The Book of Enoch: Lost and Found

The Book of Enoch: Lost and Found (Part 1)
By
James Scott Trimm

The Book of Enoch is the oldest book on earth and it was once cherished by Jews and Christians alike but later fell into disfavor, thus it was lost, not to be rediscovered until modern times.  For truth seekers in these last days, the Book of Enoch has a special significance, not just because of its powerful message, but also because of the circumstances under which it has been restored.  It may be well to observe here, that YHWH has greatly encouraged and strengthened our faith as we have embraced the truth of Torah and Messiah, as revealed to in the Scriptures, by giving us some greater insights upon the Scriptures from the original Hebrew and Aramaic manuscripts and from a greater understanding of their continuity with Second Temple Era Judaism.  This reawakening has given rise to conjecture and conversation among us concerning the books mentioned, and referred to, in various places in the Tanak and Ketuvim Netzarim, which are now nowhere to be found. Some simply say that they are lost books; but it seems that the original followers of Yeshua had some of these writings, as Y’hudah (Jude) actually quotes the Prophecy of Enoch, the seventh from Adam.

The Book of Enoch itself prophecies of a great apostasy and a last days restoration of truth:

And thereafter, in the Seventh Week, a perverse generation shall arise. And many shall be its misdeeds and all its doings shall be apostate. And at its close the elect shall be chosen, as witnesses to righteousness, from the eternal plant of righteousness, to whom shall be given seven-fold wisdom and knowledge. And they will uproot the foundations of oppression, And the structure of falsehood therein to destroy it utterly.
(1Enoch 93:9-11 James Trimm Translation)

Then prophecies that the restoration would include a bonus, a restoration of lost books:

But when they write down truthfully all my words in their languages, and do not change or diminish ought from my words but write them all down truthfully –all that I first testified concerning them. Then, I know another mystery, that books will be given to the righteous and the wise to become a cause of joy and uprightness and much wisdom. And to them shall the books be given, and they shall believe in them and rejoice over them, and then shall all the righteous who have learnt therefore all the paths of uprightness be recompensed.’
(1Enoch 104:10-13 James Trimm Translation)

The Book of Enoch must be one of these since it opens saying that its purpose was to be had by those who live in the last days:

The words of the blessing with which Chanoch blessed the chosen and righteous, who will be living in the day of tribulation, when all the wicked and godless are to be removed.
(1Enoch 1:1 James Trimm Translation)

To our joy has YHWH revealed the lost Book of Enoch.

The Book of Enoch has been restored to us in these last days as a bonus for our eager willingness to accept Scripture truth and as a reward for our undying interest in YHWH’s Word, including these lost books. It is time for us to give heed to this important book, which is a special blessing of our days.


The Lost Book of Enoch

The original followers of Yeshua were quite familiar with  The Book of Enoch.  In fact R. H. Charles wrote:

“nearly all the writers of the New Testament were familiar with it, and were more or less influenced by it in thought and diction,” and “it is quoted as a genuine production of Enoch by St. Jude, and as Scripture by St. Barnabas. . . . With the earlier Fathers and Apologists it had all the weight of a canonical book.” (R. H. Charles, The Book of Enoch; 1913; p. ix n. 1)  Charles cites at least 128 places where he himself finds Enoch being cited in the “New Testament”, (ibid pp. xcv-ciii).

Yeshua's own half-brother Y'hudah quotes from the Book of Enoch saying:

And Chanokh [Enoch], the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men saying: Behold, YHWH comes with ten thousands of his set-apart-ones, to execute judgment on all, co convict all who are wicked among them of their wicked deeds which they have committed in a wicked way, and all the harsh things which wicked sinners have spoken against him.
(Yhudah (Jude) 1:14-15 HRV)

Charles went so far as to say “The influence of I Enoch on the New Testament has been greater than that of all the other apocryphal and pseudepigraphical books taken together.” (ibid p. xcv) Charles also lists  thirty passages in early Jewish (ibid pp. lxx-lxxix) and Christian writings (ibid lxxxi-xci) which actually mention the Book of Enoch,  moreover he also gives a number of quotations from the Book of Enoch found in more than thirty of the so-called “Church Fathers”. (ibid lxxxi-xci)

In addition to the sources cited by R. H. Charles, the Zohar contains an abundance of Enoch material, citing the Book of Enoch by name no less that ten times.  I have quoted three of them below:

