Egyptian-Hebrew stream·The Book of Enoch (1 Enoch)·Book III — Astronomical Book·Chapter LXXVII — The Four Quarters and the Seven Mountains
The geography of the cosmos
The names of the four quarters of the earth; the names of the seven great mountains, seven great rivers, seven great islands. The geographic schema of the cosmos as Enoch beholds it from the heights.
Source context
- Theme
- Naming and classification of the four cardinal directions, winds, and quarters of the world
Steiner
not engaged in the GA corpus
Cross-tradition
- Babylonian cosmologyBabylonian astronomical texts similarly assign named spirits and divine functions to the four winds and quarters of the heavens, establishing a structural parallel to Enoch's fourfold directional scheme.
- Vedic traditionThe Vedic system of Lokapālas assigns guardian deities to the eight cardinal and intercardinal directions, exhibiting cross-tradition congruence with Enoch's enumeration of named quarters and their ruling winds.
- Kabbalistic cosmologyKabbalistic texts associate the four directions with divine names and angelic offices, a structural parallel to the directional naming schema articulated in this chapter of the Astronomical Book.
Chapter LXXVII
LXXVII. The Four Quarters of the World: the Seven Mountains, the Seven Rivers, &c.
CHAPTER LXXVII.
1And the first **quarter** is called the east, because it is the first: and the second, the south, because the Most High **will descend** there, yea, there in quite a special sense will He who is blessed for ever **descend**. 2. And the west **quarter** is named the diminished, because there all the luminaries of the heaven wane and go down. 3. And the fourth **quarter**, named the north, is divided into three parts: the first of them is for the dwelling of men: and the second contains seas of water, and the abysses and forests and rivers, and darkness and clouds; and the third part contains the garden of righteousness.
4I saw seven high mountains, higher than all the mountains which are on the earth: and thence comes forth hoar-frost, and days, seasons, and years pass away. 5. I saw seven rivers on the earth larger than all the rivers: one of them coming from the west pours its waters into the Great Sea. 6. And these two come from the north to the sea and pour their waters into the Erythraean Sea in the east. 7. And the remaining four come forth on the side of the north to their own sea, 〈two of them〉 to the Erythraean Sea, and two into the Great Sea and discharge themselves there [and some say: into the desert]. 8. Seven great islands I saw in the sea and in the mainland: two in the mainland and five in the Great Sea.
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