Adamic Polemics in 2 Enoch and the Enoch-Metatron Titles “Youth,” “Prince of the World,” “Redeemer of the World,” and “Measurer of the Lord”

The Function of the Adamic Tradition in 2 Enoch

Adam’s story occupies a prominent place in 2 Enoch. Traditions pertaining to the first human can be found in all the sections of the book.¹ In these materials Adam is depicted as a glorious angelic being, predestined by God to be the ruler of the earth, but falling short of God’s expectations. Although a major bulk of Adamic materials belongs to the longer recension, which includes, for example, the lengthy Adamic narrative in Chapters 30–32, Adamic tradition is not confined solely to this recension. A number of important Adamic passages are also attested in the shorter recension. The extensive presence of Adamic materials in both recensions and their significance for the theology of the Slavonic apocalypse indicate that they are not later interpolations but are part of the original layer of the text.

Such an extensive presence of Adamic materials in a Second Temple Enochic text is quite unusual. In the early Enochic circle, included in the composition known as 1 Enoch, Adam does not figure prominently. His presence in these materials is marginal and limited to a few insignificant remarks. Besides these few short references to the first humans, the early Enochic booklets are silent about the traditions associated with the protoplast.² Moreover, Adam’s image in 1 Enoch is quite different from the one attested in the Slavonic apocalypse. 1 Enoch’s materials do not give any specific details about the elevated status of the protoplast. For example, the Animal Apocalypse 85:3 depicts Adam as a white bull. Although white is a positive symbol in the imagery of An. Ap.,³ scholars note that, in general, this allegory does not indicate goodness or elevation, but rather lineage.⁴ Thus, in An. Ap. all the sheep are white, even the blinded ones. The white color, therefore, does not serve as a sign of the elevated or angelic status of the protoplast. Sethites, for instance, are also depicted as white bulls. If the authors or editors of An. Ap. want to stress the angelic status of a character, they usually depict its transformation from an animal into a human. Thus, in the Ethiopic and Aramaic versions of An. Ap. 89:36, Moses is portrayed as the one who was transformed from a sheep into a man during his encounter with God on Mount Sinai. Moses’ “humanization” points to his transition to angelic status. The same process can be found in the Ethiopic version of An. Ap. 89:9 where Noah’s angelic metamorphosis is symbolically depicted as a transformation from a white bovid into a man.⁵ Such humanization, however, is never applied to Adam in An. Ap.

The modest role which Adam plays in the early Enochic circle can be explained by several factors. Scholars previously observed that Enochic and Adamic traditions often offer contending explanations of the origin of evil in the world.⁶ The Enochic tradition bases its understanding of the origin of evil on the Watchers story, where the fallen angels corrupt human beings by passing on to them various celestial secrets. In contrast, the Adamic tradition traces the source of evil to Satan’s disobedience and the transgression of Adam and Eve in Eden.

From the point of view of this long-lasting competition between Adamic and Enochic traditions, it might appear that the sudden occurrence of a large bulk of Adamic materials in 2 Enoch represents alien accretions skillfully interpolated into the original narrative during its long transmission in the Greek and Slavonic milieux. A closer examination of the text, however, shows that the presence of Adamic tradition in the Slavonic apocalypse is not secondary or fortuitous but has a profound conceptual value for the whole theological framework of the Slavonic apocalypse. It appears that the purpose of the extensive presence of Adamic materials in 2 Enoch can be explained through the assessment of Enoch’s image in the text.

It has been previously noted that Enoch’s figure, portrayed in the various sections of 2 Enoch, is more complex than in the early Enochic tractates of 1 Enoch. For the first time, the Enochic tradition seeks to depict Enoch not simply as a human taken to heaven and transformed into an angel but as a celestial being exalted above the angelic world. In this attempt, one may find the origins of another image of Enoch, quite different from the early Enochic literature, which was developed much later in Merkabah mysticism – the concept of the supreme angel Metatron, “the Prince of the Presence.” It is, therefore, possible that this new profile of the elevated Enoch in the Slavonic apocalypse can serve as an important clue to unriddling the mysteries of the extensive Adamic presence in 2 Enoch.

In 1987 Moshe Idel published an article in which he explored the role of the Adamic traditions in shaping the image of Enoch as the supreme angel Metatron.⁷ Although Idel’s research dealt mainly with later rabbinic materials, it demonstrated that already in some pseudepigraphic accounts, Enoch appears to be portrayed as a luminous counterpart of Adam who regained Adam’s glory⁸ lost during the protoplast’s transgression.⁹

Idel further suggested that Enoch’s luminous metamorphosis attested in 2 Enoch 22 might also belong to the same tradition which views Enoch as the one who regained Adam’s lost status and luminosity. He observed that, to the best of his knowledge, “Enoch is the only¹⁰ living person for whom … luminous garments, reminiscent of Adam’s lost garments of light, were made.”¹¹

Philip Alexander, in his recent research, provides new insight into Idel’s argument about the formative value of the Adamic tradition for the image of the elevated Enoch. Alexander points to a number of rabbinic passages in which the supernatural radiance of Adam’s heavenly soul, which departed from him when he sinned, later returned to be reincarnated in Enoch.¹² He further observes that

behind these passages is a concept of Metatron as a divine entity first incarnate in Adam and then reincarnate in Enoch. Enoch, having perfected himself, in contrast to Adam, who sinned and fell, re-ascends to his heavenly home and takes his rightful place in the heights of the universe, above the highest angels…. Enoch thus becomes a redeemer figure – a second Adam through whom humanity is restored.¹³

It appears that the suggestions of scholars about the connection between Enoch and Adam are valid and deserve further investigation. It seems that the traces of the concept of Enoch as a second Adam can be detected already in 2 Enoch, where Enoch assumes the glorious status of the protoplast. It is also significant that in the Slavonic apocalypse the luminosity is not the only quality that Enoch inherited from Adam. In this text, Enoch acquired a host of roles and qualities which the Adamic narrative of the Slavonic apocalypse associates with the protoplast. In the course of these polemical appropriations, the elevated angelic status of the prelapsarian Adam, his luminosity, his wisdom, and his special roles as the king of the earth and the steward of all earthly creatures are transferred to the new occupant of the celestial realm. This new occupant is the patriarch Enoch, who, near the Lord’s throne, is transformed into one of the glorious ones initiated into the highest mysteries by the Lord, becomes the “manager of the arrangements on the earth,” and writes down “everything that nourished” on it.

Further analysis will demonstrate that the traditions about the prelapsarian conditions of Adam provide an initial background for these appropriations. The features of Adam’s story, his roles and offices, are used in 2 Enoch as building blocks for creating the new, celestial identity of the elevated Enoch.¹⁴

This investigation must now turn to the text of the Slavonic Enoch in order to explore in detail these polemical developments.

King of the Earth

2 Enoch 30:12 describes Adam as the king of the earth.¹⁵ This honorable role in 2 Enoch, as in the Genesis account, represents not merely an impressive metaphor but presupposes specific duties which demonstrate Adam’s royal status. Most of these activities have biblical roots.¹⁶ From 2 Enoch 58:3, one learns that the Lord appointed Adam over

everything [as king], and he subjected everything to him in subservience under his hand, both the dumb and the deaf, to be commanded and for submission and for every servitude. So also to every human being. The Lord created mankind to be the lord of all his possessions.¹⁷

This description of Adam’s duties corresponds to the account found in Gen 1:26–30, where God gives Adam dominion over “everything that has the breath of life.”

As in Gen 2:19–20, one of the important functions of the new appointed king is the registration of all the possessions, i.e., all the living creatures of the earth given to his stewardship, through the act of their naming. 2 Enoch 58 states that

the Lord came down onto the earth [on account of Adam]. And he inspected all his creatures which he himself had created in the beginning of the thousand ages and when after all those he had created Adam. And the Lord summoned all the animals of the earth and all reptiles of the earth and all the birds that fly in the air, and he brought them all before the face of our father Adam, so that he might pronounce names for all the quadrupeds; and [Adam] named everything that lives on the earth.¹⁸

Assigning names here, just as in the Genesis account, also designates Adam’s dominion over “everything that lives on the earth.” This dominion, however, as in the biblical account, is supervised by the Lord. The whole picture indicates that the author of 2 Enoch understands Adam’s kingship as the management of God’s property.¹⁹ It is significant that the Slavonic apocalypse defines Adams’ role as “the lord of all God’s possessions.”²⁰

In the Slavonic apocalypse, however, the governing role of Adam as the lord of all God’s possessions is challenged by the account of Enoch’s kingship and his role as “the manager of the arrangements on the earth.” This new role of Enoch vividly recalls the former royal status of the protoplast. The first hint about Enoch’s role as the governing power on earth comes from Chapter 39 where Enoch relates to his children the details of his encounter with the divine anthropomorphic extent, identified in the text as the Lord’s Face. Enoch’s description provides a series of analogies in which the earthly Enoch compares his face and parts of his body with the attributes of the Lord’s face and body. At the end of his description, Enoch delivers the following conclusion:

