The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 1

II. Slavonic Enoch—Eternal Heaven and Unending Hell for Immortal Souls

The opposite picture is portrayed in The Book of the Secrets of Enoch, called the Slavonic Enoch (or 2 Enoch), which is preserved only in the Slavonic form. It is not a translation of the Ethiopic Enoch, for although the same subject is treated, it is a different pseudepigraph. Here “Enoch” is led through the ten heavens (chaps. 2 to 22)—God dwelling in the tenth ²⁰—to learn the secrets of the universe, that he might instruct and teach the fear of the Lord. CFF1 685.1

According to Charles, the final editor of this little work was clearly a Hellenist Jew who lived in Alexandria, Egypt, fountainhead of the Immortal-Soul theory. The date is evidently early in the Christian Era, within the first fifty years. ²¹ CFF1 685.2

1. FIRST JEWISH PROPOUNDER OF “SIX-THOUSAND-YEAR” THEORY

Here apparently for the first time in Jewish literature appears the equation of each day of Creation week for a thousand years of human history, with its final thousand years of rest. ²² Thus it was both a history of the past and a forecast of the future—a theory which came to play an important role in both early and modern Chiliasm. CFF1 685.3

It was an attempt to compute the time of the end of the world, ²³ and of the opening up of the gates of eternity when time shall be no more. God created the world out of nothing (24:2), ²⁴ with the specifications of each day of Creation week (chaps. 25 to 30). Man, it is here recorded, was created on the sixth day of Creation week (30:8-18), ²⁶ and the Fall is depicted, as well as the Flood (31:1-34:3). And the Second Coming is also expressly taught (32:1). CFF1 685.4

2. SOULS PREPARED FOR ETERNITY BEFORE WORLD’S FORMATION

The Slavonic Enoch taught that all souls were “prepared to eternity, before the formation of the world,” and thus before they took up their abode in material earthly forms (23:4, 5). And “places” are similarly prepared for them for all eternity: CFF1 686.1

“Many mansions [are] prepared for men, good for the good, and bad for the bad, without number many. Blessed are those who enter the good houses, for in the bad (sc. houses) there is no peace nor return (sc. from them)” (61:2, 3). ²⁷ CFF1 686.2

3. FREE WILL, DEATH, PUNISHMENT, AND REWARD

Man was originally created good, and bestowed with free will, and thus had power to choose between good and evil. He became the master of his own destiny (30:15). Death came as a result of sin (30:16). ²⁸ All will be judged, and punished or rewarded according to their works (40:12, 13; 46:3). ²⁹ The righteous will escape punishment, and be gathered into eternal life (65:8). ³⁰ CFF1 686.3

4. RIGHTEOUS “LIVE ETERNALLY” IN PARADISE

Paradise is placed in the third heaven, “between corruptibility and incorruptibility.” In the midst of it stands the tree of life. There are two springs sending forth milk and honey and oil and wine (8:3-6). ³¹ This is the “eternal inheritance” of the righteous (9:1), ³² where the righteous “live eternally” (65:9), possess “eternal life” (65:10), and “escape the great judgment” (66:7). ³³ It is a pleasing prospect. CFF1 686.4

5. “MERCILESS TORTURES” ARE “ETERNAL INHERITANCE” of WICKED

At the northern end of the third heaven is Hell, a place of cruel darkness, lighted only by sheets of “murky fire” (10:1-6). ³⁴ Everywhere is fire, and strangely, everywhere is frost. In the “lowest hell” the wicked prisoners are “in pain,” awaiting “limitless judgment” (40:12, 13). ³⁵ Merciless torture is the eternal inheritance of the wicked. For such there is no return, and no repentance after death. Cruel and merciless angels apply fearful tortures to those condemned to live forever therein, because of their sins against God and man. The guardians of Hell are thus vividly described: CFF1 686.5

“I saw the guardians of the keys of hell standing over against the gates like great serpents, their faces like lamps that are gone out, their eyes like darkened flames, and their teeth naked down to their breasts” (42:1, col. B). ³⁶ CFF1 687.1

It is a forbidding picture, but such are the torrid teachings of this extra-Biblical Jewish apocalyptic, appearing just after the opening of the Christian Era. The Eternal Torment of the wicked postulate was thus being promulgated in the inter-Testament period. CFF1 687.2