Tradition further tells us that Enoch also had a book, which came from the same place as the book of the generations of Adam....  This is the source of the book known as “the book of Enoch”. When God took him, He showed him all supernal mysteries, and the Tree of Life in the midst of the Garden and its leaves and branches, all of which can be found in his book.(1Enoch 24-25; 2Enoch 8:3) Happy are those of exalted piety to whom the supernal wisdom has been revealed, and from whom it will not be forgotten for ever, as it says, “The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him, and his secret to make them know it.” ‘
(Zohar 1:37b)

We find in the book of Enoch that after the Holy One, blessed be He, had transported Enoch to the supernal regions and shown him all the treasures of the King, both the celestial and the terrestrial (1Enoch 17-18; 2Enoch 5-6 ), He permitted him to behold the Tree of Life (1Enoch 24-25; 2Enoch 8:3) and that Tree of which Adam was warned (1Enoch 32:3-6), and showed him the place where Adam had dwelt in the Garden of Eden (1Enoch 32:3-6; 2Enoch 8), and Enoch perceived that if Adam had been obedient he would have so dwelt for ever, having eternal life and perpetual joy in the glory of the Garden. But because he broke the commandment of his Lord, he was punished.’(1Enoch 69:6)
(Zohar 2:55a)

According to the Zohar, the Book of Enoch came to be passed secretly among the Rabbis as a book which they feared laymen would misunderstand:

R. Simeon said: ‘Had I been alive when the Holy One, blessed be He, gave mankind the book of Enoch and the book of Adam, I would have endeavoured to prevent their dissemination, because not all wise men read them with proper attention, and thus extract from them perverted ideas, such as lead men astray from the Most High to the worship of strange powers. Now, however, the wise who understand these things keep them secret, and thereby fortify themselves in the service of their Master.’
(Zohar 1:72b)

The Zohar mentions the fall of the angels mentioned in the Book of Enoch as follows:

R. Isaac said: "Uzza and Azael fell from the abode of their sanctity above, they saw the daughters of mankind and sinned with them and begat children. These were the Nefilim, of whom it is said, THE NEFILIM WERE IN THE EARTH (Gen. 6:4)."
(Zohar 1:37a)

“Of the Nefilim it is said: “and the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair” (Gen. 6:1f). These form a second category of the Nefilim, already mentioned above, in this way: When God thought of making man, He said: “Let us make man in our image, etc.” i.e. He intended to make him head over the celestial beings, who were to be his deputies, like Joseph over the governors of Egypt (Gen. 41:41). The angels thereupon began to malign him and say, “What is man that You should remember him, seeing that he will assuredly sin before You.”Said God to them, “If you were on earth like him, you would sin worse.” And so it was. For “when the sons of God saw the daughters of man”, they fell in love with them, and God cast them down from heaven. These were Uzza and Azael; from them the “mixed multitude” derive their souls, and therefore they also are called nefilim, because they fell into fornication with fair women.”
(Zohar 1:25b)

The Zohar account agrees with that of 1st Enoch except for abbreviating the name Shemikhazah with Uzza. In fact according to the Zohar Balam knew where Uzza and Azael were kept in chains, and went to them to learn his sorcery:

…after God cast Uzza and Azael down from their holy place, they went astray after the women folk and seduced the world also. It may seem strange that being angels they were able to abide upon the earth. The truth is, however, that when they were cast down the celestial light which used to sustain them left them and they were changed to another grade through the influence of the air of this world.  Similarly the manna which came down for the Israelites in the wilderness originated in the celestial dew from the most recondite spot, and at first its light would radiate to all worlds and the “field of apples”, and the heavenly angels drew sustenance from it, but when it approached the earth it became materialized through the influence of the air of this world and lost its brightness, becoming only like “coriander seed”. Now when God saw that these fallen angels were seducing the world, He bound them in chains of iron to a mountain of darkness. Uzza He bound at the bottom of the mountain and covered his face with darkness because he struggled and resisted, but Azael, who did not resist, He set by the side of a mountain where a little light penetrated. Men who know where they are located seek them out, and they teach them enchantments and sorceries and divinations. These mountains of darkness are called the “mountains of the East”, and therefore Balaam said: “From Aram has Balak brought me, from the mountains of the East”. Because they both learnt their sorceries there.  Now Uzza and Azael used to tell those men who came to them some of the notable things which they knew in former times when they were on high, and to speak about the holy world in which they used to be.
(Zohar 3:208a)