Frightening and dangerous it is to stand before the face of an earthly king, terrifying and very dangerous it is, because the will of the king is death and the will of the king is life. How much more terrifying [and dangerous] it is stand before the face of the King of earthly kings and of the heavenly armies.…Who can endure that endless misery?²¹

In light of the overall logic of the patriarch’s speech, in which the attributes of the Lord have been compared with Enoch’s attributes, it becomes clear that the earthly king of the story is Enoch himself. This interpretation is confirmed by the manuscripts of the shorter recension which directly identify Enoch as the earthly king: “And now my children, listen to the discourses of an earthly king. It is dangerous and perilous to stand before the face of an earthly king, ²² terrifying [and very perilous] it is.…”²³

The designation of Enoch as a royal/governing power on earth is not confined solely to the passage found in Chapter 39. 2 Enoch 46:1–2 (longer recension) also recounts the tradition about Enoch as the earthly king. There again Enoch refers to his royal status indirectly in the third person.²⁴

The significant feature of Enoch’s designation as the earthly king in the Slavonic apocalypse is that this text understands Enoch not as one of the earthly kings, but as the king of the earth who, in a manner similar to the protoplast, supervises all arrangements on the earth. This exclusive role is hinted at 2 Enoch 64, which depicts the patriarch’s address to the princes of the people as they prostrate themselves before him. This role is also intimated in Chapter 43 of the shorter recension and in a similar passage from 2 Enoch found in the Slavonic collection “The Just Balance” (Slav. “Merilo Pravednoe”), where Enoch is described as the manager of the earth:

And behold my children, I am the manager of the arrangements on earth,²⁵ I wrote (them) down. and the whole year I combined and the hours of the day. And the hours I measured; and I wrote down every seed on earth. And I compared every measure and the just balance I measured. And I wrote (them) down, just as the Lord commanded.²⁶

It should be noted that the definition of Enoch as the king is a unique motif²⁷ in early Enochic materials. In 1 Enoch, Jubilees, and the Book of Giants, the patriarch is often described as an intercessor, a visionary, a scribe, an expert in secrets, but never directly as a king.²⁸ It therefore becomes apparent that the royal/governing functions of Enoch are construed in the Slavonic apocalypse in the context of its polemical response to the Adamic tradition; these functions serve as a counterpart to the royal status of the protoplast.²⁹ It is not coincidental that in this situation some duties of Adam in his office of the king of the earth are also transferred to the new occupant of this office, the seventh antediluvian patriarch. In Chapters 39 and 43, Enoch’s introductions as the king and the manager of the earth are followed with lengthy accounts of Enoch’s activities involving measuring everything on earth. Right after Enoch is defined as the earthly king in 2 Enoch 39, the patriarch tells his children:

And everything that is nourished on the earth I have investigated and written down, and every seed, sown and not sown, which grows from the earth, and all the garden plants, and all the grasses, and all the flowers, and their delightful fragrances and their names…. I measured all the earth, and its mountains and hills and fields and woods and stones and rivers, and everything that exists….³⁰

It appears that the functions of Enoch in his role as the king/manager of the earth include, as with the role of Adam, the duty of registering the created order. Like Adam, who named everything that lives on the earth, Enoch in his turn writes down “every seed on the earth.”

It is important that Enoch’s stewardship over the created order, akin to Adam’s duties, also includes the obligation to protect and care for the animals. In 2 Enoch 58–59, the protoplast’s responsibilities pertaining to the animals are transferred to the seventh antediluvian patriarch and his descendants. It is noteworthy that both accounts, the story of Adam’s naming of animals and Enoch’s instructions to his children about the protection of animals, are located in the same chapter of the Slavonic apocalypse. 2 Enoch 58 depicts the Lord summoning all creatures of the earth and bringing them before Adam so that the first human might name them. This story then continues with Enoch’s instructions to his children about the special care for animals, whose souls will testify against human beings at the great judgment if they treat them unjustly. This account, which substitutes one steward of God’s earthly creatures for another, fits perfectly into the pattern of the Adamic polemics found in the Slavonic apocalypse.

Angelic Veneration

It is difficult to overestimate the value for this discussion of an article published by Michael Stone in 1993.³¹ Stone’s study reveals that the argument with the Adamic tradition in the Slavonic apocalypse includes not only the internal debates based on 2 Enoch’s depictions of the protoplast but also the intertextual polemics with the Adamic traditions attested in the primary Adam books.³² The fact that these Adamic traditions are already re-written in the Slavonic apocalypse, as the deeds and functions of the protoplast are transferred to Enoch without any reference to their original proprietor, serves as strong evidence of the scope of the polemical intentions of 2 Enoch’s authors.

Stone’s article investigates an important motif preserved in Chapters 21–22 of the Slavonic apocalypse. The story depicts angels bringing Enoch to the edge of the seventh heaven. By the Lord’s command, archangel Gabriel invites the patriarch to stand in front of the Lord forever. Enoch agrees and Gabriel takes him to the Face of the Lord where the patriarch does obeisance to God. God then personally repeats the invitation to Enoch to stand before him forever. After this invitation, archangel Michael brings the patriarch to the front of the face of the Lord. The Lord then tells his angels, sounding them out: “Let Enoch join in and stand in front of my face forever!” In response to this address, the Lord’s glorious ones do obeisance to Enoch saying, “Let Enoch yield in accordance with your word, O Lord!”³³ After that the patriarch’s earthly garments were removed by archangel Michael, he was anointed with shining oil, and became like one of the glorious ones.³⁴

Stone observes that the story found in 2 Enoch 21–22 recalls the account of Adam’s elevation and his veneration by angels found in Armenian, Georgian, and Latin versions of the Life of Adam and Eve.³⁵ These versions depict God’s creation of Adam in his image. Archangel Michael brought the first human and had him bow down before God’s face. God then commanded all the angels to bow down to Adam. All the angels agreed to venerate the protoplast except Satan (and his angels); the latter refused to bow down before Adam because the first human was younger than (“posterior to”) Satan.

Stone notes that, along with the motifs of Adam’s elevation and his veneration by angels, the author of 2 Enoch appears also to be aware of the motif of angelic disobedience and refusal to venerate the first human. Stone draws the reader’s attention to the phrase “sounding them out,” found in 2 Enoch 22:6, which another translator of the Slavonic text rendered as “making a trial of them.”³⁶ Stone notes that the expression “sounding them out” or “making a trial of them” imply here that it is the angels’ obedience that is being tested.³⁷

Comparing the similarities between Adamic and Enochic accounts, Stone observes that the order of events in 2 Enoch exactly duplicates the order found in the primary Adam books since both sources know three chief events:³⁸

I. LAE: Adam is created and placed in heaven.

2 Enoch: Enoch is brought to heaven.

II. LAE: Archangel Michael brings Adam before God’s face. Adam does obeisance to God.

2 Enoch: Archangel Michael brings Enoch before the Lord’s Face. Enoch does obeisance to the Lord.

III. LAE: God commands the angels to bow down. Some of the angels do obeisance. Satan and his angels disobey.

2 Enoch: “The rebellion in the Adam events is assumed. God tests whether this time the angels will obey. The angels are said to bow down and accept God’s command.”³⁹

Stone concludes that the author of 2 Enoch 21–22 was cognizant of the traditions resembling⁴⁰ those found in Armenian, Georgian, and Latin versions of the Life of Adam and Eve.⁴¹ He emphasizes that these traditions did not enter 2 Enoch from the Slavonic Life of Adam and Eve, because this form of tradition does not occur in the Slavonic recension of the primary Adam book.⁴²

It appears that the Adamic tradition from Chapter 22 is not an interpolation, but belongs to the original core of the Slavonic apocalypse. Two significant features found in 2 Enoch seem to indicate that the tradition of angelic veneration is interwoven into the original fabric of the text. The first is evidenced in Chapter 7 of the Slavonic apocalypse. 2 Enoch 7:3 depicts Enoch carried by angels to the second heaven. There the patriarch sees the condemned angels kept as prisoners awaiting the measureless judgment. Enoch’s angelic guides explain to him that the prisoners are “those who turned away from the Lord, who did not obey the Lord’s commandments, but of their own will plotted together and turned away with their prince and with those who are under restraint in the fifth heaven.”⁴³ The story further continues with angelic veneration: the condemned angels bow down to Enoch asking for his intercession: “Man of God, pray for us to the Lord!”⁴⁴

It is possible that this passage about the group of the condemned angels is an allusion to the motif of angelic veneration found in 2 Enoch 22 and in the primary Adam books.

