Apocrypha – The 10 Heavens of the 2nd Book of Enoch (II Enoch)
By Judas Maccabaeus on February 25, 2011
Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.
- Ecclesiastes 12:13
- The 10 Heavens of the 2nd Book of Enoch -
The apocryphal text commonly referred to as the 2nd Book of Enoch, or the Book of the Secrets of Enoch, contains a surprisingly traditional view of both the Judeo-Christian Kingdom of Heaven and its Angelic inhabitants. This is in spite of the fact that this particular Book has been lost for nearly 1,200 years. Apparently, this same document had been held in high esteem among at least some members of the early Christian Church. It contains numerous comments and remarks by the author Enoch of his vivid celestial journey through ten different parts of the Kingdom of Heaven, which are inhabited by a multitude of different Angels, many of them with wings. Similar to the early Church, the theological doctrine of multiple levels of Heaven can be found in at least one of St, Paul’s letters and should continue to be understood as a thoroughly Christian belief system.
So all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years. Enoch walked with God and he was not, for God took him.
- Genesis 5:23-24
In short, the following summaries of the 2nd Book of Enoch’s Ten Heavens reflect a thoroughly Judeo-Christian understanding of the Bible and its enduring legacy. How so? Nearly all of the different types of Angelic beings that the author Enoch encounter in Heaven are also clearly listed in the official Catholic hierarchy of Angels which has remained unchanged since the Church’s earliest origins in Rome and Constantinople. This seems to strongly suggest that, while appearing as fictional nonsense to outsider, the standard Judeo-Christian set of belies concerning Angels have serious precedent, not only in Scriotures but in many different books of the Apocrypha including this one. Here are ten brief summaries describing the...