Since the rise of apocalyptic Judaism in the centuries before the common era, angelic beings have fired the imaginations of everyone from theologians to magical practitioners—from fiery winged beings to wheels covered in eyes, quasi-divine celestial warriors, messengers from the great heavenly beyond. Angels—their nature, ranks, role in the cosmos, and their final destiny—have continuously inspired speculation, and dread, through their millennial-long development in the Abrahamic religions.

Certain angels are clear standouts. The messenger Gabriel, the warrior Michael, or the healer Raphael are virtually household names at this point. But without doubt, the most mysterious angel is also said to be the most powerful: Metatron. Utterly mysterious in origin, even the meaning of its name is still in question.

Metatron features prominently in a series of profoundly esoteric forms of mysticism, first appearing in the early centuries of the common era. Though what is the origin of this angel, said to be so powerful as to be heralded as the lesser Yahweh, almost as a kind of second divine being? In this episode, I want to turn to the origins of Metatron in a text variously known as the Safer Lot, or the Book of the Palaces, or more commonly known now as the Third Book of Enoch. Here we find one of the most complex angiological texts in Jewish history—vast tours of the cosmos and the origins of Metatron as the anti-diluvian sage Enoch transformed into a fiery angelic being. This is a text so provocative it even shows internal evidence of attempts to suppress its radical angelology—indeed, a text that might contain ideas that may very well have inspired much of the early Christian salvation theory and whose mysticism would go on to fuel the rise of the Kabbalah.

If you're interested in magic, Hermetic philosophy, alchemy, Kabbalah, the history of the occult, make sure to subscribe and check out my numerous other content on topics and esotericism, including curated playlists. Also, if you want to support this work of providing accessible, scholarly, and free content on topics and esotericism here on YouTube for free, I hope you consider taking a look at my Patreon, maybe considering a one-time donation, or you can even use the Super Thanks option that you can find below the video to help support the channel. Again, you can find those links in the description below and in the pinned comment, and I really appreciate your consideration of supporting the channel and the project of making esoterica widely available. But now let's turn to the origins of the angel Metatron, the lesser Yahweh, and the fiery transformation of Enoch in the Safer Hechalot, or the Book of the Palaces. I'm Dr. Justin Sledge, and welcome to Esoterica, where we explore the arcane in history, philosophy, and religion. [Music] [Music]

Judaism, like all religions, has undergone tectonic theological shifts in the 3000 years or so—from Israelite henotheism to Kabbalistic pantheism. One of the most dramatic shifts in that process was the rise of apocalypticism in the centuries just before the rise of the common era. The apocalyptic is a religious mode typically thought to originate in Judaism, but it certainly persisted into Christianity and Islam. In fact, those religions can be said to be apocalyptic religions—and say, but they're marked by an interest in cosmogeny, events in the primordial past, what is called ex-eventu prophecy, couched in highly symbolic language, expressed anxiety about oppression and tribulation, eschatological upheavals—that is to say, things like the judgment and eventual fate of the righteous and the wicked, other-worldly journeys, good versus evil dualism, the intervention into history by a messianic savior figure or figures, along with anti-messianic characters like the Antichrist, the structure of the various heavens and hells, the hidden role of angels and demons in worldly affairs, and they're marked by a generally divinely deterministic attitude and pseudo-anonymous and alleged ancient authorship. And what gives the title to the whole genre—the idea that something is being revealed in apocalypses (from the Greek, meaning “to reveal,” “to uncover”)—all of this to a human agent, a kind of prophet, often through an angelic emissary. All to what end? What underwrites all this? Well: one, to make sense of a world in turmoil; two, to protest against an unjust world and its leadership; and three, it's a form of psychological coping by declaring that, in spite of all appearances to the contrary, everything's going according to a divine plan—from the first light of the universe to the final fire of its conflagration. Begone! The God of Israel is in control, and in the end, the righteous of Israel will thrive, and the evil will be punished forever. And how do we know all this? Well, direct revelation from the realm of the divine itself—that's that's how, apparently. This form of theology, in its literature, proved enormously popular. Dozens of texts in the genre survive, with one becoming sacred writ for the early Christians: the Apocalypse of John. In fact, I would even argue that the Apocalypse of John, as odd as it seems to us now, is probably the most recognizably Jewish book of the New Testament, giving a late first-century historical and religious context.

