Life After Death_ A History of the Afterlife in Western Religion - Alan Segal [310]
In the Hellenistic period many new interpretations of Exodus 23-24, Ezekiel 1, and Daniel 7 grew up. The various descriptions of the angels were all melded into a single principal angelic mediator. The name “Yahoel” in the Apocalypse of Abraham, illustrates one interpretation of carrying the divine name, since it is a combination of the tetragrammaton and a suffix denoting angelic stature. Yahoel is described as the one: “in whom God’s ineffable name dwells.” Other titles for this figure included “Melchizedek,” “Metatron,” “Adoil,” “Taxo,” “Eremiel” and, preeminently in Christianity but also perhaps elsewhere, “the Son of Man,” or “the manlike figure.”
For instance, Melchizedek appears at Qumran, in the document called 11QMelch, where he is identified with the “Elohim” of Psalm 82:1, thus giving us yet another variation on the theme of carrying the name of God. This same exegesis is applied to Christ in Hebrews 1. Metatron is called YHWH haqqāôn, or YHWH junior, and sits on a throne equal to God’s in 3 Enoch 10:1.36 Typically, the name of the angel varies from tradition to tradition. Michael is God’s “mediator” and general (archistrategos, 2 Enoch 33:10, T. Dan 6:1-5, T. Abr 1:4, cf. The Life of Adam and Eve 14.1-2). Eremiel appears in the Apocalypse of Zephaniah 6:1-15, where he is mistaken for God. In The Ascension of Isaiah 7:2-4, an angel appears whose name cannot be given.
Chief angelic mediators appear throughout the Jewish literature of the first several centuries.37 The chief angelic mediator, which we may call by a number of terms-God’s vice-regent, His Vezir, His regent, or other terms expressing his status as principal angel-is easily distinguished from the plethora of divine creatures, for the principal angel is not only head of the heavenly hosts but sometimes participates in God’s own being or divinity: “My name is in him” (Exod 23:21). In dualistic contexts he is the angel who opposes Satan as “Prince of the World” (see e.g. Apocalypse of Abraham 13-14; 20; 22; 23; 29).
Alongside these traditions lies the stranger but more relevant notion in Christianity, in some apocalyptic-mystical groups, that certain heroes can be transformed into angels as part of their ascension. This may easily be the most puzzling part of the mystic traditions but, in view of Paul’s mysticism and Christian notions of angelic transformation, it is the most important to summarize.38 Amazingly, some patriarchs are also exalted as angels. In the Testament of Abraham 11 (Recension A), Adam is pictured with a terrifying appearance and adorned with Glory upon a golden throne. In chapters 12-13 Abel is similarly glorified, acting as judge over creation until the final judgment. Second Enoch 30:8-11 also states that Adam was an angel: “And on earth I assigned him to be a second angel, honored and great and glorious.”39 In the Prayer of Joseph, found in Origen’s Commentary on John 2:31, with a further fragment in Philocalia 23:15, Jacob describes himself as “an angel of God and a ruling spirit,” and claims to be the “firstborn of every living thing,” “the first minister before the face of God,” “the archangel of the power of the Lord,” and “the chief captain among the sons of God.”40
Enoch and Moses, however, are the most important non-Christian figures of divinization or angelic transformation. Philo describes Moses as divine, based upon the word God used of him in Exodus 4:16 and 7:1. Thus, Sirach 45:1-5 compares Moses to God in the Hebrew or “equal in glory to the holy ones,” in the Greek version of the text. Philo and the Samaritans also expressed Moses’ preeminence in Jewish tradition essentially by all but deifying