Catholic Dictionary

Find accurate definitions of over 5,000 Catholic terms and phrases (including abbreviations). Based on Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

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ENOCH

1. son of Cain. We are told that the father built a town and named it after his son (Genesis 4:17); 2. in the list of patriarchs descended from Adam, Jared is named as Enoch's father and he, in turn, as father of Methuseleh (Genesis 5:18-21). In the New Testament Luke, in tracing Jesus' ancestry, repeats this succession of Jared-Enoch-Methuseleh (Luke 3:37). "Enoch walked with God. Then he vanished because God took him" (Genesis 5:24). Was he assumed into heaven without dying? Ecclesiasticus suggests this: "No one else has ever been created on earth to equal Enoch, for he was taken up from earth" (Ecclesiasticus 49:14). This is reinforced in the Epistle to the Hebrews: "It was because of his faith that Enoch was taken up and did not have to experience death; he was not to be found because God had taken him" (Hebrews 11:5).