James Bruce, the Scotsman Who Discovered The Devil

3266

Subscribe to get Spooky Isles' free newsletter in your inbox every Friday!

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Scottish explorer James Bruce (1730-17974) set out to find an ancient text to strengthen his faith. Guest writer JACOB MILNESTEIN says what he actually found was The Devil!

James Bruce and the Devil

The more austere a faith, the more sensationalised its taboos seem to become. When renowned Scottish explorer and scholar, James Bruce, set out to find a book he hoped would preserve the secret of ancient rites, he returned instead with an ancient Ethiopian depiction of the origin of the very source of evil itself: the Devil!

Denounced by the early Church fathers and preserved solely, save for fragments, within the ancient Ethiopian tongue of Ge’ez, the Book of Enoch offers us a tale no establishment of the time wished to see credited. Rooted in esoteric Jewish thought, the Book of Enoch suggests that the hated and feared figure of the Devil itself may once have been humanity’s very own ally and mentor.

At a time in which Britain was involved in lengthy territorial conflicts with the Spanish state, James Bruce travelled extensively, always studying the native cultures and artifacts of those around him. For a time he was British consul in Algiers, spending several years pursuing his interests in antiquarian relics and ancient ruins.

James Bruce
James Bruce


It is possible that it was at this point that Bruce first learnt of the significance of the missing Book of Enoch for, upon completion of his role in Algiers, he took it upon himself to set out in search of the Blue Nile; the true Nile of the ancients. Yet despite his scientific ambitions, Bruce also had a more arcane agenda, one rooted in the very tradition of Western Christianity and the mythology of its central antagonist.

Passing through Alexandria, Thebes, and Cairo to name but a few places, Bruce arrived in the former Ethiopian capital of Gondor in 1770. From Gondor he travelled through Abyssinia, ostensibly in search of the Blue Nile whilst also searching out the Book of Enoch.

A member of the Canongate Kilwinning Lodge Masonic lodge, Bruce’s reasoning for his comprehensive study of the ancient Ethiopian language, Ge’ez, and his travels to a region noted for its dislike of outsiders are both questions that only can be addressed by what Bruce hoped to find within that ancient text.

Equated with the Egyptian deity, Thoth by some Freemasons, Enoch was considered the founder of the written language. It is thought that part of James Bruce’s motive in uncovering the ancient text was due to this belief that Enoch was, in some way, the author of secrets that Masons believed they were the true inheritors of. Finding Enoch’s words would validate their own beliefs.
Instead, Bruce found himself confronted with a notion far more perplexing.

Whilst we have become accustomed to the Devil as the fall guy for all that is bad in the world, he is a convenient excuse for the theology argument of why God always evil to happen, what we see in the Book of Enoch is that the original story contained no antagonist other than God Himself.

It is not surprising then that the Book of Enoch, with its narrative implying that the source of wisdom originated instead from those who the Hebrew deity attempted to destroy during the Flood, never found a place in canonised Christianity, and was left unpublished during Bruce’s lifetime.

To have made public such a story  would have been to equate the development of culture, of creativity, not with Christ and the institution of the Church, but rather to Azazel and the angels who turned away from God.

Such an idea was anathema to both the religious and social climate of the time.

This tale would have caused massive unrest, unrest of the kind that few authorities were willing to entertain. As such, despite the richness of its imagery, the story of the Book of Enoch continues to remain but a footnote in histories detailing the life and times of this most inspiring of Scottish adventurers.

As such, the true role of the Devil in Western culture is one that is largely ignored.

JACOB MILNESTEIN writes stories. His most recent story, “lecteur de tarot” can be found here.

5 COMMENTS

  1. You liars, there are no such things in the book of Enoch about the devil being an ally or mentor LOOOOOLL….wait wait LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL. I’m Ethiopian and know this for sure. So this makes things clear; the administrators of this page worship the devil and are part of the esoteric orders that James Bruce belonged to. And for the final touch you have the “Join illuminati now” links all over the page. But just remember that hell is no fun, in fact Enoch with the Archangel Uriel went there and described it for us. Get ready to burned and suffer beyond your imagination in hell or simply renounce the devil and accept Jesus Christ as your God and Savior so that you can become HEIRS OF GOD. Yes something your devil wished but can’t obtain.

    • Which version would you suggest? I’ve heard that Amazon sells a less than authentic and more expensive version of The Book of Enoch.

  2. you are right….I see excatly where this info is going and it is to make us doubt the deity of Christ and turn toward the satan…the one who will never see the Grace Of Our God Again…he can not stand the thought that Believers In Christ ,will

  3. The book of Enoch is talking about being in a conscious state. The whole Bible is talking about our consciousness. The people that wrote it are metaphorically speaking. They named our conscious Christ and our imagination God. Our imagination creates our reality.

Leave a Reply to jerry blair Cancel reply

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here