity in the Jubilees, see J.C. VanderKam, “The Angel of the Presence in the Book of Jubilees,” DSD 7 (2000) 378-393 at 390-392. It should be noted that the tendency to identify the seer’s heavenly identity with the deity or his anthropomorphic extent (known as his Kavod or the Face) is discernable in all accounts dealing with the heavenly counterpart.
67 Although the text undoubtedly contains early pseudepigraphical traditions, the final composition of the macroform is usually dated to the 9th – 10th centuries C.E. Peter Schäfer notes that the text belongs to the late phase of the Hekhalot literature. He considers that the redaction of the Babylonian Talmud should be taken as the terminus post quem of the text and a quotation from §§71-80 by the Karaite Kirkisani as its terminus ante quem, which provides a time frame from ca. 700 C.E. until ca. 900 C.E. for the final redaction of 3 Enoch. P. Schäfer, The Origins of Jewish Mysticism (Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 2009) 315-316. See also P.S. Alexander, “The Historical Setting of the Hebrew Book of Enoch,” JJS 28 (1977) 156–180.
68 Fletcher-Louis, Luke-Acts, 156. See also M. Himmelfarb, “The Experience of the Visionary and Genre in the Ascension of Isaiah 6–11 and the Apocalypse of Paul,” in: Early Christian Apocalypticism: Genre and Social Setting (ed. A.Y. Collins; Semeia, 36; Decatur, Georgia: Scholars, 1986) 97–111, esp. 102.
69 A.F. Segal, Two Powers in Heaven: Early Rabbinic Reports about Christianity and Gnosticism (Leiden: Brill, 1977) 65.
70 G. Scholem, Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism, and Talmudic Tradition (New York: The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, [1960] 1965) 51.
71 For an in-depth analysis of these roles see Orlov, The Enoch-Metatron Tradition, 121-146.
72 3 Enoch 15. P. Alexander, “3 (Hebrew Apocalypse of) Enoch,” in: The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (ed. J.H. Charlesworth; 2 vols.; New York: Doubleday, 1983-1985) 1.267; P. Schäfer, with M. Schlüter and H. G. von Mutius, Synopse zur Hekhaloth-Literatur (TSAJ, 2; Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1981) 10–11.
73 In Synopse §6 (3 Enoch 4:5–10) the following tradition about Metatron’s title “Youth” can be found: “And the Holy One, blessed be he, appointed me (Enoch) in the height as a prince and a ruler among the ministering angels. Then three of ministering angels, cUzzah, cAzzah, and cAza’el, came and laid charges against me in the heavenly height. They said before the Holy One, blessed be he, ‘Lord of the Universe, did not the primeval ones give you good advice when they said, do not create man!’ The Holy One, blessed be he, replied, ‘I have made and I will sustain him; I will carry and I will deliver him.’ When they saw me they said before him, ‘Lord of the Universe, what right has this one to ascend to the height of heights? Is he not descended from those who perished in the waters of the Flood? What right has he to be in heaven?’ Again the Holy One, blessed be he, replied and said to them, ‘What right have you to interrupt me? I have chosen this one in preference to all of you, to be a prince and a ruler over you in the heavenly heights.’ At once they all arose and went to meet me and prostrated themselves before me, saying, ‘Happy are you, and happy your parents, because your Creator has favored you.’ Because I am young in their company and a mere youth among them in days and months and years – therefore they call me ‘Youth’ (r(n).” Alexander, “3 Enoch,” 1.258–9; Schäfer et al., Synopse, 6–7.
74 3 Enoch 48C:1. Alexander, “3 Enoch,” 1.311. Schäfer et al., Synopse, 36–37.
75 M. Idel, “Enoch is Metatron,” Imm 24/25 (1990) 220–240 at 226-227.
76 As we will see later, similar angelological constellations can be found in another early account of the heavenly counterpart - the Ladder of Jacob, which also refers to three classes of angels, ophanim (many-eyed ones), cherubim, and seraphim, right after the remark about the Throne: “...the fiery throne of glory ... and the many-eyed (ones) just as I saw in my dream, holding the four-faced cherubim, bearing also the many-eyed seraphim.” H.G. Lunt, “Ladder of Jacob,” The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (ed. J.H. Charlesworth; 2 vols.; New York: Doubleday, 1983-85) 2.408.
77 Fletcher-Louis, Luke-Acts, 154. The same feature is also observable in Lad. Jac. 2:15-18.
78 1 Enoch 71:11: “And I fell upon my face.” Knibb, The Ethiopic Book of Enoch, 2.166. 2 Enoch 21:2: “I fell on my face.” Andersen, “2 Enoch,” 1.135.
79 1 Enoch 71:14-15: “You are the Son of Man who was born to righteousness, and righteousness remains over you ... and so you will have it forever and for ever and ever.” Knibb, The Ethiopic Book of Enoch, 2.166-7. 2 Enoch 22:5-6: “Be brave, Enoch! Don’t be frightened! Stand up, and stand in front of my face forever.” Andersen, “2 Enoch,” 1.138-39.
80 As has already been noted, the beginning of this tradition can be found in the Astronomical Book (1 Enoch 74:2), where Enoch writes the instructions of the angel Uriel regarding the secrets of heavenly bodies and their movements. Knibb, The Ethiopic Book of Enoch, 2.173.
81 Vereveil’s dictation of the book to Enoch is intriguing in the light of later Manichaean traditions of the heavenly counterpart which claim that the inspiration for Manichean books was by Mani’s celestial twin. On this see L.J.R. Ort, Mani: A Religio-Historical Description of His Personality (Leiden: Brill, 1957) 86 ff.
82 In relation to the angel’s identity Daniel Olson notes that “the angel who informs Enoch that he is the Son of Man in 1 Enoch 71:14 is not identified, but there is a hint that Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and Phanuel go into the house of God in 71:8, but only Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael emerge in 71:9, according to most of the best manuscripts. Why has Phanuel been separated from the group? Whatever the reason, by verse 13 Phanuel has rejoined the foursome, and in the next verse ‘that one’ or ‘that angel’ approaches Enoch and tells him his heavenly identity. Since the angel (Phanuel?) who gives Jacob the name ‘Israel’ refuses to divulge his own name (Gen 32:28–29), it may be that the anonymity of Enoch’s angelic counterpart (also Phanuel?) is another example of the same motif.” Olson, A New Reading of the Animal Apocalypse of 1 Enoch, 48.
83 Geza Vermes observes that at Qumran, “Sariel becomes one of the four chief angels, replacing Uriel, the traditional fourth archangel in the Greek Enoch and midrashic literature .... He also appears in an Aramaic fragment of 4QEnoch 9:1.” G. Vermes, “The Impact of the Dead Sea Scrolls on Jewish Studies,” JJS 26 (1975) 13.
84 Hekhalot Rabbati (Synopse §108) refers to the angel Suria/Suriel as the Prince of the Face: Mynph r# l)yrws/)yrws. Schäfer, et al., Synopse zur Hekhaloth-Literatur, 52. On the identification of Sariel with the Prince of the presence see: H. Odeberg, 3 Enoch or the Hebrew Book of Enoch (New York: Ktav, 1973) 99ff; Smith, “Prayer of Joseph,” 2.709.
