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Library / Commentaries and Disputations on Genesis, Volume I

Book Seven — Cain and Abel

QUESTION II. Whether Enoch is going to die

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QUESTION II. Whether Enoch is going to die.1

QUAESTIO II. An Henoch sit Moriturus.

Secundo loco illud quaerendum est, utrum Henoch sit aliquando moriturus, an verò iam translatus sit ad vitam immortalem. Procopius Gazaeus super hoc loco Geneseos significare videtur Henoch non esse amplius moriturum, sed mirabili quodam mortis modo defunctum ad coelestem vitam esse translatum. Dicit enim eum non more hominum esse mortuum, sed divina quadam ratione nobis inexplorata esse à Deo assumptum; quin etiam ait eum ad perfectionem ac beatitudinem esse adductum. Addit praeterea et ipsum Eliam, cùm translatus est, ut aeterna tabernacula esset receptum; et paulò ante dixerat Abel, interfectum à fratre, ad astra volasse. Nescio quid simile de Henoch videtur innuere sanctus Hieronymus in epistola quam misit ad Pammachium adversus errores Ioannis Hierosolymitani, ad hunc modum scribens: Enoch translatus est in carne; Elias carneus raptus est in coelum; nec dum mortui, et paradisi iam coloni, habent membra cum quibus rapti sunt atque translati. Quod nos in isto ieiunio, illi possident Dei consortio; coelesti pane, et saturantur uno verbo Dei; eundem habent dominum quem et cibum.
In the second place it must be asked whether Enoch is at some time going to die, or has rather already been translated to immortal life. Procopius of Gaza, on this passage of Genesis, seems to signify that Enoch is no longer to die, but, having died in some wonderful manner of death, has been translated to heavenly life. For he says that Enoch did not die after the manner of men, but was taken up by God by some divine reason unexplored by us; indeed he says he was brought to perfection and beatitude. He adds moreover that Elijah too, when he was translated, was received into eternal tabernacles; and a little before he had said that Abel, slain by his brother, flew to the stars. Something similar about Enoch Saint Jerome seems to hint in the epistle he sent to Pammachius against the errors of John of Jerusalem, writing in this manner: 'Enoch was translated in the flesh; Elijah, a man of flesh, was caught up into heaven; not yet dead, and already dwellers of paradise, they keep the members with which they were caught up and translated. What we [seek] in this fasting, they possess in the fellowship of God; [they are fed] with heavenly bread, and are satisfied with the one word of God; they have the same lord whom they have also for food.'2
cibum. Sed profectò Hieronymum sensisse nondum Henoch esse mortuum sed moriturum aliquando ex aliis scriptis eius patet; nec aliud ipse hoc loco significare voluit quàm Henoch in amoenissimum aliquem terrae locum, quem generali vocabulo Paradisum appellavit, translatum, non sustentare vitam terrenis et usitatis nostratibúsque cibis et alimentis, sed Dei verbo, sicut Moses in monte per quadraginta dies: Non enim in solo pane vivit homo, sed in omni verbo quod procedit de ore Dei. Est igitur proculdubiò credendum Henoch et nondum esse mortuum et aliquando moriturum. Sic habet Ecclesiae traditio, sensúsque et opinio fidelium, et Patrum ac Theologorum sententia. Audi quid hac de re scribat Beatus Thomas in Commentariis in epistolam Pauli ad Hebraeos, super illis verbis capitis 11, Fide Henoch translatus est ne videret mortem: Nondum, inquit, Henoch est mortuus, sed morietur tamen aliquando. Sententia quam Dominus primis parentibus peccantibus inflixit, Quocunque die comederis ex eo morte morieris, omnes qui quocunque modo nascuntur ex Adam comprehendit. Unde Psalmo 88 dicitur, Quis est homo qui vivet et non videbit mortem? et Paulus ad Hebraeos 9, Statutum est, inquit, omnibus hominibus semel mori. Mors autem duorum dilata est, Henoch et Eliae. Et ratio est, quia doctrina veteris Testamenti ordinatur ad promissa novi Testamenti, in quo spes nobis vitae aeternae promittitur, Matthaei 4, Poenitentiam agite, appropinquavit enim regnum coelorum. Et ideo, data sententia mortis, voluit Dominus ducere homines in spem vitae: quod fecit in Patribus utriúsque status, scilicet Naturae, Legis, et Gratiae.
