Egyptian-Hebrew stream·The Book of Enoch (1 Enoch)·Book I — Book of the Watchers·Chapter XXXII — The Garden of Righteousness
Where the tree of wisdom grows
In the east of the earth Enoch finds the garden of righteousness with the tree of wisdom — the tree whose fruit the holy ones eat to learn great wisdom. This is the tree from which Adam and Eve ate.
Source context
- Theme
- Enoch's journey to the Tree of Wisdom and the northeastern reaches of paradise, culminating in angelic revelation of the tree's forbidden fruit
Steiner
not engaged in the GA corpus
Cross-tradition
- Hebrew Bible / Genesis traditionChapter XXXII elaborates the Eden geography of Genesis 2–3, situating the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil within a cosmic topography traversed by Enoch under angelic guidance, showing cross-tradition congruence with the spatial symbolism of the garden as a threshold between human and divine knowing.
- Mandaean cosmologyMandaean texts similarly describe paradisical journeys to luminous trees whose fruits confer or withhold gnosis, exhibiting cross-tradition congruence with the Enochic motif of wisdom-fruit accessible only through initiated traversal of cosmic space.
- Neoplatonic / Philo of AlexandriaPhilo's allegorical reading of Eden's trees as symbols of moral and intellectual virtue exhibits cross-tradition congruence with Enoch's identification of the northeastern tree as the source of wisdom bestowed upon the holy and wise.
Chapter XXXII
CHAPTER XXXII.
E
1And after these fragrant odours, as I looked towards the north over the mountains I saw seven mountains full of choice nard and fragrant trees and cinnamon and pepper.
** G g**
1To the north-east I beheld seven mountains full of choice nard and mastic and cinnamon and pepper.
2And thence I went over the summits of ⌈all⌉ these mountains, far towards the east ⌈of the earth⌉, and passed above the Erythraean sea and went far from it, and passed over ⌈⌈the angel⌉⌉ Zotîêl.
**E**
3And I came to the Garden of Righteousness, and saw beyond those trees many large trees growing there and of goodly fragrance, large, very beautiful and glorious, and the tree of wisdom whereof they eat and know great wisdom.
** G g**
3And I came to the Garden of Righteousness, and from afar off trees more numerous than these trees and great--†two† trees there, very great, beautiful, and glorious, and magnificent, and the tree of knowledge, whose holy fruit they eat and know great wisdom.
4⌈That tree is in height like the fir, and its leaves are⌉ like (those of) the Carob tree: and its fruit is like the clusters of the vine, very beautiful: and the fragrance of the tree penetrates afar. 5. Then I said: '⌈How⌉ beautiful is the tree, and how attractive is its look!' 6. Then Raphael the holy angel, who was with me, answered me ⌈⌈and said⌉⌉: 'This is the tree of wisdom, of which thy father old (in years) and thy aged mother, who were before thee, have eaten, and they learnt wisdom and their eyes were opened, and they knew that they were naked and they were driven out of the garden.'
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