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Jude 14–15 — the New Testament quotes 1 Enoch by name

Jude 14–15

"It was also about these that Enoch, in the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied, saying, 'See, the Lord is coming with ten thousands of his holy ones, to execute judgement on all, and to convict everyone of all the deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him.'" — Jude 14–15 (NRSV)

The author of Jude — a short, fierce letter near the end of the New Testament — quotes the Book of Enoch by name. He attributes the quote to Enoch. He treats it as prophecy.

That is the only place in the New Testament where the Book of Enoch is cited by name. And the verse he quotes is recognizably 1 Enoch 1:9:

"And behold! He cometh with ten thousands of His holy ones to execute judgement upon all, and to destroy all the ungodly: and to convict all flesh of all the works of their ungodliness which they have ungodly committed…" — 1 En 1:9 (Charles 1917)

The phrasing matches almost word-for-word. The Greek of Jude corresponds closely to fragments of Greek 1 Enoch that survive in the Akhmim Codex and in extracts preserved by the Byzantine chronographer George Syncellus. So we can tell that Jude is quoting from a Greek version of 1 Enoch that was already in circulation by the late first century CE.

What this tells us about the early Christian world

Three concrete things follow:

  1. A version of 1 Enoch was already in Greek by Jude's lifetime. Whatever the original Aramaic, the book had been translated and was traveling through Greek-speaking Jewish-Christian circles before the late first century.

  2. Jude assumes his audience knows it. He doesn't introduce the book. He just quotes it the way a modern writer might quote scripture: "Enoch said." That only works if the readers already know who's being quoted and accept the source as authoritative.

  3. First-century Christianity didn't draw the canon line we draw. For Jude — and probably for much of the audience he was writing to — 1 Enoch was scripture. Not in the technical post-Trent or post-Reformation sense, but in the working sense: an authoritative ancient text whose prophecies could be invoked against opponents.

This is the concrete data point for what later Christianity wrestled with. The book Augustine eventually rejected and Jerome left out was the same book the New Testament had cited as prophecy.

How the early church responded

The early Christian writers who knew 1 Enoch had to figure out what to do with Jude's citation:

  • Tertullian (~210 CE) used Jude 14 as a positive argument for the authority of 1 Enoch. In De cultu feminarum I.3, he writes that since the apostle quoted Enoch, the book has apostolic backing.
  • Origen (~250 CE) is more cautious. In Contra Celsum V.54–55 he acknowledges that 1 Enoch was used in churches but notes it wasn't universally accepted.
  • Augustine (~420 CE) takes the other side in City of God XV.23: he accepts Jude's citation but argues that the wider Book of Enoch is not trustworthy because its claimed antiquity (pre-flood) is suspicious.

The eventual Western consensus followed Augustine. The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church didn't — and they're the reason 1 Enoch survives as a complete text at all.

Why "the seventh from Adam" matters

The phrase "in the seventh generation from Adam" is the kind of detail that Jude includes because it matters. Genesis 5 makes Enoch the seventh in the line from Adam — and the seventh slot, in the ancient Near East, was the special one. The Mesopotamian Sumerian King List made the seventh antediluvian king the one who ascended to the gods. (See Enmeduranki.)

Jude knows this. His audience knows it. The fact that he's the seventh isn't a throwaway genealogical note; it's the ancient signal of the one who ascends.

Cross-references

Further reading

  • R. J. Bauckham, Jude, 2 Peter (Word Biblical Commentary, 1983) — the standard critical treatment.
  • G. L. Green, Jude & 2 Peter (Baker Exegetical Commentary, 2008).
  • A. Y. Reed, Fallen Angels and the History of Judaism and Christianity (Cambridge, 2005), esp. ch. 3 — on the use of 1 Enoch in early Christianity.
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