Saints' Discussion Forums

Genesis 5:24 “After Enoch had walked with God he disappeared because God took him up.”  Isn’t this the First mention of assumption  ???

If God can do this for Enoch, why Protestants are angry for our belief that Mary was taken up into heaven, I don't know.  Elisha was also taken up in heaven by the chariots of fire, right?

If God can do this for people he likes (who follows his commands) how much more for him mom, right? I think the problem is they are thinking like Westerners and not like a good Jew (which Jesus is).  A good Jew would “honor his father and his mother”.  Come to think of it, I think (and this is just a guess :)  )  that they think Jesus is a “Christian” instead of a “Jew”.  ;D

I read that in the last days Enoch and Elijah will return and preach to the people again.

'Enoch, too, pleasing God, without circumcision, discharged the office of God's legate to the angels although he was a man, and was translated, and is preserved until now as a witness of the just judgment of God, because the angels when they had transgressed fell to the earth for judgment, but the man who pleased [God] was translated for salvation.'

'For Enoch, when he pleased God, was translated in the same body in which he did please Him, thus pointing out by anticipation the translation of the just. Elijah, too, was caught up [when he was yet] in the substance of the [natural] form; thus exhibiting in prophecy the assumption of those who are spiritual, and that nothing stood in the way of their body being translated and caught up. For by means of the very same hands through which they were moulded at the beginning, did they receive this translation and assumption. . . If, however, any one imagine it impossible that men should survive for such a length of time, and that Elias was not caught up in the flesh, but that his flesh was consumed in the fiery chariot, let him consider that Jonah, when he had been cast into the deep, and swallowed down into the whale's belly, was by the command of God again thrown out safe upon the land.'

St. Irenaeus of Lyons, 'Against Heresies'

'Now Daniel will set forth this subject to us. For he says, "And one week will make a covenant with many, and it shall be that in the midst (half) of the week my sacrifice and oblation shall cease." By one week, therefore, he meant the last week which is to be at the end of the whole world of which week the two prophets Enoch and Elias will take up the half. For they will preach 1, 260 days clothed in sackcloth, proclaiming repentance to the people and to all the nations. . .

It is a matter of course that His forerunners must appear first, as He says by Malachi and the angel,"I will send to you Elias the Tishbite before the day of the Lord, the great and notable day, comes; and he shall turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, lest I come and smite the earth utterly." These, then, shall come and proclaim the manifestation of Christ that is to be from heaven; and they shall also perform signs and wonders, in order that men may be put to shame and turned to repentance for their surpassing wickedness and impiety.

For John says, "And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth." That is the half of the week whereof Daniel spoke. . .

These things, then, being to come to pass, beloved, and the one week being divided into two parts, and the abomination of desolation being manifested then, and the two prophets and forerunners of the Lord having finished their course, and the whole world finally approaching the consummation, what remains but the coming of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ from heaven, for whom we have looked in hope who shall bring the conflagration and just judgment upon all who have refused to believe in Him.'

'For this is what the prophets Enoch and Elias will preach: Believe not the enemy who is to come and be seen; for he is an adversary and corrupter and son of perdition, and deceives you; and for this reason he will kill you, and smite them with the sword. Behold the deceit of the enemy, know the machinations of the beguiler, how he seeks to darken the mind of men utterly. For he will show forth his demons brilliant like angels, and he will bring in hosts of the incorporeal without number. And in the presence of all he exhibits himself as taken up into heaven with trumpets and sounds, and the mighty shouting of those who hail him with indescribable hymns; the heir of darkness himself shining like light, and at one time soaring to the heavens, and at another descending to the earth with great glory, and again charging the demons, like angels, to execute his behests with much fear and trembling. Then will he send the cohorts of the demons among mountains and caves and dens of the earth, to track out those who have been concealed from his eyes, and to bring them forward to worship him. And those who yield to him he will seal with his seal; but those who refuse to submit to him he will consume with incomparable pains and bitterest torments and machinations, such as never have been, nor have reached the ear of man, nor have been seen by the eye of mortals.'

St. Hippolytus, "On Christ and Antichrist"

Our Lady was assumed body and soul into heaven. Yes, true.
 “After Enoch had walked with God he disappeared because God took him up.” Can we reason that since Jesus had not yet opened the gate of heaven for us, Enoch could not have been assumed into heaven? He must have been taken to a " second heaven", if I may call it that, to await the Lord's Death.

Oh, yeah... I guess what I was saying is that it is not outside of God's power to take the body and soul of a person if he wants to... 'Coz I always get the impression that for them, Mary is "nothing special".  Which I find hard to take (could be the influence of our matriarchal society) since she is the mother of Jesus...they even have a problem when we call her "Mother of God"... even though they believe Jesus to be God. 

This second heaven... Yes.  I believe I was taught something like this.  I mean, where would the souls of those who died before Christ opened the gates of heaven be, right?  Like it's the place where Moses and Elija (?) came from when Jesus met with them (transfiguration).

And wouldn't this be the same place in the Creed? Where Jesus descended into?  I mean, like he went there to take these souls to er...the "proper" heaven?

I agree with you completely pebbles. I guess it would take a Protestant to understand  another Protestant; I certainly do not. Things that are as plain as the noses on their faces are argued about.
In the end, though, we will all be one. We can only pray for that eventuality. :crucifix: