Margaret Barker
Beyond the Veil of the Temple. The High Priestly Origin of the
Apocalypses[1].
The veil of the temple was woven from blue, purple, crimson and
white thread, and embroidered with cherubim (2 Chron.3.14); the
veil in the tabernacle had been similar, (Exod.26.31; 36.35)[2], It was a valuable
piece of fabric, and both Antiochus and Titus took a veil when
they looted the temple (1 Mac.1.21-2; Josephus War 7.162). In the
second temple it was some two hundred square metres of fabric and
when it contracted uncleanness and had to be washed, three
hundred priests were needed for the job (m.Shekalim 8.4-5).
Josephus says it was a Babylonian tapestry (War 5.212), a curtain
embroidered with a panorama of the heavens (War 5.213). The veil
separated the holy place from the most holy (Exod.26.33),
screening from view the ark and the cherubim or, in the temple,
the ark and the chariot throne[3].
We are told that only the high priest entered the holy of holies,
once a year on the Day of Atonement.
Josephus, who was himself a priest (Life 1), says that the
tabernacle was a microcosm of the creation, divided into three
parts: the outer parts represented the sea and the land but
‘...the third part thereof... to which the priests were not
admitted, is, as it were, a heaven peculiar to God’
(Ant.3.181). Thus the veil which screened the holy of holies
was also the boundary between earth and heaven. Josephus was
writing at the very end of the second temple period, but texts
such as Psalm 11 ‘The LORD is in his holy temple, the LORD's
throne is in heaven’, suggest that the holy of holies
was thought to be heaven at a much earlier period, and the LXX of
Isaiah 6, which differs from the Hebrew, implies that the hekhal
was the earth[4].
The Glory of the LORD filled the house in v.1, and the seraphim
sang that the Glory filled the earth , v.3.
The biblical description of the holy of holies in the first
temple is that it was overlaid with fine gold (2 Chron.3.8) and
that it housed ‘the golden chariot of the cherubim that
spread their wings and covered the ark of the covenant’ (1
Chron.28.18). Later texts say that Aaron's rod and a pot of manna
were kept in the ark, and that the anointing oil was also kept in
the holy of holies (Tosefta Kippurim 2.15). That is what the
writers of the second temple period chose to remember as there
were none of these things in the temple of their own time; they
had all been hidden away in the time of Josiah (b.Horayoth
12ab; b.Keritoth 5b).
In the visionary texts, however, the holy of holies is vividly
described, suggesting not only that the visionaries knew the holy
of holies, but also that they had a particular interest in it.
Isaiah saw the throne in the temple with heavenly beings beside
it; Enoch entered a second house within the first house, a place
of fire where there was a lofty throne surrounded by the hosts of
heaven (1 En.14). The undateable Similitudes of Enoch have
the same setting: the throne of glory and the hosts of heaven.
These images were memories of the cult of the first temple, and
it was the visionaries who kept the memory alive: Enoch in the
Book of Jubilees is depicted as a priest, burning the incense of
the sanctuary (Jub.4.25) and Ezekiel, who saw the chariot, was
also a priest (Ezek.1.3)
Those who entered the holy of holies were entering heaven. When
Solomon became king, the Chronicler recorded that ‘he sat on
the throne of the LORD and all the assembly bowed their heads and
worshipped the LORD and the king’ (1 Chron.29.20-23).
Something similar was said of Moses in later texts when much of
the old royal ideology was transferred to him: Ezekiel the
tragedian described how a heavenly figure on the summit of Sinai
stood up from his throne and gave it to Moses (Eusebius Preparation
of the Gospel 9.29); Philo said that Moses ‘entered into
the darkness where God was and was named god and king of the
whole nation’ (Moses 1.158). For both Ezekiel and Philo,
this transformation took place on Sinai, one of the many examples
of Moses sharing the royal traditions associated with the holy of
holies, but there can be no question of this being Hellenistic
syncretism as is usually suggested.[5]
Acquiring the titles and status of God and King must be
related in some way to the Chronicler’s description of
Solomon’s coronation, and to the psalmist’s
description of the procession into the sanctuary, when he saw his
God and his King (Ps.68.24).
