1 Enoch has been described as the most important ancient Jewish writing not to have been included in the Old Testament. It was composed in the apocalyptic genre which, broadly speaking, refers to works containing a revelation (Greek: apokalypsis) in narrative form given by a heavenly figure to a human being concerning the nature of the cosmos and the secrets of God’s divine purpose for humanity and for creation and its renewal.¹³ It was written in Israel, in Aramaic, in stages from about 300 BCE to 100 CE by a group of scribes who formed around Enoch as their eponymous hero and revealer. Genesis 5.23-24 states that when Enoch was 365 years old God took him to heaven while he still lived. Accordingly, the Enochic scribes envisaged Enoch as a member of God’s heavenly court, among its angelic courtiers,¹⁴ and thus ideally placed to speak of the cosmos and God’s concern for it and humanity. Ancestors of these scribes had brought back from exile in Babylon in the sixth and fifth centuries BCE Babylonian astronomical knowledge and this featured prominently in the revelations they placed in Enoch’s mouth. They were also keenly interested in the problem of evil, both as it impacted on individuals and on the physical world, and looked forward to God’s final establishment of justice among all people and his renewal of creation.

Around 100 CE 1 Enoch was translated into Greek and its central verse (1 Enoch 1.9) is quoted with approval, and thus sacralised, in the New Testament in Jude 14-15. But within a few centuries it had almost entirely disappeared in the Christian world. Fortunately, in the fifth or sixth centuries CE the Greek text was brought to Ethiopia and translated into Ethiopic. 1 Enoch came to be regarded as part of the Old Testament in Ethiopian Orthodoxy and, uniquely in Christianity, played an important role in its theological and artistic traditions. The work was restored to the rest of world when the Scottish traveller James Bruce brought back copies from Ethiopia to Europe in 1773.¹⁵ The English translation of the Bodleian copy by Richard Laurence in 1821 (the first in a European language) exposed the text to widespread scholarly and popular interest that has continued ever since. The world has Ethiopia to thank for the preservation of 1 Enoch.

Further developments have added to the allure of the work. Thus, the subsequent discovery of a Greek version of most of 1 Enoch 1-36 in a monk’s grave in Akhmin in Egypt in 1886/87 soon stimulated more research, especially on the Ethiopic text.¹⁶ Just as significantly, the Aramaic fragments of four of 1 Enoch’s five main constituent parts, the original form of the text, were found in Cave 4 at Qumran.¹⁷ This discovery led to further research into the Ethiopic text of 1 Enoch.¹⁸ Then came major commentaries.¹⁹ There has, in short, been a multitude of books, articles and essays published on 1 Enoch.²⁰

Yet, in spite of this efflorescence of scholarship on the text, something was missing, at least in the West, namely its role in theology. In Ethiopia, on the other hand, there has long been interest in the theological use of 1 Enoch, especially as a text that brings together many aspects of the history of redemption. In particular, the indigenous Ethiopian commentary, the Andemta (written in Amharic and Ge’ez, floruit 16th to 18th centuries CE), interprets 1 Enoch as a Christian text and as one that is in harmony with the rest of the Bible. The Andemta is both an ancient tradition and very much a living and contemporary one. 1 Enoch has also influenced Ethiopian culture in other ways. The image of paradise in 1 Enoch 25, for example, has provided the rationale for building churches (which symbolise Paradise) in precisely such an arboreal setting. As a result, some of the most extensive surviving forests in northern Ethiopia exist on church property. ²¹ Archangels mentioned in 1 Enoch frequently appear in Ethiopian churches and on Ethiopian prayer scrolls.

A selection of papers delivered at the two meetings was duly published in 2017 as The Blessing of Enoch: 1 Enoch and Contemporary Theology, thus initiating this new area of theological research.²² One of the essays in the book was by Pryor and entitled ‘Enoch: An Artist’s Response’. ²³ It set out a programme for painting a series of canvases on 1 Enoch that would permit him to explore the theology of the text from the perspective of practice-based research. In the essay Pryor made clear his great debt to Ethiopian traditions of painting and iconography.

In due course, and in homage to the numerous Ethiopian Orthodox churches he and Esler had visited in Ethiopia—including in Aksum, Lalibela and Gondar—Pryor decided to add to the twelve paintings a large-scale model of an Ethiopian church, illuminated with traditional Ethiopian imagery and Enochic themes, a virtual Church of St Enoch. Pryor has completed the bulk of the work on the paintings and the Church since 2017, with advice from Esler on the scenes from the text to be included and aspects of the form and decoration of the church.