Prologue on the Sons of Jared
More—Prologue on the Sons of Jared
Taken from the “Second Book of Adam and Eve” in The Book of the Secrets of Enoch, (Tranlated by W. R. Morphill M. A.). This selection starts with Chapter 19.
Chapter 19
The children of Jared are led Astray.
1 Then God revealed to him [Jared] again the promise He had made to Adam; He explained to him the 5,500 years, and revealed unto him the mystery of His coming upon the earth.
2 And God said to Jared, "As to that fire which thou has taken from the altar to light the lamp withal, let it abide with you to give light to the bodies; and let it not come out of the cave, until the body of Adam comes out of it."
[Note: The bodies of Adam, Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel were buried in the Cave of Treasures. Also in the cave were artifacts that God had allowed Adam to take from the Garden of Eden as remembrances.]
[Note: In the First Book of Adam and Eve, God reveals to Adam that the period of recompense for disobedience in the garden was 5,500 years.]
3 "But, O Jared, take care of the fire that it burn bright in the lamp; neither go thou again out of the cave, until thou receives an order through a vision, and not in an apparition, when seen by thee."
4 “Then command again thy people not to hold intercourse with the children of Cain, and not to learn their ways; for I am God who loves not hatred and works of iniquity."
5 God gave also many other commandments to Jared and blessed him. And then withdrew His Word from him.
6 Then Jared drew near his children took some fire, and came down to the cave, and lighted the lamp before the body of Adam; and he gave his people commandments as God had told him to do.
7 This sign happened to Jared at the end of his four hundred and fiftieth year; as did also many other wonders, we do not record. But we record only this one for shortness sake and in order not to lengthen our narrative.
8 And Jared continued to teach his children eighty years; but after that they began to transgress the commandments he had given them, and to do many things without his counsel. They began to go down from the Holy Mountain, one after another, and to mix with the children of Cain in foul relationships.
9 Now the reason for which the children of Jared went down the Holy Mountain, is this that we will now reveal to you.
Chapter 20
Ravishing music; strong drink loosed among the sons of Cain. They don colorful clothing. The children of Seth look on with longing eyes. They revolt from wise counsel; they descend the mountain into the valley of iniquity. They can not ascend the mountain again.
1 After Cain had gone down to the land of dark soil, and his children had multiplied therein there was one of them, whose name was Genun, son of Lemech the blind who slew Cain.
2 But as to this Genun, Satan came into him in his childhood; and he made sundry trumpets and horns, and string instruments cymbals and psalteries, and lyres, and harps, and flutes; and he played on them at all times and at every hour.
3 And when he played on them, Satan came into them, so that from among them were heard beautiful and sweet sounds, that ravished the heart.
4 Then he gathered companies upon companies to play on them; and when they played, it pleased well the children of Cain, who inflamed themselves with sin among themselves, and burnt as with fire; while Satan inflamed their hearts, one with another, and increased lust among them.
5 Satan also taught Genus to bring strong drink out of corn; and this Genun used to bring together companies upon companies in drink-houses; and brought into their hands all manner of fruits and flowers and they drank together.
6 Thus did this Genun multiply sin exceedingly; he also acted with pride, and taught the children of Cain to commit all manner of the grossest wickedness, which they knew not; and put them up to manifold doings which they knew not before.
7 Then Satan, when he saw that they yielded to Genun and hearkened to him in every thing he told them, rejoiced greatly, increased Genun’s understanding, until he took iron and with it made weapons of war.
8 Then when they were drunk, hatred and murder increased among them; one man used violence against another to teach him evil, taking his children and defiling them before him.
9 And when men saw they were overcome, and saw others that were not overpowered, those who were beaten came to Genun, took refuge with him, and he made them confederates.
10 Then sin increased among them greatly; until a man married his own sister, or daughter, or mother, and others; or the daughter of his father’s sister, so that there was no distinction of relationship, and they no longer knew what is iniquity; but did wickedly, and the earth was defined with sin; and they angered God the Judge, who had created them.
11 But Genun gathered together companies upon companies, that played on horns and on all the other instruments we have already mentioned, at the foot of the Holy Mountain; and they did so in order that the children of Seth who were on the Holy Mountain should hear it.
12 But when the children of Seth heard the noise, they wondered, and came by companies, and stood on the top of the mountain to look at those below; and they did this a whole year.
13 When at the end of that year, Genun saw that they were being won over to him little by little, Satan entered into him, and taught him to make dyeing-stuffs for garments of divers patterns, and made him understand how to dye crimson and purple and what not.
14 And the sons of Cain who wrought all this, and shone in beauty and gorgeous apparel, gathered together at the foot of the mountain in splendour, with horns and gorgeous dresses, and horse races, committing all manner of abominations.
15 Meanwhile the children of Seth, who were on the Holy Mountain, prayer and praised God, in the place of the hosts of angels who had fallen; wherefore God had called them “angels,” because He rejoiced over them greatly.
16 But after this, they no longer kept His commandments, nor held by the promise He had made to their fathers; but they relaxed from their fasting and praying, and from the counsel of Jared their father. And they kept on gathering together on the top of the mountain, to look upon the children of Cain, from morning until evening, and upon what they did, upon their beautiful dresses and ornaments.
17 Then the children of Cain looked up from below, and saw the children of Seth, standing in troops on the top of the mountain; and they called to them to come down to them.
18 But the children of Seth said to them from above, “We don’t know the way,” Then Genun, the son of Lemech, heard them say they did not know the way, and he bethought himself how he might bring them down.
19 Then Satan appeared to him by night, saying, “There is no way for them to come down from the mountain on which they dwell; but when they come to-morrow, say to them, ‘Come ye to the western side of the mountain; there you will find the way of a stream of water, that comes down to the foot of the mountain; between two hills; come down that way to us.’”
20 Then when it was day, Genun blew the horns and beat the drums below the mountain, as he was wont. The children of Seth heard it, and came as they used to do.
21 Then Genun said to them from down below, “Go to the western side of the mountain, there you will find the way to come down.”
22 But when the children of Seth heard these words from him, they went back into the cave to Jared, to tell him all they had heard.
23 Then when Jared heard it, he was grieved; for he knew that they would transgress his counsel.
24 After this a hundred men of the children of Seth gathered together, and said among themselves, “Come, let us go down to the children of Cain, and see what they do, and enjoy ourselves with them.”
25 But when Jared heard this of the hundred men, his very soul was moved, and his heart was grieved. He then arose with great fervor, and stood in the midst of them, and adjured them by the blood of Abel the just, “Let not one of you go down from this holy and pure mountain, in which our fathers have ordered us to dwell.:
26 But when Jared say that they did not receive his words, he said unto them, “O my good and innocent and holy children, know that when once you go down from this holy mountain, God will not allow you to return again to it.”
27 He again adjured them, saying, “I adjure by the death of our father Adam, and by the blood of Abel, of Seth, of Enos, of Cainan, and of Mahalaleel, to hearken to me, and not to go down from this holy mountain; for the moment you leave it, you will be reft of life and of mercy; and you sahall no longer be called ’children of God,’ but ‘children of the devil.’
28 But they would not hearken to his words.
29 Enoch at that time was already grown up, and in his zeal for God, he arose and said, “Hear me, O ye sons of Seth, small and great—when ye transgress the commandment of our fathers, and go down from this holy mountain—ye shall not come up hither again for ever.”
30 But they rose up against Enoch, and would not hearken to his words, but went down from the Holy Mountain.
31 And when they looked at the daughters of Cain, at their beautiful figures, and at their hands and feet dyes with colour, and tattooed in ornaments on their faces, the fire of sin was kindled in them.
32 Then Satan made them look most beautiful before the sons of Seth, as he also made the sons of Seth appear of the fairest in the eyes of the daughters of Cain, so that the daughters of Cain lusted after the sons of Seth like ravenous beasts and the sons of Seth after the daughters of Cain, until they committed abominations with them.
33 But after they had thus fallen into this defilement, they returned by the way they had come, and tried to ascend the Holy Mountain. But they could not, because the stones of that holy mountain were of fire flashing before them, by reason of which they could not go up again.
34 And God was angry with them, and repented of them because they had come down from glory, and had thereby lost or forsaken their own purity or innocence, and were fallen into the defilement of sin.
35 Then God sent his Word to Jared, saying, “These thy children, whom thou didst call ‘My children,’ —behold they have transgressed My commandment, and have gone down to the abode of perdition, and of sin. Send a messenger to those that are left, that they may not go down and be lost.”
36 Then Jared wept before the Lord, and asked of Him mercy and forgiveness. But he wished that his soul might depart from his body, rather than hear these words from God about the going down of his children from the Holy Mountain.
37 But he followed God’s order and preached unto them not to go down from that holy mountain, and not to hold intercourse with the children of Cain.
38 But they heeded not his message, and would not obey his counsel.
Chapter 21
Jared dies in sorrow for his sons who had gone astray. A prediction of the Flood.