food. But truly, that Jerome held Enoch not yet dead but to die at some time is clear from his other writings; nor did he mean anything else in this place than that Enoch, translated into some most pleasant place of the earth (which he called by the general word Paradise), sustains his life not by earthly, ordinary, and our own foods and nourishments, but by the word of God -- as Moses on the mountain for forty days: 'For man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.' It is therefore beyond doubt to be believed that Enoch both is not yet dead and will at some time die. So holds the tradition of the Church, the sense and opinion of the faithful, and the judgment of the Fathers and theologians. Hear what blessed Thomas writes on this matter in his Commentary on Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews, upon those words of chapter 11, 'By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death': 'Enoch is not yet dead, yet he will die at some time. The sentence which the Lord inflicted upon our first parents when they sinned -- On whatever day you eat of it, you shall die the death -- comprehends all who are in any way born of Adam. Whence in Psalm 88 it is said, What man is he that shall live and not see death? and Paul to the Hebrews 9, It is appointed, he says, for all men once to die. But the death of the two, Enoch and Elijah, has been deferred. And the reason is that the doctrine of the Old Testament is ordered to the promises of the New, in which the hope of eternal life is promised to us: Matthew 4, Do penance, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And therefore, the sentence of death having been given, the Lord willed to lead men into the hope of life: which he did in the Fathers of each state, namely of Nature, of Law, and of Grace.'3
Unde in primo statu dedit spem evadendi necessitatem mortis in Henoch; in lege autem, in Elia; in tempore gratiae, in Christo, per quem datur nobis effectus huius promissionis. Sed duo primi morientur per Antichristum: Christus autem, semel mortuus, à mortuis resurgens iam non moritur, mors illi ultrà non dominabitur. Sic sanctus Thomas.
'Whence in the first state he gave hope of escaping the necessity of death in Enoch; in the Law, in Elijah; in the time of grace, in Christ, through whom the effect of this promise is given to us. But the first two will die by Antichrist: Christ, however, having died once, rising from the dead, dies now no more; death shall no longer have dominion over him.' Thus Saint Thomas.4
Sed hoc ipsum doctè admodum et disertè tractat atque confirmat sanctus Augustinus in libro nono de Genesi ad litteram, capite sexto, ita scribens: Neque enim arbitrandum est Eliam vel sic esse iam sicut erunt sancti, quando peracto operis die denarium pariter accepturi sunt; vel sic quemadmodum sunt homines qui ex ista vita nondum emigrarunt, de qua ille tamen non morte sed translatione migravit. Iam itaque aliquid melius habet quàm in hac vita posset: quamvis nondum habeat quod ex hac vita rectè gesta in fine habiturus est; pro nobis enim meliora providerunt, ne sine nobis perficerentur. Aut si quisquam putat hoc Eliam mereri non potuisse, si duxisset uxorem filiósque procreasset (creditur enim non habuisse, quia hoc Scriptura non dixit, quamvis et de coelibatu eius nihil dixerit): Quid de Henoch respondebit, qui, filiis genitis, Deo placens non mortuus sed vivus translatus est? Cur ergo et Adam et Eva, si iustè viventes castè filios procreassent, non eis possent translatione, non morte, succedentibus cedere? Nam si Henoch et Elias in Adam mortui, mortisque propaginem in carne gestantes, quod debitum ut solvant creduntur etiam redituri ad hanc vitam, et quod tamdiu dilatum est,
But this very point Saint Augustine handles and confirms most learnedly and eloquently in book nine of On Genesis according to the Letter, chapter six, writing thus: 'For neither is it to be thought that Elijah is even now such as the saints will be, when, the day's work done, they shall alike receive the denarius; nor such as are the men who have not yet departed from this life, from which he nonetheless departed not by death but by translation. So then he has now something better than he could have in this life -- although he does not yet have what he will have at the end from this life rightly lived; for they provided better things for us, that they should not be perfected without us. Or if anyone thinks that Elijah could not have merited this, had he taken a wife and begotten sons (for he is believed not to have had them, because Scripture did not say it, although it said nothing of his celibacy either): what will he answer about Enoch, who, having begotten sons, pleasing God, was translated not dead but alive? Why then could not both Adam and Eve, if, living justly, they had chastely begotten sons, have given place to their successors by translation and not by death? For if Enoch and Elijah, dead in Adam and bearing the propagation of death in their flesh, are believed even to be going to return to this life so as to pay that debt, and what has so long been deferred,'5

