The Forgotten Books of Eden · 117 of 293

Secrets of Enoch: Chapter XII

Of the very marvellous elements of the sun.

1. AND I looked and saw other flying elements of the sun, whose names are Phoenixes and Chalkydri, marvellous and wonderful, with feet and tails in the form of a lion, and a crocodile's head, their appearance is empurpled, like the rainbow; their size is nine hundred measures, their wings are like those of angels, each has twelve, and they attend and accompany the sun, bearing heat and dew, as it is ordered them from God.

Context

The Phoenixes and Chalkydri are 2 Enoch's mythological invention — composite solar creatures with leonine feet, crocodilian heads, and rainbow-colored bodies that accompany the sun on its course. The phoenix is borrowed from Greek mythology where it appears in Herodotus II.73, but Christian writers absorbed it readily: Clement of Rome cites the phoenix in 1 Clement 25 as a natural image of resurrection (the bird burns and rises again every 500 years). Tertullian's De Resurrectione Carnis 13 picks up the same image. The Chalkydri are unique to 2 Enoch and seem to be a serpent-bird hybrid; their name may derive from Greek chalkos (bronze) and hydros (water-snake). This is the kind of bestiary detail that makes 2 Enoch feel late, baroque, and Slavic in its surface even if its core is older.Herodotus II.73; 1 Clement 25; Tertullian, De Resurrectione Carnis 13

2. Thus the sun revolves and goes, and rises under the heaven, and its course goes under the earth with the light of its rays incessantly.