1 After this another company gathered together, and they went to look after their brethren; but they perished as well as they. And so it was, company after company, until only a few of them were left.
2 Then Jared sickened from grief, and his sickness was such that the day of his death drew near.
3 Then he called Enoch his eldest son, and Methuselah Enoch’s son, and Lemech the son of Methuselah, and Noah the son of Lemech.
4 And when they were some to him he prayed over them and blessed them, and said to them, “Ye are righteous, innocent sons’ go ye not down from this holy mountain; for behold, your children and your children’s children have gone down from this holy mountain, and have estranged themselves form this holy mountain, and through their abominable lust and transgression of God’s commandment.
5 “But I know, through the power of God, that He will not leave you on this holy mountain, because your children have transgressed His commandment and that of our fathers, which we had received from them.
6 “But, O my sons, God will take you to a strange land, and ye never shall again return to behold with your eyes this garden and this holy mountain.
7 “Therefore, O my sons, set your hearts on your own selves, and keep the commandment of God which is with you. And when you go from this holy mountain, into a strange land which you know not, take with you the body of our father Adam, and with these precious gifts and offerings, namely, the gold, the incense and the myrrh; and let them be in the place where the body of our father Adam shall lay.
8 “And unto him of you who shall be left, O my sons, shall the Word of God come, and when he goes out of this land he shall take with him the body of our father Adam, and shall lay it in the middle of the earth, the place in which salvation shall be wrought.”
9 Then Noah said unto him, “Who is he of us that shall be left?”
10 And Jared answered, “Thou are he that shall be left. And thou shalt take the body of our father Adam from the cave, and place it with thee in the ark when the flood comes.
11 And they son Shem, who shall come out of thy loins, he it is who shall lay the body of our father Adam in the middle of the earth, in the place whence salvation shall come.”
12 Then Jared turn to his son Enoch, and said unto him, “Thou, my son, abide in this cave, and minister diligently before the body of our father Adam all the days of thy life; and feed thy people in righteousness and innocence.”
13 And Jared said no more. His hands were loosened, his eyes closed, and he entered into rest like his fathers. His death took place in the three hundred and sixtieth year of Noah, and in the nine hundred and eighty-ninth year of his own life; and the twelfth of Takhsas on a Friday.
14 But as Jared died, tears streamed down his face by reason of his great sorrow, for the children of Seth, who had fallen in his days.
15 Then Enoch, Methusaleh, Lamech and Noah, these four wept over him; embalmed him carefully, and then laid him in the Cave of Treasures. Then they arose and mourned him forty days.
16 And when these days of mourning were ended, Enoch, Methusaleh, Lemech and Noah remained in sorrow of heart, because their father had departed from them, and they saw him no more.
Chapter 22
Only three righteous men left in the world. The evil conditions of men prior to the Flood.
1 But Enoch kept the commandment of Jared his father, and continued to minister in the cave.
2 It is this Enoch to whom many wonders happened, and who also wrote a celebrated book; but these wonders may not be told in this place.
3 Then after this, the children of Seth went astray and fell, they, their children, and their wives. And when Enoch, Methusaleh, Lemech and Noah saw them, their hearts suffered by reason of their fall into doubt full of unbelief; and they wept and sought of God mercy, to preserve them, and to bring them out of that wicked generation.
4 Enoch continued in his ministry before the Lord three hundred sixty-five years, and at the end of that time he became aware through the grace of God, that God intended to remove him from the earth.
5 He then said to his son, “O my son, I know that God intends to bring the waters of the Flood upon the earth, and to destroy our creation..
6 “And ye are the last rulers over this people on this mountain; for I know that not one will be left you to beget children on this holy mountain; neither shall any one of you rule over the children of his people; neither shall any great company be left of you, on this mountain.”
7 Enoch said also to them, “Watch over your souls, and hold fast by your fear of God and by your service of Him, and worship Him in upright faith, and serve Him in righteousness, innocence and judgment, in repentance and also in purity.”
8 When Enoch had ended his commandments to them, God transported him from that mountain to the land of life, to the mansions of the righteous and of the chosen, the abode of Paradise of joy, in light that reaches up to heaven; light that is outside the light of this world; for it is the light of God, that fills the whole world, but which no place can contain.
9 This because Enoch was in the light of God, he found himself out of the reach of death; until would have him die.
10 Altogether, not one of our fathers or of their children, remained on that holy mountain, except those three, Methusaleh, Lamech and Noah. For all the rest went down from the mountain and fell into sin with the children of Cain. Therefore were they forbidden that mountain, and none remained on it but those three men.