85 Geza Vermes suggests that the angelic name “Phanuel” “is dependent on the Peniel/Penuel of Genesis 32.” Vermes, “The Impact of the Dead Sea Scrolls on Jewish Studies,” 13. Jonathan Smith supports Vermes’ position. In his opinion, “it is most likely that the name Phanuel is to be derived from the place name Peniel/Penuel (the face of God) in Genesis 32:30, and therefore may be related to the title ‘a man seeing God.’” Smith, “Prayer of Joseph,” 2.709. Saul Olyan also argues that “the angel Penuel was either derived from texts such Exod 13:14-15 and Deut 4:37, where the divine presence is given figurative treatment, or it emerged from the exegesis of Gen 32:25-33.” S. Olyan, A Thousand Thousands Served Him: Exegesis and the Naming of Angels in Ancient Judaism (TSAJ, 36; Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1993) 108-109
86 Smith, “Prayer of Joseph,” 2.713.
87 2 Enoch 21:3: “And the Lord sent one of his glorious ones, the archangel Gabriel. And he said to me, ‘Be brave, Enoch! Don’t be frightened! Stand up, and come with me and stand in front of the face of the Lord forever.’” 2 Enoch 22:6: “And the Lord said to his servants, sounding them out, ‘Let Enoch join in and stand in front of my face forever!’” 2 Enoch 36:3: “Because a place has been prepared for you, and you will be in front of my face from now and forever.” Andersen, “2 Enoch,” 1.136, 1.138, 1.161.
88 According to Isaiah Tishby this term is the most popular title of Metatron. He explains, “Metatron is known by many names and titles, but his regular designation, found even in the earlier literature, is r(n –’boy’ or ‘lad.’” I. Tishby, The Wisdom of the Zohar (3 vols.; London: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 1994) 2.628.
89 On Jesus’ polymorphism see I. Czachesz, The Grotesque Body in Early Christian Discourse: Hell, Scatology, and Metamorphosis (New York: Equinox, 2012); P. Foster, “Polymorphic Christology: Its Origins and Development in Early Christianity,” JTS 58 (2007) 66–99; H. Garcia, “La polymorphie du Christ dans le christianisme ancien: Remarques sur quelques définitions et quelques enjeux,” Apocrypha 10 (1999) 16-55; E. Junod, “Polymorphie du Dieu sauver,” in: Gnosticisme et monde hellénistique (eds. J. Ries et al.; Publications de l’Institut orientaliste de Louvain, 27; Louvain-la-Neuve: Université Catholique de Louvain, Institut orientaliste, 1982) 38-46. On the connection between Jesus’ polymorphism and the Doppelgänger traditions see D. R. Cartlidge, “Transfigurations of Metamorphosis Traditions in the Acts of John, Thomas, and Peter,” in: The Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles (ed. D. MacDonald; Semeia, 38; Decatur, Georgia: Scholars, 1986) 53–66.
90 Acts of John 87 reads: “In particular they were perplexed at Drusiana’s statement, ‘The Lord appeared to me when I was in the tomb. He resembled John and resembled a youth (νεανίσκος).’” R.I. Pervo, The Acts of John (ed. J.V. Hills; Salem: Polebridge Press, 2015) 38; E. Junod and J.-D. Kaestli, Acta Iohannis (2 vols.; Corpus Christianorum, Series Apocryphorum, 1-2; Turnhout: Brepols, 1983) 1.191.
91 Acts of John 88-89 reads: “After he had chosen Peter and Andrew, two brothers, he approached my brother James and me and said, ‘I have need of you. Come to me.’ My brother heard this and asked, ‘John, what does this child (τὸ παιδίον τοῦτο) who is calling to us from the shore want?’ ‘What child (παιδίον)?’ ‘The one gesturing to us.’ ‘We’ve spent too much time out on the water. You can’t see straight, James. Don’t you see a man, well-built, handsome, and cheerful-looking?’ ‘I don’t. But let’s go and see what this is about.’ As we brought the boat to shore, we observed that he helped us get it securely beached. After we had left that spot, determined to follow him, he appeared to me still differently: almost bald, with a thick, flowing beard, but to James as a youth (νεανίσκος) whose beard had just begun to come in. We were both confused about the meaning of this apparition; and as we kept following, we became more and more confused in our struggle to comprehend what had happened.” Pervo, The Acts of John, 38-39; Junod and Kaestli, Acta Iohannis, 1.191-193.
92 Acts of Andrew and Matthias 18 reads: “When Andrew heard this he was exuberant that his disciples had been considered worthy to see these marvels. Andrew looked up into heaven and said, ‘Appear to me, Lord Jesus Christ, for I know you are not far from your servants. Forgive me, for I beheld you on the boat as a human and spoke with you as with a human. Therefore, O Lord, reveal yourself now to me in this place.’ After Andrew had said these things, Jesus came to him appearing like a most beautiful small child (μικρῷ παιδίῳ) and said, ‘Greetings, our Andrew.’” D.R. MacDonald, The Acts of Andrew and the Acts of Andrew and Matthias in the City of the Cannibals (Texts and Translations, 33; Christian Apocrypha, 1; Atlanta: Scholars, 1990) 109.
93 Acts of Andrew and Matthias 33 reads: “The Lord Jesus, having become like a beautiful small child (μικρῷ παιδίῳ), descended and greeted Andrew saying, ‘Andrew, why do you depart leaving them fruitless, and why do you have no compassion on the children following after you and on the men who implore, stay with us a few days’? Their cry and weeping rose to heaven.’” MacDonald, The Acts of Andrew and the Acts of Andrew and Matthias in the City of the Cannibals, 164-167.
94 Acts of Peter 21 reads: “‘Now, Lord let your sweet and holy name come to the aid of these women! Touch their eyes-for you are able-that they may see by their own light!’ ‘When everyone had prayed, the dining room where they were shone with bright light as when the dawn comes, and with such a light as is usually seen only in the clouds. ‘Yet it was not like the light of the day, but an ineffable, invisible light which no one can describe,’ a light which illuminated us so that we were beside ourselves with bewilderment and called out to the Lord, Lord, have mercy on us, your servants. Give us, Lord, what we are able to bear, for this we can neither see nor bear.’ As we lay there, only those widows who were blind stood up. The bright light which appeared to us entered into their eyes and made them see.’ Peter said to them, ‘Tell what you saw!’ They said, ‘We saw an old man whose beauty we cannot describe to you.’ Others said, ‘A young man in adolescence.’ Others said, ‘We saw a boy gently touching our eyes. That’s how our eyes were opened.’” R.F. Stoops, Jr., The Acts of Peter (ed. by J.V. Hills; Salem: Polebridge Press, 2012) 71. Cf. also Acts of Peter 5: “Then, in the spot where Theon was baptized, a youth with radiant beauty appeared and said to them, ‘Peace be with you!’” Stoops, The Acts of Peter, 51.
95 “And when they had come up out of the water, a youth appeared to them, and he was holding a lighted taper; and the light of the lamps became pale through its light. And when they had gone forth, he became invisible to them....” A.F.J. Klijn, The Acts of Thomas: Introduction, Text, and Commentary (2nd ed.; Leiden: Brill, 2003) 77. On Christ as child in this passage from the Acts of Thomas see Klijn, The Acts of Thomas, 83.
96 “He began to speak with them about the mysteries beyond this world and what would take place at the end. Often he did not appear to his disciples as himself, but he was found among them as a child.” The Gospel of Judas from Codex Tchacos (eds. R. Kasser, M. Meyer, G. Wurst; Washington: National Geographic Society, 2006) 22-23. On Jesus as the Child in the Gospel of Judas see E. Albrile, “Shining like a Star Man. Iranian Elements in the Gospel of Judas,” in: The Gospel of Judas in Context. Proceedings of the First International Conference on the Gospel of Judas (ed. M. Scopello; NHMS, 62; Leiden: Brill, 2008) 277-292. Lance Jenott recently affirms the “child” terminology in the Gospel of Judas by noting that it is “the most plausible translation, since it does not require emendation or hypothetical metathesis.” L. Jenott, The Gospel of Judas (STAC, 64; Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 2011) 190. Jenott also notes that “traditions about Jesus’ appearing as a child are found in other ancient Christian writings. In the Gospel of the Savior, Jesus ambiguously declares to his disciples that ‘I am in your midst as the little children’ (107:57–60, ed. Hedrick & Mireki). In the Apocryphon of John, Jesus first appears to John as a child, then as an old man, in order to demonstrate his complex divine nature that spans the heavenly trinity of Father, Mother, and Son. However, there is no indication that Judas uses child imagery for the same purpose: nowhere else in this Gospel does he appear in other forms, nor does Judas include such a trinitarian theology as found in the Apocryphon of John.” Jenott, The Gospel of Judas, 190.
