3 Enoch 43
3 Enoch 43
Section: Cosmic Visions
Translated by Hugo Odeberg (1928)
CHAPTER XLIII
Metatron shows R. Ishmael the abode of the unborn spirits and of the spirits of the righteous dead
R. Ishmael said: Metatron said to me:
(1) Come and I will show thee! where are! the spirits of the righteous that have been created and have returned, and the spirits of the righteous that have not yet been created.
11 Eadds: ‘BIMEROMAW (in his high places)’ 12-12 E om. 13-13 E om. Ch. xliii. 1-1 E om.
of peace’, ch. xxxiii. 1. Midrash ‘Aseret Ma’amaroth, BH. i. 66: “‘the angels are made of fire and water, and there is peace between: neither does the water extinguish the fire nor the fire lick up the water”. As denoting mediation and synthesis the ‘OSE SHALOM, ‘maker.of peace’, was understood and used in Qabbala. Cf. e.g. the quotation from the ‘Pelta’, YR.i. 7b: “‘ Why is it called heaven (Shamayim)? Because water (shemmayim) is to the right and fire to the left and it is in the middle and receives from both, and to this is to be referred the ‘OSE SHALOM and the (saying) ‘he mixed fire and water and made out of them the heavens’, and it is called ‘truth’ (the mediating agency, ch. xxxi. I) and ‘mercy’ and receives from (i.e. stands in the middle between) the Mercy and the Fear (= the second pair of opposites in the Sephirotic system, also called ‘ Mercy and Justice’, cf. ch. xxxi. 1)”.
for he makes peace between the fire and the water, between the ice and the fire, between the wind and the cloud. This, referring to God, denotes that the names set forth in the present chapter represent God himself in his different aspects as sustainer and mediator between the dual forces, the syzygies. The Names are part of God’s being and essence.
Ch. xliii. This chapter enters upon the subject of the condition of the ‘spirits’, one of the traditional subjects of mystical literature in general and of the Enoch- literature in particular acc. to 2 En. xxiii: among the secret instructions given to Enoch were those of “the souls of men, those of them which are not yet born and the places prepared for themm for ever”, further represented in Apocalyptic (Ap. Bar., 1 En.).
(1) Come and I will show thee the spirits of the righteous that have been created…the spirits of the righteous that have not yet been created… (2) lifted me near by the Throne. . .revealed the Throne of Glory. ..showed me the spirits that have been created and had returned. The spirits of the righteous dead are here represented as having their abode by the Throne of Glory. Cf. TB. Chag. 12 a: ‘“‘the ‘Araboth Raqia‘, the highest of the heavens, contains the Throne of Glory and the spirits and souls of the righteous”; zb. r2 b: “the spirits of the righteous dead under the Throne of Glory”; TB. Shab. 152 b: “the spirits of the righteous are hidden under the Throne of Glory”; contrast here ‘flying aboye’
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(2) And he lifted me up to his side, took me by his hand and lifted? me up near the Throne of Glory *by the place of the Shekina; and he revealed the Throne of Glory to me®, and he showed me the spirits
2 E: ‘conducted’ 3-3 E om.
the Throne. The idea of the spirits of the righteous dead being hidden or stored (géniizoth) under the Throne is clearly connected with the conception of “ the chambers of the righteous”’, 4 Ezra iv. 35, 41, vii. 32, 80, 95 etc., 2 Bar. xxi. 23. xxx. 2, 1 En. xxii. 3 ff. On this conception see Box, Ezra- Apocalypse, pp. 33, 34 (note on ch. iv. 35), 37 (note on ch. iv. 41), 119-21 (note on ch. vii. 32). Cf. also cHARLES, Comm. Revel. note on Rev. xx. 13. Vs. x here refers to the spirits of those not yet born as well as to those of the righteous dead. Besides, the expression ’ that have returned’ of the righteous dead presupposes the pre-existence of the spirits. Acc. to vs. 2, however, R. Ishmael is only shown the spirits of the righteous dead that have returned and have their place by or above the Throne of Glory, but to the unborn spirits there is no reference. There is thus no explicit statement as to the place of the pre-existent souls. As the intent of vs. 1 is to reveal the abode of both the ‘returned’ and the ‘unborn’ spirits and acc. to vs.2 R. Ishmael for that purpose is taken to the Throne of Glory, it is possible that the unborn souls were conceived of as having their place by the Throne in common with those of the righteous dead. How far one can press the expression ‘have returned’ (whether as referring to a fixed place in heaven—in such a case the Throne—or to the heavens in general) is uncertain. The other possibility is that the unborn spirits are conceived of as having a different abode from that of the righteous dead, e.g. in special chambers under the Throne of Glory. On this assumption it would be necessary to conclude that a piece describing the place of the ‘spirits of the righteous that have not yet been created’ has fallen out. For the possibility of this place having been the traditional * GUPPH” see below, note on vs. 3.
