The Tradition of Enoch-Metatron

This publication presents a fundamental study of the legends about the central character of the Jewish mystical tradition—the supreme angel Metatron. The book explores the origins of the image of Metatron in the stories of the seventh antediluvian patriarch Enoch, tracing the development of the image of the great angel from its roots in Mesopotamian traditions and apocalyptic texts of the Second Temple, and further into later rabbinical sources and the literature of the Palaces, where Enoch is often openly identified with Metatron. The study shows that the transition from the figure of the patriarch Enoch to the figure of the angel Metatron occurred already in the materials of the Second Temple period, namely, in the Second (Slavonic) Book of Enoch—a Jewish apocalypse traditionally dated to the first century A.D. The book will be of interest and useful to theologians, biblical scholars, religious scholars, cultural historians, as well as a wide audience of readers.