By the Gods!

Enoch and the Watchers: Part Two

(Part One Here)

Even though the Watchers, with their angelic know-how, taught their human charges a great deal–-they showed them how to make weapons, cosmetics, mirrors, and to use sorcery—God couldn’t abide the existence of the Nephilim, fruit of those who’d betrayed his trust and fled from his service. Semyaza, the leader of the Watchers, earned a great deal of God’s wrath by being the principal tutor of humanity in ways that were beyond them at the time, and by inciting the Watchers to rebel in the first place.

God decided that the Watchers and the Nephilim had to be taken care of. With his buddy, Enoch, acting as chief administrator, he organized a worldwide flood, that would end all life on Earth, thus washing clean the perceived stain of the Nephilim with the rest of humanity. This was put into effect in the time of Noah, the great-grandson of Enoch, and from there the familiar deluge story of Genesis would kick in.

It’s a sad story, in a lot of ways. The great crime of the Watchers was caring too deeply for the humans, those they were charged to care for. The book sets the familiar tone of raising the idea of humanity, with all its faults, as the greatest gift that heaven could bestow; even the immortal, ancient, powerful angels envied the lives of humans, and for that envy, their children were washed away, and the Watchers themselves were bound in the valleys of the earth, to wait there until Judgment Day.

Enoch and the Watchers: Part One

Christian/Jewish scripture rarely maintains a consensus, and when it comes to angels, everything’s up in the air. When we talk about the Watchers, we’re delving deep into Christian and Jewish apocrypha— specifically, the Book of Enoch. The writings attributed to Enoch were seen as real scripture by many Christian authorities writing in the first and second centuries CE, and may have been similarly important to Jewish groups about this time. However, the Book of Enoch was removed from canon in the years to come, except for in the Ethiopian Christian Church, where it remained a fundamental part of scripture. 

Now, Enoch was the great-grandfather of Noah, and was elected by God as his all-around favourite guy, and was essentially named “greatest dude on the planet.” He was plucked from the mortal world, and raised to the level of Metatron: in some canon, he is seen as the voice of god, and was “promoted” to angelhood. He was also seen as the inventor of reading and writing, and was in charge of doing all of the big guy’s dirty work on Earth— like dealing with those pesky rebel Watchers.

The Watchers, y’see, were a group of angels who had been charged with watching over humanity. They just watched a little too closely, if you catch my meaning; they became deeply enamoured with the lives of men, and with the lovely wiggle ‘n shake of human women. They gave up their duties, descended down to Earth, and began to procreate with undoubtedly surprised people. The result of this interesting and as yet unseen union were the Nephilim— in the book of Genesis, they were described as “warriors of renown,” which you’d expect from Angelic stock. In the Book of Enoch, however, they were giants that would bring ruin on the world, and were the cause of everything bad. 

Virtues

Continuing with the hierarchy of Angels in Christian mythology, we arrive at the choir of the Virtues. Beneath the First Sphere (containing Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones) is the Second Sphere of Angelic Choirs, functioning as celestial government. While the Dominions (the chiefs of this sphere) act as lords over the lower angels, the Virtues supervise the movements of heavenly bodies themselves, ensuring that the cosmos stays on track and keeps on… cosmosing. They’re credited with the ability to control the elements, and keep the planets and stars on their appointed routes.

Dionysius the Areopagite believed that the Virtues were constantly channeling the divine power and energy of God into the universe itself, and into humankind, giving them a tiny taste of the “source of virtue.”

Virtues, like Thrones, are a strange bunch. It seems that by the virtue of their very existence they keep the universe working the way the Christian God/Yahweh planned it (Note: we link to Yahweh, the original conception of the Hebrew monotheistic God, though the God of the Christians and the New Testament certainly has notable differences in temperament, attitude, worship criteria). Some texts believe that Virtues and Thrones were originally the same divine beings, though later deuterocanonical texts desired nine tidy choirs. 

We don’t know what the Virtues look like, exactly, but there’s a chance that they look like their brothers in the higher sphere, the Thrones, whirling wheels of fire and eyeballs. There’s also the chance that they’re the most formless and metaphysical of all the Angels, existing in the Aether beyond even the sight of their brethren. Some more recent Catholic sources state that each choir takes the form of a beautiful, winged, humanlike creature, (the picture of angels we’re used to) with accessories and gear befitting their choir.