Three details of the story from 2 Enoch 7 seem to support this interpretation:

a. In 2 Enoch 7, similarly to the Adamic accounts, the sin of the imprisoned angels is disobedience to the Lord’s commandments.

b. The agents of the rebellion are a group of angels with “their prince.” This recalls the information found in the Adamic accounts where not only Satan, but also other angels under him, refuse to venerate Adam. The longer recension of 2 Enoch 18:3 directly identifies the prisoners of the second heaven as the angels of Satanail.⁴⁵

c. The imprisoned angels bow down before man (Enoch). An additional important detail here is that the patriarch is addressed by the fallen angels as a “man” – “a man of God.”

This act of angelic bowing before Enoch in the second heaven might anticipate the later angelic obeisance that the patriarch received in Chapter 22 of the Slavonic apocalypse.⁴⁶

The second bit of evidence demonstrating that the theme of angelic bowing from Chapter 22 is deeply embedded in the original theological framework of the Enochic writing is its connection with the Enochic title “Youth” or “Lad” found in some Slavonic MSS of 2 Enoch.

Youth

We have already seen that the authors of 2 Enoch are responsible for creating the new roles and titles of Enoch which are absent in the early Enochic treatises of 1 (Ethiopic) Enoch but can be found in the later Merkabah mysticism. One such title is “Youth,” which becomes one of the favorite designations of Metatron in the Merkabah literature. Before proceeding to the analysis of the title “Youth” in the Slavonic text and its connection with the Adamic tradition, a short excursus into the later rabbinic materials is necessary.

Recently Gary Anderson has demonstrated that the Adamic story of angelic veneration and opposition to humanity⁴⁷ played a prominent role in rabbinic literature.⁴⁸ In his article Anderson draws attention to the account found in Synopse §§5–6 (3 Enoch 4), where the Adamic motif of angelic veneration, in a manner similar to 2 Enoch 22, was applied to Enoch-Metatron. Synopse §§5–6 depicts Rabbi Ishmael questioning his celestial guide Metatron about his name “Youth.” The passage reads:

R. Ishmael said: I said to Metatron: “… You are greater than all the princes, more exalted than all the angels, more beloved than all the ministers … why, then, do they call you ‘Youth’ in the heavenly heights?” He answered, “Because I am Enoch, the son of Jared … the Holy One, blessed be he, appointed me in the height as a prince and a ruler among the ministering angels. Then three of the ministering angels, ,,, 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!’⁴⁹ … And 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 mere youth among them in days and months and years – therefore they call me ‘Youth’.”⁵⁰

Commenting on this passage, Anderson suggests that if “we remove those layers of the tradition that are clearly secondary … we are left with a story that is almost identical to the analog⁵¹ we have traced in the Adam and Eve literature and II Enoch.”⁵² He further notes that the acclamation of Enoch as the “Youth” in Sefer Hekhalot is pertinent since the reason 3 Enoch supplies for this title is deceptively simple and straightforward: “Because I am young in their company and a mere youth among them in days and months and years – therefore they call me ‘Youth.’“ Anderson proposes that the title might have Adamic origins since the explanation for the epithet “Youth” recalls the reason for the angelic refusal to worship Adam in the Vita on the basis of his inferiority to them by way of his age.⁵³

Anderson’s hypothesis that the origin of the title “Youth” is connected with the appropriation of the Adamic tradition is crucial to the current investigation. It has been noted that in some manuscripts of the Slavonic Enoch, the seventh antediluvian patriarch is also often addressed as the “Youth.”⁵⁴ Although this designation occurs only in some Slavonic manuscripts, the author of the recent English translation, Francis Andersen, considered this reading as the original.⁵⁵ He was also the first scholar to propose that Enoch’s designation as the “Youth” in 2 Enoch recalls the identical title of Metatron attested in 3 Enoch and other Hekhaloth writings.⁵⁶ In his commentary to the English translation of 2 Enoch in OTP, Andersen wrote:

The remarkable reading yunoše [youth], clearly legible in A, supports the evidence of V, which has this variant four times (not here), and of other MSS, that there was a tradition in which Enoch was addressed in this way. The similarity to the vocative enoše [Enoch] might explain the variant as purely scribal slip. But it is surprising that it is only in address, never in description, that the term is used. The variant jenokhu is rare. There is no phonetic reason why the first vowel should change to ju; junokhu is never found. But it cannot be a coincidence that this title is identical with that of Enoch (=Metatron) in 3 Enoch.⁵⁷

It is notable that several important occurrences of the title “Youth” in 2 Enoch come from the mouth of angels. Thus in Chapter 9 of the shorter recension, an angelic being accompanying Enoch on his way through the heavenly realm addresses him as “Youth:” “This place has been prepared, Youth, for the righteous….”⁵⁸ Later in Chapter 10, one can hear the same address again: “This place, Youth, has been prepared for those who practice godless uncleanness on the earth….”⁵⁹ These angelic addresses are consistent with the Adamic and Merkabah accounts in which angelic beings point to Adam/Enoch’s young age.

According to the Merkabah tradition, God also prefers to address Enoch-Metatron as “Youth.” In Synopse §§4, when R. Ishmael asks Metatron “What is your name?” Metatron answers, “I have seventy names, corresponding to the seventy nations of the world … however, my King calls me ‘Youth’.”⁶⁰ The designation of Enoch as “Youth” seems to signify here the special relationship between the Holy One and Metatron. One can see the beginning of this tradition already in 2 Enoch where in Chapter 24 of the shorter recension the following tradition can be found:

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, 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….”⁶¹

It is significant that the title “Youth” here is tied to the motif of human superiority over angels, which plays a prominent role in the primary Adam books where God orders his angels to bow down before humanity.

Finally, one must note that several important readings attesting the use of “Youth” in the materials associated with the Slavonic Enoch can be found in the Vienna Codex. In this manuscript Enoch is addressed by the Lord as the “Youth”⁶² in the context of angelic veneration:

And the Lord with his own mouth called me [Enoch] and said: Be brave, Youth!⁶³ Do not be frightened! Stand up in front of my face forever. And Michael, the Lord’s archistratig, brought me in the 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!”⁶⁴

In conclusion, it should be noticed that my analysis has revealed that several important readings pertaining to Adamic polemics can be found in the manuscripts of the shorter recension. It does not follow, however, that these readings are secondary and not original. The rehabilitation of the longer recension, as well as the reaffirmation of its value in recent scholarship, should not lead to the automatic rejection of everything in the shorter recension as unauthentic and secondary. The mere subscription to one of the recensions deceptively oversimplifies the problem of delineating the original text.⁶⁵ The task is more complicated and necessarily involves a careful investigation of the theological intentions of the authors and editors of the text. Almost three decades ago Francis Andersen warned students of 2 Enoch against jumping to simplistic and hasty conclusions. He noted that “all of the materials calls for reassessment…. In the present state of our knowledge, the genuineness of any disputed passage is difficult to judge.”⁶⁶ His prudent advice remains valuable today.

The Hunger Motif

The previous analysis demonstrated that the authors of the Slavonic apocalypse were cognizant of the motifs and themes similar to those found in the primary Adam books. One of the prominent Adamic motifs absent in the biblical account but presented in the later extrabiblical traditions is the theme of Adam and Eve’s hunger after their eviction from Eden to earth.⁶⁷ The primary Adam books begin their stories by depicting the expulsion of the first humans from the Garden. The narrative continues with the description of the hunger the first humans experienced as they found themselves on earth. It seems that the cause of their hunger was not the absence of food on earth, but the dining habits of the first humans, who were accustomed to the celestial nourishment during their stay in Paradise. It is, therefore, significant that the Armenian, Georgian, and Latin versions of the primary Adam books emphasize the difference between the two foods: the angelic food which Adam and Eve ate in paradise and the food that lies before them on the earth.⁶⁸

In 2 Enoch the story of the first humans’ hunger takes a new polemical form. The second part of 2 Enoch depicts the patriarch who, just like Adam and Eve, was transported from heaven to earth. This time, however, the transition is pleasant: Enoch is not punitively expelled from heaven, like Adam, but sent by God on a short trip to instruct his children. From 2 Enoch 56:2 one can learn that during Enoch’s instructions, Methuselah asks his father for a blessing, so that he may prepare some food for him to eat. The patriarch answers his son in the following manner:

Listen, child! Since the time when the Lord anointed me with the ointment of his glory, food has not come into me, and earthly pleasure my soul does not remember; nor do I desire anything earthly (2 Enoch 56:2 the longer recension).