In which place and from whom did Balaam derive all his Magical practices and knowledge? Rabbi Isaac replied: “He learned it first from his father, but it was in the "mountains of the East”, which are in an eastern country, that he obtained a mastery of all the arts of magic and divination. For those mountains are the abode of the [fallen] angels Uzza and Azael whom the Holy One cast down from heaven, and who were chained there in fetters.  It is they who impart to the sons of men a knowledge of magic.
(Zohar 1:126a)

The earliest Christians got their enthusiasm for the Book of Enoch as well as the book itself from the original Jewish followers of Yeshua (the Nazarenes).  So how could a book of such long-standing influence, authority, and veneration by Jews and Christians alike have become lost? The answer is that it ran counter to doctrines held by both Jewish and Christian scholars alike.

R. H. Charles writes: “But our book contained much of a questionable character,” saying “and from the fourth century of our era onward it fell into discredit; and under the ban of such authorities as Hilary, Jerome, and Augustine, it gradually passed out of circulation, and became lost to the knowledge of Western Christendom.” (ibid p. ix)  Charles Cutler Torrey theorized that the Book of Enoch “fell early into disuse,” because it “was too bulky” (C. C. Torrey, The Apocryphal Literature; 1945, p. 27).   However if we look to the so-called “Church Fathers” themselves we find that St. Augustine admitted that “we cannot deny that Enoch . . . wrote some inspired things, since the canonical Epistle of Jude says so,”. Yet he refused to accept the book simply because the Jewish scholars of his time reject it (City of God 15:23).  However we know from the Zohar that the Rabbis used the book secretly.

So to whom was the book “Of a questionable character”?  Certainly not to the original followers of Yeshua!  It was the authorities of the fourth century and after who were offended by this book!

(To be Continued)

The Book of Enoch: Lost and Found (Part 2)
By
James Scott Trimm

The earliest Gentile Christians also accepted and made use of the Book of Enoch. Many of the so-called "Church Fathers" either quoted Enoch, or made use of it. Among these were the author of the Epistle of Pseudo-Barnabas, Justin Martyr (2nd C.), Irenaeus (2nd C.), Clement of Alexandria (2nd C.) and Origin (3rd C.). Tertullian (160-230 C.E.) even called the book "Set-apart Scripture". The book was even canonized by the Ethiopic Church.

In fact, R. H. Charles states flatly that “with the earlier Fathers and Apologists it [the Book of Enoch] had all the weight of a canonical book.” (R. H. Charles, The Book of Enoch; 1913; p. 1)

Justin Martyr (100–165 CE) said that the demons are offspring of the fallen angels of the Enoch account and that they sowed “all wickedness” saying:

But the angels transgressed this appointment, and were captivated by love of women, and begat children who are those that are called demons; and besides, they afterwards subdued the human race to themselves, partly by magical writings, and partly by fears and punishments they occasioned, and partly by teaching them to offer sacrifices, and incense, and libations, of which things they stood in need after they enslaved by lustful passions; and among men they sowed murders, wars, adulteries, intemperate needs, and all wickedness.
(Second Apology; Chapter 5)

Athenagoras of Athens (c. 133 – c. 190 CE), writing around 170 CE certainly regarded  Enoch an inspired prophet. He describes the angels which “violated both their own nature and their office” as follows:

These include the prince over matter and material things and others who are of those stationed at the first firmament (do realize that we say nothing unsupported by evidence but that we are exponents of what the prophets uttered); the latter are the angels who fell to lusting after maidens and let themselves be conquered by the flesh, the former
failed his responsibility and operated wickedly in the administration of what had been entrusted to him.

Now from those who went after maidens were born the so-called giants. Do not be surprised that a partial account of the giants has been set forth also by poets. Worldly wisdom and prophetic wisdom differ from one another as truth differs from probability — the one is heavenly, the other earthly and in harmony with the prince of matter [who says]: We know how to tell many falsehoods which have the form of truth.

