From Enoch to Metatron: How a Man Became an Angel

Ancient stories are full of higher beings who come down to humans. Gods disguise themselves as shepherds, angels are hosted in tents, messengers from heaven appear in dreams. The opposite movement is much rarer. How many stories do you know about an ordinary man, born to a father and a mother, who went up to heaven to stay there, in a senior position?

Jewish tradition knows one such story, and it is remarkably detailed. Its hero is Enoch son of Jared, and the name he received in heaven is Metatron.

Who Metatron is, and how he is connected to Enoch

Metatron is a high-ranking angel in Jewish tradition. He is called “the Prince of the Presence,” that is, the angel who serves before God himself, and also “the great scribe.” According to early mystical tradition, Metatron was not created an angel. He was a man, Enoch son of Jared, the same Enoch of whom Genesis says “and he was not; for God took him.” He was taken from the earth, changed from top to bottom, and set above the whole host of heaven.

The story as Metatron tells it

The full version is found in a Hebrew work called 3 Enoch, or Sefer Hekhalot. It was written centuries after the other two books of Enoch, and belongs to early Jewish mystical literature.

At the opening of the book Rabbi Ishmael ascends to the seventh palace in heaven, and is terrified of the angels. God sends Metatron to him, and the angel calms him and introduces himself. I have seventy names, he says, but my King calls me “Youth.” Rabbi Ishmael is astonished: why is the one who is greater than all the princes called a youth? And the answer: because I am Enoch son of Jared. In the generation of the Flood, when humans sinned, the Holy One, blessed be He, took me up to heaven to be a witness against them. Among the angels, I am the youngest.

What follows is one of the boldest descriptions in Hebrew literature. The veteran angels protest: what is one born of woman doing among us? God dismisses the protest. He enlarges Enoch until his stature is the measure of the world, gives him seventy-two wings and eyes beyond counting, dresses him in a garment of glory, seats him on a throne at the entrance to the palace, and sets a crown on his head. And then comes the moment when the man disappears for good: his flesh turns to flame, his sinews to blazing fire, and his bones to coals.

The hint in the translation

One might think this was the idea of a handful of mystics. But it also appears in a much more central place: in an Aramaic translation of the Torah attributed to Jonathan. It renders the verse about Enoch roughly like this: Enoch served in truth before the LORD, and behold he was no longer with the dwellers of the earth, for he was taken away and ascended to the firmament by the word of the LORD, and his name was called Metatron, the great scribe.

The Talmud also knows Metatron, though it does not mention Enoch. Tractate Hagigah tells that Elisha ben Abuyah saw him on high, sitting and writing down the merits of Israel. Since he knew that in heaven no one sits before God, the dangerous thought occurred to him that perhaps there are two powers there. Metatron, the story goes, was punished for not rising from his place. And tractate Sanhedrin says of him that his name is like his master’s name.

An angel who sits, an angel who writes, an angel who carries something of God’s name. It is easy to understand why he aroused both admiration and fear.

The roots: what is already in the books of Enoch

The name Metatron does not appear in 1 Enoch or in 2 Enoch. But all the building blocks of the story are already there.

The first is the scribe. In the Book of Jubilees, Enoch is the first human being to learn to write. In 1 Enoch he is “the scribe of righteousness.” In 2 Enoch an angel hands him a pen, and he writes three hundred and sixty-six books. The one who sits in heaven and writes in the Talmud is thus carrying on an old profession.

The second is the transformation. At the end of the Book of Parables in 1 Enoch, Enoch ascends to the heaven of heavens, and his body seems to melt before the vision. And then he is told something surprising:

That angel came to me, raised his voice, blessed me and said to me: You are the Son of Man who was born for righteousness. Righteousness rests upon you, and the righteousness of the Ancient of Days will not leave you.

1 Enoch 71:14

Throughout the Book of Parables Enoch sees from afar a heavenly figure called the Son of Man. At the end it turns out that he has been looking, in a certain sense, at himself.

The third is the clothing. In 2 Enoch, Enoch reaches the tenth heaven, and God commands the angel Michael:

God said to Michael: Go, take Enoch out of his earthly clothes, anoint him with my sweet anointing oil, and dress him in the clothes of my glory.

2 Enoch 22:8

Enoch says that afterwards he looked at himself, and saw that he was like one of the glorious ones on high. From here to an angel whose flesh is fire there is only one step left, and it is taken in the third book.

What the name means

Nobody knows for certain where the name Metatron comes from. Some have suggested that it derives from Greek, meaning the one who stands beside the throne. Others have linked it to a Latin word for the one who goes before the camp and measures out the way. And some have looked for a Hebrew or Aramaic root, meaning a guardian. All the proposals are reasonable, and none of them is proven.

The connection between the name and Enoch is not self-evident either. Scholars believe that two traditions that were originally separate merged here: one about a supreme angel named Metatron, and another about Enoch who ascended to heaven. At some point someone decided that the two were one. The mystics later found support for this in a verse from Proverbs. “Train up a child” begins, in Hebrew, with the words hanokh la-na’ar, which can also be read: Enoch became a youth.

A mirror image

There is a symmetry in this story that is hard to miss. The Book of Enoch opens with angels who came down. They left their place, mingled with humans, and were punished. It ends, three books and centuries later, with a man who went up. He left his place, mingled with the angels, and received a crown.

The Watchers wanted what humans have: wives, children, life on the earth. Enoch received what angels have: wings, fire, a place beside the throne. The passage is possible in both directions, then, but only one of them is made with permission.

Why this story speaks to us

Our age talks endlessly about upgrading the human being: a body that does not age, a memory that does not forget, a mind not limited by flesh. We imagine that the idea is new. 3 Enoch shows that it is very old. There too a man receives a new body, eyes beyond counting and knowledge without limit.

And yet there is one difference, and it is worth thinking about. The Enoch of the story does not upgrade himself. He is chosen because he was righteous in a generation of sinners, and he is sent to heaven in the role of a witness. The power is given to him after he has shown what he will do with it. That order, first character and then power, is perhaps the least futuristic detail in the whole story, and the most important.