And He said to me: “Look, now, beneath thy feet at the firmaments8 and understand9 the creation10 foreshadowed11 in this expanse, the creatures existing on it, and the age12 prepared according to it.” And I saw beneath [the surfaces of the13 feet, and I saw beneath]14 the sixth heaven 15 and what was therein,16 and then the earth and its fruits, and what moved upon it and its animate beings;17 and the power of its men, and the ungodliness of their souls, and their righteous deeds [and the beginnin gs of their works],18 and the lower regions19 and the perdition therein, the Abyss20 and its torments. I saw there the sea and its
3 S omits; K, + to me. Cf. Gen. xv. 5. S omits. Cf. Gen. xviii. 27, 4 Ezra iv. 5, 6. The bracketed clause is attested by A K, but omitted by S. Cf. Gen. xv. 5 (the MSS. read for thy seed instead of thy seed). S adds ( af t e r nation) of people wrongly. The underlyin g i dea seems to be that God’s heritage, the created world, is, under the conditions of sin, “shared” with Azazel (see further Introduction, p. xxxii), i. e. it is largely under the dominion of evil powers. This is one of t h e f undamental conceptions of Apocalyptic. On the oth er hand, th e Chosen People—who are ideally identified with the righteous—redeem the world, and in the m s el v es make it once again fit to be God’s heritage. From another point of view the same quest i o n is discussed in 4 Ezra—the problem, why, if the world was cr eated for Israel, is Israel disinherited? (cf. 4 Ezra vi. 38-59). Cf. Gen. xviii. 32. 9 Lit. surface. + now. Slavonic text, creature. Or represented. So S; A K, ages (“won,” “æons”). K, my. S omits. A K, the likeness of heaven (or for the sixth heaven render the six heavens). A, what was with it. =? “its spirits” (Bonwetsch). The bracketed clause is attested by A K; S omits. Cf. Ephesians iv. 9 (“the lower parts of th e earth”). i. e. Tartarus; cf. 2 Enoch xxviii. 3, xxix. 5. The “Abyss” is described in 1 E n och xviii. 11-16 (xxi. 1-6, xc. 25, 26), where it is th e abode of the impure angels; cf. Luke viii. 31; Rev. ix. 1, xi. 7.
islands, and its monsters and its fishes, and Lev iathan and his dominion,1 and his camping-ground, and his caves, and the world which lay upon him,2 and his movements, and the destructions of the world on his account.3 I saw there streams and the rising of their waters, and their windings. And I saw there the Garden of Eden and its fruits, the source 4 of the stream issuing from it, and its trees and their bloom, and those who behaved righteously. And I saw therein their foods and blessedness. 5 And I saw there a great multitude—men and women and children [half of them on the right side of the picture]6 and half of them on the left side of the picture.7 The Fall of Man and its Sequel (Chapters XXIL-XXV.).