In the shorter recension of 2 Enoch, the patriarch’s rejection of food is even more decisive: “Listen my child! Since the time when the Lord anointed me with ointment of my glory, it has been horrible for me, and food is not agreeable to me, and I have no desire for earthly food.”⁶⁹ The important detail that connects this Enochic account to the account found in the Armenian, Georgian, and Latin primary Adam books is their common emphasis on the fact that it is the earthly food that is unsuitable for those who just came from the celestial realm. The account found in these versions of the primary Adam books also stresses this fact. They inform us that Adam and Eve “did not find food like the food by which they had been nourished in the Garden.” Eve’s discourse found in 4:2 again emphasizes this difference between earthly and celestial food, referring to earthly food as nourishment for the beasts.⁷⁰

These similarities suggest that the tradition found in 2 Enoch 56:2 might represent a part of the polemics with the Adamic traditions in the Slavonic apocalypse. Here Enoch is depicted as superior to Adam and Eve, who must accept earthly food as the sign of the Fall and their permanent transition to the lower realm. It should also be noted that it is unlikely that this tradition entered 2 Enoch from the Slavonic Life of Adam and Eve, since the Slavonic Vita does not attest to the traditions about earthly and celestial food.

The Motif of the Divine Face

The previous investigation of the motif of angelic veneration showed that one of the concentrated elaborations of Adamic polemics in 2 Enoch is found in Chapter 22, which depicts the climax of Enoch’s celestial trip and his luminous metamorphosis near the Throne of Glory. The partiarch’s transition to the new, celestial identity found in this part of the text is therefore convenient for appropriating the Adamic tradition about the luminous condition of the protoplast.

The motif of the divine Face is important for linking Enoch’s glorious condition with the former luminosity of Adam. Enoch’s luminous metamorphosis takes place in front of the Lord’s glorious extent, labeled in 2 Enoch 22 and 39 as the Lord’s “Face.”⁷¹ From 2 Enoch 22 one learns that the vision of the divine Face had dramatic consequences for Enoch’s appearance. His body endured radical changes as it became covered with the divine light. This encounter transformed Enoch into a glorious angelic being. The text says that after this procedure Enoch became like one of the glorious ones, and there was no observable difference.⁷² This phrase describes Enoch’s transition to his new celestial identity as “one of the glorious ones.” During this transition in front of the Lord’s face, Enoch’s own face became radically altered, and the patriarch acquired a new glorious visage which reflected the luminosity⁷³ of the Lord’s Panim.⁷⁴ The important link that connects this new condition of Enoch with the condition of the glorious Adam is the theme of the new creation after the Lord’s Face. It has been shown that the Face in 2 Enoch 22 represented the cause and the prototype after which the new celestial identity of Enoch was formed. The new creation after the Face signifies here the return to the prelapsarian condition of Adam, who was also modeled after the Face of God. Support for this view can be found in 2 Enoch 44:1, where one learns that the protoplast was also created after the Face of God. The text says that “the Lord with his own two hands created mankind; in a facsimile of his own face, both small and great, the Lord created [them].”⁷⁵ It is intriguing that 2 Enoch departs here from the canonical reading attested in Gen 1:26–27 where Adam was created not after the face of God, but after His image (tselem). Francis Andersen observes that 2 Enoch’s “idea is remarkable from any point of view…. This is not the original meaning of tselem…. The text uses podobie lica [in the likeness of the face], not obrazu or videnije, the usual terms for ‘image.’”⁷⁶

It is clear, however, that this reading did not arise in the Slavonic environment, but belonged to the original argument of 2 Enoch, where the creation of the luminous protoplast after the Face of the Lord corresponds to a similar angelic creation of the seventh antediluvian patriarch.⁷⁷ There is almost no doubt that, in view of the information about Adam’s glorious angelic nature attested in 2 Enoch 30:11, the author of the Slavonic apocalypse tries to connect the theme of Adam’s creation with the motif of the glorious Face of the Lord.

Oil from the Tree of Life

Another Adamic motif in the story of Enoch’s transformation is the luminous oil, which causes the patriarch’s glorious metamorphosis. 2 Enoch 22:9 portrays archangel Michael extracting Enoch from his 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.”⁷⁸ The anointing with the oil causes the patriarch’s transformation from the garments of skin to the luminous garment of an immortal angelic being, one of the glorious ones. It appears that that the oil used in Enoch’s anointing comes from the Tree of Life, which in 2 Enoch 8:3–4 is depicted with a similar symbolism. 2 Enoch 8:3–4 reports that “… the tree [of life] is indescribable for pleasantness and fine fragrance, and more beautiful than any (other) created thing that exists. And from every direction it has an appearance which is gold-looking and crimson, and with the form of fire.”⁷⁹ The shorter recension also refers to a second, olive tree near the first one “flowing with oil continually.”⁸⁰

It should be noted that Enoch’s oil anointing is a unique motif in the Enochic tradition. Enoch’s approach to the throne in the Book of the Watchers and his transformation into the son of man in the Book of the Similitudes do not involve anointing with or any usage of oil. Later Enochic traditions are also silent about oil. For example, the account of Metatron’s transformation in 3 Enoch does not mention any anointing with oil.

Yet, while unknown in the Enochic literature, the motif of anointing with the oil from the Tree of Life looms large in the Adamic tradition. Chapter 35(9) of the primary Adam books contains the story of Adam’s sickness. The patriarch finds himself in great distress and pain. Trying to find a cure, Adam sends Eve and Seth to paradise to fetch the oil of the Tree of Life that will relieve his illness. Their mission, however, is unsuccessful. Archangel Michael refuses to give the oil to Eve and Seth, telling them that the oil will be used “when the years of the end are filled completely” for those who will “be worthy of entering the Garden.”⁸¹

There are several corresponding characteristics that can be detected in the Adamic and Enochic accounts:

1. The purpose of the anointing is similar in both traditions. Its function is the “resurrection of Adam’s body” e.g., the reversal of the earthly fallen condition into the incorruptible luminous state of the protoplast.⁸² It is not coincidental that in 2 Enoch 22 oil anointing transforms Enoch into a luminous angelic being. As has been already noted, it recalls the description of the protoplast in 2 Enoch 30:11 as a glorious angelic being.

2. The subject of the anointing is also identical. In 2 Enoch and in the primary Adam books, the oil is used (or will be used) for transforming the righteous ones in their transition to the angelic state in the celestial realm. In the primary Adam books, the oil is prepared for those who will “be worthy of entering the Garden.”⁸³ Michael Stone observes that 2 Enoch also “knows an anointing with the heavenly perfumed oil that brings about a transformation of the righteous.”⁸⁴

The same situation is attested in 3 Baruch, where the reward of the righteous is oil. Harry Gaylord notes that this theme in 3 Baruch has a connection with the Adamic tradition. He observes that “by his disobedience Adam lost ‘the glory of God’ (4:16[G]), which may have been comparable to that of angels (cf. 13:4[S]). The reward of the righteous is oil, possibly the sign of the glory of God, which the angel-guide promises to show Baruch several times in this text (6:12; 7:2; 11:2; 16:3[S]). It is hardly accidental that there are traditions that Adam sought to receive the ‘oil of mercy’ at the point of death, and that Enoch was transformed by the ‘oil of his glory’….”⁸⁵

3. It is important that in 2 Enoch and in the primary Adam books, the person in charge of the oil is the archangel Michael.⁸⁶ In 2 Enoch 22 he anoints Enoch with shining oil, causing his luminous metamorphosis. In 3 Baruch 15:1 Michael brings oil to the righteous.⁸⁷ In the primary Adam books, he also seems to be in charge of the oil, since it is he who refuses to give Seth the oil that would heal Adam.

4. It is noteworthy that 2 Enoch and the primary Adam accounts refer to the flowing of the oil. Thus, the Georgian LAE 36(9):4 relates that “(God) will send his angel to the Garden where the Tree of Life is, from which the oil flows out, so that he may give you a little of that oil.”⁸⁸ 2 Enoch 8:5 seems to attest to the same tradition: “and another tree is near it, an olive, flowing with oil continually.” Michael Stone notes that “it is striking that 2 Enoch highlights the flowing of the oil, just like the Adam books.”⁸⁹

These similarities show that the motif of the oil from the Tree of Life in 2 Enoch might have Adamic provenance. It is unlikely that this tradition is a later interpolation. Attested in both recensions, it plays a pivotal role in the scene of Enoch’s luminous metamorphosis.

“The One Who Carried Away the Sin of Humankind”

It has been mentioned earlier that in later Jewish mysticism Metatron was viewed as a divine being first incarnated in Adam and then in Enoch, who re-ascended to the protoplast’s heavenly home and took his rightful place in the heights of the universe. Philip Alexander observes that “Enoch thus becomes a redeemer figure – a second Adam through whom humanity is restored.”⁹⁰ It appears that this theological motif of Enoch’s redeeming role is already developed in 2 Enoch.

In Chapter 64 of the longer recension of the Slavonic apocalypse, an “astounding encomium” can be found which, in the view of one of 2 Enoch’s translators, “could hardly please a Christian or a Jew.”⁹¹ The chapter depicts a prostration of the elders of the people and all the community before Enoch at the place of his second departure to heaven. The people who came to bow down before the patriarch delivered to Enoch the following address:

O our father,⁹² Enoch! May you be blessed by the Lord, the eternal king! And now, bless your [sons], and all the people, so that we may be glorified in front of your face today. For you will be glorified in front of the face [of the Lord for eternity], because you are the one whom the Lord chose in preference to all the people upon the earth; and he appointed you to be the one who makes a written record of all his creation, visible and invisible, and the one who carried away the sin of mankind (2 Enoch 64:4–5).⁹³

An important detail in this address is Enoch’s designation as “the one who carried away the sin of humankind.” This depiction of the patriarch as a redeemer is startling. But what kind of sin was Enoch able to carry away?

In his recent study Christfried Böttrich argues that the description of Enoch as the one who carried away the sin of humankind reflects not the reality but only the expectation of the elders of the people. He stresses that 2 Enoch absolutely rejects the idea of intercession before God,⁹⁴ pointing to the passage in Chapter 53 where the patriarch warns his children that he will not be able to help them on the day of judgment, since no one can help relieve another person’s sin.⁹⁵

Unfortunately, Böttrich’s observations, based on a faulty methodology, miss the gist of the argument in Chapter 64. Oblivious to the Adamic polemics in the text, he fails to notice a detail crucial to interpretation: in 2 Enoch 64 the elders of the earth define Enoch not as the one who will carry away the sin of humankind, but as the one who already has carried away this sin.⁹⁶ The emphasis on the already accomplished redemptive act provides an important clue to understanding the kind of sin Enoch was able to erase. The focus here is not on the individual sins of Enoch’s descendents, but on the primeval sin of humankind.⁹⁷ Therefore, it becomes apparent that the redeeming functions of the patriarch are not related to his possible intercession for the sins of his children, the fallen angels or the elders of the earth, as Böttrich suggested. Rather they pertain to the sin of the protoplast which the patriarch was able to carry away by his righteousness, ascension, and transformation. Accordingly, Enoch has already accomplished his role as the redeemer of humanity through his luminous metamorphosis near the throne of glory.⁹⁸ Humanity has been redeemed in him, and this redemption gives hope to other righteous ones, who will later attain the paradisal condition. The significant detail that confirms Enoch’s unique redeeming role is that, unlike in Chapter 53 where he opposes the idea of intercession, in 2 Enoch 64–65 he does not object to the idea of being able to carry away the sin of humanity.

Enoch’s response to the people’s address, which occupies the following Chapter 65, provides additional support for interpreting the sin Enoch was able to carry away as related to the transgression of the protoplast. The patriarch starts his response by paraphrasing the account of Adam’s creation, telling that the Lord “constituted man in his own form, in accordance with a similarity.”⁹⁹ He further relates that the Lord gave the protoplast “eyes to see, and ears to hear, and heart to think, and reason to argue.”¹⁰⁰ Some elements of this part of the paraphrase allude to the details of the protoplast’s marvelous creation found in 2 Enoch 30:9, namely to some of the properties (seeing, hearing, reasoning) given to Adam at his creation.

Enoch concludes his reply to the people with the theme of the restoration of humanity to its prelapsarian paradisal condition, further indicating that the whole account revolves around the patriarch’s role in the removal of Adam’s sin. It is logical, therefore, that this message of hope comes from the patriarch’s mouth whose humanity has already been restored to the paradisal condition. In 2 Enoch 65:8–10 Enoch tells the people that at the end all the righteous who escaped from the Lord’s great judgment “will be collected together into the great age …. And they will have a great light, a great indestructible light, and paradise, great and incorruptible. For everything corruptible will pass away, and the incorruptible will come into being, and will be the shelter of the eternal residences.”¹⁰¹

Enoch-Metatron’s Role as the “Measurer of the Lord” and the Shiur Qomah Tradition in 2 Enoch

In one of his books Gershom Scholem remarks on the origins of the terminology associated with the Shiur Qomah materials.¹⁰² These materials depict visionaries, Rabbi Ishmael and Rabbi Akiba, receiving from the supreme angel Metatron revelations of the “measurement of the body” (in Hebrew, Shiur Qomah), an anthropomorphic description of the Deity together with the mystical names of its gigantic limbs.¹⁰³ Although the majority of evidence of the Shiur Qomah tradition is found in late Jewish writings, Scholem argues¹⁰⁴ that the beginning of Shiur Qomah speculations can be dated not later than the second century C.E.¹⁰⁵ Scholem appeals to a passage in 2 Enoch which in his opinion represents the earliest witness to the Shiur Qomah terminology. The passage is situated in 2 Enoch 39, in which Enoch tells his children about the vision of the Lord, whom he encountered during his celestial tour. Enoch describes the appearance of the Lord as a terrifying extent analogous to the human form:

And now, my children it is not from my lips that I am reporting to you today, but from the lips of the Lord who has sent me to you. As for you, you hear my words, out of my lips, a human being created equal to yourselves; but I, I have heard the words from the fiery lips of the Lord. For the lips of the Lord are a furnace of fire, and his words are the fiery flames which come out. You, my children, you see my face, a human being created just like yourselves; I, 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, I have seen the right hand of the Lord, beckoning me, who fills heaven. You, you see the extent of my body, the same as your own; but I have seen the extent of the Lord,¹⁰⁶ without measure and without analogy, who has no end.” (2 Enoch 39:3-6, shorter recension).¹⁰⁷

In his commentary on the text, Scholem draws the reader’s attention to the expression “the extent of my stature.” He notes that earlier Abraham Kahana, in his Hebrew translation of 2 Enoch,¹⁰⁸ rendered this expression as shiur qomati.¹⁰⁹ Scholem further suggests that despite the late date of the known rabbinic Shiur Qomah materials, the Shiur Qomah terminology might be already evident in the account drawn from 2 Enoch 39, where Enoch describes God’s gigantic limbs.

Scholem’s suggestions are valuable and deserve serious attention, since several additional features in the aforementioned account of 2 Enoch also seem to suggest the imagery found in the Shiur Qomah tradition.¹¹⁰ In the Slavonic apocalypse, Enoch describes to his children the gigantic hand of the Lord which fills the heaven. This description recalls the imagery of the Shiur Qomah accounts in which Enoch-Metatron transmits to Rabbi Ishmael and Rabbi Akiba knowledge about the gigantic limbs of the Deity, which fill the heaven. A series of analogies between Enoch’s body and Lord’s body in 2 Enoch 39:3–6 appear also pertinent because the later Merkabah accounts often portray Enoch-Metatron as possessing the gigantic body himself. Moreover, some of these accounts seem to depict Metatron as the measure of the divine Body.

Scholem’s comments about the significance of 2 Enoch 39 for the history of early Jewish mysticism are important. His analysis, however, is incomplete since it focuses only on the Shiur Qomah passage found in Chapter 39. It does not explore the broader context of the passage, especially its relation to other descriptions of Enoch in the Slavonic apocalypse that seem to recall the depictions of Metatron in the Shiur Qomah materials. Moreover, it appears that the traditions about the divine body are not limited in this text to the figure of Enoch and include another important character of the text, namely, the patriarch Adam. The portrayal of the prelapsarian Adam found in the longer recension of 2 Enoch reveals facinating similarities to the later Shiur Qomah descriptions. Keeping in mind these important features of the Slavonic apocalypse, this section will investigate the roles of Adam and Enoch in the broader context of the Shiur Qomah account found in 2 Enoch.

The Corporeality of the Protoplast

The later Jewish materials associated with the Merkabah tradition often depict Enoch-Metatron as one who possesses a corporeal structure of cosmic dimensions. One such testimony can be found, for example, in Synopse §12 which describes the transformation of the patriarch Enoch into the supreme angel Metatron. According to this text, during this celestial metamorphosis Enoch-Metatron “was enlarged and increased in size till [he] matched the world in length and breadth.”¹¹¹

The materials associated with the Shiur Qomah tradition¹¹² also describe Enoch-Metatron in similar terms, affirming that “the stature of this youth fills the world¹¹³ (Mlw(h )lm wtmwq hzh r(nhw).”¹¹⁴

Despite the prominent role that the traditions about the cosmic body of Enoch-Metatron occupy in the later Merkabah accounts, the early Enochic materials of the Second Temple period are silent about the great dimensions of the body of the elevated patriarch. Enochic traditions attested in 1 Enoch, Jubilees, Genesis Apocryphon and the Book of Giants do not provide any hints about Enoch’s gigantic body.

In contrast to this silence about Enoch’s corporeality, several early Jewish sources attest to the lore about the enormous body of another biblical character, the patriarch Adam, which the protoplast possessed before his transgression in Eden. Thus, Philo in QG 1.32 mentions a tradition according to which the first humans received at their creation bodies of vast size reaching a gigantic height: “… [the first humans] … were provided with a very great body and the magnitude of a giant….”¹¹⁵ A similar testimony can be found in the Apocalypse of Abraham, a Jewish text written around the first century C.E. The Apocalypse of Abraham 23:4–6 relates the description of the terrifying bodies of the first humans: “And I looked at the picture, and my eyes ran to the side of the garden of Eden. And I saw there a man very great in height and terrible in breadth, incomparable in aspect, entwined with a woman who was also equal to the man in aspect and size. And they were standing under the tree of Eden….”¹¹⁶

Moreover, in some pseudepigraphic accounts the body of the protoplast is portrayed, not simply as gigantic, but even as comparable with the dimensions of the divine corporeality. Thus, in several pseudepigraphic materials the depictions of Adam’s stature are often linked to the imagery of the enthroned divine anthropomorphic extent known from the priestly and Ezekelian sources as God’s Kavod. ¹¹⁷ One such association might be hinted at in 2 Enoch 30; here the Kavod imagery seems to have been applied to Adam’s prelapsarian condition. In this text the protoplast is labeled as “the second angel” to whom the Lord assigned four special stars. Jarl Fossum suggests that, in view of the imagery attested in other Enochic texts where stars often designate angels, the allotment to Adam of the four special stars might allude to the fact that Adam, like God, also has his own “Princes of the Presence” – the four angels whose function is to serve near the Throne of Glory.¹¹⁸ This angelic imagery signals that 2 Enoch’s authors might understand Adam as an enthroned entity resembling the Lord’s glorious anthropomorphic extent, His Kavod.¹¹⁹

The Testament of Abraham 11:4 (Recension A) also attests to a similar tradition when it offers a depiction of the first-formed Adam seated on the throne at the entrance to paradise at the end of time: “And outside the two gates of that place, they saw a man seated on the golden throne. And the appearance of that man was terrifying, like the Master’s.”¹²⁰ Here again Adam is depicted as a resemblance of the Lord’s Kavod, the divine form manifested on the Seat of Glory.¹²¹

It has been already noted that in Georgian, Armenian and Latin versions of the primary Adam books,¹²² the protoplast is depicted as a being venerated by angelic hosts.¹²³ The tradition about the angelic veneration of the protoplast might also point to associations with the Kavod tradition in which one of the essential functions of angelic hosts in the celestial realm is veneration of the enthroned divine Glory.

Heterodox movements in early Christianity that are closely associated with Sethian and Adamic traditions also contain several important testimonies about Adam’s body pertaining to the subject of this investigation.¹²⁴ Some of these accounts recall the imagery found in the later Merkabah accounts. Thus, the Apocryphon of John relates a tradition according to which the seven powers were responsible for the creation of the seven souls of Adam.¹²⁵ The text relates that the seven powers provided for the angels the seven substances of the soul in order to create the proportions of the limbs of Adam.¹²⁶ In the Apocryphon each of the limbs of the first man corresponds to the name of the angel responsible for its creation.¹²⁷ The detailed attention to the limbs of the first man and their naming according to angelic connotations seem to recall the later Shiur Qomah materials with their tendency to name the various parts of the cosmic body and for providing detailed depictions of its limbs.¹²⁸

All these early testimonies demonstrate that long before the traditions about the gigantic physique of Enoch-Metatron took their distinctive mold in the Merkabah tradition, a similar imagery was already applied in the Jewish pseudepigrapha and the Christian apocrypha to Adam’s prelapsarian corporeality. As already mentioned, earlier scholars proposed that the Adamic imagery played a formative role in the shaping of the Metatron tradition. It is also possible that the concept of the cosmic body of the protoplast played a formative role in constructing the later Metatron’s office as the measurer of the divine body. The beginning of this significant development might be detected already in 2 Enoch.

In order to support this hypothesis, this investigation will proceed in the following manner. First, I will explore in detail the tradition of Adam’s body in the Slavonic apocalypse. Then, I will focus on the theme of Enoch’s corporeality in the text. Finally, I will try to establish the relationship between both traditions in their connections with the motif of the Lord’s Shiur Qomah found in Chapter 39.

From the Four Corners of the World

According to 2 Enoch 30:12, the prelapsarian Adam was a very special celestial being. The Slavonic apocalypse defines him as a second angel who was great (Slav. ) and glorious. The Slavonic terminology used for the term “great” () appears to be related to the physical dimensions of the protoplast.¹²⁹ 2 Enoch 30:10 provides additional proof that the greatness might designate Adam’s proportions. In this passage the Lord says that “even at his [Adam’s] greatest () he is small, and again at his smallest he is great.”¹³⁰ The conjunction of the term “great” with the term “small” further supports the hypothesis that the epithet “greatness” in the text is applied to the dimensions of the first human.

Besides these general references to the greatness of Adam, the text also provides other hints about the dimensions of the patriarch’s body. It appears that the most important evidence about the unusual frame of the protoplast in the Slavonic apocalypse is conveyed via the traditions about the creation and the naming of the protoplast.

In 2 Enoch 30:13 the Lord tells Enoch that he created Adam out of the seven components and assigned to Adam a name from the four components: from East – (A), from West – (D), from North – (A), and from South – (M).¹³¹ The correspondence of the anagram of Adam’s name with the four corners of the earth might indicate that the dimensions of his body are considered identical to those of the earth. The Slavonic text, however, does not make this connection explicitly. Moreover, the question remains whether this passage about the anagram is really linked to the traditions about Adam’s body. The analysis of the early evidence of the anagram motif shows that this theme was often connected with the theme of Adam’s bodily form. In order to illustrate this point, a short excursus in the history of this tradition is needed.

One of the early Jewish texts where a similar tradition¹³² about the anagram can be found is the third book of Sibylline Oracles, a composition apparently written in Egypt around 160–50 B.C.E.¹³³ It is intriguing that already in the Sibylline Oracles 3:24–27¹³⁴ the anagram is linked to the motif of Adam’s bodily form:

Indeed it is God himself who fashioned Adam, of four letters, the first-formed man, fulfilling by his name east (a)natolh) and west (du&sij) and south (meshmbri&a) and north (a1rktoj). He himself fixed the shape of the form of men (au)to_j d ) e)sth&rice tu&pon morfh=j mero&pwn).¹³⁵

The expression tu&pon morfh=j (“shape of the form”) seems to be related to the body of the protoplast. The conflation of the anagram of Adam’s name with the shape of his form is significant for the investigation.¹³⁶

Another Egyptian source,¹³⁷ a passage found in the writings of the Hermetic author, the alchemist Zosimos of Panopolis, who lived in Alexandria in the late third or early fourth century C.E.,¹³⁸ also connects the anagram tradition with Adam’s body: “they have also spoken of him [Adam] symbolically, according to his body, through the four elements … for his ‘alpha’ element indicates the east, the air, while his ‘delta’ element indicates the west, and the ‘mu’ element [indicates] midday .…”¹³⁹

It should be noted that the Sibylline Oracles 3 and the Zosimos passage, the two early attestations which link the anagram of Adam’s name with his body, are both associated with the Egyptian milieu. A passage from Philo mentioned earlier indicates that by the first century C.E. the lore about the gigantic physique of the first humans appeared to be widespread in the Alexandrian environment. 2 Enoch, which also contains a host of traditions pertaining to the protoplast’s body, was also composed at the same time and place, namely, in the Alexandrian Diaspora of the first century C.E.

The tradition in which the anagram of Adam’s name was associated with his body was not lost in the melting pot of the Alexandrian environment but was carefully transmitted by later Jewish traditions. The same tendency to link the name of Adam derived from the Greek designations of the four corners of the world with his body is observable in the rabbinic materials. The difference between the early accounts found in the Sibylline Oracles and Zosimos of Panopolis and these rabbinic materials is that the latter explicitly identify the anagram, not simply with Adam’s body, but with his cosmic body, which according to the rabbinic accounts was created “from one end of the universe to the other.” This tradition is attested in a great variety of the rabbinic sources.

For example, the passage from Gen. R. 8:1 reads:

R. Tanhuma in the name of R. Banayah and R. Berekiah in the name of R. Leazar said: He created him [Adam] as a lifeless mass extending from one end of the world to the other; thus it is written, Thine eyes did not see mine unformed substance (Ps. CXXXIX, 16). R. Joshua b. R. Nehemiah and R. Judah b. R. Simon in R. Leasar’s name said: He created him filling the whole world. How do we know [that he stretched] from east to west? Because it is said, ‘Thou hast formed me behind … and before….’ From north to south? Because it says, Since the day that God created man upon the earth, and from the one end of heaven unto the other (Deut. IV, 32). And how do we know that he filled the empty spaces of the world? From the verse, ‘And laid Thy hand upon me’ (as you read, Withdraw Thy hand from me (Job XIII, 21)).¹⁴⁰

This passage indicates that the speculations about the cosmic body of the protoplast in the rabbinic literature were juxtaposed with the tradition about the correspondence of Adam’s name with the four corners of the earth. It is remarkable that the passage from Gen. R. 8:1 has the exact same sequence of the corners as 2 Enoch, namely “from east (A) to west (D)” and from “north (A) to south (M),” which precisely corresponds to the sequence of the letters of Adam’s name. The presence of the anagram in the midrashic text points to its ancient Hellenistic origin, since the anagram does not carry any meaning in Hebrew, but only in Greek.

