Metatron

Meanings

1. An archangel and the chancellor of Heaven and the scribe of the book of life, in Christian and Jewish folklore. According to medieval apocrypha, he is Enoch, ancestor of Noah, transformed into an angel.

Etymology

From Hebrew מְטַטְרוֹן (Məṭaṭrôn), whose origin is obscure. Possibly from Hebrew מטרא (mattara) 'keeper of the watch.' The Greek/Latin form superficially appears to be a Greek compound meta-τρον (-tron), but that would not seem to make much sense semantically, meaning something like "among-tool." It has also been proposed that the Hebrew word actually does in turn originate from Greek, coming from μετά + θρόνος, with the "th" being transformed into a "t" as the word was repeatedly taken up by one language from another. A review by Hekhalot lists these two possibilities plus seven more.