97 Apocryphon of John (BG 21:3-4) reads: “I was afraid and [I looked], and behold, a child appeared to me ....”; Apocryphon of John (NHC II, 2:1-2) reads: “[I] saw in the [light a child who stood] by me.” The Apocryphon of John: Synopsis of Nag Hammadi Codices 11,1; 111,1 and IV, 1 with Papyrus Berolinensis 8502,2 (eds. M. Waldstein and F. Wisse; Leiden: Brill, 1995) 16-17.
98 The Concept of Our Great Power 44:32-33 (NHC VI, 4, 44:32-33) reads: “Then the time came until the child would grow up.” Nag Hammadi Codices V, 2-5 and VI with Papyrus Berolinensis 8502, 1 and 4 (ed. D.M. Parrott; NHS, 11; Leiden: Brill, 1979) 315.
99 Apocalypse of Paul 18:3-22 (NHC V, 2, 18:3-22) reads: “the road. And [he spoke to him], saying, ‘[By which] road [shall I go] up to [Jerusalem]?’ The little child [replied, saying], ‘Say your name, so that [I may show] you the road.’ [The little child] knew [who Paul was]. He wished to make conversation with him through his words [in order that] he might find an excuse for speaking with him. The little child spoke, saying, ‘I know who you are, Paul. You are he who was blessed from his mother’s womb. For I have [come] to you that you may [go up to Jerusalem] to your fellow [apostles. And] for this reason [you were called. And] I am the [Spirit who accompanies] you.’” Parrott, Nag Hammadi Codices V, 2-5 and VI with Papyrus Berolinensis 8502, 1 and 4, 51-53. Analyzing this passage some commentators suggested that “the little child who meets Paul on the mountain and gives him revelation most naturally suggest an epiphany of the risen Christ, who is sometimes described as a small child.” G.W. MacRae and W.R. Murdock, “The Apocalypse of Paul,” in: Parrott, Nag Hammadi Codices V, 2-5 and VI with Papyrus Berolinensis 8502, 1 and 4, 48. For criticism of such connection with Christ see M. Kaler and J.-M. Rosenstiehl, L’Apocalypse de Paul (Québec, Presses de l’Université Laval, 2005) 177-81.
100 Hippolytus, Ref. V I 42, 2 “For Valentinus says (that) he saw a small child, newly born, and asked him who he was, and he answered that he was the Logos.” W. Foerster, Gnosis: A Selection of Gnostic Texts (2 vols.; Oxford: Clarendon, 1972) 1.243.Stroumsa notes that the imagery of the Child also appears in the Pistis Sophia, where it is identified with the “twin savior,” a figure probably related to Mani’s conception of his own “spiritual twin. G.G. Stroumsa, Another Seed: Studies in Gnostic Mythology (Brill, Leiden, 1984) 78.
101 Foster, “Polymorphic Christology: Its Origins and Development in Early Christianity,” 83. Further in his article Foster argues along the same lines by noting that “in this sense it was used to highlight a transcendence of the physical by the purer spiritual manifestation of Christ. Such a tendency is most fully exemplified in the Acts of John where polymorphic events prior to the resurrection illustrate a separation between Christ and the earthly domain.” Foster, “Polymorphic Christology,” 98.
102 On this figure see E. Rose, Die Manichäische Christologie (SOR, 5; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1979) 103-109, M. Franzmann, Jesus in the Manichaean Writings (London: T&T Clark, 2003) 119-124 and Е.Б. Смагина, Манихейство: по ранним источникам (Москва: Восточная Литература, 2011) 189-90.
103 Thus, for example, Keph. 35.27- 34 tells the following about Jesus the Youth: “The third power is / [the Y]outh, the gre[at ...] light in his two pers/ons , in [...], I am speaking about that which has been established [i]n the summons [and] the obedience. [He] too [stood] with his fa[ther/ the] king [...] the savio[ur ...] seen, as he tells / [...] I, what I have seen with my Father, / [I tell to] you. For yourselves, what you have seen / [with your fath]er, do that....” I. Gardner, The Kephalaia of the Teacher: The Edited Coptic Manichaean Texts in Translation with Commentary (NHMS, 37; Leiden: Brill, 1995) 40. Majella Franzmann notes that in this passage “‘the Youth’ is called forth by Jesus the Splendour from himself.” Franzmann, Jesus in the Manichaean Writings, 119. In other passage from Keph. 61.26-28 Jesus the Youth again represents one of the identities of Jesus since Jesus the Splendour is clearly distinguished there from Jesus the Youth: “[Th]e fourth s[av]ing is that of Jesus [the Splendour, since whe/n he was] re[ve]aled in the zone he displayed [his im]/age in front of the firmaments and purified [the light] that is above. He established the first righteous o[ne ... / ...] all the churches. He took the likeness [... / ...] he made himself like the angels in [...] un/til he travelled and descended to the form of flesh. He set in order / [t]he earths and all the fastenings. He also loosen [ed...] light without measure in the entire structure. He gave / [the s]ummons and the obedience to the elements, he formed [J]esus the Youth. He as[ce]n[d]ed and rested himself in the/light [land].” Gardner, The Kephalaia of the Teacher, 64-66.
104 Mk 14:51-52: “A certain young man was following him, wearing nothing but a linen cloth. They caught hold of him, but he left the linen cloth and ran off naked.”
105 Mk 16:5 “As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed.”
106 H. Fleddermann, “The Flight of a Naked Young Man (Mark 14:51-52),” CBQ 41 (1979) 412-418 at 413. See also J. Knox, “A Note on Mark 14:51-52,” in: The Joy of Study: Papers on New Testament and Related Subjects Presented to Honor Frederick Clifton Grant (ed. S. Johnson; New York: Macmillan, 1951) 27-30; A. Vanhoye, “La fuite du jeune homme nu (Mc 14,51-52),” Biblica 52 (1971) 401-406 at 404-405.
107 R. Brown, The Death of the Messiah: From Gethsemane to the Grave: A Commentary on the Passion Narratives in the Four Gospels (2 vols; New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998) 1.301.
108 Brown, The Death of the Messiah, 1.301.
109 Some researchers also draw their attention to the parallels between the young man in Mark and the patriarch Joseph, a character who in Joseph and Aseneth become a locus of intense Doppelgänger speculations. Thus, for example, Herman Waetjen, reflecting on the youth’s clothing routines, argues that the “contrast between the fleeing Joseph, who leaves behind his clothes and is unjustly disgraced on the one hand, with the exalted Joseph, who wears splendid garments and is exalted to vice-regent on the other, is matched and reproduced by Mark 14, 51f. and 16, 5.” H. Waetjen, “The Ending of Mark and the Gospel’s Shift in Eschatology,” ASTI 4 (1968) 116−120 at 120.
110 Cf. Matt 28:1-3: “After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And suddenly there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord (ἄγγελος γὰρ κυρίου), descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow.” Luke 24:4-5: “While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground ....” John 20:11-12: “But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels (δύο ἀγγέλους) in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet.” It is noteworthy that in Lukan, Matthean, and Johannine passages the distinctive clothing metaphors are also present. Moreover, the presence of the Angel of the Lord figure in Matthew, a figure prominent in various heavenly counterpart traditions, serves as an important conceptual marker.
111 Acts of Thomas 154 reads: “And Judas said to Vizan: ‘Go before us and prepare for us what is needful for our service.’ Vizan says to him: ‘Who will open for us the doors of the prison? For, see, they have closed them all and the keepers are asleep.’ Judas says to him: ‘Believe in Jesus and doubt not and you shall go and find the doors open and turned on their hinges.’ And when he had gone out, he went before them and all (the rest) of them were coming after Judas. And when they had gone half-way, Manashar, the wife of Vizan met them, coming to the prison. And she knew him and says to him: ‘My brother Vizan?’ And she says to her: ‘Yes and you my sister Manashar?’ She says to him: ‘Yes.’ He says to her: ‘Where do you go at this time alone? And how were you able to arise from the bed?’ She says to him: ‘This youth laid his hand on me and I was healed. And I saw in my dream that I should go to the stranger where he is imprisoned that I might be quite healed.’ Vizan says to her: ‘Where is the youth who was with you?” And he says to him: “Do you not see him?” For, see, he is holding my right hand and supporting me.’” Klijn, The Acts of Thomas, 238.
112 The Syriac text of the Acts of Thomas 108-112 reads: “When I was a little child and dwelling in my kingdom, in my father’s house, and was content with the wealth and the luxuries of my nourishers, from the East our home .... And they took off from me the glittering robe.... And because I did not remember its fashion — for in my childhood I had left it in my father’s house — on a sudden, when I received it, the garment seemed to me to become like a mirror of myself. I saw it all in all, and I too received all in it, for we were two in distinction and yet again one in one likeness. And the treasurers too, who brought it to me, I saw in like manner to be two (and yet) one likeness....” Klijn, The Acts of Thomas, 182-185. The Greek version of this passage reads: “And I was not able to remember my splendour (clothing), for I was still a child (παῖς) and also very young (κομιδῇ νέος) when I had left it in my fther’s palace.” J. Ferreira, The Hymn of the Pearl: The Syriac and Greek Texts with Introduction, Translations, and Notes (Sydney: St. Pauls Publications, 2002) 90-91.
113 In relation to this passage Moulton observes that “the ‘angels’ of individuals appear twice in the New Testament. In Acts 12:15 Peter’s angel is imagined to have spoken to the girl Rhoda who answers the door. We cannot deduce much from this, except that the incredulous Christians, if they meant Peter’s ghost, must have thought of a ‘phantasm of the living,’ for there is no suggestion that they supposed he was dead without their having heard of it. The conditions are best satisfied with the assumption that they imagined Peter’s angel or heavenly counterpart to have taken his shape and appeared as his ‘double.’ Incomparably more important, of course, is the saying of our Lord, reported in Matt 18:10, in which it seems to me clear that He meant to set His seal upon the doctrine now under consideration. That doctrine is not, however, the existence of ‘guardian angels.’ The importance of the debita pueris reverential is not especially inculcated by the statement that angels charged with their care are always near the Throne; we should rather expect to find them ‘encamping around’ their charges. Substitute the idea of the heavenly counterpart, and we get at once a profound reason for their presence nearest to the Father. They represent those who have not yet learned to sin, despite the potentialities which time will develop. The ‘angels of the little ones’ are nearest to God for the same reason that their earthly counterparts are typical members of the kingdom of heaven. As sin asserts its power over the child, its angel must correspondingly lose its privilege, to be regained only when stern conflict has forever slain the primal enemy.” Moulton, “‘It is His Angel,’” 516-17.
114 On Seth’s identity as “youth” see Stroumsa, Another Seed, 77-80. Seth’s identity as “youth” is important in view of his association with the image of God in some Adamic accounts. As will be shown later in our study, in some heavenly counterpart traditions the divine image will become envisioned as the heavenly identity of a human being.
115 Odeberg, 3 Enoch, 1.119.
116 “… it is the mystery of the boy who reaches old age and then reverts to his youth as at the beginning.” Tishby, The Wisdom of the Zohar, 2.628.
117 According to the current consensus, the earliest rabbinic reference to the title “Youth” is b. Yebam. 16b which also attests him as the Prince of the World. Metatron is not mentioned, but the conjunction makes it plausible. Metatron, the Youth and the Prince of the World are identified with each other in Synopse §959. Among premishnaic Jewish texts two documents must be mentioned. First, Charles Mopsik draws attention to the passage in Zech 2 in which an angel, described as a measurer responsible for the measuring of Jerusalem, is also designated in 2:4 as Youth (r(n). Mopsik points to the fact that the Merkavah tradition, similar to Zech 2, also often describes Metatron both as the Youth and the Measurer. C. Mopsik, Le Livre hébreu d’Hénoch ou Livre des palais (Paris: Verdier, 1989) 48-49. Second, the Wisdom of Solomon 4:10-16 might refer to Enoch as the Youth. The text reads: “There were some who pleased God and were loved by him, and while living among sinners were taken up … and youth that is quickly perfected will condemn the prolonged old age of the unrighteous.” On the title “Youth” in Hekhalot literature, see J. Davila, “Melchizedek, the ‘Youth,’ and Jesus,” in: The Dead Sea Scrolls as Background to Postbiblical Judaism and early Christianity. Papers from an International Conference at St. Andrews in 2001 (ed. J. R. Davila; STDJ, 46; Leiden: Brill, 2003) 248–74 at 254; Halperin, Faces of the Chariot, 491-4.
118 Alexander, “3 Enoch,” 1.257; Schäfer et al., Synopse, 4-5.
119 On the Adamic motif of the angelic opposition and its appropriation in early Enochic materials, including 2 Enoch, see M. E. Stone, “The Fall of Satan and Adam’s Penance: Three Notes on the Books of Adam and Eve,” in: Literature on Adam and Eve. Collected Essays (eds. G. Anderson, M. Stone, J. Tromp; SVTP, 15; Brill: Leiden, 2000) 43-56.
120 Ms. V, fol. 308; Ms. B in: M.I. Sokolov, “Materialy i zametki po starinnoj slavjanskoj literature. Vypusk tretij. VII. Slavjanskaja Kniga Enoha Pravednogo. Teksty, latinskij perevod i izsledovanie. Posmertnyj trud avtora prigotovil k izdaniju M. Speranskij,” COIDR 4 (1910) 1–167 at 83.
121 Sreznevskij’s dictionary equates this Slavonic word with Greek νεανίσκος. I. Sreznevskij, Slovar’ drevnerusskogo jazyka (3 vols.; Moscow: Kniga, 1989) 2.1627-1628.
122 Sokolov, “Materialy i zametki po starinnoj slavjanskoj literature,” 85.
123 Andersen, “2 Enoch,” 1.119.
124 Sokolov, “Materialy i zametki po starinnoj slavjanskoj literature,” 90-91.
125 It is not coincidental that the “youth” identity of Enoch receives its articulation in 2 Enoch 22 where the patriarch is transformed with the shining dew from the Tree of Life. In this respect it is intriguing that in the Manichaean Bema Psalm 167:54 the figure of “Youth” is described as the “son of the dew.” On this tradition see Franzmann, Jesus in the Manichaean Writings, 120.
126 Ms. V, fol. 317.
127 1 Enoch 15:11: “And he answered me and said to me with his voice: Hear! Do not be afraid, Enoch, (you) righteous man and scribe of righteousness….” Knibb, The Ethiopic Book of Enoch, 2.100.
128 1 Enoch 12:3-4: “And I Enoch was blessing the Great Lord and the King of Eternity, and behold the Watchers called to me, Enoch the scribe, and said to me: ‘Enoch, scribe of righteousness, go, inform the Watchers of heaven….’” Knibb, The Ethiopic Book of Enoch, 2.92.
