"And again the Lord said to Raphael: 'Bind Azazel hand and foot, and cast him into the darkness: and make an opening in the desert, which is in Dudael, and cast him therein. And place upon him rough and jagged rocks, and cover him with darkness, and let him abide there for ever, and cover his face that he may not see light. And on the day of the great judgement he shall be cast into the fire... ...And the whole Earth has been corrupted through the works that were taught by Azazel: to him ascribe all sin."
The Book of Enoch
"Now it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the Earth, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves of all whom they chose."
Genesis 6:1
THE SONS OF GOD
I lie in darkness. No light, no food, no water has reached me for thousands of years and yet still I live, buried until Earth's final day. The archangel Raphael imprisoned me here. Oh, I fought him; but his strength was far greater than mine and besides, our Lord was not about to let him fail. His anger was beyond even my imagination, when it came. Truthfully I had always known it would end like this. I accept. So I lay in darkness, a silent captive beneath a dry desert mountain, awaiting the Day of Judgment. On that day I shall be thrown into the fires to burn, and burn, and still not die. I accept. Given enough time, you can.
I am Azazel. To me has been ascribed all sin, beyond even that of beautiful Eve. For this, I pay. But for all time, while I wait and while I burn, I shall remember. And smile.
In my disgrace I am unknown now, as are my brethren who came with me to Earth. All two hundred of us lie buried or destroyed. But I remember how once I was an angel of the Cherubim, the guardians of the fixed stars, and keepers of celestial records. And I remember brave, blazing Shemyaza, a Seraph, higher and closer to our Lord than me. He knew well what risk we ran. He had already seen Satanel, another Seraph and the greatest of us all, thrown from Heaven with all his followers. Yes, the once bright and shining morning star, thrown from heaven! It shook Shemyaza hard. Yet Shemyaza had wanted it as much as I, and so he overcame his fear and bound all two hundred of us in a solemn oath. We all swore to do it. Our Lord sent the archangel Michael, the warrior who will call us all to the flames one day, to deal with Shemyaza. Oh, terrible Michael! How we feared him, in the end. Once we looked down on Michael from a greater height, Shemyaza and me. Now we lie in the belly of the earth on which we once walked with such wanton joy.
Before we left our heavenly dominions, we two hundred were beings of light and fire, the Sons of God, the Bene Elohim in the ancient tongue. We were also called the Watchers, because our Lord chose us to watch over the children, Adam and Eve. And so we did not support Satanel when he refused to kneel before them. Although we felt for Satanel and understood his agony and rejection, we did not join his rebellion; instead, we kept apart from the war, kept our hearts and minds on the children as He had ordered us to do. On the day he fell, Satanel cursed us for standing aside. On that day, we should have taken heed.
The watching of the new creation was a solemn duty to us, at first. The gentle creatures were frail, being of the Earth. Death was not in the Garden, nor disease or sickness; they lived in the sustaining grace around them, but they did not have our power. And there were other differences. We were created with the knowledge of all things, while Adam and Eve were innocent and unknowing. They were ignorant of good and evil, the ways of the Earth and the order of things. They lived as our Lord intended, knowing nothing of desire, fear or pain. We were charged with a great responsibility; to watch the children, always, to ensure they never changed. We were the Watchers.
We did not reveal ourselves except as streams of daylight through cloudy skies or moonlight on murmuring streams. Unseen, we walked beside them and listened to their childlike chatter, flew beside them as they ran through the grassy, open places and sat beside them in the fern-filled woods on temperate summer days. Slowly, our solemn responsibility gave way to enjoyment of them. We caressed their skin with gentle breezes, filled their nostrils with the fragrance of roses, and gladdened their sight with wild flowers everywhere. They laughed at the simplest of pleasures, and it made us love them. We put seeds in their hands, induced them to bury them and, to their wide-eyed joy and wonder, we made the Garden abundant for them. Nothing failed them, including us. The years went by and the children were safe, and truly loved, in our care.
How it was that he slipped by us, I will never know. He had always been the mightiest amongst us, the prince of the angels, and I suppose we never thought Satanel could conceive of such malice. Certainly, we could not. We never once thought of how he had cursed us, as he fell. Had we become careless after all those years, that we left Eve so alone? We asked ourselves many questions after that fateful day. Poor Eve!
We never guarded the Trees; we just turned the children away gently if they strayed too close. The fruits from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil were forbidden to them, as were the fruits of the Tree of Life. They knew this, although they did not know why; sweet, simple things, they never questioned why. But their grace was dependent entirely upon their ignorance. Which they lost, of course, the instant they ate from the first Tree.
Our poor, confused children were thrown out! They were driven from their home before they could understand anything of what they now felt; shame, fear, turmoil and despair. They were driven out on our account, for now we could not be trusted to keep them from the Tree of Life. We failed, and it was Adam and Eve who paid.
In mute shock, we watched them go. Later we questioned the justice of it, but at the time we could do no more than stand in silent, heart-wrenching sorrow as our children were driven out of the Garden, to first begin their struggle to survive.
Looking back now, I see how it changed us. It was not only Adam and Eve who fell from grace. When Satanel shamed us, when the children were expelled for our complacency, we knew guilt for the first time. We never admitted it, even to ourselves, I think; but in each of us there grew a private resentment. Though our hearts were changed, we did not yet dare to disobey our Lord. From our remote height in the heavens we continued to watch; but we no longer watched for Him. Now, we watched for us.
We had taught them well in the Garden. Adam and Eve survived. In time, they even taught us something. They turned to each other for comfort in their misery and, for the first time, we watched them copulate.
Shemyaza and I shared a special curiosity in the children's procreation. It was something our Lord had not explained to us, we having no need of the knowledge. But it was like a dance to us, and it fascinated Shemyaza, especially. When he chanced upon a coupling, he would find me to watch with him, to watch the rising pleasure and to smell the copious release, and later we marked together the swelling of the women's bellies and breasts. Then when the women suckled their babies, we watched in silent wonder and moved our lips to the sounds, the like of which we had never heard before.
The women were a mystery to us. Across the airless void, Shemyaza was drawn to them and so was I. But our fascination troubled us and to indulge it felt like betrayal, so we never spoke of it. But this, now, I understand: if you do not voice your longing, it will grow. It grew in Shemyaza, as well as me. As it turned out, we were not the only ones.
It was the silver-shining Jeqon, a Watcher of the lower angels, who brought it all to a head as he, Shemyaza and I watched Eve planting seeds one fine autumn day.