However, out of this apocalyptic ferment arose a form of Jewish mysticism in which elite scholars sought to journey through the heavens above them, enter the divine palaces, and bear witness to the divine glory, or kavod, around the throne of God—typically depicted as a kind of chariot; hence the name of this form of mysticism in its accompanying literature: Merkava, or chariot mysticism, although also known just as well as Hechalot—the mysticism of the divine palaces.

Now, if you want a bit more of an introduction to this form of mysticism before diving deeper into this episode, you may want to check out my episode on Merkava mysticism in the card above. For that, in that episode, I kind of survey the entire field and its literature. But in this episode, I want to turn to a text somewhere between the purely apocalyptic mode and the more practical, even magically informed Merkava literature—that's the Safer Hechalot, or the Book of the Palaces, known more commonly now as the Third Book of Enoch. As you probably know, Enoch literature was quite popular in the Second Temple period and thereafter. There are more manuscripts of 1 Enoch attested among the Dead Sea Scrolls than even parts of the Torah—that's kind of crazy—with relatively vast collections surviving in Classical Ethiopic, Old Slavonic, Hebrew, and fragments in other languages. This literature is vast. The First Book of Enoch itself is actually composed of five distinctive texts woven into one significantly long text, and this represents more of a field of Enochic discourse than a systematically Enochic form of Judaism, though there are some standout elements—especially the 365-day solar Enochic calendar, which seemed to have been preferred in the sectarian or Essene documents found in Qumran, which are weirdly written in a kind of code. For this episode, we're going to turn our attention to the quasi-apocalyptic, quasi-Merkava text of the Third Book of Enoch, or the Sefer Hechalot, the Book of the Palaces.

Third Enoch survives in a set of Hebrew texts showing a complex recension history, very likely the result of several micro-forms stitched together over time and filled out with more explanation and expanding exposition. In fact, this is not unlike the composition history of other merkavah texts that have come down to us—being made up of smaller chunks filled out over time. Where, when, and by whom this text, or really texts, was composed has no definitive answer. Scholars have literally given a thousand-year-wide window for the composition of this text, stretching all the way back from the BCE period until the Middle Ages. At this point, however, the standard analysis argues for a mixed provenance, with older sections probably being produced in Roman Palestine and then the later sections being produced in a Sasanian context, edited together sometime around the redaction of the Babylonian Talmud—so roughly the fifth or sixth centuries of the common era. Unlike other Enoch texts in which the original Hebrew or Aramaic has been lost, Third Enoch survives in Hebrew and has been continuously copied and even printed since it was produced, despite some clear rabbinic discomfort with some of the Enoch-Metatron material that I'll be getting to later. This is a very weird, miraculous survival. This text was known almost continuously throughout Jewish history.

Now, given that rabbinical discomfort, the exact cultural milieu in which this text was produced will likely remain mysterious. For instance—and there are a ton of these for instances—the text shows some pretty strong cosmological affinity to Gnostic texts, such as the Hypostasis of the Archons, the password ascent system of the so-called Ophite heresy described by Origen, and the concept of the greater and lesser Yahweh or Yao that's to be found in some late Gnostic texts like the Pistis Sophia and the books of Jew Paul. Like Saint Paul seems to have had some contact with this mystical ascent literature—his own being caught up to the third heaven or paradise (that term “paradise” or pardaise is a technical term in this literature)—where he said to heard unutterable things, as mentioned in Second Corinthians. Further, there's also clearly some early heterodox version of the Jesus movement located in Colossae, which placed emphasis on angelic intermediaries and mystical visions, though it was again kind of condemned in the Book of Colossians. Though here Paul himself seems to have had some conception of human transformation into angel-like beings as part of his soteriological theory—something clearly events in the Third Book of Enoch. Now, what all this means is extremely difficult to say with any precision, but the Safer Hechalot seems to stand at the crossroads of many divergent forms of ancient Judaism, Gnosticism, early Christianity, maybe even Mandaeism—though to what degree the text is informed by these divergences, or is informing them, or somehow dialectically both, is not clear by the least and will likely never be clear. But let's turn to the text to get at what's going on in this wonderful book.

