Egyptian-Hebrew stream·The Book of Enoch (1 Enoch)·Book IV — Book of Dream Visions·Chapter LXXXVI — The Fallen Stars and the Elephants
Stars falling from heaven; mating with cows
Enoch beholds a star fall from heaven, and after it many stars; they descend to the cattle and become bulls that mate with the cows. The cows bring forth elephants, camels, and asses (the giants). The cattle are filled with fear.
Source context
- Theme
- celestial bodies descending to earth as star-beings and the corruption of the primordial order — the fallen Watchers as stars
- Soul-faculty
- Sentient Soul
Steiner
not engaged in the GA corpus
Cross-tradition
- Mesopotamian astral mythologyThe equation of fallen divine beings with stars descending from heaven shows cross-tradition congruence with Babylonian accounts of divine beings bound to celestial spheres and subject to transgression of cosmic boundaries.
- Zoroastrian cosmologyThe imagery of luminous beings departing their celestial stations to enter material existence parallels Zoroastrian accounts of ahuras and daevas as differentiated by their relationship to the cosmic order, showing cross-tradition congruence in the moral valuation of celestial descent.
- Neoplatonic emanation doctrineThe descent of star-souls into sublunar existence, depicted here as a catastrophic inversion of cosmic hierarchy, shows cross-tradition congruence with Plotinus's account of souls falling from the intelligible realm into embodiment (Enneads IV.8).
Chapter LXXXVI
LXXXVI. The Fall of the Angels and the Demoralization of Mankind.
CHAPTER LXXXVI.
1And again I saw with mine eyes as I slept, and I saw the heaven above, and behold a star fell from heaven, and it arose and eat and pastured amongst those oxen. 2. And after that I saw the
large and the black oxen, and behold they all changed their stalls and pastures and their cattle, and began to live with each other. 3. And again I saw in the vision, and looked towards the heaven, and behold I saw many stars descend and cast themselves down from heaven to that first star, and they became bulls amongst those cattle and pastured with them ⌈amongst them⌉. 4. And I looked at them and saw, and behold they all let out their privy members, like horses, and began to cover the cows of the oxen, and they all became pregnant and bare elephants, camels, and asses. 5. And all the oxen feared them and were affrighted at them, and began to bite with their teeth and to devour, and to gore with their horns. 6. And they began, moreover, to devour those oxen; and behold all the children of the earth began to tremble and quake before them and to flee from them.
JSON: /api/sources/book-of-enoch/enoch-dream-visions/77-chapter-lxxxvi.json