Enoch's Journeys to the Ends of the Earth

In shortIn chapters 17 to 36 of 1 Enoch, angels lead Enoch to the ends of the earth. He sees the storehouses of the winds, a river of fire, the place where stars that sinned are imprisoned, the hollows where the souls of the dead are gathered, the tree of life, the holy mountain at the center of the earth, and the garden of righteousness where the tree of knowledge grows.

Before there were maps, there were stories told by people who had gone far and come back. In the fifth century BCE Herodotus told the Greeks about Egypt and the lands of the Scythians. A few generations after him, an anonymous Jewish author sent his hero farther than any other traveler: to the place where the earth ends.

This journey takes up chapters 17 to 36 of 1 Enoch, almost half of the Book of the Watchers. After Enoch delivers the verdict to the angels who sinned, he does not go home. Angels take him on a tour.

A journey with guides

The tour has a fixed pattern. Enoch arrives at a place, sees something he does not understand, and asks. The angel who accompanies him answers. This role is filled by the holy angels listed in chapter 20, each in the field he is in charge of: Uriel, Raphael, Raguel and Michael.

Enoch is an especially curious traveler. When Michael asks him why he is so interested in one particular tree, he answers: I want to know about everything. And sometimes that curiosity tries the patience even of an angel. Enoch, Uriel asks him at one of the stops, why do you ask, and why do you search and inquire so eagerly?

The place where everything ends

The first stops are the storehouses of nature: the place where the winds are kept, the cornerstone of the earth, the pillars of heaven. From there Enoch goes on to a river of fire that pours into a great sea in the west, to a great darkness, and to seven mountains of precious stones. And then he reaches the very edge, a place with no sky above it and no ground beneath it:

Terrible was the sight I saw there: seven stars burning, as large as mountains, and like spirits they pleaded with me. The angel said: This place is the end of heaven and earth. It is a prison for the stars of heaven and for the host of heaven.

1 Enoch 18:13–14

What sin can stars commit? The angel explains: they did not come out at their appointed times. In the world of the Book of Enoch the heavenly bodies, too, are beings with a job to do, and lateness is an offense. Anyone who has read the Astronomical Book later on, with its exact calendar, understands how serious the author is about this. The order of time is law, and the universe includes a prison for those who break it.

The tree like no other

On the way back from the edge Enoch comes to seven magnificent mountains. The middle one resembles a throne, and around it are trees.

Among them was a tree with a fragrance such as I had never smelled. No tree among these or any others was like it in fragrance. Its leaves, its blossoms and its wood never wither, and its seed and fruit are good; its fruit is like clusters of dates.

1 Enoch 24:4

Michael explains that this is the mountain on which God will sit when he comes down to visit the earth with goodness, and that the tree may not be touched until the great day of judgment. Then its fruit will be given to the righteous, and the tree itself will be planted in the holy place, facing the house of the Lord. Its fragrance will enter their bones, and they will live long, as their first ancestors did.

This is the tree of life, and the author does something interesting with it. In Genesis the tree is in the Garden of Eden, and the way to it is barred. Here it waits on a distant mountain, and it has a target date and a new address: Jerusalem.

The mountain at the center of the earth

Right afterwards Enoch arrives at the place for which the tree is destined:

From there I went to the center of the earth, and I saw a blessed, fertile place, where branches sprouted and blossomed from the stump of a tree that had been cut down. There I saw a holy mountain, and beneath the mountain a stream of water flowing south.

1 Enoch 26:1–2

The name Jerusalem is not mentioned, nor can it be, since Enoch lived many generations before the city was built. The author solves the problem by describing it as someone who sees a city that does not yet exist: a holy mountain, a second mountain facing it on the east, a deep and narrow valley between them, and a stream flowing south. Anyone who has ever stood on the Mount of Olives recognizes every detail.

Among the blessed mountains there is also a cursed valley, and Uriel explains that it is meant for those who are cursed for ever. This is the Valley of Hinnom, which would one day give its name to Gehenna. The two ends of recompense, the tree of life and the place of punishment, are set within walking distance of each other.

The garden in the east

From the center Enoch heads east. He crosses a desert, passes mountains of frankincense and myrrh, and after them mountains of nard, cinnamon and pepper. This list is no legend. These are the goods that reached the land of Israel along the caravan routes from southern Arabia and India, and the author places their source exactly where a merchant of his day would have placed it: very far to the east. And beyond them, the garden.

The holy angel Raphael, who was with me, answered me: This is the tree of knowledge from which your ancient father and your ancient mother, who came before you, ate. They came to know, their eyes were opened, they knew that they were naked, and they were driven out of the garden.

1 Enoch 32:6

It is hard to imagine a drier report of the first sin. There is no serpent, no temptation and no accusations. Raphael notes that Enoch's first father and mother ate from the tree, gained knowledge and were driven out, and moves on. The reason is clear to anyone who has read the book from the beginning. In the Book of Enoch, evil did not begin in the Garden of Eden. It began on Mount Hermon, when angels came down and taught humankind what they had no need to know. The tree is just one more site on the route.

A map of justice

Mark the stops on a map and you get a strange picture. It has entirely real places, such as the hills of Jerusalem and the lands of spices, and beside them places that nobody has seen: a prison for stars, hollows where the souls of the dead wait, a mountain that is a throne.

But the map has a principle, and it is not a geographical one. Everything a person believes in and cannot see is given a location on it. Judgment takes the form of a valley, and reward the form of a tree you can smell. In a world where the wicked prosper and the righteous wait, the author does not argue. He takes the reader on a tour and shows him that everything has already been built, and only the tenants have yet to arrive.

Ancient maps used to mark the edges of the world with monsters. Enoch's map marks them with courts of law. That may be the best way to understand what frightened the people of his generation, and what comforted them.