Other texts imply that a transformation took place in the holy of
holies: those who entered heaven became divine. Philo said that
when the high priest entered the holy of holies he was not a
man. We read Leviticus 16.17 as: ‘there shall be no man
in the holy of holies when he (Aaron) enters to make atonement...’
but Philo translated it: ‘When the high priest enters the
Holy of Holies he shall not be a man’, showing, he said,
that the high priest was more than human (On Dreams 2.189). In 2
Enoch there is an account of how Enoch was taken to stand before
the heavenly throne. Michael was told to remove his earthly
clothing, anoint him and give him the garments of glory; ‘I
looked at myself, and I had become like one of his glorious
ones’ (2 En.22.10). This bears a strong resemblance
Zechariah 3, where Joshua the high priest stands before the LORD,
is vested with new garments and given the right to stand in the
presence of the LORD. As late as the sixth century Cosmas
Indicopleustes, an Egyptian Christian, wrote a great deal about
the temple and its symbolism, and we shall have cause to consider
his evidence at several points. Of Moses he said: the LORD hid
him in a cloud on Sinai, took him out of all earthly things
‘and begot him anew like a child in the womb’ (Cosmas Christian
Topography 3.13), clearly the same as Psalm 2; ‘I have
set my king on Zion... You are my son. Today I have begotten
you’ but using the imagery of reclothing with heavenly
garments, rather than rebirth.
The best known example of such a transformation text is in the
Book of Revelation. The vision begins in the hekhal where
John sees the heavenly figure and the seven lamps, originally the
menorah. Then he is invited to enter the holy of holies; a voice
says: ‘Come up hither and I will show you what must take
place after this’ (Rev.4.1). He sees the throne and
the Lamb approaching the throne. Once the Lamb has taken the
scroll he is worshipped by the elders in the sanctuary and
then becomes identified with the One on the throne.
Throughout the remainder of the book, the One on the throne and
the Lamb are treated as one, with singular verbs. The Lamb has
become divine[6].
The veil was the boundary between earth and heaven. Josephus and
Philo agree that the four different colours from which it as
woven represented the four elements from which the world was
created: earth, air, fire and water. The scarlet thread
represented fire, the blue was the air, the purple was the sea,
that is, water, and the white linen represented the earth in
which the flax had grown (War 5.212-213). In other words, the
veil represented matter. The high priest wore a vestment
woven from the same four colours and this is why the Book of
Wisdom says that Aaron's robe represented the whole world
(Wisd.18.24; also Philo Laws 1.84; Flight 110). He took off this
robe when he entered the holy of holies because the robe was the
visible form of one who entered the holy of holies. In the
Epistle to the Hebrews, which explores the theme of Jesus as the
high priest, there is the otherwise enigmatic line: his flesh was
the veil of the temple (Heb.10.20). In other words, the veil was
matter which made visible whatever passed through it from the
world beyond the veil. Those who shed the earthly garments, on
the other side of the veil, were robed in garments of glory. In
other words, they became divine.
The age of these ideas of apotheosis beyond the veil of the
temple or on Sinai is a matter of some importance for
understanding the religion of Israel and the origin of
Christianity. They are unlikely to be simply the result of
Hellenistic syncretism because whoever wrote Exodus 34 knew that
when Moses came down from Sinai his face was shining. He had
become one of the glorious ones, because he had been with God and
his face had to be covered by a veil[7].
When Philo described the apotheosis of Moses on Sinai he said
that he entered the darkness where God was; ‘...the unseen,
invisible, incorporeal, and archetypal essence of all existing
things and he beheld what is hidden from the sight of mortal
nature’ (Moses 1.158). This is what the Qumran texts
describe as the raz nihyeh, (4Q300, 417), what 1 Peter
describes as ‘the things into which angels long to
look’ (1 Pet.1.12). Elsewhere Philo explained that this
invisible world was made on the first day of the creation
.. a beautiful copy would never be produced apart from a
beautiful pattern... so when God willed to create this visible
world he first fully formed the intelligible (i.e. invisible)
world in order that he might have the use of a pattern wholly
God-like and incorporeal in producing the material world as a
later creation, the very image of the earlier (Creation 16)
This description of the two creations, the invisible creation
which was the pattern for the visible is usually said to be Philo
retelling the Genesis account in terms derived from Plato, but
this I doubt. Philo was from a priestly family[8], and it is not impossible that he
was giving the traditional explanation of the creation stories
which owed nothing to Plato.
When familiar texts and habits of reading are questioned,
interesting possibilities present themselves. What, for example,
were the forms (surot) of the `elohim and the forms
of glory in the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice (4Q405 19)?
M.Idel has suggested that these forms of glory are
evidence for reconstructing the oldest Jewish mystical traditions[9], that these forms in
the sanctuary were an part of the priestly world view. Perhaps
they occur also in Psalm 85, where Righteousness looks down from
heaven, and in Psalm 89 where Righteousness, Justice, Steadfast
love and Faithfulness are the LORD’s attendants. Is the
language of personification any longer appropriate?
There are also the many occasions when the divine title sur
might not mean Rock but some word indicating the heavenly form.
In Isaiah 44.8 for example, where ‘Is there a God besides
me? There is no Rock’, is followed immediately by an attack
on idols and images. The reference here is more likely to be to the
form and its copy, than to a Rock and then an idol. More or
less contemporary with this is Deuteronomy’s emphatic denial
that any form of the LORD, temunah,
was seen at Horeb: ‘You heard the sound of words but saw no
form’ (Deut.4.12), an indication of how this
understanding of form might have been lost. Other examples of sur are:
Deut.32.4,15,18,31 where the context is fatherhood, ‘the
rock that begot you’ or comparison with other gods
‘they scoffed at the Rock... and stirred him to jealousy
with strange gods’; Ps.73.26, where the context is a
sanctuary vision of judgement on the wicked and the psalmist
expresses confidence in the Rock in heaven; also Pss 28.1; 89.26;
95.1 and Hab.1.12; in none of which is ‘rock’
represented in the LXX.
There are also the expressions characteristic of the visionary
texts: what did Ezekiel mean when he said he had seen the
likeness, demut, of the living
creatures, the ‘likeness’ of the throne, the ‘likeness’
of a man? Or the Chronicler when he wrote of the plan, tabnit,
for the temple which was revealed to David (1 Chron.28.19). A
plan, tabnit, for the tabernacle was revealed to Moses on
Sinai, (Exod.25.9,40). and the LORD comforted Zion by reminding
her that the city was engraved on his hands, its walls were ever
before him (Isa.49.16).
And what is meant by mashal? It can be understood as a
parable or as a proverb. The ‘Parables’ of
Enoch, however, are visions. When he sees the stars and their
movements and then asks the angel: ‘What are these?’
and the angel replies: ‘The LORD has shown you their
parable, they are the holy who dwell on the earth’(1
En.43.4). He is taught about the correspondence between earth and
heaven. Job 38.33 has a similar meaning. Jesus’ parables
give the other side of the picture; he teaches what the Kingdom
of heaven is like by using everyday stories
and images.
These are all facets of the forms and their copies: the language
of the visionaries, the undoubtedly ancient belief in a heavenly
archetype of the temple, and the parable/proverb. In another
context, for example the writings of Philo, this would be
identified with some confidence as the influence of Plato’s
forms and their copies, but the age of the material in the Old
Testament excludes that possibility. Since Philo was of a
priestly family, perhaps his treatment of the creation stories,
the creation of the invisible world beyond the veil of the temple
and then the visible world as its copy, is not an example of the
Platonising of Hellenistic Judaism but rather a glimpse of the
ancient priestly world view even at the end of the second temple
period.
The holy of holies was also beyond time. To enter was to enter
eternity. Philo says that the veil ‘separated the
changeable parts of the world... from the heavenly region which
is without transient events and is unchanging (Questions on
Exodus 2.91). The best known example of a timeless experience is
the vision of Jesus in the wilderness when he was taken to a high
place and saw ‘all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of
time’ (Luke 4.5). In the Apocalypse of Abraham the patriarch
was taken up to heaven where he saw the stars far below him
(Ap.Abr.20.3). The Eternal One then said to him: ‘Look now
beneath your feet at the firmament and understand the creation
that was depicted of old on this expanse...’ (Ap.Abr.21.1).
