The Origin of Evil and the End of the World

Lloyd D. Graham

To a large extent, Judaeo-Christian beliefs have shaped the values and morals of the
Western world. It is therefore somewhat surprising to find that the Old Testament lacks
an account of the origin of evil, other than attributing it to God (Isa 45:7), and that neither
it nor the New Testament provides a convincing reason for the fall of Satan and his
cohorts from heaven. One possible allusion - the desire of Lucifer to exalt himself above
God, resulting in his being cast down (Isa 14:12-15) - occurs in a context that shows it to
refer to the ambitions of a particular King of Babylon. So is there, then, no explanation of
evil that dates to Old Testament times? There is, and yet - despite its prominence in
apocryphal literature and some scriptural allusions to it - the story remains little known.
A passage in Genesis mentions it as follows:

And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and
daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that
they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose ... There were giants
in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the
daughters of men, and bare children to them, the same became mighty men which
were of old, men of renown. And God looked upon the earth ... [and said:] The end of
all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them ... (Gen
6:1-13)

These profoundly important events are described in much greater detail in Old Testament
pseudepigrapha and apocrypha, such as the Book of Enoch (1 En) and the Book of
Jubilees (Jub). Such sources describe how two hundred heavenly beings, all drawn from
the angelic order known as Watchers (Heb. 'irin, 'those who are awake'), ensured their
own damnation by forsaking their heavenly estate in favour of sexual liaisons with mortal
women:

And it came to pass, when the children of men had multiplied, that in those days were
born unto them beautiful and comely daughters. And the angels, the children of the
heaven, saw and lusted after them, and said to one another: "Come, let us choose
wives from among the children of men, and beget us children". And Semjaza, who
was their leader ... and all the others together with [him] took unto themselves wives,
and ... they began to go in unto them and to defile themselves with them, and they
taught them charms and enchantments, and the cutting of roots, and they made them
acquainted with plants. And they became pregnant, and they bare great giants ... who
consumed all the acquisitions of men. And when men could no longer sustain them,
the giants turned against them and devoured mankind. And they began to sin against
birds, and beasts, and reptiles, and fish, and to devour one another's flesh, and drink
the blood. Then the earth laid accusation against the lawless ones. (1 En 6:1-7:6)

Thus the immediate consequences of this forbidden intercourse were twofold. The
first outcome was that the fallen angels imparted their heavenly knowledge of the
sciences and the arts to mortals:
 And Azazel taught men ... the metals of the earth and the art of working them ...
Semjaza taught enchantments, and root-cuttings ... Kokabel the constellations, Ezeqeel
the knowledge of the clouds... (1 En 8:1-3); ...[they] revealed the eternal secrets which
were in heaven, which men were striving to learn (1 En 9:6-7). And the whole earth has
been corrupted through the works that were taught by Azazel: to him ascribe all sin. (1
En 10:8-9).

Such enlightenment parallels the outcome of the well-known Genesis story (Gen 3:1-7)
where Adam and Eve were induced to eat from the Tree of Knowledge by the Serpent (an
entity later identified with Satan, as in Rev 12:9). In fact, the story of Eve succumbing to
the temptations of the diabolical and phallic serpent can be viewed as a prudish
encryption of the Watcher legend that was moved to an earlier position in the Genesis
chronology in order to emphasise its singular importance. If this view is accepted - and it
is supported by a passage (1 En 69:6) in which one of the fallen Watchers is credited with
leading Eve astray - then the fall of the angels and the fall of man become two aspects of
a single event.
The second outcome of the fall of the angels was the giant and monstrous offspring
(Heb. nephilim, 'fallen ones') born to Watcher fathers by human mothers, monsters that
turned against humanity and the other creatures of the Earth. A passage in Jubilees (Jub
7:21-25) identifies the nephilim with the mighty men of renown (Heb. gibborim) of
Genesis 6:4. One of God's avenging archangels arranged the destruction of the nephilim
by inciting them to battle each other; when the giants perished, their souls became the
evil spirits and demons that have afflicted mankind ever since (1 En 15:8-16:1; Jub 10:5).
The fallen Watchers - now the princes of evil - were imprisoned in torment until the Day
of Judgement, and God instigated the Flood in order to purge and purify the earth.