These angels, then, who fell from heaven busy themselves about the air and the earth and
are no longer able to rise to the realms above the heavens. The souls of the giants are the demons who wander about the world. Both angels and demons produce movements — demons, movements which are akin to the natures they received, and angels, movements which are akin to the lusts with which they were possessed.
(Athenagoras, “Legatio,” ed. and trans. William R. Schoedel, Oxford Early Christian Texts: Legatio and De Resurrectione (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), p. 61. )

Many of the early Church Fathers, as well as the early Rabbis, held this same belief that the fallen angels had taken corporal form.  The Zohar describes the process in detail saying:

…after God cast Uzza and Azael down from their holy place, they went astray after the women folk and seduced the world also. It may seem strange that being angels they were able to abide upon the earth. The truth is, however, that when they were cast down the celestial light which used to sustain them left them and they were changed to another grade through the influence of the air of this world.  Similarly the manna which came down for the Israelites in the wilderness originated in the celestial dew from the most recondite spot, and at first its light would radiate to all worlds and the “field of apples”, and the heavenly angels drew sustenance from it, but when it approached the earth it became materialized through the influence of the air of this world and lost its brightness, becoming only like “coriander seed”.
(Zohar 3:208a)

The “Church Father” Tatian (c. 120 – c. 180 CE) described how the fallen angels  “became intemperate and greedy” and chose their manner of life in matter:

Therefore the demons, as you call them, having received their structure from matter and obtained the spirit which inheres in it, became intemperate and greedy; some few, indeed, turning to what was purer, but others choosing what was inferior in matter, and conforming their manner of life to it.
(Address to the Greeks 12)

However from Tatian’s view this “matter” of a demon’s body was not “easily seen” and not “flesh” but “like that of fire or air”

But none of the demons possess flesh; their structure is spiritual, like that of fire or air. And only by those whom the Spirit of God dwells in and fortifies are the bodies of the demons easily seen, not at all by others,--I mean those who possess only soul; for the inferior has not the ability to apprehend the superior. On this account the nature of the demons has no place for repentance; for they are the reflection of matter and of wickedness.
(Address to the Greeks 15)

Yet even Tatian’s view of demons taking wispy bodies of virtually intangible matter would eventually become unacceptable to Christendom.  A footnote in the Anti-Nicean Fathers edition warns readers that Tatian “seems rashly to imagine the demons to be material creatures.” (Ante-Nicean Fathers; Tatian; Address to the Greeks 2:70)

And the New Catholic Encyclopedia in its article on “Angels” says:

In the course of time theology has purified the obscurity and error contained in traditional views about angels. In this way, theology ...  specifies that the nature of angels is completely spiritual and no longer merely a very fine material, firelike and vaporous.
(New Catholic Encyclopedia; 1967; “Angels”)

The apologist and Bishop of Lyons, Irenaeus (early 2nd century – c. CE 202), frequently made clear references to the Book of Enoch material. In one interesting passage Irenaeus accuses a Gnostic of his time of deriving magical knowledge and powers form Azazel, saying:

…wonders of power that is utterly severed from God and apostate, which Satan, thy true father, enables thee still to accomplish by means of Azazel, that fallen and yet mighty angel.
(Adv. Haereses; Ante-Nicean Fathers 1:340)

Iraeneus’ statement is in keeping with a tradition found twice in the Zohar:

Now when God saw that these fallen angels were seducing the world, He bound them in chains of iron to a mountain of darkness. Uzza He bound at the bottom of the mountain and covered his face with darkness because he struggled and resisted, but Azael, who did not resist, He set by the side of a mountain where a little light penetrated. Men who know where they are located seek them out, and they teach them enchantments and sorceries and divinations. These mountains of darkness are called the “mountains of the East”, and therefore Balaam said: “From Aram has Balak brought me, from the mountains of the East”. Because they both learnt their sorceries there.  Now Uzza and Azael used to tell those men who came to them some of the notable things which they knew in former times when they were on high, and to speak about the holy world in which they used to be.
(Zohar 3:208a)

In which place and from whom did Balaam derive all his Magical practices and knowledge? Rabbi Isaac replied: “He learned it first from his father, but it was in the "mountains of the East”, which are in an eastern country, that he obtained a mastery of all the arts of magic and divination. For those mountains are the abode of the [fallen] angels Uzza and Azael whom the Holy One cast down from heaven, and who were chained there in fetters.  It is they who impart to the sons of men a knowledge of magic.
(Zohar 1:126a)

The Book of Enoch says concerning the fallen angels (of whom Azazel was a leader):

And all the others together with them took unto themselves wives from all, and each chose for himself one, and they began to go in unto them and to defile themselves with them, and they taught them sorcery and spellbinding, and the cutting of roots, and made them acquainted with plants.
(1Enoch 7:1)

Both Iraeneus and the Zohar teach that even in the current age, sorcerers are able to seek out these fallen angels and learn sorcery from them.