Third Enoch opens a bit in media res. Rabbi Ishmael, described as a high priest, the hero of the narrative, is already ascended through the first six heavenly palaces, nested kind of one within the other, until, as the text opens, he's reached the finer, innermost seventh palace—the very divine abode. He's challenged here by fierce angelic guardians who have actually detected him approaching by smell alone. This is also something the Messiah is said to be able to do—smell people and judge them. Rabbi Ishmael implores God to save him. Thereupon, the angel Metatron appears from inside the seventh palace, testifies to his righteousness, and thus his ability to enter the final palace. Inside that marvelous seventh palace, Rabbi Ishmael is given one of the highest possible honors: the ability to join with the innermost angels as they exalt the divine through the recitation of the Kedusha: Kadosh, kadosh, kadosh, Adonai—holy, holy, holy, Adonai—of the angelic army. “The entire world is full of your glory.” Having glorified the divine, Metatron begins to reveal to Rabbi Ishmael, and thus to the reader, perhaps the most elaborate set of secrets in all of ancient Jewish lore. The first revelation is perhaps the most shocking: the angel Metatron was originally the anti-diluvian sage Enoch, who was taken up by God before the destruction of the world through the flood and transformed from a human being into a fiery angelic being. Now, while previous texts, especially the Second Book of Enoch, detail him being somehow glorified by the divine, Third Enoch explicitly and beautifully transcribes his being transformed from a human being into an angel: “When the Holy, Blessed One took me and to serve the throne of glory, the wheels of the chariot, and all the needs of the Shekinah, at once my flesh turned into flame, my sinews to blazing fire, my bones to juniper coals, my eyelashes to lightning flashes, my eyeballs to fiery torches, the hair of my head to hot flames, all of my limbs to burning fire, and the substance of my body to blazing fire.” Enoch, in his transformation to Metatron, is not only elevated to an angelic status, but the text even indicates that he becomes a kind of semi-divine vice-regent, known as Yahweh ha-katan—the lesser, or the little Yahweh—one of the most shocking ideas in Jewish history. Suffice to say, Metatron is without a doubt the most distinctively odd angel in all of Jewish lore. His name is clearly not a Semitic word, and there's no scholarly agreement as to what it even means. Even the various manuscripts vary in their spelling of his name. The best current guesses—and they're guesses—are from the Latin mettator, originally a term from the military language of Latin for an officer who goes before the army to prepare camp, but by extension and metonymy, anyone who prepares the way. Interestingly, though, this Latin word is otherwise attested as a loanword in both Aramaic and Hebrew, making it a pretty good candidate. Another guess is some combination of the Greek words meta thronon—perhaps “beyond the throne” or “next to the divine throne”—in reference to the throne of God. Numerous other guesses abound, but a definitive etymology will likely never be forthcoming.

Well, if the origins of even this angel's name are mysterious, then even more so the metaphysical origins and nature and functions of this angel. One likelihood that seems at least more than possible is that Metatron may have been an esoteric name for the angel Michael. In fact, both are referred to as the great prince. That became detached somehow and then merged with another angel, Yaho—an angel said to bear the divine name. Also, Yaho is also given as one of the over 70 alternative names for Metatron in Third Enoch. He was perhaps further fused with Enoch as the literature developed, especially given the glorification of Enoch in Second Enoch. Thus, by Third Enoch, all of these elements have actually fused together into one narrative, though not without a few frayed edges. So Michael had an esoteric name that got detached, fused with the angel that bears the divine name—hence the lesser Yahweh bit—and then that angel combination is infused with Second Enoch and the glorification of Enoch, the anti-diluvian sage, to create this composite Enoch of the lesser Yahweh in the literature of Third Enoch. It's as good a story as you're gonna get, folks. Sorry. But by the time of the final redaction of Third Enoch, Metatron has gone on to a wide range of roles in rabbinical literature. He is the lesser Yahweh, or the divine co-regent; as the angel of the Lord, or the angel of Yahweh; he's allowed to sit on the throne of judgment while the other angels have to stand; he is the scribe of heaven and the specific advocate of Israel (again, that's a lot like the Archangel Michael); he's uniquely able to approach the divine curtain, or pargod, that separates this realm from the realm of the pure divinity; he's the heavenly high priest officiating in the divine Mishkan, or tabernacle; he has his origins as Enoch; and he's sometimes referred to as a na'ar, or the youth—maybe this is because of his only recently having become an angel, kind of the new kid on the block; he's in charge of the souls of the righteous and even serves as the principal educator to the souls of children who perish before having the chance to learn the Torah; finally, he also seems to have enjoyed a very special relationship with Moses and the wandering indoor lights more generally—he personally escorts the soul of Moses to the heavenly realms after Moses' burial outside the Promised Land. So notice that Enoch, Metatron, and angel Michael are kind of all doing double duty here, and drawing a clear line about what exactly is Metatron, what is Michael, what is Enoch is pretty difficult to do, and clearly Third Enoch is merging them all together in some form.