Abraham sees the firmament as a screen on which the history of
his people is revealed to him. The detail which links this
experience of the firmament to the holy of holies is to be found
in 3 Enoch, an undateable text which describes how R.Ishmael the
high priest ascended to heaven. Now Rabbi Ishmael lived after the
temple had been destroyed and cannot have been a high priest, and
the versions of 3 Enoch which we have were compiled long after
that. Nevertheless, the association of ascent, high priesthood
and the sanctuary experience persisted, and thus we find here in
3 Enoch the explanation of the vision described in the Apocalypse
of Abraham. The firmament on which Abraham saw the history of his
people was the veil.
In 3 Enoch, R Ishmael ascended to heaven and met Metatron, the
great angel who in his earthly life had been Enoch, and who
became his guide:
Metatron said to me: Come, I will show you the veil of the All
Present One, which is spread before the Holy One, blessed be He,
and on which are printed all the generations of the world and all
their deeds, whether done or yet to be done, until the last
generation. I went with him and he pointed them out to me with
his fingers, like after teaching his son (3 En.45) [10]
The visionary saw history depicted on the veil, on the other
side, so to speak, of matter and time. This probably explains the
experience of Habakkuk, centuries earlier, who stood on the
tower, a common designation for the holy of holies[11], and saw there ‘a vision of
the future, it awaits its time, it hastens to the end, ... it
will surely come it, will not delay’ (Hab.2.2-3). He
recorded what he saw on tablets.
Enoch has the fullest account of history seen in the holy of
holies. Three angels who had emerged from heaven took Enoch up to
a tower raised high above the earth and there he
saw all history revealed before him, from the fall of the angels
to the last judgement (1 En 87.3). When history was revealed to
Moses, however, it was on Sinai, according to the account in
Jubilees. He was told: Write down for yourself all the matters
which I shall make known to you to on this mountain: what was in
the beginning and what will be at the end and what will happen in
all the divisions of the days... until I shall descend and dwell
with them in all the ages of eternity (Jub.1.26). According to
this account, Moses did not see a vision;; the story was dictated
to him by the angel of the presence and he learned of history
only up to his own time. 2 Baruch, on the other hand, says that
Moses on Sinai received a vision rather than instruction and that
it included knowledge about the future. He showed him.. ‘the
end of time...the beginning of the day of judgement... worlds
that have not yet come’ (2 Bar.59.4-10 c.f. 2
Esdr.14.4). Something similar was said of Jesus by the early
Christian writers Ignatius of Antioch, Clement of Alexandria and
Origen: that he was the high priest who had passed through the
curtain and revealed the secrets of the past, the present and the
future[12].
History seen in the sanctuary, whether this was described as a
tower or as Sinai, was history seen outside the limitations of
space and time and this explains why histories in the
apocalyptic writings are surveys not only of the past but also of
the future as everything was depicted on the veil.
Those who passed through the veil also passed into the first
day of creation as the building of the tabernacle was said to
correspond to the days of creation. Again, the evidence for this
belief is relatively late, but given the cultural context of the
first temple, it is not unlikely. Solomon's kingdom was
surrounded by cultures which linked the story of creation to the
erection of temples[13],
and there are canonical texts which could be explained in this
way. Various attempts have been made to relate the commands given
to Moses and the account of the seven days in Genesis 1. One was
that the gathering of the waters on the third day corresponded to
making the bronze sea, and making the great lights on the fourth
day corresponded to making the menorah. The birds of the fifth
day corresponded to the cherubim with their wings and the man on
the sixth day was the high priest[14].
It is more satisfactory to keep the traditional order for
creating the tabernacle: tent, veil, table, lamp, and link this
to the first four days of creation. The earth and seeds of the
third day would then be represented by the table where bread was
offered and the great lights of the fourth day by the menorah[15].
