Tertullian & Irenaeus on 1 Enoch

Adapted from Michael Heiser, A Companion to the Book of Enoch: A Reader's Commentary, Vol. 1, 11-13.

It is well known that a handful of early Christian writers treated 1 Enoch as Scripture. Stuckenbruck notes, "The Epistle of Barnabas, composed during the late 130s CE, cites the patriarch Enoch as 'scripture' twice in 16.5 f when reviewing material from the Animal Apocalypse (1 En. 89.56, 60, and 66f) and the Apocalypse of Weeks (1 En. 91.13-which is taken as a prediction of an eschatological temple).

Tertullian (ca. AD 155-240) used the same vocabulary. In his On the Apparel of Women, Book I, Chapter III, he calls 1 Enoch "Scripture" and defends its status using 2 Timothy 3:16:

<< I am aware that the Scripture of Enoch, which has assigned this order (of action) to angels, is not received by some, because it is not admitted into the Jewish canon either. I suppose they did not think that, having been published before the deluge, it could have safely survived that world-wide calamity, the abolisher of all things. If that is the reason (for rejecting it), let them recall to their memory that Noah, the survivor of the deluge, was the great-grandson of Enoch himself; and he, of course, had heard and remembered, from domestic renown and hereditary tradition, concerning his own great-grandfather's "grace in the sight of God," and concerning all his preachings; since Enoch had given no other charge to Methuselah than that he should hand on the knowledge of them to his posterity. Noah, therefore, no doubt, might have succeeded in the trusteeship of (his) preaching; or, had the case been otherwise, he would not have been silent alike concerning the disposition (of things) made by God, his Preserver, and concerning the particular glory of his own house.

If (Noah) had not had this (conservative power) by so short a route, there would (still) be this (consideration) to warrant our assertion of (the genuineness of) this Scripture: he could equally have renewed it, under the Spirit's inspiration, after it had been destroyed by the violence of the deluge, as, after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonian storming of it, every document of the Jewish literature is generally agreed to have been restored through Ezra.

But since Enoch in the same Scripture has preached likewise concerning the Lord, nothing at all must be rejected by us which pertains to us; and we read that "every Scripture suitable for edification is divinely inspired." By the Jews it may now seem to have been rejected for that (very) reason, just like all the other (portions) nearly which tell of Christ. Nor, of course, is this fact wonderful, that they did not receive some Scriptures which spake of Him whom even in person, speaking in their presence, they were not to receive. To these considerations is added the fact that Enoch possesses a testimony in the Apostle Jude.>> 1

Irenaeus (ca. AD 130-200) knew 1 Enoch well and accepted the recounting of primeval history described in the Book of the Watchers. In the tenth chapter of his work, Against Heresies (section 1), he wrote:

<<The Church, though dispersed throughout the whole world, even to the ends of the earth, has received from the apostles and their disciples this faith: [She believes] in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them; and in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who became incarnate for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit, who proclaimed through the prophets the dispensation of God, and the advents, and the birth from a virgin, and the passion, and the resurrection from the dead, and the ascension into heaven in the flesh of the beloved Christ Jesus, our Lord, and His [future] manifestations from heaven in the glory of the Father "to gather all things in one," and to raise up anew all flesh of the human race, in order that to Christ Jesus, our Lord, and God, and Saviour, and King, according to the will of the invisible Father, "every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess" to Him, and that He should execute just judgment toward all; that He may send "spiritual wickedness," and the angels who transgressed and became apostates, together with the ungodly, and unrighteous, and wicked, and profane among men, into everlasting fire; but may, in the exercise of His grace, confer immortality on the righteous, and holy, and those who have kept His commandments, and have persevered in His love, some from the beginning [of their Christian course], and others from [the date of] their repentance, and may surround them with everlasting glory.>> 2

References:

1 Tertullian, "On the Apparel of Women," in Fathers of the Third Century: Tertullian, Part Fourth; Minucius Felix; Commodian; Origen, Parts First and Second (ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe; trans. S. Thelwall; vol. 4; The Ante-Nicene Fathers; Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1885), 415-16.

2 Irenaeus of Lyons, "Irenaeus against Heresies," in The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus (ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe; vol. 1; The Ante-Nicene Fathers; Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1885), 1330-331.