The place of the spirits yet unborn is acc. to 2 Bar. xxiii. § et al. ‘the chambers’ referred to above (which acc. to 4 Ez. iv. 35, are the abode of the righteous dead). Acc. to TB. Chag. 12 b, * the souls and spirits that are to be created together with the spirits of the righteous (scil. dead) are in ‘Araboth, the highest of the heavens”. Acc. to Ber. R. viii. 6, the souls of the righteous “dwell with their King (in accord- ance with x Chron. iv. 23)” already before the Creation of the world: with them God took counsel before creating man. Acc. to a dictum of R. Assi (repeated TB. Nidda, 13 a, ‘Aboda Zara, 5 a, Yebamoth, 62 a) the unborn spirits await creation in the GUPH, the storehouse of souls. Alph. R. ‘Agqiba, BH. iii. 26 (apparently dependent upon the same tradition as that of Chag..12 b) mentions in the ‘Araboth: “the Throne of Glory, the stores of life, the treasuries of blessings, of dew. . .and the treasuries (contrast Chag., ib.) of the spirits of the living and of the dead”, the “treasuries of the spirits of the living” being a rather singular expression, probably meaning the treasuries of the unborn spirits (cf. Sifre, 143 b). Acc. to Tub ha-’ Ares, i. 50 a, the spirits go out to the world from the Libnat ha-sSappir (one of the seven Halls of ‘Araboth).”
Hence one might conclude that the unborn spirits here referred to have their place in the proximity of the Throne of Glory, whether in special chambers or not.
The expression ‘the spirits of the righteous, that have not yet been created’ compels the question whether this implies a distinction between the righteous, wicked (and intermediate) even before this life. Such a distinction is met with in Wisdom of Solomon, viii. 19, 20 (‘‘ For I was a witty child, and had a good spirit. Yea, rather, being good, I came into a body undefiled. ..’’). This idea in its strictest connotation implies that the moral character of the spirits is already determined before their embodiment—the different courses of the living on this earth being merely a consequence of their qualities as developed in their pre-terrestrial exist- ence; it reappears in Zohar in contexts treating of the problems of metempsychosis.
134 THE HEBREW BOOK OF ENOCH (CH. XLII
that have been created and had returned: and they were flying above the Throne of Glory before the Holy One, blessed be He.
(3) After that I went to interpret the following verse of Scripture and I found in what is written (Isa. lvii. 16): “for the spirit clothed itself before me, and the souls I have made” that (“for the spirit was clothed before me”) means the spirits “that have been created in the chamber of creation of the righteous and that have returned
4—4. E om.
The fully righteous spirits are there termed “ the spirits from the side of SAhekina” ; cf. Zohar, ii. 94 a b. But another interpretation of the expression ‘spirits of the righteous not yet born’ is “the spirits that when once having entered earthly life will turn out righteous. They are foreseen to be righteous”. Their future per- fection reacts upon their pre-existent state. T’his seems to be the underlying idea of the passage Ber. R. viii. 6 referred to above, and is represented in Zohar, ii. 96 b. (Cf. ib. iii. 168 a and ii. 94 a b, referred to above, et al.)
If chh. xliii and xliv be treated as a whole, it is evident that here the life on earth is regarded as determining the character of man, and indeed so that it is the ter- restrial life that taints the previously pure souls. Treated as a whole then, these chapters convey an interpretation of the words ‘spirits of the righteous not yet created’ more in line with the latter of the two connotations just referred to, but rather to the effect that there are no unrighteous spirits in the pre-existent state. No other unborn spirits are referred to in these chapters. Although only available as a demonstratio e silentio, this fact tends to show that at least the compiler of the present section moves on the basis of the orthodox conception expressed in the prayer ’ Elohe Nésháma (given in TB. Ber. 60 b): ’* O God, the spirit which thou hast set within me is pure etc.” (Box, Ezra-Apocalypse, p. 120). Cf. Eccl. R. xii. 7: “the spirit I have given thee is pure; if thou give it back to me in the same state it is good for thee; if not, I will burn it before thee”. (Cf. ch. xliv. and TB. Nidda, 30a, Shab. 32 b, Baba Batra, 16a.) Also 4 Macc. xviii. 23 (“ having received pure and immortal souls from God”).
Still it is evident that the expression by itself presupposes a distinction between righteous and not righteous already in the pre-existent state, in one form or the other. Hence the impression is left, that this tradition 1s suppressed in the present context and the possibility remains, that a fragment describing the conditions and abodes of the unborn spirits is missing, which originally would have had its place after vs. 2.
(3) After that I went to interpret etc., lit. “after that I went and studied this scriptural passage and I found according as it is written etc.’ ‘This scriptural passage’ means the well-known scriptural passage traditionally used as support for the doctrines concerning the subject in question. The passage, Isa. Ivii. 6, adduced here, is the starting point for the speculations as to the conditions of the unborn spirits both in TB. Chag. 12b and Yeb. 62a, ‘Aboda Zara, 3a, Nidda, 13 a (see above). Acc. to the J. Targum, ad locum, it is also used with reference to the doctrine of resurrection. Here the way in which the passage is used for its present purpose is set forth thus: the former part of the verse, ‘the spirit was clothed before me’, is made to refer to the spirits that have been created, that is to say, apparently, clothed with a body, the latter part, ‘the souls I have made’, is interpreted as referring to the spirits that are formed by God but not yet created, invested with a body.
that have been created in the GUPH of creation of the righteous, the chamber of creative forms designed for the righteous. The GUPH (= body) is then here not the chambers where the spirits dwell until the time appointed for
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before the Holy One, blessed be He; (and the words:) “and the souls I have made” refer to the spirits‘ of the righteous that have not yet been created in the chamber (GUPA).