will die: yet now they are in another life, where, before the resurrection of the flesh, before the animal body is changed into a spiritual one, they fail neither by disease nor by old age. How much more justly and probably would it be granted to those first men, living without any sin of their own or of their parents, that -- their children begotten -- they should pass into some better state; indeed, the age being ended, that they should, with all the posterity of the saints, be changed into the angelic form far more happily, not through the death of the flesh but through the power of God?6

morienturi: nunc tamen in alia vita sunt, ubi ante resurrectionem carnis, antequam animale corpus in spiritale mutetur, nec morbo nec senectute deficiunt. Quantò iustius atque probabilius primis illis hominibus praestaretur, sine ullo suo parentúmve peccato viventibus, ut in meliorem aliquem statum, filiis genitis, cederent; utique saeculo finito cum omni posteritate sanctorum in angelicam formam, non per carnis mortem sed per Dei virtutem multò felicius mutarentur?

The same Augustine, in book 1 of On the Merits and Remission of Sins, to Marcellinus, chapters 2 and 3, not only teaches that Enoch is not dead, but also declares how he sustains life on earth for so many thousands of years. For he writes thus: 'Accordingly, had Adam not sinned, he would not have had to be stripped of his body, but to be over-clothed with immortality and incorruption, so that the mortal might be swallowed up by life -- that is, that he should pass from the animal to the spiritual. For there was no fear that, living here longer in an animal body, he would be weighed down by old age and by gradual aging come to death. For if God provided that the garments and shoes of the Israelites were not worn out through so many years, what wonder if the same power were granted to an obedient man, that, having an animal and mortal body, he might have in it a certain state whereby without decay it should be full of years, destined to come, at the time God willed, from mortality to immortality without an intervening death? For just as this very flesh which we now have is not un-woundable merely because it is not necessary that it be wounded, so that flesh was not un-mortal merely because it was not necessary that it die. Such a condition, I think, still in an animal and mortal body, was granted also to those who were translated hence without death. For neither did Enoch and Elijah wither by old age through their long age, nor yet do I believe them already changed into that spiritual quality of body which is promised in the resurrection, which preceded in the Lord: unless perhaps these need not even those foods which restore by their own consumption, but from the time they were translated live so as to have a satiety like those forty days in which Elijah lived without food on a cup of water and a cake of bread; or, if they do need such supports, perhaps they are fed in Paradise as Adam was before he deserved for his sin to depart thence. For he had, as far as I judge, both refreshment against decay from the fruits of the trees, and from the tree of life stability against age.' Thus Augustine.7

Idem Augustinus libro 1 de Peccatorum meritis et remissione ad Marcellinum, capite 2 et 3, non tantùm docet Henoch non esse mortuum, sed etiam declarat quomodo tot millibus annorum vitam in terris sustineret. Hoc enim modo scribit: Proinde si non peccasset Adam, non erat expoliandus corpore, sed superrevestiendus immortalitate et incorruptione, ut absorberetur mortale à vita, id est ab animali in spiritale transiret. Neque enim metuendum fuit nedum fortè diutius hic viveret in corpore animali, senectute gravaretur, et paulatim veterascendo perveniret ad mortem. Si enim Deus Israelitarum vestimentis et calceamentis praestitit quod per tot annos non sunt obtrita, quid mirum si obedienti homini eiusdem potentia praestaretur, ut animale ac mortale habens corpus haberet in eo quemdam statum quo sine defectu esset annosum, tempore quo Deus vellet à mortalitate ad immortalitatem sine media morte venturus? Sicut enim haec ipsa caro quam nunc habemus non ideo non est vulnerabilis quia non est necesse ut vulneretur, sic illa non ideo non fuit mortalis quia non erat necesse ut moreretur. Talem puto habitudinem adhuc in corpore animali atque mortali etiam illis qui sine morte hinc translati sunt fuisse concessam. Neque enim Henoch et Elias per longam aetatem senectute marcuerunt, nec tamen credo eos iam in illam spiritalem qualitatem corporis commutatos qualis in resurrectione promittitur, quae in Domino praecessit: nisi quia isti fortasse nec his cibis egent qui sui consumptione reficiunt, sed ex quo translati sunt ita vivunt ut similem habeant satietatem illis quadraginta diebus quibus Elias ex calice aquae et ex colliride panis sine cibo vixit; aut si et his sustentaculis opus est, ita fortasse in Paradiso pascuntur sicut Adam priusquam propter peccatum exinde exire meruisset. Habebat enim, quantum existimo, et de lignorum fructibus refectionem contra defectionem, et ex ligno vitae stabilitatem contra vetustatem. Sic Augustinus.