129 C. Burchard, “Joseph and Aseneth,” The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (ed. J. H. Charlesworth; 2 vols.; New York: Doubleday, 1983-85) 2.177–247 at 2.225-226.
130 Jos. Asen. 22:7: “And Aseneth saw him and was amazed at his beauty, because Jacob was exceedingly beautiful to look at, and his old age (was) like the youth of a handsome (young) man, and his head was all white as snow, and the hairs of his head were all exceedingly close and thick like (those) of an Ethiopian and his beard (was) white reaching down to his breast, and his eyes (were) flashing and darting (flashes of) lightning, and his sinews and his shoulders and his arms were like (those) of an angel, and his thighs and his calves and his feet like (those) of a giant.” Burchard, “Joseph and Aseneth,” 2.238.
131 Joseph und Aseneth kritisch herausgegeben von Christoph Burchard mit Unterstützung von Carsten Burfeind & Uta Barbara Fink (PVTG, 5; Leiden: Brill, 2003) 272.
132 On early Noachic traditions see: M. Bernstein, “Noah and the Flood at Qumran,” in: The Provo International Conference on the Dead Sea Scrolls: Technological Innovations, New Texts, and Reformulated Issues (eds. D.W. Parry and E. Ulrich; STDJ, 30; Leiden: Brill, 1999) 199-231; D. Dimant, “Noah in Early Jewish Literature,” in: Biblical Figures Outside the Bible (eds. M.E. Stone and T.A. Bergren; Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 1998) 123-50; Fletcher-Louis, All the Glory of Adam, 33-54; F. García Martínez, Qumran and Apocalyptic (STDJ, 9; Leiden: Brill, 1992) 24-44; F. García Martínez, “Interpretation of the Flood in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in: Interpretations of the Flood (eds. F. García Martínez and G.P. Luttikhuizen; TBN, 1; Leiden: Brill, 1998) 86-108; H. Kvanvig, Roots of Apocalyptic. The Mesopotamian Background of the Enoch Figure and the Son of Man (WMANT 61; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1988) 242-54; J. Lewis, A Study of the Interpretation of Noah and the Flood in Jewish and Christian Literature (Leiden: Brill, 1968); Noah and His Book(s) (eds. M. Stone, A. Amihay, V. Hillel; Atlanta: Scholars, 2010); D.M. Peters, Noah Traditions in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Conversations and Controversies of Antiquity (Atlanta: Scholars, 2008); J. Reeves, “Utnapishtim in the Book of Giants?” JBL 12 (1993) 110-15; J.M. Scott, “Geographic Aspects of Noachic Materials in the Scrolls of Qumran,” in: The Scrolls and the Scriptures: Qumran Fifty Years After (eds. S.E. Porter and C.E. Evans; JSPSS, 26; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997) 368-81; R.C. Steiner, “The Heading of the Book of the Words of Noah on a Fragment of the Genesis Apocryphon: New Light on a ‘Lost’ Work,” DSD 2 (1995) 66-71; M. Stone, “The Axis of History at Qumran,” in: Pseudepigraphic Perspectives: The Apocrypha and the Pseudepigrapha in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls (eds. E. Chazon and M. E. Stone; STDJ, 31; Leiden: Brill, 1999) 133-49; M. Stone, “Noah, Books of,” Encyclopaedia Judaica (Jerusalem: Keter, 1971) 12.1198; J. VanderKam, “The Righteousness of Noah,” in: Ideal Figures in Ancient Judaism: Profiles and Paradigms (eds. J. J. Collins and G.W.E. Nickelsburg; SBLSCS, 12; Chico: Scholars, 1980) 13-32; J. VanderKam, “The Birth of Noah,” in: Intertestamental Essays in Honor of Jósef Tadeusz Milik (ed. Z.J. Kapera; QM, 6; Krakow: The Enigma Press, 1992) 213-31; C. Werman, “Qumran and the Book of Noah,” in: Pseudepigraphic Perspectives: The Apocrypha and the Pseudepigrapha in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls (eds. E. Chazon and M. E. Stone; STDJ, 31; Leiden: Brill, 1999) 171-81.
133 1 Enoch 106:5: “... his eyes (are) like the rays of the sun, and his face glorious....” Knibb, The Ethiopic Book of Enoch, 2.244-5.
134 1QapGen 5:12-13: “... his face has been lifted to me and his eyes shine like [the] s[un...] of this boy is flame and he....” The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition (eds. F. García Martínez and E.J.C. Tigchelaar; 2 vols.; Leiden; New York; Köln: Brill, 1997) 1.31.
135 A similar tradition is reflected in 1Q19. 1Q19 3 reads: “... were aston[ished ...] [... (not like the children of men) the fir]st-born is born, but the glorious ones [...] [...] his father, and when Lamech saw [...] [...] the chambers of the house like the beams of the sun [...] to frighten the [...].” 1Q19 13 reads: “[...] because the glory of your face [...] for the glory of God in [...] [... he will] be exalted in the splendor of the glory and the beauty [...] he will be honored in the midst of [...].” García Martínez and Tigchelaar, The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition, 1.27.
136 Later rabbinic materials, possibly cognizant of the Noachic “youth” traditions, also provide almost identical details about the miraculous birth of Moses. Thus, according to Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer 48 at birth Moses’ body was like an angel of God. b. Sotah 12a tells that the house was filled with light. According to Deut. Rab. 11:10 a young prophet who is only one day old was able to speak and at four months – to prophesize. See also Exod. Rab. 1:20 and Zohar II.11b.
137 Fletcher-Louis, All the Glory of Adam, 33ff.
138 Crispin Fletcher-Louis notes parallels between this scene and the description of the ideal high priest from Sirach 50. He argues that “in Sirach 50 the liturgical procession through Simon’s various ministrations climaxes with Aaron’s blessings of the people (50:20, cf. Numbers 6) and a call for all the readers of Sirach’s work ‘to bless the God of all who everywhere works greater wonders, who fosters our growth from birth and deals with us according to his mercy’ (50:22). So, too, in 1 Enoch 106:3 the infant Noah rises from the hands of the midwife and, already able to speak as an adult, ‘he opened his mouth and blessed the Lord.’” Fletcher-Louis, All the Glory of Adam, 47. Fletcher-Louis concludes that “the staging for [Noah’s] birth and the behavior of the child have strong priestly resonances.” Fletcher-Louis, All the Glory of Adam, 46.
139 See M. Delcor, “Melchizedek from Genesis to the Qumran Texts and the Epistle to the Hebrews,” JSJ 2 (1971) 129; idem, “La naissance merveilleuse de Melchisédeq d’après l’Hénoch slave,” in: Kecharitomene. Mélanges René Laurentin (ed. C. Augustin et al.; Paris: Desclée, 1990) 217-229; A. de Santos Otero, “Libro de los secretos de Henoc (Henoc eslavo),” in: Apocrifos del Antiguo Testamento (ed. A. Dies Macho; Madrid: Ediciones Christiandad, 1984) 4.199; R. Stichel, Die Namen Noes, seines Bruders und seiner Frau. Ein Beitrag zum Nachleben jüdischer Überlieferungen in der außerkanonischen und gnostischen Literatur und in Denkmälern der Kunst (AAWG, 3; Folge 112; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1979) 42-54.
