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Metatron is a character in Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series, serving as the penultimate antagonist in the war between man and the Kingdom of Heaven. He was a mortal man named Enoch who became an angel after death, rising to become the Regent for the Authority. Metatron seeks to take direct control over mortal affairs and attacks the protagonists, but is ultimately seduced and hurled into an abyss. The character draws inspiration from various Jewish traditions, where Metatron is sometimes described as a minor deity or chief angel.
The character Metatron is an angel in Philip Pullman’s fantasy series His Dark Materials. The books follow an epic struggle in which man wages a war against the Kingdom of Heaven and Metatron serves as the penultimate antagonist in that war.
In book myths, God’s character is referred to as the Authority, and he is referred to as the first angel to appear in the universe. He used this unique position to assert dominion over the angels who came after him, establishing himself as the creator of the universe.
Metatron is not one of these angels that originally appeared, but is actually a mortal man who was transformed into an angel after his death, like other angels that appear in the book, such as Baruch. However, Metatron rises to become the most powerful of the angels, aside from the Authority, despite his mortal past.
In his mortal life, Metatron was a man named Enoch, son of Jared, son of Mahalaleel, son of Kenan, son of Enos, son of Set, son of Adam. His brother Baruch also became an angel after his mortal death, although he was later expelled and rebelled against the Authority and joined the war against the Kingdom of Heaven.
Once he became an angel, Metatron grew in power and eventually became the Regent for the Authority, which had grown old and seemingly senile. As Regent, Metatron has assumed the current government of the Kingdom of Heaven. Within the scope of the book, Metatron prepares to intervene in mortal affairs across the many universes shared in the book. He sees the Church as not strong enough in many worlds and seeks to take a direct hand in the lives of mortal men and women, effectively creating a direct dictatorship of Heaven.
Metatron attacks the two main protagonists of the book, Will and Lyra, and attempts to kill them to get his hands on the thin knife. His character is not particularly elaborate, but he comes across as a tyrant, willing to shed blood to achieve his ends and able to exile his own brother from the Kingdom of Heaven. Metatron has been shown to have a weakness of the flesh, left over from his mortal life. Mrs. Coulter’s character seduces him at the end of the book, leaving him hurled into an abyss from which not even he can return.
The name Metatron comes from an angel who appears in the traditions of the Judeo-Christian religions. While it does not appear in either the Old or New Testaments, the Tanakh or the Qur’an, it does appear in a number of later sources. In the third book of Enoch in some Jewish traditions the story of Enoch’s transformation into Metatron is given, which Pullman is likely to have drawn inspiration from him.
In various Talmudic traditions, Metatron is sometimes described as a minor deity, a “secondary YHVH”, although other sections clarify to emphasize that he is merely an angel. Metatron is often described as the chief angel, and he is often assigned the role of God’s messenger or scribe, recording the history of Israel and delivering messages to both Sammael and Gabriel.
In no tradition does the angel Metatron ever usurp God’s role as Deity, but the role Pullman gives him has things in common with earlier traditions that call him a lesser deity. Elisha ben Abuya is even described in one passage, having seen Metatron sitting as only God himself could be, saying, “There really are two powers in heaven!” While this was later shown to be incorrect in the same section, this interpretation likely helped form the basis for Pullman’s character.
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