There is no disagreement, however, over the correspondence
between the first and second days of creation and the first two
stages of making the tabernacle. The LORD told Moses to begin
erecting the tabernacle on the first day of the first month
(Exod.40.2). In the beginning, God created the heavens and the
earth and on the first day Moses set up the outer covering, the
basic structure of the tabernacle (Exod.40.17-19). On the second
day, God made the firmament and called it heaven and on the
second day Moses set up the veil and screened the ark
(Exod.40.20-21). This implies that those who passed beyond the
veil and entered the sanctuary entered the first day of creation,
a curious idea, but one for which there is much evidence, and one
that explains how the firmament separating heaven and earth was
also the temple veil on which history was depicted in the Apocalypse
of Abraham: ‘Look now beneath your feet at the firmament
and understand the creation ... and the creatures that are in it
and the age prepared after it...’ (Ap.Abr.21.1-2)
The tabernacle and all its furnishings were also believed to be a
copy of what Moses had seen on Sinai: ‘See that you make
them after the pattern which is being shown you on the
mountain’ (Exod.25.9,40). The Chronicler said that the
temple was built according to a heavenly revelation received by
David (1 Chron.28.19), another example of the similarity between
Moses traditions and those of the royal cult. The verses in
Exodus do not actually say that Moses saw a heavenly
tabernacle which was to be the pattern, tabnit, for
the tabernacle he had to build, but some later texts do assume
this. Solomon in the Book of Wisdom says he was commanded to
build a temple, ‘a copy of the holy tent which was prepared
from the beginning’ (Wisdom 9.8), and 2 Baruch lists what
Moses saw on Sinai and includes the pattern of Zion and the
sanctuary (2 Bar.59.4). Given the importance of the subject
matter, there are surprisingly few references to the heavenly
sanctuary that Moses saw on Sinai[16].
The other two aspects of the tradition, that the temple was a
microcosm of the creation and that its construction corresponded
to the days of creation suggest that what Moses saw on Sinai was
not a heavenly tabernacle but rather, a vision of the
creation which the tabernacle was to replicate. This would
account for Philo's observation that the tabernacle ‘was
a copy of the world, the universal temple which existed before
the holy temple existed’ (Questions on Exodus 2.85), and for
the curious line in the Letter to the Hebrews, that the temple on
earth ‘is a shadow and copy of heavenly things’
(Heb.8.5). A heavenly temple is not mentioned in this verse even
though some translations insert the word temple at this
point, e.g. R.S.V[17].
The idea that Moses on Sinai had a vision of the creation finds
its clearest expression in the writings of Cosmas, the sixth
century Egyptian Christian. He explained that the earth was
rectangular and constructed like a huge tent because Moses had
been commanded to build the tabernacle as a copy of the whole
creation which he had been shown on Sinai. This is what he wrote:
When Moses had come down from the mountain he was ordered by God
to make the tabernacle, which was a representation of what he had
seen on the mountain, namely, an impress of the whole world.
The creation Moses had seen was divided into two parts:
Since therefore it had been shown him how God made the heaven and
the earth, and how on the second day he made the firmament in the
middle between them, and thus made the one place into two places,
so Moses, in like manner, in accordance with the pattern which he
had seen, made the tabernacle and placed the veil in the middle
and by this division made the one tabernacle into two, the inner
and the outer (Cosmas 2.35)
The Book of Jubilees has a similar tradition; that Moses on Sinai
learned about the creation from the Angel of the Presence.
Jubilees does not link Moses’ vision to the tabernacle and
so cannot have been Cosmas’ only source, even supposing that
he knew it at all[18].
The sequence in Jubilees is the same as in Genesis 1, except that
Jubilees gives far more detail about Day One, the secrets of the
holy of holies. There are seven works on Day One: heaven, earth,
the waters, the abyss, darkness and light- all of which can be
deduced from Genesis- and then the ministering angels, who are
not mentioned in Genesis[19].
These angels of Day One are the spirits of the weather: wind,
clouds, snow, hail frost, thunder and lightning, cold and heat;
they are the spirits of the seasons and also ‘all of the
spirits of his creatures which are in heaven and on earth’
(Jub.2.2). The angels who witness these works of the first day
‘praise and bless the LORD’[20].
A similar account occurs in the Song of the Three Children;
before inviting the earth and everything created after the second
day to praise the LORD and exalt him for ever, there is a
long list of the works of the Day One: the heavens, the angels,
the waters above the heavens, the powers, the stars, the rain,
dew, winds, fire, heat, summer and winter, ice and cold, frost
and snow, lightnings and clouds, the phenomena whose
angels praise the LORD on Day One according to Jubilees. The
angels of day One were a sensitive issue. Later Jewish tradition
gave the seven works of Day One as heaven and earth, darkness and
light, waters and the abyss, and then the winds, whereas Jubilees
has the angels.
