Blake, Enoch and the Emergence of the Apocalyptic Christ

Abstract

This chapter is about the discovery of the apocalyptic Christ in the nineteenth century and its dominant influence on biblical scholarship. Crucial to the thesis is that “apocalyptic” includes not only the sense of catastrophe associated with the end of the world but also visionary revelation. It is the second, less familiar aspect of “apocalyptic,” which Samuel Taylor Coleridge recognized in William Blake’s work. The first has dominated scholarship, as well as the popular imagination, ever since. The chapter starts with a consideration of Blake’s understanding of the figure of Christ and his role as the first commentator on the Ethiopic Apocalypse of Enoch, a catalyst for the burgeoning interest in the apocalyptic Christ in the nineteenth century. The most important result of two hundred years of historical scholarship on early Christian texts, and on the figure of Christ, is that apocalyptic and eschatological ideas are central to their understanding.