This tradition about the correspondence of Adam’s cosmic body with the four corners of the world and the four letters of his name was widespread in rabbinic literature and was repeated multiple times in Gen. R. 21:3,¹⁴¹ Gen. R. 24:2,¹⁴² Lev. R. 14:1,¹⁴³ and Lev. R. 18:2.¹⁴⁴ It is significant that all these passages have the same order of the corners of the world: from east to west and from north to south.

A similar tradition can be also found in the Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer and the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, where the motif of Adam’s gigantic body created from the four corners of the world is conflated with the story of the veneration of the protoplast by the creatures who mistakenly perceived him as a deity.¹⁴⁵ Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer 11 reads:

He [God] began to collect the dust of the first man from the four corners of the world…. He [Adam] stood on his feet and was adorned with the divine Image. His height was from east to west, as it is said, “Thou hast beset me behind and before.” “Behind” refers to the west, “before” refers to the east. All the creatures saw him and became afraid of him, thinking that he was their Creator, and they came to prostrate themselves before him.¹⁴⁶

In the Chronicles of Jerahmeel 6–12, the same tradition is repeated in a virtually identical form:

God then called Gabriel, and said unto him: “Go and bring Me dust from the four corners of the earth, and I will create man out of it”…. He [Adam] stood upon his feet, and was in the likeness of God; his height extended from the east to the west, as it is said, “Behind and in front Thou hast formed me.” Behind, that is the west, and in front, that is the east. All creatures saw him and were afraid of him; they thought he was their creator, and prostrated themselves before him.¹⁴⁷

The testimonies from Midrash Rabbah, Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer and the Chronicles of Jerahmeel demonstrate that in the Jewish materials the anagram tradition was consistently interpreted as a reference to the cosmic body of the protoplast, created from one end of the universe to the other. In light of this tendency, it is possible that the tradition about the anagram found in 2 Enoch 30 also represents a reference to the cosmic body of the protoplast. This suggestion is made more plausible when one considers that the anagram tradition in 2 Enoch 30:13 follows immediately after the definition of the protoplast as a great celestial creature.¹⁴⁸

The Measure of the Divine Body

As has been already mentioned in the introduction to this section, 2 Enoch 39 depicts the Lord’s body as a huge extent “without measure and without analogy.” While the text unambiguously states that the Lord’s extent transcends any analogy, the account of Enoch’s vision of the Lord seems in itself to represent a set of analogies in which the descriptions of the patriarch’s face and the parts of his body are compared with the descriptions of the divine face and the parts of the Lord’s body. Several details in this narrative are important for establishing the connection between 2 Enoch’s account and the later Jewish traditions about the divine body.

1. It is significant that, through the analogical descriptions introduced in Chapter 39 for the first time in the Enochic tradition, a significant bond was established between the immense body of the Lord and Enoch’s body; this bond will later play a prominent role in Merkabah mysticism. In 2 Enoch, as with later Merkabah developments, the proximity between the two bodies appears to be also reinforced by additional metaphors, demonstrating the closest proximity between the corporeality of the Deity and the Enoch-Metatron corporeality.¹⁴⁹ From the Merkabah materials one can learn that “the hand of God rests on the head of the youth, named Metatron.”¹⁵⁰ In 2 Enoch 39:5 the patriarch uses a similar metaphor when he tells his children that he has seen the right hand of the Lord helping (beckoning) him.¹⁵¹ This tradition appears also in the Exagoge of Ezekiel the Tragedian where, in the course of Moses’ transformation into the celestial anthropomorphic extent, the visionary is beckoned by the right hand of the “noble man.”¹⁵² Here the embrace by the Deity’s hand signifies the creation of the new celestial identity of the righteous, now similar with the luminous condition of the protoplast. The Slavonic apocalypse insists that the protoplast was created by hands of the Deity. 2 Enoch 44:1 says that “the Lord with his own two hands created mankind, in the facsimile of his own face both small and great, the Lord created them.”¹⁵³ Here, as in the account of the creation of Enoch’s new celestial body, the hand(s) of the Deity and his luminous countenance are mentioned.

2. In the Merkabah materials the divine corporeality is labeled as the Stature/Measure of the Body¹⁵⁴ (hmwq rw(y#). The same terminology is often applied to Enoch-Metatron’s body. According to one of the Merkabah texts, “the stature (wtmwq) of this youth fills the world.”¹⁵⁵ The link between the body of the patriarch and the divine body in the Slavonic apocalypse is also emphasized by identical terminology. It comes as no surprise therefore that in 2 Enoch the Shiur Qomah terminology is applied not only to the body of the Lord (the stature¹⁵⁶ of the Lord), but also to the body of the patriarch (stature of my [Enoch’s] body).

3. In 2 Enoch 39, Enoch’s body seems to serve as the measure and the analogy through which the patriarch conveys to his children the immeasurability of the Lord’s stature. In 2 Enoch 39:6 the term “without measure”¹⁵⁷ (Slavonic bezmernoe) is used immediately after the expression “the stature¹⁵⁸ of the Lord.”¹⁵⁹ This combination of the concepts of “stature” and “measure” further strengthens Scholem’s hypothesis that 2 Enoch 39 might attest to the precise Shiur Qomah terminology, since the term rw(y# can be translated as a measure.¹⁶⁰

4. It is also important that the message about the impossibility of measuring¹⁶¹ the Lord’s body comes from the mouth of Enoch, depicted in various sections of 2 Enoch as a measurer responsible for measuring various earthly and celestial phenomena.¹⁶² It demonstrates a remarkable parallel to the later role of Metatron as the one who conveys to visionaries the measure/the stature of the Body. In the Shiur Qomah section of the Merkabah Rabbah, the following tradition is attested: “I said to him, to the Prince of Torah,¹⁶³ teach me the measure of our Creator, and he said to me the measure of our Creator, and he said to me the measure of the body.” (Synopse §688).¹⁶⁴ In later Jewish mysticism Enoch-Metatron himself is described as the measure of the divine body.¹⁶⁵

The analysis of the description of the Lord’s corporeality in Chapter 39 indicates that several features of this account manifest remarkable similarities to the concepts and imagery of the divine body found in the later Hekhalot and Merkabah writings. The development detectable in the Slavonic apocalypse, however, seems to represent a very early form of this tradition, which contains a vague sketch of what will take its definitive form in Jewish mysticism much later.

Bodily Ascent

It has been previously mentioned that Enoch’s image in 2 Enoch appears to be quite different from his portrait in the early Enochic circle. Among the new features that constitute this new, enhanced profile of the seventh antedeluvian patriarch, a significant concept can be found that seems related to the present discussion about the cosmic body traditions in the Slavonic apocalypse. This important concept appears in the first chapter of 2 Enoch, which portrays the beginning of Enoch’s celestial ascent.

In 2 Enoch 1:3 the patriarch is sleeping on his bed. According to the text Enoch sees a strange dream in which two huge angelic beings, with faces like the shining sun, approach the patriarch’s bed and call him by his name. The text says that after the patriarch was awakened by the angels, he went out from his house, closing the door behind him as the angels had ordered. Philip Alexander draws the reader’s attention to an important detail in this description; he observes that 2 Enoch “attests with a boldness and clarity nowhere matched in 1 Enoch that Enoch ascended bodily to heaven….”¹⁶⁶ He also notes that this emphasis on the bodily ascent in the awakened condition represents a departure from the early Enochic materials attested in 1 Enoch, where the patriarch’s ascension to heaven seems to be depicted as in a dream during sleep.¹⁶⁷ Alexander further observes that this unequivocal claim that a human could bodily enter the upper realm was profoundly problematic within the worldview of early Judaism.¹⁶⁸

Later Merkabah Enochic accounts, as does 2 Enoch’s account, insist on the bodily ascension of the patriarch. As Alexander observes, 3 Enoch “clearly envisages bodily ascent and so postulates the physical metamorphosis of Enoch” during which Enoch “becomes, like other angels, physically composed of fire.”¹⁶⁹ Alexander also points to another consequence of this metamorphosis, namely, the enlargement of Metatron’s body until it equals the dimensions of the world.¹⁷⁰

This connection between the bodily ascent of the visionary and the transformation of his body in 2 Enoch and the Sefer Hekhalot is not coincidental, since in the Slavonic apocalypse, for the first time in the Enochic tradition as shown earlier, the body of the patriarch becomes a locus of intense theological deliberation. As has been already demonstrated in the Shiur Qomah passage from 2 Enoch 39, the patriarch’s body was explicitly compared with the divine body and linked with it by identical technical terminology. The insistence on the bodily ascent of the patriarch in 2 Enoch seems also to constitute an important step in the forming of this new perspective on Enoch’s physique, the development that reached its formative stage in the later Merkabah speculations about Metatron’s body matching the size of the world.