Dates and Words The earliest reference to the Watcher story is probably Gen 6:1-13,
and it may date from as long ago as the eighth or ninth centuries BCE. Early copies of the
Septuagint translation of 270 BCE (where the Old Testament and related apocrypha were
rendered into Greek) suggest that the Hebrew term bene ha-elohim, 'sons of God' or 'sons
of gods', in Gen 6:2 was translated from the outset as 'angels of God'. The Book of
Enoch contains the earliest detailed account of the full story. It dates to the period 200-
100 BCE, although 1 En 1-36 (the Book of the Watchers) may have been written in the
third century BCE
The term 'Watcher' (Heb. 'irin) occurs mainly in the Old Testament pseudepigrapha
that deal with the fallen angels, but it is also found in the Book of Daniel, a canonical
book contemporary with 1 Enoch. There the phrase 'a watcher and an holy one' (Dan 4:13
& 23) is used to denote a particular class of angel, and precisely the same phrase is found
in some fragments from the Dead Sea Scrolls (e.g., 1 QapGen II:1). Most sources identify
Azazel and Semyaza as the leaders of the fallen Watchers. The name Azazel appears also
in the canonical Old Testament (Lev 16:8-10), where it seems to refer to a wilderness
demon of Judaeo-pagan origin. In this respect, it resembles Isa 34:14, the single Old
Testament reference to Lilith (see below).
The Christian church later attempted to reinterpret the phrase 'sons of God' in Gen
6:2 as 'sons of Seth' and 'daughters of men' as 'daughters of Cain' so that the Watcher
story could be dispensed with. In contrast, Josephus (see below) specifies not only that
the males were angels but that the women were of untainted lineage - the daughters of
Seth. The church's re-interpretation also sits oddly with other events in the same epoch,
where illicit heterosexual couplings (inter-generational incest, to be precise) were
tolerated by God and gave rise to normal offspring (Gen 19:30-38), while 'unnatural'
unions were punished (Gen 19:1-26). Clearly, there was something more abhorrent about
intermarriage between 'sons of God' and daughters of men than would be warranted by
unions between humans of opposite sex, whatever their lines of descent.

