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Here we find right off a new and different Enoch. We now enter the Pythagorean period of the Essenes and they would remain such until their destruction by Rome. This portion of Enoch is a highly developed apocalypse, composed after the Essenes had adopted Pythagorean religious beliefs and had fused them into a complex amalgamation of Essenic theology. Here we find the desire for riches and power condemned as the proof of unrighteousness, and in which sainthood appears as union with God and His Son, evidenced by the love by mankind and the renunciation of all things worldly.
The holy and righteous are those who have separated themselves from the world, and the possessions of wealth has become the badge of damnation: those who acquire lands and money must burn in the everlasting fires of hell. The apostates consisted of the Hellenizers, the Sadducees, and the later Hasmoneans.
Enoch, chapters 91-105 and the fragment known as The Book of Noah are dated by most scholars about 100-90 B.C.E; and, although they differ both in theology and eschatology from the earlier Enochian literature; especially in a most drastic departure in social attitude and theory. The ferocity which the Essenes once vented upon the Watchers, the Hellenizers, and the Jewish apostates, is now reserved, with hundredfold intensity, for the rich, successful, and powerful people of the world. Since saintliness is now impossible without egalitarian poverty, the possession of any kind of personal wealth, or even the employment of labor, has became the badge of damnation. These portions of Enoch burn with fierce hatred toward those who have acquired wealth and oppress the poor; the author is persuaded that private possessions can be obtained only through social crime.
"Woe to those who build their houses with sin....And those who acquire gold and silver…Woe to you, ye rich, for ye have trusted in your riches, And from your riches shall ye depart.... And your creator will rejoice in your destruction...." But…"Be hopeful, ye righteous, for suddenly shall the sinners perish before you. And ye shall have lordship over them according to your desires" (Ibid., xciv).
The theme is repeated over and over:
"Woe to you who devour the finest of the wheat, And drink wine in large bowls, And tread under foot the lowly in your might" (Ibid., xcvi)
Luke 16:19-31, which tells the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus, as well as 12:16-21, which tells of the Rich Fool whose soul was required by God, are restatements of the following:
"Woe to you who acquire silver and gold . . . and say:…'We have become rich with riches and have possessions....And our granaries are brimful as water.' Yea and like water your lies shall flow away.... For ye have acquired it all in unrighteousness, And ye shall be given over to a great curse" (Ibid.,xcvii)
Let the wicked tremble: for "every sin is every day recorded in heaven . . . till the day of judgment" (Ibid., xcviii). The evil doers "shall be delivered into the hands of the righteous, and they shall cut off your necks and slay you, and have no mercy upon you" (Ibid., xcviii). And "Woe to you who build your houses through the grievous toil of others" for all your "building materials are the bricks and stones of sin" (Ibid., xcix).
In the last days, there will be frightful wars among the wicked in which "the horse shall walk up to the breast in the blood of sinners . . ." (Ibid., Rev. 14:20). In the midst of this gory scene, duplicated in Revelation 14:20, ".... the Most High will arise...To execute great judgment against sinners" (Enoch, c).
"And on account of the deeds of your hands....In blazing flames burning worse than fire shall ye burn" (Ibid.,).
"I tell you, ye sinners," thunders the prophet (Ibid., cii), "I know a mystery…And have read the heavenly tablets, And have seen the holy books" (Ibid., ciii) which declare concerning the saints
"That all goodness and joy and glory are prepared for them....Unto all the generations of the world...." (Ibid.)
On the final day, all earthly injustice will be rectified: "And grieve not .. . . that in your life your body fared not according to your goodness, But wait for the day of judgment of sinners, And for the day of cursing and chastisement" (Ibid., cii).
Although the saints must suffer under the present dispensation, they will, under the new, enjoy all the wealth which now makes the sinners so wicked:
"In our troubled days we have toiled laboriously....We have been tortured.... from day to day. We hoped to be the head and have become the tail. . . (Deut. 28:13, 2nd Esdras 6:55-59).
We desired to get away from them that we might escape and be at rest, But we found no place whereunto we should flee and be safe from them. And we complained to the rulers in our tribulation. But they…would not hearken to our voice" (Enoch, ciii).
Instead, "they helped those who robbed us and devoured us and made us few; and they concealed their oppression, and they did not remove from us the yoke of those that devoured us and dispersed and murdered us...." (Ibid.). This, like the passage in The Habakkuk Commentary, clearly implies that certain people (possibly the Sadducees) from whom the Essenes had expected help had betrayed them in their hours of crisis and fearful persecution.
The conditions were bad and not getting any better. Hope was diminishing as this deplorable condition had not existed almost a hundred years. The Essenes, the light of no Divine intervention, was forced to focus on the future for vindication and pinned their hopes on such a Divine intervention through the advent of a God-man Messiah.
The proto-Essenes expected the Messianic kingdom while they were yet alive and prophesied repeatedly that it would come by 130 B.C.E.
Stop right here! What does the Torah teach about false prophets?