140 The content of the story is connected with the family of Nir, who is defined in the Slavonic pseudepigraphon as Noah’s brother. Sothonim, the wife of Nir, gave birth to a miraculous child “in her old age,” right “on the day of her death.” She conceived the child, “being sterile” and “without having slept with her husband.” The book explains that Nir, envisioned in the story as a priest, had not slept with her from the day that the Lord had appointed him before the face of the people. Therefore, Sothonim hid herself during all the days of her pregnancy. On the day she was to give birth, Nir remembered his wife and called her to himself in the temple. She came to him, and he saw that she was pregnant. Nir, filled with shame, wanted to cast her from him, but she died at his feet. Melchizedek was born from Sothonim’s corpse. When Nir and Noah came in to bury Sothonim, they saw the child sitting beside the corpse with his clothing on him. According to the story, they were terrified because the child was fully developed physically. The child spoke with his lips and he blessed the Lord. The unusual child was marked by the sign of priesthood. The story describes how “the badge of priesthood” was on his chest, glorious in appearance. Nir and Noah dressed the child in the garments of priesthood and fed him the holy bread. They decided to hide him, fearing that the people would have him put to death. Finally, the Lord commanded His archangel Michael to take the child and place him in the paradise Eden, so that he might become the high priest after the Flood. The final passages of the short recension describe the ascent of Melchizedek on the wings of Michael to the paradise Eden.
141 At least nine points should be mentioned: 1. Both Noah and Melchizedek belonged to the circle of Enoch’s family. 2. Both characters are attested to as “survivors” of the Flood. 3. Both characters have an important mission in the postdiluvian era. 4. Both characters are pictured as glorious wonder children. 5. Immediately after their birth, both characters spoke to the Lord. 6. Both characters were suspected of divine/angelic lineage/parentage. 7. Their fathers were suspicious of the conception of their sons and the faithfulness of their wives. 8. Their mothers were ashamed and tried to defend themselves against the accusation of their husbands. 9. Their fathers were eventually comforted by the special revelation about the prominent future role of their sons in the postdiluvian era. It is noteworthy that this information is given in both cases in the context of the revelation about the destruction of the earth by the Flood.
142 A. Orlov, “‘Noah’s Younger Brother’: Anti-Noachic Polemics in 2 Enoch,” Henoch 22 (2000) 259-73; idem, “Noah’s Younger Brother Revisited: Anti-Noachic Polemics and the Date of 2 (Slavonic) Enoch,” Henoch 26 (2004) 172-87.
143 b. Sotah 12a: “He was born circumcised; and the Sages declare, At the time when Moses was born, the whole house was filled with light – as it is written here, ‘And she saw him that he was good’ (Ex 2:2), and elsewhere it is written, ‘And God saw the light that it was good’ (Gen 1:4).” Epstein, The Babylonian Talmud. Sotah 12a; Exod. Rab. 1:20: “...she saw that the Shechinah was with him; that is, the ‘it’ refers to the Shechinah which was with the child.” Freedman and Simon, Midrash Rabbah, 3.29-30; Deut. Rab. 11:10: “Moses replied: ‘I am the son of Amram, and came out from my mother’s womb without prepuce, and had no need to be circumcised; and on the very day on which I was born I found myself able to speak and was able to walk and to converse with my father and mother ... when I was three months old I prophesied and declared that I was destined to receive the law from the midst of flames of fire.’” Freedman and Simon, Midrash Rabbah, 7.185; PRE 48: “Rabbi Nathaniel said: the parents of Moses saw the child, for his form was like that of an angel of God. They circumcised him on the eight day and they called his name Jekuthiel.” Friedlander, Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer, 378; Zohar II.11b: “She saw the light of the Shekinah playing around him: for when he was born this light filled the whole house, the word ‘good’ here having the same reference as in the verse ‘and God saw the light that it was good’ (Gen 1:4).” Sperling and Simon, The Zohar, 3.35. See also Samaritan Molad Mosheh: “She became pregnant with Moses and was great with child, and the light was present.” Samaritan Documents Relating to Their History, Religion and Life (tr. J. Bowman; Pittsburgh: Pickwick, 1977) 287. On Moses’ birth in Artapanus’ On the Jews, the Exagoge of Ezekiel the Tragedian, the Book of Jubillees, Philo’s Life of Moses, Pseudo-Philo’s Book of Biblical Antiquities and Josephus’Jewish Antiquities see A. Pinnick, The Birth of Moses in Jewish Literature of the Second Temple Period (Ph.D. Diss.; Harvard University, 1996).
144 It is intriguing that in the Genesis Apocryphon Methuselah is traversing realms, making a journey to a mysterious, possibly heavenly, location called Parvain to ask Enoch about the miraculous child Noah. It is not clear if here and in 1 Enoch 106 Methuselah serves as a bridge between two identities of the seventh antediluvian hero. On the tradition about Parvain see J.R. Davila, “Heavenly Ascents in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in: The Dead Sea Scrolls After Fifty Years: A Comprehensive Assessment (eds. P. W. Flint and J. C. VanderKam; 2 vols.; Leiden: Brill, 1998-99) 2.469ff; L.T. Stuckenbruck, “The Lamech Narrative in the Genesis Apocryphon (1QapGen) and Birth of Noah (4QEnochc ar): A Tradition-Historical Study,” in: Aramaica Qumranica (eds. K. Berthelot and D. Stökl Ben Ezra; STDJ, 94; Leiden: Brill, 2010) 253-71.
145 Thus, Helge Kvanvig points out that in the Noachic traditions Noah and Enoch often appear in the same roles. Kvanvig, Roots of Apocalyptic, 117.
146 Horton also notes that “functions assigned to Melchizedek in the 11QMelch are elsewhere either assigned to God or to other figures such as Michael.” F.L. Horton, The Melchizedek Tradition: A Critical Examination of the Sources to the Fifth Century A.D. and in the Epistle to the Hebrews (SNTSMS, 30; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976) 81.
147 1QM XVII 6–7. In the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice (4Q401 11.1-3 and 22:1-3) Melchizedek appears to be envisioned among the angels in the heavenly sanctuary.
148 F. García Martínez, Qumranica Minora II. Thematic Studies on the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. E. Tigchelaar; Leiden: Brill, 2007) 99. Paul Kobelski notes that this conceptual trajectory was continued in later Jewish developments. He points out that “the archangel Michael is described as a heavenly high-priest in the Babylonian Talmud (see Hag. 12b, Zebah. 62a, and Menah. 110a), and in a medieval Jewish text (Yalqut had. f. 115, col. 3, no. 19) he is identified with Melchizedek, who is called by his biblical title ‘priest of El Elyon.’ Though this last text is late, it may be based on earlier traditions such as those cited above that viewed Michael as a high priest in heaven and Melchizedek as an angelic being who exercised a priestly ministry in heaven; or it may represent a development or conflation of such ideas.” P.J. Kobelski, Melchizedek and Melchirešac (CBQMS, 10; Washington: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1981) 65-66. On the identification of Melchizedek with Michael in medieval rabbinic texts see also M. de Jonge and A.S. van der Woude, “11QMelchizedek and the New Testament,” NTS 12 (1966) 301-326 at 305.
149 D. Frankfurter, “The Legacy of Jewish Apocalypses in Early Christianity: Regional Trajectories,” in: The Jewish Apocalyptic Heritage in Early Christianity (eds. J.C. VanderKam and W. Adler; CRINT, 3.4; Assen: Van Gorcum, 1996) 183. On the identification of Michael with Melchizedek, see also: J. R. Davila, “Melchizedek, Michael, and War in Heaven,” SBLSP 35 (1996) 259-72; D. D. Hannah, Michael and Christ: Michael Traditions and Angel Christology in Early Christianity (WUNT, 2.109; Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1999) 70-74.
150 J. Dunn, Christology in the Making: A New Testament Inquiry into the Origins of the Doctrine of the Incarnation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996) 153. It is also noteworthy, that in his interpretation of the connections between Melchizedek and Michael, Dunn brings as an illustration some angelological developments found in the Prayer of Joseph, a document already mentioned in our study, where the identification between Jacob and his angelic counterpart is made explicit. Thus, Dunn argues that “… it is certainly the case that such an exalted being could be conceptualized as an angel (see again particularly the Prayer of Joseph; and cf. the description of Melchizedek in 11QMelch. and of the Son of Man in the Similitudes of Enoch - 1 Enoch 46:1; 61:10).” Dunn, Christology in the Making, 155.