Clement of Alexandria (c. 150 – c. 215 CE) writes of angels: “who renounced the beauty of God for a beauty which fades, and so fell from heaven to earth” (Clement; The Instructor; Ante-Nicean Fathers 2:274) which appears to reference the account of the Book of Enoch.

Tertullian (c. 155 – c. 240 CE), went so far as to call the Book of Enoch “Sacred Scripture” making many references to it.

Tertullian wrote a book on the proper apparel of women in which he urges women to dress modestly and avoid adornments, which he calls “the tricks of beautifying themselves.” His primary evidence for his teaching on this issue comes from the Book of Enoch:

For those, too, who invented these things are condemned to the penalty of death, namely, those angels who rushed from heaven upon the daughters of men.... For when these fallen angels had revealed certain well-hidden material substances, and numerous other arts that were only faintly revealed, to an age much more ignorant than ours ... they granted to women as their special and, as it were, personal property these means of feminine vanity: the radiance of precious stones with which necklaces are decorated in different colors, the bracelets of gold which they wrap around their arms, the colored preparations which are
used to dye wool, and that black powder which they use to enhance the beauty of their eyes.

If you want to know what kind of things these are, you can easily learn from the character of those who taught these arts. Have sinners ever been able to show and provide anything conducive to holiness, unlawful lovers anything contributing to chastity, rebel angels anything promoting the fear of God? If, indeed, we must call what they have passed on ‘teachings’, then evil teachers must of necessity have taught evil lessons; if these are the wages of sin, then there can be nothing beautiful about the reward for something evil. But
why should they have taught and granted such things?

Are we to think that women without the material of adornment or without the tricks of
beautifying themselves would not have been able to please men when these same women, unadorned and uncouth and, as I might say, crude and rude, were able to impress angels? Or would the latter have appeared beggarly lovers who insolently demanded favors for nothing, unless they had brought some gift to the women they had attracted into marriage? But this is hardly conceivable. The women who possessed angels as husbands could not desire anything further, for surely they had already made a fine match.

The angels, on the other hand, who certainly thought sometimes of the place whence they had fallen and longed for heaven after the heated impulses of lust had quickly passed, rewarded in this way the very gift of woman’s natural beauty as the cause of evil, that is, that woman should not profit from her happiness, but, rather, drawn away from the ways of innocence and sincerity, should be united with them in sin against God. They must have been certain that all ostentation, ambition, and love achieved by carnal pleasure would be displeasing God. You see, these are the angels whom we are destined to judge, (I Cor. 6:3) these are the angels whom we renounce in baptism, these are the very things on account of which they deserved to be judged by men.
(Tertullian; Thr Apparel of Women”; Fathers of the Church 40:118-120)

On this same subject Paul writes:

Paul writes:

2 Now I commend you, my brothers, that in everything you are mindful of me--even as
you hold fast the commandments I delivered to you.
3 But I want you to know that the head of every man is the Messiah, and the head of the woman is the man, and the head of the Messiah is Eloah.
4 Every man who prays or prophesies while his head is veiled dishonors his head.
5 And every woman who prays or prophesies while her head is unveiled dishonors her
head: for she is on a level with her whose head is shaven.
6 For if a woman is not veiled, let her also be shorn: but if it is disgraceful for a woman to be shorn or to be shaven, let her be veiled.
 (1Cor. 11:2-6 HRV)

What is to be understood by “every woman who prays or prophesies while her head is unveiled dishonors her head”?

The Mishnah says:  “A woman goes forth without the payment of the Ketuvah… If she goes out with her hair uncovered.” (m.Ketuvim 7:6)

And the Gemara to this Mishnah in the Talmud says:

 [This prohibition against going out with] an uncovered head is of the Torah;; for it is written, "And he shall uncover the woman's head," (Num. 5:18) and this, it was taught at the school of R. Ishmael, was a warning to the daughters of Israel that they should not go out with uncovered head? —  From the Torah it is quite satisfactory [if her head is covered by] her work-basket; according to traditional Jewish practice, however, she is forbidden [to go out uncovered] even with her basket [on her head].