Now, despite all these roles in a range of ancient Jewish literature, there was also a deep discomfort with the conception of Metatron, especially as the lesser Yahweh, in the rabbinical mind. I mean, it's blasphemy—it's blasphemy! In fact, the character of Enoch is conspicuously missing from rabbinical literature generally. Enoch hardly, if ever, appears in the Babylonian Talmud, and Metatron is most famous not for his power but for him being brought to task in an instance known as the humbling of Metatron, in a famed section of the Babylonian Talmud. Four mystics make their way to the sixth heaven—are the pardes (the Persian word for garden, and the origins of our word “paradise”)—there they're met with a kind of illusion test where pure marble appears like water. For obscure reasons, some of the party die, some of them go insane—I think it's all bad saving throws if you ask me—but one of those rabbis, Elisha ben Abuya, however, enters into the inner sanctum and witnesses Metatron seated upon the divine throne and declares, not unreasonably, that there must be two gods in heaven—thus becoming a heretic. Whoops! This heresy is so profound in the rabbinical imagination that his name is just often replaced with the term Acher—“the other one.” But for having allowed Rabbi Elisha to make this mistake, Metatron himself is punished by being beaten with fiery lashes, pulsa de-nura in Aramaic, by the angel Gabriel—at least in the Talmud. In Third Enoch, it's the angel Anopiel who does the beating with the divine lashes. Henceforth, it appears that Metatron is now made to stand like all the other angels. This incident of the humbling of Metatron was, at least in part, we think, motivated by the desire on the part of the rabbis to pump the brakes on this Metatron craze, precisely because it did, in fact, lead to actual ditheistic heresy—the so-called “two powers in heaven” heresy. In fact, it's possible that the Pauline elevation and transformation of Jesus following his death into a divine being was at least inspired, or perhaps even underwritten, by this early undercurrent of this Metatron-lesser Yahweh business. Jesus's transformation into a divine vice-regent closely mirrors Enoch's transformation and exaltation—or it could be the other way around—that this was a rabbinic answer, or at least para-rabbinic or hetero-heterodox rabbinic answer to the claims of the divine Jesus by the early Jesus movement. Regardless, you're probably beginning to see just how deeply complex all of this is becoming. Oh, and it gets more complex.