Retellings and Allusions In 1 Enoch, the Watcher story is first given in ch. 6-16,
recapitulated in ch. 64-69, and re-told in a disguised form in the Animal Apocalypse (ch.
86-89). In the Book of Jubilees, a work of 153-105 BCE, it is given in Jub 4:21-24; 5:1-
13; 7:20-27; and 10:1-15. As in 1 Enoch, the fallen Watchers were imprisoned within the
earth until Judgement Day. In the final version given in Jubilees, the prince of the
nephilim-derived evil spirits is called both Mastema and Satan, and - in a duplication of
the imprisonment of the Watchers - these spirits too were bound in the earth until
Judgement Day. In this account, God granted Mastema's request that a tenth of the evil
spirits should be left free to roam the earth while the remainder were bound. As a remedy
for their corrupting activities, though, God ordered one of his loyal angels to instruct
Noah in the science of medicine (Jub 10:10-14).
The Watcher episode features in sources other than 1 Enoch and Jubilees,
appearing also in Wis 14:6, some Dead Sea Scroll texts, the Ethiopic Kebra Nagast, and
in the Book of the Secrets of Enoch (2 Enoch, a Slavonic work written after 100 CE).
Aspects of the Watcher story are also mentioned in the canonical New Testament (e.g., 1
Pet 3:19-20; 2 Pet 2:4-5; Jude 1:6; Rev 12:9; Rev 20:1-3). There are also references in the
writings of first century Christians like Tertullian, and of their Jewish contemporary,
Josephus. The author of the pseudo-Clementine homilies resolved some of the theological
difficulties inherent in the Watcher story by proposing that the angels were not
overpowered with sensual passion while in their purely spiritual state (Hom 8:9). He
maintained that the angels asked God to endow them with human bodies so that they
could descend to earth and rectify the wickedness of mankind. Once they had taken
human form, however, they also acquired the weaknesses and passions of mortal men and
gave themselves up to the gratification of their lust.
Reuben's admonitions in the apocryphal Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs (c.
70-200 CE) present a variation in which the Watchers are portrayed as sexual voyeurs,
which may go some way towards explaining their unusual name: 'For thus [women]
allured the Watchers who were before the flood; for as these continually beheld them,
they lusted after them, and they conceived the act in their mind; for they changed
themselves into the shape of men, and appeared to them when they were with their
husbands. And the women lusting in their minds after their forms, gave birth to giants, for
the Watchers appeared to them as reaching even unto heaven.' (Testament of Reuben 5:6-
7). Although the woman/angel union is here portrayed as mental, indulging this fantasy
during copulation was evidently potent enough to transform the offspring born to the
human parents. Later, the New Testament apocryphal work known as the Questions of
Bartholomew (c. 300-500 CE) insinuates that the fall of man was caused by intercourse
between Eve and Satan soon after the latter and his troop of angels were banished from
heaven. The idea of sexual transgression in the Garden of Eden between the leader of the
fallen spirits and the first mortal woman reinforces the link between the fall of man (as
told in Genesis) and the fall of the angels (as found in the Watcher narrative).
There are strong echoes of the Watchers in the Persian story of the angels Harut
and Marut. These two angels of the highest rank fell in love with a mortal woman, to
whom they revealed the secret Name of God. As a punishment, they were hung upside
down in a bottomless pit near Babylon, from which they taught magic and sorcery. The
second Surah of the Qur’an, v. 102, indicates that these two angels did not actually sin,
but simply carried out the will of Allah in order to test the faith of the local people. Their
occult teachings carried repeated warnings to this effect.
In a curious twist, a Hebrew midrash published in 1625 - but claiming Biblical
antiquity - describes illicit unions in the days leading up to the Flood in terms that
nowadays are suggestive of genetic engineering:

And every man […] corrupted the earth, and the earth was filled with violence. And
[…] the sons of men in those days took from the cattle of the earth, the beasts of the
field and the fowls of the air, and taught the mixture of animals of one species with
the other, in order therewith to provoke the Lord; and God saw the whole earth and it
was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted its ways upon earth, all men and all animals.
(Book of Jasher 4:17-18)

Possible Sources Babylonian myths may date from as early as 3000 BCE. The main
Babylonian creation epic, Enuma Elish, describes a war between the gods in which those
allied with Tiamat and her monsters (enormous serpents ... snarling dragons ... the
worm ...) were vanquished by Bel-Marduk. The gods were then divided into two groups
by Marduk, 'three hundred above for the watchers of heaven, ... five times sixty for earth,
six hundred gods between earth and heaven'. The defeated rebel gods appear to have been
the ones assigned to earth. The Babylonians also believed in 'edimmu', vampires that
were violent giants, which were originally created as a result of intermarriage between
human beings and the spirit world. These demons 'neither eat nor drink' but 'are full of
violence, ceaselessly devouring blood'. Similarly, in 1 En 15:11-12, we read that the
spirits of the giant nephilim 'work destruction on the earth, and cause trouble: they take
no food, but nevertheless hunger and thirst, and cause offences'. In combination, a belief
in edimmu and earth-based rebel gods could account for some of the elements of the
Enochian Watcher episode. A Babylonian connection is supported by the fact that one of
the Watcher-human progeny in the Dead Sea Scrolls' Book of the Giants is called
Gilgamesh, the name of the giant in the eponymous Babylonian epic.
Greek theogony also shares some motifs with the Watcher story. In Greek myths
from the eighth century BCE, the mating of sky-god (Uranus) with earth-goddess (Gaea)
produced the Titans, the Cyclops, and the hundred-handed Giants. Like the fallen
Watchers, the Cyclops and Giants were imprisoned within the earth; later, this became
the fate of the Titans who had fought with Cronos against Zeus and Prometheus. The
latter was subsequently punished by Zeus for bestowing a number of favours, including
fire, on mankind. Man was punished, too: the first mortal woman (Pandora) was created
so beautiful that - despite being warned - Prometheus's brother allowed her to stay on
Earth. Pandora subsequently unleashed evil into the world.

