Why Acts 17 Couldn't Apply To The Metatrone Controversy

… Paul stood in the midst of Mars’ hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, To The Unknown God. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. (Acts 17:22-23)

Would referring to the LORD Jesus Christ, as the Metatron, be the same as Paul preaching to the Greeks, revealing to them the true identity of the “unknown god” that they had made altars to?

When Paul came to Athens, He saw that the city was wholly devoted to numerous Greek gods, whose shrines, images and statues were venerated throughout the city. The Greeks were polytheists, and wanted to appease whichever gods they perceived to exist. Paul also noted a rather curious phenomenon, for throughout the city, were various altars which were dedicated to “the unknown god”.

Evidently there had been a very serious plague in Athens, which had been interpreted to require the appeasement of the gods, and to which the entire city devoted itself to. Which god was responsible for the Plague? Athens would seek to appease all of them.

However the plague was not stayed, in spite of the multitude of devotions.Evidently these pagans didn’t know which god they should offer sacrifice to. This was a humble admission of their ignorance of God, and a desperate attempt to appease him.

A wise man was consulted who instructed the elders of the city to let loose a flock of goats, and wherever those goats would rest, they were to erect an altar to “the unknown god”, and offer sacrifices there.

There are many who are saying that what Jacob Prasch is doing, by referring to the Kabbalistic “Metatron” as the “One mediator between God and men”, and the “Angel of the LORD” and even as Jesus, is the same thing Paul did.

The many altars to the “unknown god” amounted to an admission that the Greeks really didn’t know who God is, and to the limitations of their own Pantheon to stay the plague. In their desperation, they cried out to the “Unknown God”. (Incidently, the plague stopped shortly afterwards according to the story).

Paul could respectfully build upon that admission, and let them know that the God who did what none of their own gods could do, (ie stopping the plague), has an identity, is a person, their Creator, and Judge, as well as their Redeemer, the LORD Jesus Christ.

In the case of Jewish evangelism, (The gospel should indeed go to the Jew first), The Metatrone is in no way an admission of ignorance of the Only True God. In fact the Metatrone is the product of a very sophisticated (but errant) theology which developed over the centuries, has a highly developed persona , and springs out of literature that was designed to destroy faith in Jesus Christ deliberately, particularly among the Jews.

Unlike the Greeks, the Rabbis and their disciples do not think that they are ignorant of God, in fact they are gnostics who believe that they alone know who God is. Thus the analogy breaks down. Why bolster their unbelief by trying to label Jesus with the title that they know well, of a figure,”Behind the Throne”?

Metatrone, is not Jesus Christ. Not even close. It was not the Metatrone who wrestled with Jacob, it was God. The Patriarch Jacob saw the face of God and lived. Metatrone is an occult imagination, an idol, a distortion of reality, a terrible, ominous substitute for our Saviour.

When Paul engaged in Jewish evangelism in the synagogues, did he refer to the Metatrone? ** Would he have pointed to the various myths and fables of the Rabbis which he so often warned against? How did Paul go about Jewish Evangelism?

Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where was a synagogue of the Jews:And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three sabbath days reasoned with them out of the scriptures, Opening and alleging, that Christ must needs have suffered, and risen again from the dead; and that this Jesus, whom I preach unto you, is Christ.(Acts 17:1-3)

And he reasoned in the synagogue every sabbath, and persuaded the Jews and the Greeks. And when Silas and Timotheus were come from Macedonia, Paul was pressed in the spirit, and testified to the Jews that Jesus was Christ.(Acts 18:4-5)

Admittedly I do not speak Hebrew, but I am a Christian, I have the Spirit, and it grieves me to see the LORD Jesus Christ, compared to a mystical figure, and openly referred to as Metatrone. We must be discerning brothers and sisters. Pray for discernment on this, please, we beseech you.

**( It could be that the Metatrone developed later, but the point is the same, for their were plenty of Jewish Myths Paul could have drawn from as analogies.)