Following the origins, angelic transformation, and humbling of Enoch-Metatron, Rabbi Ishmael was given a tour of the heavenly household. What follows is probably the most complex angelology ever described in Jewish lore. In fact, it's not just even one angelological system, but three distinct systems—at least three—detailing dozens of beings in various systems of ranks and roles, along with fragments of other angelic systems. Angels in a bewildering range of roles and functions appear in these texts, with the literature reveling in what Gershom Scholem called “polygy”—where adjective after adjective is heaped upon these beings. Remember Anopiel, who beat Metatron with the fiery lashes, the pulsa de-nura? He's referred to as “the honored, glorified, beloved, wonderful, terrible, and dreadful prince.” You see this piling over and over and over again in Third Enoch. Virtually every aspect of the cosmos—the heavenly palaces, the nations of the world, etc.—are assigned various angelic representatives, along with further angels dedicated to roles within the highest heavens, all variously and detailedly described. Without a doubt, the effect of these sections is dizzying and highly resistant to both summary or meta-systematization, being the accretion of several angelic systems virtually piled on top of each other in the narrative, giving this text of Third Enoch a truly baroque feeling, with the angels described. Metatron now escorts Rabbi Ishmael on a tour of the heavens and the cosmos more generally—from the river of fire that the angels purified themselves in before reciting the Kedusha to the storehouses of the cosmic opposites, like where fire and ice are stored, to the divine letters by which the cosmos was created, even the prison where the angels who fail in their recitation of the Kedusha are kept behind fiery bars. He is taken to witness the souls of the righteous who bask in the divine presence, the intermediate souls temporarily punished for their sins, and the wicked trapped in Sheol, perhaps even forever. He's even given a glimpse of the ancient Israelite patriarchs who pray constantly to intercede on the behalf of the sins of the people of Israel, even the souls of the heavenly bodies and various types of other angels—a lot of angels up there. Finally, Metatron leads Ishmael to the titanic divine throne, where God is forever separated from even the highest, holiest of the seventh heaven by the pargod, or the curtain draped over the divine face. On the vast surface of the curtain, Ishmael is shown the entire history of the cosmos embroidered onto the curtain—from the time of the first person, Adam, to the eventual coming of the Messiah. Witnessing the veiled face of God, Metatron sails upward with Ishmael to see the divine right hand hidden behind God's back—since the destruction of the Temple—which, at the end of times, will usher in the days of the Messiah and bring the universe to its final apocalyptic conclusion. Having seen the inner reaches of the seventh divine palace, the quasi-divine Metatron, the angelic household, the entire history of the cosmos on the divine pargod, and the very divine hand that will bring final redemption, the text comes to a dramatic conclusion in crescendo, swallowed up in eschatological fervor. Just what becomes of Rabbi Ishmael isn't even noted.

While not as famous as the First Book of Enoch, the Third Book of Enoch, or the Safer Hekalot, is without a doubt a tour de force of apocalyptic lore and chariot mysticism. Everything from the angelic mechanisms of the universe, or the origins of Metatron as the angelically transformed person of Enoch, are detailed in this astounding treasure of a text. Of course, to really appreciate it, one must dive pretty deep into the sea of apocalyptic literature, especially the other Books of Enoch, but also the extensive world of the merkavah texts and their occult mysticism. Metatron himself, of course, would go on to continued fame, especially in the development of the Kabbalah—though that's a that's a tale for another episode.

The closest thing we have to a critical edition of this text is the 1928 Otterberg edition—yep, 1928—which has the strangest transliteration system I've ever seen, like with Old English thorns and eths, Mandelbrot views, to be written in the Rashi script for some reason. Who knows? Despite its many flaws, it's still the most workable text still, like it. And if you want to read the text in the original Hebrew—and though it's pretty out of date—that's your best bet for a critical edition. The standard edition of the text in English is that of Alexander, to be found in the two-volume Old Testament Pseudepigrapha collection. This is just a must-have for anyone interested in any of this material, especially the Enoch literature. His introduction is wonderful, not only for the text of Third Enoch but also for the world of merkavah mysticism more generally, but also the range of texts that Third Enoch interacts with, especially the ones that have been found since 1928, like, you know, the Dead Sea Scrolls and agamatic texts. If you're interested in Jewish ditheism, or this “two powers in heaven” heresy, the best texts there are Seagull and Schaefer, and both of these are wonderful texts and both worth checking out. In fact, this “two powers in heaven” heresy business worried the rabbis, I think, a good bit more than early Christianity, interestingly enough. Well, maybe they just grouped early Christianity in with this “two powers in heaven” heresy. Who knows? Of course, more on Enoch, angels, and Metatron to come. Until then, I'm Dr. Justin Sledge, and thank you for watching Esoterica, where we explore the arcane in history, philosophy, and religion.

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Who is Metatron? The Origins of the Angel from the 3rd Book of Enoch - Sefer Hekhalot Mysticism

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