151 Knibb, “Messianism in Pseudepigrapha,” 177.
152 Dunn, Christology in the Making, 153. In view of connections between Melchizedek, Michael and Metatron it is noteworthy that Philip Alexander entertains some conceptual links between Michael and Metatron. He argues that “Metatron is, in a number of respects, similar to the archangel Michael: Both angels were known as ‘the Great Prince’; both were said to serve in the heavenly sanctuary; both were guardian angels of Israel; what is said in one text about Michael is said in another about Metatron. A possible explanation of these similarities would be that originally Metatron and Michael were one and the same angel: Michael was the angel’s common name, Metatron one of his esoteric, magical names. At some point, however, the connection between Metatron and Michael was obscured, and a new, independent archangel with many of Michael’s powers came into being.” Alexander, “3 Enoch,” 1.243-44.
153 I am thankful to Michael Stone for bringing my attention to these traditions.
154 2 Enoch 72:1-10 reads: “And when the child had been 40 days in Nir’s tent, the Lord said to Michael, ‘Go down onto the earth to Nir the priest, and take my child Melkisedek, who is with him, and place him in the paradise of Edem for preservation. For the time is approaching, and I will pour out all the water onto the earth, and everything that is on the earth will perish.’... And Michael took the child on the same night on which he had come down; and he took him on his wings, and he placed him in the paradise of Edom.” Andersen, “2 Enoch,” 1.210.
155 N. Rubin and A. Kosman, “The Clothing of the Primordial Adam as a Symbol of Apocalyptic Time in the Midrashic Sources,” HTR 90 (1997) 155–74 at 163-4.
156 Andersen, “2 Enoch,” 1.138.
157 Martha Himmelfarb observes that “the combination of clothing and anointing suggests that the process by which Enoch becomes an angel is a heavenly version of priestly investiture.” Himmelfarb, Ascent to Heaven, 40. Similarly, Crispin Fletcher-Louis notes that “Enoch’s transformation in 2 Enoch is greatly indebted to priestly practice and its understanding of investiture. The myrrh fragrance of the oil of Enoch’s anointing recalls the sacred oil of anointing prescribed by Moses for the tabernacle in Exodus 30:22-23. The comparison of the oil with sweet dew is perhaps a reflection of Psalm 133:2-3 where there is a parallelism between the oil running down the head of Aaron and the dew of Mount Hermon. The reference to the glittering rays of the sun is yet one more witness to the theme of priestly luminescence. The specific comparison of the oil of anointing with the sun’s rays is ultimately dependent on the priestly tradition within the Pentateuch since there the oil of anointing is placed in God’s fourth speech to Moses in Exodus 25-31 as a parallel within the Tabernacle instructions to the creation of the sun, moon, and stars on the fourth day of creation (Genesis 1:14-19). In general terms, Enoch’s investiture is indebted to the scene in Zechariah 3 where the high priest’s old clothes are removed and replaced with new ones. In that scene too the priest is attended by angels, just as Michael acts as Enoch’s attendant in 2 Enoch (see T. Levi 8). In 2 Enoch 22:6 Enoch is granted permanent access to God’s throne room, just as Joshua is given rights of access to the heavenly realm in Zechariah 3:7. The concluding chapters of 2 Enoch (chs. 69-73) are devoted to the priestly succession after Enoch’s ascension.” Fletcher-Louis, All the Glory of Adam, 23-24.
158 See 3 Enoch 15.
159 Alexander, “3 Enoch,” 1.265.
160 Fossum, “Ascensio, Metamorphosis: The ‘Transfiguration’ of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels,” in: Fossum, The Image of the Invisible God, 83.
161 Burchard, “Joseph and Aseneth,” 2.225.
162 R. Kraemer, When Aseneth Met Joseph: A Late Antique Tale of the Biblical Patriarch and His Egyptian Wife, Reconsidered (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998) 266.
163 Moshe Idel suggested that Enoch’s luminous metamorphosis in 2 Enoch 22 might belong to the tradition which views Enoch as the one who regained Adam’s lost status and radiance. He observed that, to the best of his knowledge, “Enoch is the only living person for whom ... luminous garments, reminiscent of Adam’s lost garments of light, were made.” Idel, “Enoch is Metatron,” 224.
164 For discussions about the luminous “garments” of the protoplast, see D.H. Aaron, “Shedding Light on God’s Body in Rabbinic Midrashim: Reflections on the Theory of a Luminous Adam,” HTR 90 (1997) 299-314; S. Brock, “Clothing Metaphors as a Means of Theological Expression in Syriac Tradition,” in: Typus, Symbol, Allegorie bei den östlichen Vätern und ihren Parallelen im Mittelalter (ed. M. Schmidt; EB, 4; Regensburg: Friedrich Pustet, 1982) 11-40; A.D. DeConick and J. Fossum, “Stripped before God: A New Interpretation of Logion 37 in the Gospel of Thomas,” VC 45 (1991) 123–150 at 141; N.A. Dahl and D. Hellholm, “Garment-Metaphors: The Old and the New Human Being,” in: Antiquity and Humanity: Essays on Ancient Religion and Philosophy: Presented to Hans Dieter Betz on his 70th Birthday (eds. A.Yarbro Collins and M.M. Mitchell; Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 2001) 139-158; A. Goshen-Gottstein, “The Body as Image of God in Rabbinic Literature,” HTR 87 (1994) 171-95; B. Murmelstein, “Adam, ein Beitrag zur Messiaslehre,” WZKM 35 (1928) 242-275 at 255; Rubin and Kosman, “The Clothing of the Primordial Adam as a Symbol of Apocalyptic Time in the Midrashic Sources,” 155-174; J.Z. Smith, “The Garments of Shame,” HR 5 (1965/1966) 217-238.
165 Aaron, “Shedding Light on God’s Body,” 303.
166 See, for example, Ezek 1; Ps 101:1; Job 40:10.
167 Brock, “Clothing Metaphors as a Means of Theological Expression in Syriac Tradition,” 14.
168 The Qumran materials appear to be aware of the motif of the glorious condition of Adam. Thus several texts invoke the tradition of the glory of the protoplast: 1QS 4:15 22-23 reads: “For those God has chosen for an everlasting covenant and to them shall belong all the glory of Adam (Md) dwbk).” 1QH 4:9 15 reads: “giving them as a legacy all the glory of Adam (Md) dwbk).” CD-A 3:20 reads: “Those who remained steadfast in it will acquire eternal life, and all the glory of Adam (Md) dwbk) is for them.” García-Martínes and Tigchelaar, The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition, 78-79; 148-149; 554-555.
169 G. Anderson and M. Stone, A Synopsis of the Books of Adam and Eve. Second Revised Edition (EJL, 17; Atlanta: Scholars, 1999) 58E. Cf. also the Armenian LAE 10:1 “When Eve came forth from the water, her flesh was like withered grass, for her flesh had been changed from the water, but the form of her glory remained brilliant.” Anderson and Stone, A Synopsis of the Books of Adam and Eve, 12E. On the Armenian version of the Primary Adam Books, see also M.E. Stone, The Penitence of Adam (CSCO, 429-30; Louvain: Peeters, 1981); idem, Texts and Concordances of the Armenian Adam Literature (EJL, 12; Atlanta: Scholars, 1996) 70-81.
170 It is noteworthy that the concept of stripping the heavenly “garments” in the process of the character’s demotion is also reaffirmed in the Primary Adam Books in the destiny of Satan.
