The idea of a heavenly being who thus comes to view as a feature in old apocalyptic tradition is the source of the concep tion of the heavenly Messiah—the Son of Man—of the Simili tudes of the Book of Enoch (I Enoch xxxvii.-1xx.). The heavenly being "like unto a Son of Man" of Dan. vii. was in all probability identified by the author of Daniel with Israel's angel-prince Michael; this angelic being was later, it would seem, invested with Messianic attributes, and so became the pre-existent heavenly Messiah of the Book of Enoch, who is to judge both men and angels. His standing designation in the Similitudes is "this (or that) Son of Man" seldom "the Son of Man." In other passages he is called "the Righteous One" (xxxviii. 2, liii. 6, etc.), "the Elect One (xxxix. 6, xl. 5, etc.) ; "the Elect One of righteousness and of faith" (xxxix. 6), and "God's 'Anointed' " (i.e., Christ) (xlviii. so, hi. 4).
Unlike the earthly Messiah of the national hope, who is born on earth of the seed of David, the angelic Son of Man of the Similitudes has his home in heaven "under the wings of the Lord of the Spirits" (xxxix. 7). He is pre-existent in heaven (xlv. 1, seq.) ; his name was named "before the sun and the signs were created, and before the stars of the heaven were made" (xlvii. 3) ;
he was "chosen and hidden" before the Lord of the Spirits, "before the creation of the world" (xlviii. 6). A real pre-existence of the Heavenly Messiah is here taught. It is noteworthy that empha sis is laid on the pre-existence of his name. The wonderful Name of the Messiah is already dwelt upon in Isaiah ix. 6, and in the LXX. of Psalm lxxi. ( =Heb. lxxii.) 17 the same doctrine is unmistakably affirmed : His (Messiah's) Name endures before the sun.
The wonderful and mysterious character of the Name is some times dwelt upon (cf. Ascension of Isaiah viii. 7, ix. 5), a feature which re-appears in the Johannine Apocalypse, where the Messiah bears a "name written which no man knoweth but he himself" ( Rev. xix. 12).
It would seem that in this idea Jesus found the most adequate expression of his own Messianic consciousness but he profoundly modified the conception by combining it with the idea of the "suffering servant" of Isaiah liii. All the evidence suggests that the idea of the heavenly Son of Man was not commonly known or understood in a Messianic sense; cf. John xii. 34, where the multitude in Judea are represented as asking in surprise "Who is this Son of Man?" Possibly it originated in Galilee where Jesus and his disciples became acquainted with it.