Fallen Angels, the Watchers, and the Origins of Evil (9 page)

           
On the new moon of the third month Noah went out of the ark, and built an altar on that mountain.
 
And he made atonement for the earth, and took a kid and made atonement by its blood for all the guilt of the earth; for every thing that had been on it had been destroyed, except those that were in the ark with Noah.

           
He placed the fat of it on the altar, and he took an ox, and a goat, and a sheep and kids, and salt, and a turtle-dove, and the young of a dove, and placed a burnt sacrifice on the altar, and poured on it an offering mingled with oil, and sprinkled wine and frankincense over everything, and caused a good and pleasing odor to arise, acceptable before the Lord.

           
And the Lord smelled the good and pleasing odor, and He made a covenant with Noah that there should not be any more floods to destroy the earth; that all the days of the earth seed-time and harvest should never cease; cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night should not change their order, nor cease forever.
 
“Increase and multiply on the earth, and become many, and be a blessing on it. I will inspire the fear of you and the dread of you in everything that is on earth and in the sea.”
 
And the earth was cleaned of the sins of the flesh, but spirits of the evil Watchers and their accursed offspring cannot die.

           
In the twenty-ninth jubilee, in the beginning of first week, Arpachshad took to himself a wife and her name was Rasu’eja, the daughter of Susan, the daughter of Elam, and she gave birth to a son in the third year in this week, and he called his name Kainam. The son grew, and his father taught him writing, and he went to seek for himself a place where he might seize a city for himself. He found writing which former generations had carved on a rock, and he read what was on it, and he transcribed it and sinned because of it, for it contained the teaching of the Watchers, which they had used to observe the omens of the sun and moon and stars in all the signs of heaven.

He wrote it down and said nothing of it, for he was afraid to speak to Noah about it or he would be angry with him because of it. In the third week of this jubilee the unclean demons began to lead astray the children of the sons of Noah, and to make them sin and to destroy them. The sons of Noah came to Noah their father, and they told him about the demons that were leading astray and blinding and slaying his sons’ sons.

And Noah said, “I see the demons have begun their seductions against you and against your children and now I fear on your behalf, that after my death you will shed the blood of men on the earth, and that you, too, will be destroyed from the face of the earth.
 

“For whoever sheds man’s blood, and who ever eats the blood of any flesh, shall all be destroyed from the earth.”

           
And he prayed before the Lord his God, and said, “God of the spirits of all flesh, who have shown mercy to me and have spared me and my sons from the waters of the flood, and have not caused me to die as You did the sons of perdition; For your grace has been great toward me, and great has been your mercy to my soul.”

           
“Let your grace be lifted up on my sons, and do not let the wicked spirits rule over them or they will destroy them from the earth. But bless me and my sons, so that we may increase and multiply and replenish the earth. You know how your Watchers, the fathers of these spirits, acted in my day, and as for these spirits which are living, imprison them and hold them fast in the place of condemnation, and let them not bring destruction on the sons of your servant, my God; for these are like cancer and are created in order to destroy.

           
Let them not rule over the spirits of the living; for You alone can exercise dominion over them. And let them not have power over the sons of the righteous from now and forever.” And the Lord our God commanded the angels to bind all of them.

           
And the Watchers came to Enoch, whom God had taken up into heaven, and begged him to intercede before God on their behalf.

           
Then God answered and said, ”No request that the Watchers, or their children make of you shall be granted them on their behalf; for they hope to live an eternal life, and that each one of them will live five hundred years.”

           
And God answered and said to Enoch, “Do not be afraid, Enoch, you righteous man and scribe of righteousness.
 
Approach and hear my voice. Go and say to the Watchers of heaven, for whom you have come to intercede: You should intercede for men, and not men for you. Why and for what cause have you left the high, holy, and eternal heaven, and had sex with women, and defiled yourselves with the daughters of men and taken to yourselves wives, and done like the children of earth, and begotten giants (as your) sons? Though you were holy, spiritual, living the eternal life, you have defiled yourselves with the blood of women, and have begotten children with the blood of flesh, and, as the children of men, you have lusted after flesh and blood like those who die and are killed.

           
This is why I have given men wives that they might impregnate them, and have children by them, that deeds might continue on the earth. But you were formerly spiritual, living the eternal life, and immortal for all generations of the world. Therefore I have not appointed wives for you. You are spiritual beings of heaven, and in heaven was your dwelling place. Only after death will man know what you have known.

           
“For the children of this world marry, and are given in marriage: But they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage, neither can they die any more.
 
For they are equal unto the angels, and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection.”

           
And now, the giants, who are produced from the spirits and flesh, shall be called evil spirits on the earth, and shall live on the earth. Evil spirits have come out from their bodies because they are born from men and from the holy Watchers, their beginning is of primal origin, and they shall be called spirits of the evil ones.
 