R. Assi stated in the name of R. Johanan: With a basket [on her head a woman] is not guilty of [going about with] an uncovered head. In considering this statement,
R. Zera pointed out this difficulty: Where [is the woman assumed to be]? If it be suggested, ‘In the street’, [it may be objected that this is already forbidden by] Jewish practice; but [if she is] in a court-yard [the objection may be made that] if that were so you will not leave our father Abraham a [single] daughter who could remain with her husband! — Abaye, or it might be said, R. Kahana, replied: [The statement refers to one who walks] from one courtyard into another by way of an alley.
(b.Ketuvot 72a-b)

But why then does Paul say: “Because of this, the woman is obliged to have the power on her head because of the angels.”?

It is because we read in the Torah:

2 That the sons of Elohim saw the daughters of men, that they were fair. And they took
them wives, whomsoever they chose.
(Gen. 6:2 HRV)

And also as we read in the Book of Enoch:

1 And it came to pass when the children of men had multiplied that in those days were born unto them beautiful and comely daughters.  
2 And the angels, the children of the heaven, saw and lusted after them, and said to one another: 'Come, let us choose us wives from among the children of men and beget us children.'…

and:

1 And all the others together with them took unto themselves wives from all, and each chose for himself one, and they began to go in unto them and to defile themselves with them, and they taught them sorcery and spellbinding, and the cutting of roots, and made them acquainted with plants.
2 And they became pregnant, and they bare great giants,
(1Enoch 6:1-2)

Like Tertullian’s teaching, Paul’s rule seems to be based on the temptation of the angels as recorded in the Book of Enoch.

Tertullian was such a supporter of the Book of Enoch that he even wrote an apologetic in support of the book:

I am aware that the Scripture of Enoch, [102] which has assigned this order (of action) to angels, is not received by some, because it is not admitted into the Jewish canon either. I suppose they did not think that, having been published before the deluge, it could have safely survived that world-wide calamity, the abolisher of all things. If that is the reason (for rejecting it), let them recall to their memory that Noah, the survivor of the deluge, was the great-grandson of Enoch himself; [103] and he, of course, had heard and remembered, from domestic renown [104] and hereditary tradition, concerning his own great-grandfather's "grace in the sight of God," [105] and concerning all his preachings; [106] since Enoch had given no other charge to Methuselah than that he should hand on the knowledge of them to his posterity. Noah therefore, no doubt, might have succeeded in the trusteeship of (his) preaching; or, had the case been otherwise, he would not have been silent alike concerning the disposition (of things) made by God, his Preserver, and concerning the particular glory of his own house.

If (Noah) had not had this (conservative power) by so short a route, there would (still) be this (consideration) to warrant [107] our assertion of (the genuineness of) this Scripture: he could equally have renewed it, under the Spirit's inspiration, [108] after it had been destroyed by the violence of the deluge, as, after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonian storming of it, every document [109] of the Jewish literature is generally agreed to have been restored through Ezra.

But since Enoch in the same Scripture has preached likewise concerning the Lord, nothing at all must be rejected by us which pertains to us; and we read that "every Scripture suitable for edification is divinely inspired." [110] By the Jews it may now seem to have been rejected for that (very) reason, just like all the other (portions) nearly which tell of Christ. Nor, of course, is this fact wonderful, that they did not receive some Scriptures which spake of Him whom even in person, speaking in their presence, they were not to receive. To these considerations is added the fact that Enoch possesses a testimony in the Apostle Jude. [111]              
(Tertullian; Thr Apparel of Women”; Fathers of the Church 3,1,1-3)

Tertullian tells us that the Book of Enoch had been rejected by Rabbinic Jews of his time because of its many Messianic prophecies to which they objected.  This fits with a statement by Rabbi Simeon ben Yochai (a 2nd-century tannaitic sage) in the Zohar indicating that the Rabbis used the book secretly, but suppressed it for fear that laymen might be misled by misunderstanding it:

R. Simeon said: ‘Had I been alive when the Holy One, blessed be He, gave mankind the book of Enoch and the book of Adam, I would have endeavoured to prevent their dissemination, because not all wise men read them with proper attention, and thus extract from them perverted ideas, such as lead men astray from the Most High to the worship of strange powers. Now, however, the wise who understand these things keep them secret, and thereby fortify themselves in the service of their Master.’
(Zohar 1:72b)

(To be continued)