The Influence of 1 Enoch on Tertullian
Into Latin Christianity
Tertullian was a Christian theologian active in the late second and early third centuries CE, working in Roman North Africa and writing extensively in Latin. He is known in Christian tradition as the first prominent Latin theologian1, often noted as the first to use the term ‘trinity’, and as an author of apologetic and polemical works that made frequent use of what he considered scripture. In these texts, he often turned to inherited narratives to account for the presence of disorder and wrongdoing in human history. The text known as 1 Enoch fits into his habit of reading and application, as it offers a detailed story, building on traditions from the Hebrew Bible, about rebellious divine beings and their effects on the world. Tertullian returned to this specific tradition in his writings over many years, and his use of several distinct sections in it suggests familiarity with a later, edited form of 1 Enoch. His use of 1 Enoch belongs to a period when some Christians were beginning to question its standing, leading him to address those concerns and defend his use of it.
And all the others them took wives for themselves, each choosing one for himself, and they began to unite with them and defiled themselves with them. They taught them sorcery, spells, and the art of extracting medicinal substances from plants. The women became pregnant and gave birth to enormous giants, whose height was three thousand ells. These giants consumed everything humans produced. And when humans could no longer support them, the giants turned against them and devoured mankind. (1 Enoch 7:1-4)
In fact, they call upon Satan, the demon-chief, in their execrations, as though from some instinctive soul-knowledge of him. Plato also admits the existence of angels. The dealers in magic, no less, come forward as witnesses to the existence of both kinds of spirits. We are instructed, moreover, by our sacred books how from certain angels, who fell of their own free-will, there sprang a more wicked demon-brood, condemned of God along with the authors of their race, and that chief we have referred to. It will for the present be enough, however, that some account is given of their work. Their great business is the ruin of mankind. (Tertullian, Apology)2
In his Apology, a defense of Christianity addressed to Roman authorities, Tertullian explains the origins of demonic powers by drawing directly on the Enochic traditions. He describes how certain angels fell by their own choice and produced demons whose work involves the ruin of humanity. This explanation follows the narrative structure found in 1 Enoch, where rebellious angels called Watchers descend to earth, take human wives, and produce giant offspring whose violence and corruption spread across the world. Tertullian treats this account not as speculation but as concrete history, part of the instruction Christians have from their inherited texts. The Watchers tradition gave early Christian writers like Tertullian a way to explain how evil and corruption entered the human world through supernatural rebellion rather than human action alone, and his use of this material in an apologetic work aimed at outsiders shows how central it was to his understanding of cosmic history3.
And Azâzal taught men to make swords, knives, shields, and breastplates, and revealed to them the metals of the earth and how to work with them, as well as how to make bracelets, ornaments, and the use antimony, beautifying the eyelids, along with all kinds of precious stones and various dyes. Widespread wickedness arose, and they engaged in fornication, were led astray, and corrupted all their ways. Semjâzâ taught spells and the cutting of roots, Armârôs taught how to break spells, Barâqîjâl taught astrology, Kôkabîal taught about the constellations, Ezêqêal taught about the clouds, Araqiêal taught the signs of the earth, Shamsiêal taught the signs of the sun, and Sariêal taught the course of the moon. And as men died, they cried out, and their cries ascended to heaven. (1 Enoch 8:1-2)
Yes, and persons who are now daily brought to light as confederates or approvers of these crimes and treasons, the still remnant gleanings after a vintage of traitors, with what verdant and branching laurels they clad their door-posts, with what lofty and brilliant lamps they smoked their porches, with what most exquisite and gaudy couches they divided the Forum among themselves; not that they might celebrate public rejoicings, but that they might get a foretaste of their own votive seasons in partaking of the festivities of another, and inaugurate the model and image of their hope, changing in their minds the emperor’s name. The same homage is paid, dutifully too, by those who consult astrologers, and soothsayers, and augurs, and magicians, about the life of the Cæsars — arts which, as made known by the angels who sinned, and forbidden by God, Christians do not even make use of in their own affairs. (Tertullian, Apology)4
The Enochic tradition provided Tertullian with more than an origin story for demonic beings, as it also offered an explanation for how human s learned forbidden knowledge. In 1 Enoch, the Watchers not only produce monstrous offspring but also teach humanity skills and arts that lead to corruption, including metalworking, creating jewelry and cosmetics, astrology, and various forms of magic and divination. Tertullian draws on this tradition elsewhere in the Apology when discussing Romans who consult astrologers, soothsayers, and magicians, describing these as arts made known by the angels who sinned and therefore forbidden to Christians5. He develops this theme more extensively in On the Apparel of Women, where he traces the use of ornaments and cosmetics directly back to the Watchers’ instruction of the women they took as wives, and for Tertullian these practices reflected their supernatural origins, making them unsuitable for Christian use regardless of how commonplace they had become in Roman society.
