UFO Phenomenon in the Book of Enoch?
Many ufologists and scholars of sacred texts argue that a UFO case, or at least one worthy of investigation from a new perspective, is described in a heretical book: the Ethiopian Book of Enoch, dating back to the 1st or 2nd century A.D. It forms the basis of much apocalyptic literature and some currents of Jewish mysticism (to be distinguished from the Book of Secrets of Enoch, manuscripts of which exist from around ca. 1200 in Slavic languages). However, considering the context ("the most secret Jewish theology"), it would not seem far-fetched to hypothesize instead a reference to the so-called Third Book of Enoch, presumably compiled around the 5th or 6th century A.D. in Babylon.
Therefore, it could refer to a late apocalyptic text that relates to the mystical current of Merkavah, also found in medieval manuscripts (the library of Pico contains many Hebrew texts of Kabbalistic writings without titles). In Jewish tradition, many legends revolve around Enoch (son of Jared, father of Methuselah, seventh in the Adamitic lineage through Seth), who "walked with the Lord," was lifted up to heaven without abandoning his corporeal form, and was transfigured there.
In tradition, Enoch is depicted as the inventor of letters, arithmetic, and astronomy, and as the "first author." In the so-called Third Book of Enoch (or the Book of Enoch of the Merkavah mystics, see G. Scholem, "Merkavah Mysticism and Jewish Gnosis," in Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, trans. Milan: Il Saggiatore, 1965, 95), especially in chapters 3:1 and 16:5, Enoch's elevation is presented in two versions, the second of which states that Enoch was "taken up with the Shekhinah" and "transformed" into Metatron (according to the prevalent etymology: "Methathronius = he who stands beside the throne of God," Scholem).
Scholem adds: "Enoch... after a devout earthly life, was elevated to the rank of chief of the angels and Sar ha-Panim (literally: prince of the divine face, or of the divine presence). ‘God took me away from the seed of the universal flood, and carried me on the tempestuous wings of the Shekhinah to the highest of the heavens, and brought me into the great palaces at the top of the seventh heaven ‘Aravot, where is the throne of the Shekhinah and the Merkavah, the legions of wrath, and the armies of fury, the Shinanim of fire, the Keruvim of flaming torches, the Ophanim of fiery wheels, the ministers of the flames and the Seraphim of lightning, and He placed me there that I might serve the throne of glory.’"
In Pico's Oratio, he does not speak of Metatron but simply of "angel of divinity" or "angel of the divine spirit," as suggested by Tognon's translation of the Hebrew malakh hashekhinah inserted by Pico in the Latin text. The reference is present in the commentary "on the particular exposition of the subject song of Hieronymo Benivieni," almost in the same terms as the Oratio: "...nor otherwise should the statement be understood by the wise Kabbalists when they say that Enoch became Metatron (sic), angel of divinity, or universally some other man in angel transformed" (Garin, 1942, 554). Shekhinah, originally the feminine manifestation of God in man, is often identified with the Holy Spirit and the Epinoia of the Gnostic Valentino; in the Zohar (Exodus, 51a), it is "the way of the tree of Life" and "the angel of the Lord" (cf. A Dictionary of Angels, by Gustav Davidson, N.Y.: Free Press, 1968, 272).
It is certain that this citation, not exactly verifiable in the text of the Ethiopian Book of Enoch, alludes to the complex of angelology that Pico develops in the Oratio and elsewhere. Enoch's metamorphosis is the most significant of the metamorphoses to which Pico alludes shortly above enigmatically ("Christian cabalist"), and this is the context that interests us most closely (in the Comment, the context clearly refers to the Platonic Phaedrus).
Again, Scholem: "Shortly before the second century A.D., the patriarch Enoch, transformed into an angel, was identified with the angel Yahoel or Joel, who has an important part, sometimes in the foreground, in the writings of the earliest mystical writings of the throne and still long after in the apocalypses. The main characteristics of this angel have been attributed to Metatron..."