Exo 23:20 Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared.
Exo 23:21 Beware of him, and obey his voice, provoke him not; for he will not pardon your transgressions: for my name is in him. KJV.

I think this verse of an angle is considered the Metronome. Only God forgives sins

Jos 5:14 And he said, Nay; but as captain of the host of the LORD am I now come. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did worship, and said unto him, What saith my lord unto his servant?
Jos 5:15 And the captain of the LORD’S host said unto Joshua, Loose thy shoe from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standest is holy. And Joshua did so. Because only God can forgive sins. Another verse in Joshua,

Only God deserves worship.

I sometimes point out that Paul really knew his audience but even when he didn’t the Holy Spirit certainly did.

In the case of these Athenians it would be easy to say that they were the disciples of the Greek Philosophos, or philosophers, and not, in contrast, the Greek Sophists.

I will maintain that the fact that they were disciples of the philosophers has direct bearing their reactions to Paul in this section of scripture and that scripture proves it.

There is an important distinction between these the philosophers and the Sophists, and it largely came down to how they sought to teach arete, or human excellence. The philosophers like Plato etc used grammar which teaches doctrines by rote where the Sophists used rhetoric to try to teach by some infusion/transfusion of wisdom (Sophia) through making speeches and telling stories.

There are other tools men have tried to use: the Pharisees for instance try to enforce something kinda comparable to arete via laws covering minutiae and the Taoist seek to teach it through intuition about contradictions, Koans.

Suffice to say, the grammarians HATED the Sophists and this is part of why we use the word sophistry to indicate something foolish even though the root of the word is wisdom (sophia).

Yet if you look at Plato’s work, particularly the Phaedrus, you find that the grammarians were NOT above using the tricks of rhetoric, but were masters of it. What this means is that the grammarians won because they had an easier time replicating themselves. Those they couldn’t indoctrinate they could still convince using techniques they might claim that they didn’t really use except as unavoidable.

The Sophists, who maintained that one could actually know Sophia (or that particular wisdom whereby a man could know for certain what it is to be Man), simply failed to deliver while the grammarians who surrendered up the idea that a man could have Sophia instead maintained that men could have a kind of wisdom that was good enough to get by and so had an easier time of it, both in instructing by rote for the most part and in excusing their failures when people who had an education from them failed horribly to act any sort of wise at all.

What does this mean?

Consider a story about a Greek philosopher who was blind BUT because he knew enough about Sophia to know WHY he was blind, in the story he then regained his sight. This tale, as I dimply recall it, is actually a rhetorical slight of hand ... as is Socrates’ presentation about human passion vs human reason to Phaedrus in the dialogue that bears his name.

And one of the chief objections raised to why men could not possess Sophia is that we cannot, the grammarians would say, know for sure if the souls of men are immortal or not. They reasonably maintained that evidence of that, one way or another, was unlikely to come by and so we find Socrates describing why he thought men’s souls SHOULD be immortal (so live like it is) rather than laboring to say they are (or aren’t ... as modern materialists claim).

If you cannot know that how would you claim to know for sure what it means to be Man?

So let’s look at Scripture now.

It clearly states that the people gathered, no doubt good philosophy students all, were keeping up UNTIL they perceived that Paul was teaching them about the resurrection of the dead.

Once they realized that OF COURSE they would mock him because that would mean men could now (based on this evidence) know for sure if the souls of men were immortal or not. Essentially from their perspective Paul became in their eyes an example of that old bugaboo, hated and much mocked rival: a Sophist.

Evidence didn’t matter. The majority were predisposed by their ideology to reject that any such evidence could be given at all.

But for those who were perhaps BETTER philosophers than the rest they may have realized that just because such evidence seems unlikely that didn’t mean it could never be provided ... and these I maintain are some of those who wanted to hear more from Paul just as the scripture says.

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