Translator’s notes

  1. Second quaestio of the disputation on Enoch. ↩
  2. Marginal glosses: '2 Kings [4 Regum] 2' (Elijah's translation); 'What Procopius of Gaza thinks about Enoch.' Procopius seems to hold Enoch no longer mortal but assumed by God to heavenly beatitude (likewise Elijah into eternal tabernacles, and Abel's soul flying to the stars). Jerome (Epistle to Pammachius, Against the Errors of John of Jerusalem) similarly speaks of Enoch and Elijah translated in the flesh, dwellers of paradise fed by God's word. Continues on the next page (catchword 'cibum'). ↩
  3. Marginal references: Exodus 24 & 34; Deuteronomy 8 (Moses fasting 40 days, 'not by bread alone'); Genesis 2 (the death-sentence). Jerome's other writings show he held Enoch not yet dead but to die eventually. Pererius's conclusion: Enoch both is not-yet-dead and will die eventually -- the tradition of the Church, the faithful, the Fathers and theologians. He cites Aquinas (Commentary on Hebrews 11): the sentence of Gen 2:17 comprehends all born of Adam (cf. Ps 88[89]:48; Heb 9:27); the death of Enoch and Elijah is deferred because OT doctrine is ordered to the NT promise of eternal life. ↩
  4. Marginal reference: Romans 6 (v.9, 'Christ rising from the dead dies now no more'). Aquinas's schema: God gave hope of escaping death's necessity in Enoch (state of Nature), Elijah (Law), and Christ (Grace); Enoch and Elijah will yet die (by Antichrist, cf. Rev 11), but Christ dies no more. ↩
  5. Marginal reference: Matthew 20 (the parable of the denarius). Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram IX.6, on the intermediate state of Enoch and Elijah: translated not by death, they have something better than this life yet not the final reward (they await it with us). Even Enoch, who begot sons, was translated alive. Enoch and Elijah, still bearing mortality in their flesh, are believed to return to this life to pay death's debt, so long deferred. Sentence continues on the next page (catchword 'mori-'). ↩
  6. Conclusion of the Augustine quotation from De Genesi ad litteram IX.6 (continued from the previous page, catchword 'mori-'): Enoch and Elijah are now in another life, free of aging; the sinless first parents would all the more have passed to a better state without death. ↩
  7. Augustine, De peccatorum meritis et remissione I.2-3 (to Marcellinus): had Adam not sinned he would not have been stripped of the body but 'over-clothed' with immortality (2 Cor 5:4), passing from animal to spiritual without death; as God kept the Israelites' clothes and shoes from wearing out (Deut 8:4/29:5), so an obedient man's body could be kept ageless until translated without death. Enoch and Elijah did not wither with age; they perhaps need no consuming food, living as Elijah did on the 40-day journey (1 Kings 19:6-8), or are fed in Paradise as Adam was by the tree of life. Marginal notes: 'Had Adam not sinned, he would not be stripped of the body but over-clothed'; '2 Corinthians 5'; a variant reading ('lest perhaps he live here longer'); '1 Kings [3 Regum] 19'; 'It is one thing to be mortal, another to be subject to the necessity of death.' ↩