A Related Theme There are many myths about Lilith, who in Judaeo-Christian tradition
is credited as an alternative (or additional) source of the world's demons. The name,
which means 'wind-spirit', first appears in a prologue to the Epic of Gilgamesh and recurs
as part of a triad of female furies invoked in Babylonian spells. When Lilith was co-opted
into Judaic lore during the Babylonian captivity (i.e., after 586 BCE), an etymological
confusion resulted in her being identified as a night-spirit. Later, Talmudic and
Kabbalistic speculation identified her (sometime during the third to tenth centuries AD)
as a female who was co-created with Adam (Gen 1:27) and before Eve (Gen 2:22). In this
elaboration, she refused to submit to Adam and left Eden. Lilith was reunited with Adam
after his and Eve's expulsion from Eden, and bore him demonic offspring. When Adam
and Eve were later reconciled, Lilith lived in a cave near the Red Sea where she
copulated with lascivious demons and gave birth daily to hundreds more. In additional
(or alternative) stories, Lilith and three other female spirits (Naamah, Igrat, and Mahaath)
are seen as consorts to demons, seducers of men, killers of unprotected infants, and as
vampires. Lilith is often paired with Samael, the King of Demons, who in some versions
has been castrated; there are hints that these two were once an androgynous pair. In her
various guises, Lilith is at once a human-like creature who had intercourse with Adam to
become the mother of demons, a human mate for demons who begat more of their kind at
a prodigious rate, and a demonic succubus who takes unused human semen to impregnate
herself or her daughters to create more demons. No doubt many of these attributes are a
legacy of Lilith's Babylonian origin. The Lilith themes have obvious overlaps with the
Watcher story, and some may well have been borrowed directly from this source. In the
Kabbala, the two legends intersect in a passage on Lilith: 'For 130 years Adam had
intercourse with female spirits, until Naamah came. Because of her beauty the sons of
God went astray after her, 'Ussa and 'Azel, and she bore from them, and from her spread
evil spirits and demons in the world' (Zohar 1:19b).