As for the spirits of heaven, in heaven shall be their dwelling, but as for the spirits of the earth which were born on the earth, on the earth shall be their dwelling.

And the spirits of the giants afflict, oppress, destroy, attack, war, destroy, and cause trouble on the earth. Their spirits take no food, but do not hunger or thirst. They cause offences but are not seen. And these spirits shall rise up against the children of men and against the women, because they have proceeded from them in the days of the slaughter and destruction.

           
And at the death of the giants, spirits will go out and shall destroy without incurring judgment. Coming from their bodies, their flesh shall be destroy until the day of the consummation, the great judgment in which the age shall be consummated, over the Watchers and the godless, and shall be wholly consummated.

           
These evil spirits shall torment men without restraint, inhabiting animals and possessing men until the days of the Messiah come.

           
And now as to the Watchers who have sent you to intercede for them, who had been in heaven before, (Say to them), “You were in heaven, but all the mysteries of heaven had not been revealed to you, and you knew worthless ones, and these in the hardness of your hearts you have made known to the women, and through these mysteries women and men work much evil on earth.”

Say to them therefore, “You have no peace.” The chief of the spirits, Mastema (Satan), came and said, “Lord, Creator, let some of them remain before me, and let them listen to my voice, and do all that I shall say to them; for if some of them are not left to me, I shall not be able to execute the power of my will on the sons of men, for these are for corruption and leading astray before my judgment, for great is the wickedness of the sons of men.”

           
He said, “Let one-tenth of them remain before him, and let nine-tenths of them descend into the place of condemnation.”

           
Then God commanded one of the angels to teach Noah all their medicines, for He knew that the Watchers would not walk in uprightness, nor strive in righteousness.

           
The angels did according to all His words. Then they bound all the malignant evil ones in the place of condemnation and a tenth part of them we left that they might be subject in the presence of Satan on the earth. The angels explained to Noah all the medicines of their diseases, together with their seductions, how he might heal them with herbs of the earth.
 
Noah wrote down all things in a book as they instructed him concerning every kind of medicine. Thus the evil spirits were precluded from hurting the sons of Noah.

           
But, the sons of Noah began to war with each other, to take captives and kill each other, and to shed the blood of men on the earth, and to eat blood, and to build strong cities, and walls, and towers, and individuals began to exalt themselves above the nation, and to establish kingdoms, and to go to war, people against people, and nation against nation, and city against city, and all began to do evil, and to acquire arms, and to teach their sons war, and they began to capture cities, and to sell male and female slaves.

           
In the three and thirtieth jubilee, in the first year in the second week, Peleg took to himself a wife, whose name was Lomna the daughter of Sina’ar, and she gave birth to a son for him in the fourth year of this week, and he called his name Reu, for he said, “Look the children of men have become evil because they conceived building a city and a tower in the land of Shinar for an evil purpose.” For they departed from the land of Ararat eastward to Shinar, for in his days they built the city and the tower, saying, “Let us build this now so that we may rise into heaven.”

           
And in these days King Nimrod reigned securely, and all the earth was under his control, and all the earth was of one tongue and words of union.

           
And all the princes of Nimrod and his great men took counsel together; Phut, Mitzraim, Cush and Canaan with their families, and they said to each other, “Come let us build ourselves a city and in it a strong tower, and its top reaching heaven, and we will make ourselves famed, so that we may reign upon the whole world, in order that the evil of our enemies may cease from us, that we may reign mightily over them, and that we may not become scattered over the earth on account of their wars.”

           
And they all went before the king, and they told the king these words, and the king agreed with them in this affair, and he did so.

 
          
And all the families assembled consisting of about six hundred thousand men, and they went to seek an extensive piece of ground to build the city and the tower, and they sought in the whole earth and they found none like one valley at the east of the land of Shinar, about two days’ walk, and they journeyed there and they lived there. And they began to make bricks and burn fires to build the city and the tower that they had imagined to complete. And the building of the tower was to them a transgression and a sin, and they began to build it, and whilst they were building against the Lord God of heaven, they imagined in their hearts to war against him and to ascend into heaven.

           
They began to build, and in the fourth week they made brick with fire, and the bricks served them for stone, and the clay with which they cemented them together was asphalt which comes out of the sea, and out of the fountains of water in the land of Shinar. They built it, forty-three years were they building it. Its breadth was 203 bricks, and the height of a brick was the third of one; its height amounted to 5433 cubits and 2 palms, and the extent of one wall was thirteen times 600 feet and of the other thirty times 600 feet.

           
And all these people and all the families divided themselves in three parts. The first said, “We will ascend into heaven and fight against him;” the second said, “We will ascend to heaven and place our own gods there and serve them;” and the third part said, “We will ascend to heaven and strike him with bows and spears;” and God knew all their works and all their evil thoughts, and he saw the city and the tower which they were building.