Adam and Enoch: “Two Powers” in Heaven

Previous studies proposed that the traditions about the cosmic body of Metatron in later Jewish mysticism might have originated as a result of polemics with the traditions about the cosmic body of the protoplast. Thus, Philip Alexander, in his comment on the motif of Enoch-Metatron enlargement in Synopse §12 (3 Enoch 9), refers to certain rabbinic traditions¹⁷¹ about “the primordial Adam’s body, like that of the Gnostic protoanthropos, [which] corresponded to the world in size, but was diminished to the present limited dimensions of the human body as a result of the fall.”¹⁷² He further suggests that 3 Enoch’s account about the gigantic body of Enoch-Metatron “may be expressing in mythological language the idea that Enoch reversed the fall of Adam.”¹⁷³

Moshe Idel’s research also reveals that “Jewish mystical literature indicates … a certain similarity between the enlarged states of Adam and Enoch.”¹⁷⁴ He notes that “the end of the gigantic Adam is well-known: he was severely reduced in his human dimensions. Enoch, on the other hand, merited undergoing the reverse process” described in 3 Enoch as the patriarch’s elevation and elongation to the point of becoming the measure of the length and breath of the world.¹⁷⁵ Idel notes that in some rabbinic materials the conception of the elevated Enoch, depicted as the supreme angel Metatron, contains remnants of the Adamic traditions.¹⁷⁶ In these materials Enoch is conceived as the one who regained the cosmic status and the extraordinary qualities that the primordial Adam had lost after his transgression in the Garden of Eden, namely, his luminosity and size.¹⁷⁷

Moreover, in some rabbinic accounts Metatron is often directly described as a counterpart of Adam predestined to substitute for the fallen patriarch even before his actual transgression.¹⁷⁸ Idel points to the development of this theme in 3 Enoch.¹⁷⁹ Synopse §72 reads:

The Holy One, blessed be he, said: I made him strong, I took him, I appointed him, namely Metatron my servant, 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….¹⁸⁰

According to this passage God elected Metatron already in the generation of the first man. Metatron was thus viewed as a preexistent divine being, first incarnated in Adam and then in Enoch, who re-ascended to the protoplast’s heavenly home and took his rightful place in the heights of the universe.

Idel also observes that in Jewish mystical literature another significant parallelism in the depictions of the corporalities of Adam and Enoch can be detected. He points out that in both cases “their immense size caused an error of faith, namely other creatures were induced to believe that two powers governed the universe, not God alone.”¹⁸¹ It has already been noted that several rabbinic and Hekhalot sources, including b. . 15a, Sefer Hekhalot (Synopse §20), and Merkavah Rabbah (Synopse §672) attest to a tradition according to which the terrifying vision of Metatron, seated on a great throne at the door of the seventh palace, caused  to believe that Metatron represents the second power in heaven.

Despite the prominent role that Enoch-Metatron plays in the “two powers” controversy, the initial background of this theme about the erroneous veneration of the exalted humanity appears to originate not in the Enochic, but in the Adamic tradition.¹⁸² Jarl Fossum’s research demonstrates that the motif of the misplaced adoration of Adam by the angels appears in several forms in the rabbinic literature.¹⁸³ Thus, from Gen. R. 8:10 one can learn that when God created man in his own image “the ministering angels mistook him [for a divine being] and wished to exclaim ‘Holy’ before Him…. What did the Holy One, blessed be He, do? He caused sleep to fall upon him, and so all knew that he was [only a mortal] man.”¹⁸⁴ In the Alphabet of Rabbi Akiba the angels’ erroneous behavior is explained through reference to Adam’s gigantic body:¹⁸⁵

This teaches that initially Adam was created from the earth to the firmament. When the ministering angels saw him, they were shocked and excited by him. At that time they all stood before the Holy One, blessed be He, and said to Him; “Master of the Universe! There are two powers in the world, one in heaven and one on earth.” What did the Holy One, blessed be He, do then? He placed His hand on him, and decreased him,¹⁸⁶ setting him at one thousand cubits.¹⁸⁷

It is clear that these Adamic accounts do not originate in rabbinic literature under the influence of Metatron’s story but in early pseudepigraphic writings. Scholars observe¹⁸⁸ that these accounts have their roots in the prominent story already found in the primary Adam books and other early materials, according to which God himself ordered the angels to venerate Adam, and all the angels except Satan bowed before the first human.¹⁸⁹

The prototype of the story of the misplaced veneration of Enoch-Metatron can also be traced to this early Adamic lore. It is possible that the transition from the Adamic “two powers” template to its Enoch-Metatron version occurred not in the rabbinic period but much earlier, that is already within Second Temple Judaism. Michael Stone has demonstrated that in 2 Enoch 22 the Adamic tradition of the protoplast’s veneration by the angels was skillfully transferred to the seventh antediluvian patriarch.¹⁹⁰ It is not coincidental that the transference of the “two powers” tradition from Adam to Enoch was made for the first time in the Slavonic apocalypse, where the protoplast and the seventh antediluvian patriarch were interconnected via the conception of the cosmic body.

Two Bodies Created according to the Likeness of a Third One

The previous analysis has shown that in various Jewish texts the traditions about the corporalities of Adam and Enoch often appear to be linked and share similar imagery. The investigation has also demonstrated that this connection can be detected already in 2 Enoch. A critical question, however, still remains: how can these traditions about the bodies of the two patriarchs be related to the Shiur Qomah account of the divine Face found in Chapter 39.

It appears that the depiction of the divine anthropomorphic extent, labeled in 2 Enoch as the Lord’s Face, serves as an important locus that unifies the Adamic tradition of the cosmic body of the protoplast and the Enochic tradition about the glorious angelic body of the translated patriarch. The patriarch’s creation in the likeness of the Lord’s Face represents an important link that connects the new angelic body of Enoch with the body of the glorious Adam. It has been demonstrated that the Face in 2 Enoch 22 represented the cause and the prototype after which the new celestial body of Enoch was created. It also has been shown that according to 2 Enoch 44:1 the prelapsarian Adam was also created in a facsimile of the Lord’s own Face.¹⁹¹

This parallel reveals that the bodies of the two characters of the Slavonic apocalypse, the prelapsarian corporeality of the protoplast and the body of his luminous counterpart, the patriarch Enoch, are both fashioned in the likeness of a third body, namely, the extent of the Lord, also known as the luminous Face. Thus, in 2 Enoch the interconnection of all three corporealities, the glorious body of the protoplast, the glorious body of the elevated Enoch, and the luminous divine body, is made via the account of the divine Face where, according to Gershom Scholem, the precise Shiur Qomah terminology might have already been made evident.

Conclusion

1. Concluding this section of the study dedicated to the Adamic polemics in 2 Enoch, I must note that these polemical developments bear witness not only to the internal debates reflected in 2 Enoch’s depictions of the protoplast, but also to intertextual polemics with the external Adamic traditions attested in the primary Adam books.

2. The analysis also shows that Adamic polemics involve a rewriting of original Adamic motifs and themes when the details of Adam’s story are transferred to a new hero, the seventh antediluvian patriarch Enoch.

3. The analysis indicates that, as with the early booklets of 1 Enoch, the attitude of the author(s) of 2 Enoch to Adam’s figure and the traditions associated with his name remains highly polemical. Yet, in comparison with 1 Enoch, the Slavonic Enoch demonstrates a paradigm shift in polemical strategy. Here the competitive tradition is not silenced but is rather exposed and openly appropriated in polemical development. This switch might be connected with the challenge that the intense development of the traditions about the exalted patriarchs and prophets posed to the classical profile of Enoch found in early Enochic booklets. Adamic polemics found in 2 Enoch represent the reaction of the Enochic tradition to these new conceptual developments. It should be noted that traditions about the elevated Adam appear to have been widespread in the Alexandrian environment of the first century C.E., the possible place and time of the composition of 2 Enoch.

4. The investigation of Adamic polemics proves that early Jewish mystical developments connected with roles and titles of Enoch in the Slavonic apocalypse (the motif of the divine Face in Chapters 22 and 39, the future prominent roles of Enoch-Metatron as the governing power on the earth, and his title “Youth”) belong to the primary text, since they play a decisive role in the original argument of 2 Enoch.¹⁹²