The Books of Enoch, Aramaic Fragments of Qumran Cave 4

132 INTRODUCTION
who traces the boundaries of fields, the surveyor; it is also found with this
meaning as a loan-word in Greek. ^ Later, in the administrative and military
language of the Empire, metator comes to mean a quartermaster, who prepares
the lodgings of an army on the march, or those of an important official,
a prince, or the emperor on a journey.^ In this sense the word lent itself to
the metaphorical usage common in Christian Latin writers: 'quartermaster;
he who prepares the routes' in Cyprian {Ep. 6. 4, speaking of a martyr already
dead who prepares a place in heaven for his faithful followers); Christ is
a precursor of this kind, and the womb of the Virgin is metatus metatoris
Christi according to Peter Chrysologus {Sermo 91, PL 52, 457A); in a pejorative
sense the heretics are metatores Antichristiy a phrase used by Cyprian,
Gregorius of Elvira, and Arnobius the Younger. ^
Exactly the same Christian semantic uses are found in the Coptic texts,
where the word mitator comes naturally from Greek. In the Discourse on the
Archangel Gabriel, attributed to Celestinus, archbishop of Rome, the functions
of Gabriel are enumerated as follows: 'And Gabriel is the faithful
messenger who is equipped for service in the midst of the angel host, and it is
he who bringeth glad tidings among the angels. And Gabriel is the ruuiT^wTiop
of God Almighty, and the steward (noiRowojAoc) of the kingdom which is
in the heavens.'^ John the Baptist 'is the forerunner (Ai.iTjs.Ta>p) of the
Lord, of the King of kings, and he is the baptist of the aeons of light'.s
There is a similar example in the Coptic Gospel of the Twelve Apostles,
where the Baptist is called Kog^jvnnnc ito'yjuiiTd.To>p.^
In Hebrew, the same appellative, ^113133 or HIDD^'a, is found in Gen.
Rabba 5, zJ
The derivation of the name of the angel ]nDt3*'a from the Latin-Greek
substantive metator-fiLrdrcop is confirmed by the explanation which I put
forward for an enigmatic epithet for Hermes and Metatron in the Judaeo-
Babylonian magical texts. In Montgomery^ 2, 2 (= Rossell^ 4) Hermes is
' In a papyrus (F. Preisigke, Worterbuch, (translation),
ii, iii)andinliterarytexts(see,e.g.,J.L.Lydus, * C. D. G. Miiller, Die BUcher der Einsetzung
De magistratibus populi Romani, ed. R.Wiinsch, der Erzengel Michael und Gabriel, CSCO 225/
1903, 3, 70). Copt. 31, 1962, p. 72 (text), and 226/32, p. 88
* e.g.Ambrosius,/IR^afa^cyowv io;inGreek: (German translation); cf. id.. Die Engellehre,
Glossae Basilic, Ivii 12 and Suidas s.v. p. 140, No. 18: Coptic AxiTd^Tiop = Arabic
3 See A. Blaise, Dictionnaire latin-franfais des rasul, ^messenger*.
auteurs chritiens, 1954, p. 529. * E. Revillout, PO ix, 2 (i9i3)> 136 [162].
* E. A. W. Budge, Miscellaneous Coptic ^ Cf. Odeberg, loc. cit., p. 94.
Texts in the Dialect of Upper Egypt, 1915, p. 306 ^ Op. cit. (above, p. 128, n. 4).
(text: B.M. MS. Or. 7028, year 989) and p. 878 ^ Op. cit. (above, p. 129, n. i).