171 See also the Armenian version of the Primary Adam Books [44] 21:2-5: “Then Adam came to me with his great glory … and I gave him to eat of the fruit, and I made him like me….” Anderson and Stone, A Synopsis of the Books of Adam and Eve, 60E-61E. Later rabbinic traditions also speak about the loss of Adam’s glory after the Fall. Gen. Rab. 12:6 contains the following elaboration: “… the six things … were taken away from Adam, viz. his lustre, his immortality … Adam did not retain his glory for a night … He deprived him of his splendor and expelled him from the Garden of Eden….” Freedman and Simon, Midrash Rabbah, 1.91.
172 Marinus de Jonge and Johannes Tromp noted that in the Greek version of the Primary Adam Books the “promise of the eschatological restoration to glory does not postpone the divine grace to the end of times. Immediately after Adam’s death, the angels and the sun and the moon offer incenses and prayers to God, that he may have mercy on Adam (33:4—36:1). Their efforts succeed, and trumpets announce the favorable outcome of God’s gracious verdict on Adam (37:1-2). A Seraph washes Adam in the Acherusian Lake (37:3), a ritual known from Greek mythology as the post mortem cleansing from guilt of the dead. Then God hands him over to Michael, who is to bring Adam to the third heaven, where he is to remain until the day of visitation (37:4-6).” M. de Jonge and J. Tromp, The Life of Adam and Eve and Related Literature (GAP; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997) 51.
173 A Synopsis of the Books of Adam and Eve, 86E-87E (Armenian version). See also the Georgian version of the Primary Adam Books: “They seized three folded shrouds of [cloth] and God told Michael and Gabriel, ‘Unfold these shrouds and envelop Adam’s body and take the ointment from the olive tree and pour it upon him.’ And three angels dressed him (in it) and when they had dressed Adam’s body (in it) ....” Anderson and Stone, A Synopsis of the Books of Adam and Eve, 87E.
174 In Tg. Ps.-J. on Gen 3:21, the following tradition can be found: “And the Lord God made garments of glory for Adam and for his wife from the skin which the serpent had cast off (to be worn) on the skin of their (garments of) fingernails of which they had been stripped, and he clothed them.” Maher, Targum Pseudo-Jonathan: Genesis, 29. Tg. Neof. on Gen 3:21 reveals a similar tradition: “And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of glory (rqw)d Ny#wbl), for the skin of their flesh, and he clothed them.” McNamara, Targum Neofiti 1: Genesis, 62-63; A. Díez Macho, Neophiti 1: Targum Palestinense MS de la Biblioteca Vaticana (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1968) 1.19. The Frg. Tg. on Gen 3:21 also uses the imagery of the glorious garments: “And He made: And the memra of the Lord God created for Adam and his wife precious garments (rqyd Ny#wbl) [for] the skin of their flesh, and He clothed them.” M.L. Klein, The Fragment-Targums of the Pentateuch According to Their Extant Sources (2 vols; AnBib, 76; Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1980) 1.46; 2.7.
175 Tg. Onq. on Gen 3:21 reads: “And the Lord God made for Adam and his wife garments of honor for the skin of their flesh (Nwhrsb K#m l( rqyd Ny#wbl), and He clothed them.” Grossfeld, The Targum Onqelos to Genesis, 46; The Bible in Aramaic Based on Old Manuscripts and Printed Texts (5 vols.; ed. A. Sperber; Leiden: Brill, 1959) 1.5.
176 Freedman and Simon, Midrash Rabbah, 1.171.
177 Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer (tr. G. Friedlander; New York: Hermon Press, 1965) 98. Other midrashic passages also speak about the luminosity of Adam’s body. Thus, for example, in Leviticus Rabbah 20.2 the following tradition is found: “Resh Lakish, in the name of R. Simeon the son of Menasya, said: The apple of Adam’s heel outshone the globe of the sun; how much more so the brightness of his face!” Freedman and Simon, Midrash Rabbah, 4.252. Ecclesiastes Rabbah 8:1 reads: “R. Levi said: ‘The ball of Adam’s heel outshone the sun … so was it not right that the ball of his heel should outshine the sun, and how much more so the beauty of his face!’” Freedman and Simon, Midrash Rabbah, 8.213-214. A similar tradition is also found in b. Baba Batra 58a.
178 Sperling and Simon, The Zohar, 1.136.
179 Klijn, The Acts of Thomas, 182-185.
180 Ross Kraemer notices the similarities in clothing metaphors found in the Hymn of the Pearl and in Joseph and Aseneth, the texts where the heavenly counterpart traditions loom large. She observes that “the so-called Hymn of the Pearl, within Thomas, also recalls the imagery of Aseneth with its extended emphasis on the royal garment. As Aseneth’s identity is repeatedly symbolized in her garments, from her initial royal but idolatrous clothing, to the mourning garments of her symbolic death, to the new garments that mark her new existence, to the primordial wedding garment that may point to her true identity as the pristine human, so does the Hymn employ the image of the royal garment in the journey of the protagonist (usually assumed by scholars to represent the Soul). As Aseneth first appears clothed in royal garments embroidered in gold and encrusted with gems, so, too, the protagonist first has a “garment set with gems and spangled with gold” (108.9) that his royal parents take from him, as they send him on his appointed journey in search of the pearl in Egypt. Instead, the protagonist clothes himself in ordinary, dirty clothing that he removes as he journeys home, having finally found the pearl. Only then does he see the image of his garment before him in which he recognizes his true self, in a scene reminiscent of Aseneth’s moment of recognition when she looks in the bowl of spring water and sees her transformed self.” Kraemer, When Aseneth Met Joseph, 262. Kraemer further reflects on general similarities between Joseph and Aseneth and the Hymn of the Pearl: “Numerous other elements in the Hymn recall Aseneth, from the general theme of the aristocratic or royal child to the more specific feature of alienation from the parents, followed by reconciliation. As I have noted earlier, this is a particular feature of the longer, but not the shorter, version of Aseneth. In the extended speech in chapter 12, Aseneth proclaims her desolate state as an orphan abandoned by her parents and prays instead to God as Father to protect her. In the end of the longer version, Aseneth is reconciled to her parents, who themselves praise God (20.6-8). Both tales are set in Egypt, although perhaps for differing reasons, and feature a ferocious animal enemy: the savage lion in Aseneth, the devouring serpent in the Hymn. Both Aseneth and the unnamed protagonist of the Hymn are named in the Book of Life.” Kraemer, When Aseneth Met Joseph, 262.
181 G. Luttikhuizen,”The Hymn of Jude Thomas, the Apostle, in the Country of the Indians,” in: Apocryphal Acts of Thomas (ed. J.N. Bremmer; Leiden: Brill, 2001) 113.
182 W. Foerster, Gnosis: A Selection of Gnostic Texts (2 vols.; Oxford: Clarendon, 1972) 2.255; M. Lidzbarski, Ginza, der Schatz oder das große Buch der Mandäer (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1925) 461.
183 Scholem, On the Mystical Shape of the Godhead, 264.
184 Anderson and Stone, A Synopsis of the Books of Adam and Eve, 15-18E.
185 Anderson and Stone, A Synopsis of the Books of Adam and Eve, 18-18E.
186 Andersen, “2 Enoch,” 1.160; G. Macaskill, The Slavonic Texts of 2 Enoch (SJS, 6; Leiden: Brill, 2013) 142. The shorter recension of 2 Enoch 37:1-2 provides a very similar description: “But the Lord called (one) of his senior angels, a terrifying one (grozna), and he made him stand with me. And the appearance of that angel (was) snow, and his hands ice, and he refreshed my face, because I could not endure the terror of the burning of the fire. And it is thus that the Lord spoke to me all his words.” Andersen, “2 Enoch,” 1.161; Macaskill, The Slavonic Texts, 143.