The Forgotten Books of Eden · 128 of 293

Secrets of Enoch: Chapter XXIII

Of Enoch's writing, how he wrote his wonderful journeyings and the heavenly apparitions and himself wrote three hundred and sixty-six books.

1. AND he was telling me all the works of heaven, earth and sea, and all the elements, their passages and goings, and the thunderings of the thunders, the sun and moon, the goings and changes of the stars, the seasons, years, days, and hours, the risings of the wind, the numbers of the angels, and the formation of their songs, and all human things, the tongue of every human song and life, the commandments, instructions, and sweet-voiced singings, and all things that it is fitting to learn.

Insight

Enoch as the writer of 366 books — one for each day of the year plus one — completes his identity as the primordial scribe. This figure becomes a fixed point in the literature: Jubilees 4:17-19 says Enoch was the first to learn writing and astronomy; the Astronomical Book in 1 Enoch attributes the heavenly tablets to him; the Sefer Hekhalot will eventually transform him into Metatron, the heavenly scribe and 'lesser YHWH.' For Christian readers, the 366-book figure was both attractive and dangerous — attractive because it explained where esoteric pre-Mosaic wisdom came from, dangerous because it suggested authoritative scripture outside the Mosaic-prophetic-apostolic chain. Augustine in De Civitate Dei XV.23 acknowledges the Enoch books exist but concludes their canonical status is uncertain because of the long gap between Enoch and the patriarchs who could have transmitted them.Jubilees 4:17-19; Sefer Hekhalot 4 on Enoch as Metatron; Augustine, De Civitate Dei XV.23

2. And Pravuil told me: 'All the things that I have told thee, we have written. Sit and write all the souls of mankind, however many of them are born, and the places prepared for them to eternity; for all souls are prepared to eternity, before the formation of the world.'

3. And all double thirty days and thirty nights, and I wrote out all things exactly, and wrote three hundred and sixty-six books.