Deut 13:1-4 1 If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, 2 And the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them; 3 Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for the LORD your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul. 4 Ye shall walk after the LORD your God, and fear him, and keep his commandments, and obey his voice, and ye shall serve him, and cleave unto him. (KJV)
It saddens me to know that so many Christians believe certain "theologies" about Jesus and the New Testament, never knowing that such "ideas and religious beliefs" had their origin with FALSE PROPHETS whose Divine Oracles never came to be fulfilled. Such religious lies pass for truth today and many who accept such "religious beliefs" fall into idolatry and never know it. Simply said, the Messianic Prophecy of the Essenes has been shown to be false. Those who refer to some of their teachings in promotion of "this" or "that" particular Christian teaching never seem to mention that they failed miserably in their Messianic predictions. They were wiped out by Rome. Their prophecies remained with the rocks until 1948 and anyone who undertakes to read all of their writings find out quickly that they were "religious quacks." It gives me no joy to say as an ordained Pastor that such "Essene Messianic religious beliefs" found their way into the Jesus Movement of the first century and later into the New Testament. People approach such writings and religious beliefs as contained in the New Testament never knowing the origin of such beliefs and the utter failure of true Divine prophecy of those who espoused them!
But now, since the judgment was delayed, the Essenes had not been yet restored to their rightful position as Priests, and the corrupt leaders judged, it had become necessary to reassure "the righteous" that they "shall arise from sleep ;" (Enoch, xci) the elect would experience a glorious resurrection into everlasting mansions at some indefinite time, just as we find in the Fourth Christian Gospel (the Gospel of John). Again we see the Essene influence and their theology infused into the New Testament. The Essenes would sit on thrones and be companions of the hosts of heaven. On the other hand, "great chastisement" would be visited upon this wicked and unrighteous generation (Ibid., xcii), just as Jesus and John the Baptist were in due course to declare. Again a perfect reference to the New Testament.
Now follows the Apocalypse of Weeks, in which Enoch summarizes Biblical and Essene history in ten periods, each of which is characterized by a climactic event. At the beginning of the eighth period, the saints would come into possession of the Enochian revelations and the Community of the elect would be established (Ibid., xciii). Following this, the old order would undergo consummation and judgment, when "... sinners shall be delivered into the hands of the righteous.... And at its close, they shall acquire houses through their righteousness.... And after that, in the ninth week....all the works of the godless shall vanish from the earth. . . And after this, in the tenth week....There shall be a great eternal judgment. And the first heaven shall depart and pass away, And a new heaven shall appear. And after that there will be many weeks, without number forever, And all shall be in goodness and righteousness, And sin shall no more be mentioned forever."
Intertwined with these Zoroastrian concepts, which reappear in our canonical Revelation and elsewhere consider this:
The Zadoks were a displaced Priesthood thanks to the Hasmonean rulers following the Maccabee war. After the victory the Zadoks were expecting to reclaim their office, but instead, John Hycranus usurped the Priesthood and forbid the Zadoks to minister. They in response fled such corruption to the wilderness to begin a "new Israel" as, in their opinion, they were the remnant. After repeated persecutions and the death of their Teacher of Righeousness, the remaining Essenes began to repudiate Judaism and gravitated to beliefs alien to conservative Biblical Judaism. In place of the Torah they would pattern themselves after Pythagorean, Buddhist, and Iranian-Zoroastrian beliefs. From the Zoroastrian eschatology they would derive their "star-wars" theology which promised doom to all their adversaries.
Time has shown they were wrong as they disappeared as an apocalyptic movement and became Christians following the death and crucifixion of Jesus. In Jesus these Essenes saw the reincarnation of their crucified Teacher and parallels were then made and applied to the life of Jesus by this group. To recapitulate, all this reflects the fact that in the reign of Hyrcanus or Jannaeus, and probably in both, the Essenes were pursued with fire and sword, their residences plundered and burned; and that they were persecuted, decimated, and driven into esoteric secrecy.
But the victory of the elect would be certain and eternal, at least in their minds: for "your names are written before the glory of the Great One.... ye shall shine as the lights of heaven ... And in your cry, cry for judgment, and it shall appear to you; for all your tribulation shall be visited upon the rulers, and all who helped those who plundered you.... And now fear not, ye righteous, when ye see the sinners growing strong and prosperous: be not companions with them.... for ye shall become companions of the hosts of heaven" (Ibid., civ). Again we are told that the Holy Ones had been plundered and that certain people, who should have protected them, had, instead, aided and abetted the criminals.
The Noah fragment appended to Enoch closes with a vision of the hell in which sinners are confined; and of the glorious heaven reserved for "the spirits of the good who belong to the generation of light . . . and I will seat each on the throne of his honor ... And they shall see those who were born in darkness led into darkness, while the righteous shall be glorious…: (Ibid., cviii). Again the parallels with the New Testament are easy to find as we see Jesus promised his disciples that all of them would one day be seated, each as a judge, on his separate throne (Matt. 19:28).
Now we move to the last part of the Book of Enoch.