In those days the nations shall be stirred up, and the families of the nations shall rise on the day of destruction. And in those days the impoverished shall go forth and carry off their children, and they shall abandon them, so that their children shall perish through them: Yes, they shall abandon their suckling children and not return to them, and shall have no pity on their loved ones. And again I swear to you, sinners, that sin is prepared for a day of unceasing bloodshed. And those who worship stones, and grave images of gold, silver, wood, stone, and clay, and those who worship impure spirits and demons, and all kinds of idols not according to knowledge, shall receive no help from them. 8 And they shall become godless by reason of the folly of their hearts, and their eyes shall be blinded through the fear of their hearts and through visions in their dreams. (1 Enoch 99:4-8)
Enoch had preceded, predicting that the demons, and the spirits of the angelic apostates, would turn into idolatry all the elements, all the garniture of the universe, all things contained in the heaven, in the sea, in the earth, that they might be consecrated as God, in opposition to God. All things, therefore, does human error worship, except the Founder of all Himself. The images of those things are idols; the consecration of the images is idolatry. Whatever guilt idolatry incurs, must necessarily be imputed to every artificer of every idol. In short, the same Enoch fore-condemns in general menace both idol-worshippers and idol-makers together. And again: I swear to you, sinners, that against the day of perdition of blood repentance is being prepared. You who serve stones, and you who make images of gold, and silver, and wood, and stones and clay, and serve phantoms, and demons, and spirits in fanes, and all errors not according to knowledge, shall find no help from them. But Isaiah says, You are witnesses whether there is a God except Me. (Tertullian, On Idolatry)6
Tertullian also extended the logic of angelic rebellion to explain the prevalence of idolatry in the Roman world. In On Idolatry, he argues that the demons and spirits descended from the rebellious angels turned humanity toward the worship of created things rather than the Creator, and he supports this claim by citing Enochic material that condemns those who worship idols made of gold, silver, wood, stone, and clay7. What makes this reference particularly notable is that it draws not from the Book of the Watchers, where the rebellion narrative appears, but from later material found in the Epistle of Enoch near the end of the composite work. Tertullian’s ability to cite from multiple distinct sections suggests he had access to something resembling the fuller, edited compilation that survives today rather than only isolated portions of the tradition, and it shows how thoroughly he had incorporated the Enochic literature into his teaching.
And it came to pass when the population of humans had increased during those times, beautiful and attractive daughters were born to them. And the angels, the children of heaven, saw them and desired them, and said to each other: ‘Come, let us choose wives from among the humans and father children.’ And Semjâzâ, their leader, said to them: ‘I fear that you will not actually agree to do this, and I alone will have to pay the penalty of a great sin.’ And they all replied to him and said: ‘Let us all take an oath, and all bind ourselves with a solemn promise not to abandon this plan but to carry out this act.’ (1 Enoch 6:1-4)
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. (Tertullian, On the Apparel of Women)8
Tertullian was also aware that not everyone in his time accepted 1 Enoch as authoritative, and he addressed this disagreement directly. In On the Apparel of Women, after reflecting on the Watchers narrative, he acknowledges that some reject what he calls “the Scripture of Enoch” because it does not appear in the Jewish canon. He anticipates a specific objection, that a text composed before the flood could not have survived that catastrophe, and attempts to counter it by pointing out that Noah was Enoch’s great-grandson and would have received these teachings through family tradition, passed down through Methuselah at Enoch’s instruction. This defense reveals that by Tertullian’s time, questions about 1 Enoch's legitimacy had already emerged among Christian communities, yet Tertullian remained committed to treating it as genuine scripture with real explanatory power for understanding the origins of corruption in the world9.
Gonzáles, Justo L. “The Early Church to the Dawn of the Reformation” in The Story of Christianity. Vol. 1 (pp. 91–93) HarperCollins Publishers, 2010
Chesnutt, Randall D. “The Descent of the Watchers and its Aftermath According to Justin Martyr” in Harkins, Angela Kim, et al. (eds.) The Watchers in Jewish and Christian Traditions (pp. 167-180) Fortress Press, 2014
Vanbeek, Lawrence H. The Letter of Jude’s Use of 1 Enoch: The Book of the Watchers as Scripture (pp. 151-152) University of South Africa, 1997
Bauckham, Richard The Fall of the Angels as the Source of Philosophy in Hermias and Clement of Alexandria (p. 320) Vigiliae Christianae 39, 1985
Vanbeek, Lawrence H. The Letter of Jude’s Use of 1 Enoch: The Book of the Watchers as Scripture (pp. 151-153) University of South Africa, 1997
I appreciate this insight into what a significant church father thought about this!
Did any of the apocryphal works have an influence in the development of the trinity doctrine?