A Search for Meaning To recapitulate: the earliest explanation of evil in the Judaeo-
Christian tradition involves an original sin of lust on the part of angelic beings called
Watchers, which led to a transfer of forbidden skills and knowledge to mankind, but
which also led to the birth of monsters who ravaged the Earth, and whose malevolence
persists on Earth in the form of demons. Compared with orthodox rationalisations of the
Fall, the Watchers' original sin engenders both more empathy (as a lapse of judgement in
the face of overwhelming temptation) and more abhorrence (in its breach of sexual taboo).
It is safe to say that traditional alternatives such as Lucifer's pride (Isa 14:12-15), Satan's
reluctance to pay homage to Adam (The Life of Adam and Eve and the Qur'an), or Eve's
curiosity about the forbidden fruit (Gen 3:6) pale in comparison. Oddly enough, the
Watchers' position - pure spirits craving the pleasures of the flesh - would later find its
complete antithesis in certain Gnostic sects of the first few centuries CE, whose devotees
despised flesh as a prison of the spirit. In contrast, people today are more likely to feel
compassion for the angels who succumbed to the lure of physical pleasure.
Shorn of its lurid details, the mythic content of the Watcher story is a strong and
perhaps surprising statement of the relationship between illicit desire, hidden knowledge,
and evil. Above all, though, the Watchers' crime constitutes disobedience to God. To
those who regard the creator-God as a tyrannical Demiurge, such defiance constitutes a
laudable act of self-determination. The Watcher myth has sometimes been presented in
this light by Satanists, who point out that the forbidden knowledge imparted by the
Watchers to mankind serves as the basis for the arts and sciences on which our current
civilization is founded. Their Covenant of Samyaza says that the legacy of the gibborim,
known to the fearful as evil spirits or demons, are also known to the wise as 'guardian
geniuses of the great of Earth, who shall inspire the best among Man to great heights, to
beautiful works of art, and to further discoveries of Earth and cosmos.' While this stance
may comfort those who are unable to view the rise of human civilization as anything
other than a virtue, it comes at the considerable cost of burdening us with an evil Creator.
One does, however, have to wonder about the divinity of a God who feels threatened by
the art of writing: 'for men were not created for such a purpose, to give confirmation to
their good faith with pen and ink ... but through this their knowledge they are perishing,
and through this power it [death] is consuming me' (1 En 69:10-12). There is in fact a
fundamental tension in the myth between the works of man (as encouraged by the
Watchers) and the works of God, an opposition that is not alleviated by reversing the
moral polarity of the original account, as the Satanists have done. It is noteworthy that
one of the versions in the Book of Jubilees (Jub 10:10-14; see above) has been revised to
defuse this tension. In the sanitized account, useful arts such as medicine were imparted
to mankind by God's loyal angels to afford us protection against the demons.

The End of the World Perhaps the tension inherent in the authentic Watcher legend is
felt most keenly today in the conflict between environmental conservation (preservation
of the divine creation) and urban-industrial development (promotion of human progress).
Although initiated by lust, the Watchers' actions led also to great human advancement,
just as today the selfish ambitions of those with ability (or in authority) underpin so many
of the material advances that benefit our species. However, it is important to remember
that the actions of the Watchers led not only to expanded human capabilities but also to
uncontrollable consequences that ultimately laid waste to the Earth. In this interpretation,
the ancient myth sounds a clear warning about the potentially cataclysmic consequences
of using our genius to interfere with nature, a warning that is more valid now than ever
before. Perhaps it is to us that Enoch refers in the opening words of his book, when he
writes: 'from [the heavenly angels] I heard everything, and from them I understood as I
saw, but not for this generation, but for a remote one which is to come' (1 En 1:2-3). The
Watcher myth provides an origin for evil in the world. It may also warn of the ultimate
and final evil: can we imagine a greater sin than the needless and self-inflicted ruin of our
entire planet?

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First published in the online in Mythos Journal No. 8: Millennial Dreams - Myths of the End Time (Winter
1999). Republished in Lamhfada: An Online Magazine of Myth and Story, Vol. III, Issue 2, Summer 2002.
Hosted at http://lloydg.deviantart.com/art/The-Origin-of-Evil-31179580 from April 2006. A short version
of this essay appeared in Fickle Muses - an Online Journal of Myth and Legend, vol. 2, on 6 Jan 2008.
http://www.ficklemuses.com/nonfiction/originofevil.html

For the scholarly, a detailed textual analysis of the key biblical passage (Gen 6:1-4) can be found in Jacques
T.A.G.M. Ruiten (2000) Primaeval History Interpreted: The Rewriting of Genesis 1-11 in the Book of
Jubilees, Brill, pp. 183-190. ISBN 9789004116580. See also Archie T. Wright (2005) The Origin of Evil
Spirits: The Reception of Genesis 6.1-4 in Early Jewish Literature, Mohr Siebeck, pp. 220-223. ISBN
9783161486562.

For general readers: a short but interesting book on the Watchers was published in early 2006:
http://www.amazon.com/Fallen-Angels-Watchers-Origins-Evil/dp/1933580100 . It makes a valiant attempt
to harmonize passages on evil from a variety of sources (canonical scriptures, Enoch, Jubilees, the Qumran
War Scroll and the Book of Jasher) into a single overarching narrative revolving around the Watcher story.