Dominions

And so, after a long delay, we return to the Hierarchy of Angels (the Christian version). Remember, way back in the day, when we discussed the 9 Choirs of Angels, divided into 3 spheres? Well, the first and most powerful/holy sphere of angels contains the Choirs of Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones.

The second sphere functions as heavenly government, and begins with the Dominions, ranked 4th among all the choirs. The Dominions (translated from the Greek term kyriotites) act as lords over the lower choirs of angels, regulating their divine duties. Dominions are said to rarely make themselves physically known to humans, but instead send the Angels, Archangels and Principalities (all from the third and lowest sphere) to do their divine work on Earth. The work of the Dominions, of course, would be the work of God; orders come down from the top, as usual.

Dominions are also the angels that preside over specific nations. This suggests that each Dominion would have his own specific territory to concern himself with. I wonder if they go by current political borders, or strictly biblical… I guess the Pope could probably answer that. 

The Dominions, though rarely seen, look like divinely beautiful humans, glowing with light, bearing a pair of majestic, feathered wings. I know, I know, that just sounds like a particularly nice ‘n clean version of any “angel.” To distinguish themselves, they also carry a sceptre with a shining orb of light fastened to the head, or a jewelled sword with an orb of light on the pommel.

Satan

Buckle up, kids–-we’re in for a big one! Satan, the big baddie, is a character that most people throughout the world are at least marginally familiar with. He wears quite a few different hats, however, and his role has changed a great deal over the 2,300-odd years he’s been around. 

His first appearance was in the book of Job, where he speaks to the god of the Israelites (Yahweh) about the nature of humanity’s faith. He is named as Satan, which means “the Adversary.” All Satan did was ask the big questions: he observed that those mortals who led rich and happy lives had no problem worshipping God, but how would they feel if they had it all taken away? God saw the point, and picked poor Job, a rich farmin’ man, to prove himself correct. He killed Job’s family, took all of his money, land, and cattle, and covered him with boils. Through it all, Job continued to worship, and God got to whip out the satisfying “told you so!” to Satan. 

Satan, you see, was just another divine dude up in heaven with God. Ipso facto, he was an angel. After the Job story, the Hebrews began to see ol’ Satan as an evil force, and eventually the source of all evil. This suggests the influence of Persian thinking: a battle between good and evil, going forever. After all, the Israelites came from Persia before the whole Egypt/Exodus debacle, and it only makes sense that some mythological and cultural diffusion can be seen there. They created a hierarchy of demons for him to control, to oppose God and his angelic hierarchy, and eventually he had his own origin story put together: the tale, as far as ancient Jewish lore is concerned, had Satan rebelling against God and was hurled by an angel (probably Michael, if you’re curious) into the abyss. 

Now, the Christians really ran with the Satan-stuff. “The Devil” can be traced back to the Latin diabolus, which is the source of “diabolical,” and became synonymous with Satan back in the day. In the Apocryphal book of John the Evangelist, Jesus describes Satan’s transformation into an handsome fellow with a tail and cloven hoofs. After that, more and more of the world’s wicked side became attributed to Satan.

Dante Alighieri’s The Inferno (a part of his Divine Comedy) had Satan at the innermost ring of hell as a great three-faced beast, half-frozen in ice, eternally devouring Judas Iscariot, Brutus and Cassius (Dante was a 14-th century Italian, and not a fan of the whole Julius Caesar-murder-thing). Note: no fire and brimstone. Milton, who expanded on the rebellion motif, put together Paradise Lost in the 17th century, which told the tale of Satan (aka Lucifer) and his rebellion in heaven. In the poem Satan sets himself up as the defeated rebels’ leader, and founds hell on the platform of  poisoning God’s favourite thing: mankind. “Lucifer” translates to the title “Morning Star” or “Light-bearer,” which was how Satan was known before he was cast out of heaven. Back then, he was a powerful angel, according to Christian lore, and was either a Cherubim or Power in the Angelic Hierarchy.