It has long been accepted[21]
that Genesis 1 is a reworking of older material and is related to
other accounts of creation known in the Ancient Near East. One of
the main elements to have been removed is any account of the
birth of the gods, even though Genesis 2.1-4 retains traces of
the older account: ‘Thus the heavens and the earth were
finished and all the host of them... These are the generations of
the heavens and the earth.’ In Job 38.7[22], however, we still read of the
sons of God who shouted for joy on the first day of creation when
the foundations of the earth were laid, and sons of God
implies that they were begotten, not created. The rest of Job 38
describes the works of Day One: the boundary for the waters, the
gates of deep darkness, the storehouses of snow and hail, wind,
rain and ice, the pattern of the stars. And the point of all this
is to ask Job: ‘Where were you when all this was done?’
a strange question for the LORD to ask Job unless there was a
known tradition of someone who witnessed the work of creation and
thus became wise[23].
There is a similar pattern in Job 26: wisdom and knowledge are
part of the issue, and Job speaks of God stretching out the north
over the void, tohu, binding up the waters, rebuking the
pillars of heaven and ‘covering his throne’,
v.9, usually emended to ‘covering the moon’.[24] ‘Covering
the throne’ is not usually associated with the process of
creation, unless the reference is to the veil which screened the
sanctuary and did in fact cover the throne. Wisdom, as the
serpent in Eden had said, made humans divine, exactly what
happened to those who entered the sanctuary and, by implication,
witnessed the creation.
Enoch, the high priest figure who entered the holy of holies, did
know about these things; in 2 Enoch he is taken to stand before
the throne in heaven, anointed and transformed into an angel.
Then he is shown the great secrets of the creation. The account
is confused, but closely related to the account in Genesis even
though some of the details seem to be drawn from Egyptian
mythology. Enoch is enthroned next to Gabriel and shown how the
LORD created the world, beginning with heaven, earth and sea, the
movement of the stars, the seasons, the winds and the angels (2
En.23). He sees Day One. Enthronement is an important and
recurring feature of these texts and another indication of their
origin[25]. It is
significant that the sanctuary hymn in Revelation 4.11 is about
enthronement and creation:
Worthy art thou our LORD and God
to receive glory and honour and power,
for thou didst create all things
and by thy will they existed and were created.
In the Parables, Enoch stands in the holy of holies before the
throne and learns about the hidden things, ‘the
secrets of the heavens’ (1 En.41.1), the works of Day One:
the holy ones, the lightning and thunder, the winds clouds and
dew, ‘the cloud that hovers over the earth from the
beginning of the world’, the various stars in their
orbits with their names. Josephus says that the Essenes undertook
to preserve the books of the sect and the names of the
angels (War 2 142)[26].
The fullest account of this material is in 1 Enoch 60 where the
angel shows Enoch the hidden things: ‘What is first and last
in heaven in the height, and beneath the earth in the depth, and
at the ends of the heaven and at the foundation of the
heaven.’ He then sees the winds, the moon and stars,
thunders and lightnings, the angels of hail and frost, dew, mist
and clouds. Later he sees the great oath which establishes the
creation and binds all its elements into their appointed places
(1 En.69.16-25). The very earliest Enoch material describes how
he sees the works of Day One; on his first heavenly journey,
Enoch learns about the stars, thunder and lightning, the place of
great darkness, the mouth of the deep, the winds, the cornerstone
of the earth and the firmament of heaven, the paths of the angels
and the firmament of heaven at the end of the earth (1 En.18). In
the Apocalypse of Weeks, another early text embedded in 1 Enoch,
there is an expansion after the description of the seventh week.
At the end of the seventh week, the chosen righteous ones were to
receive sevenfold i.e. heavenly knowledge about all the
creation: they would behold the works of heaven, understand the
things of heaven, ascend to see the end of the heaven and know
the length and breadth of the earth and its measurements, they
would know the length and height of heaven, its foundations, the
stars and where they rest. (1 En.93.11-14). It is interesting the
R.H.Charles in his edition of 1 Enoch says that these verses are
‘completely out of place in their present context.’[27].
What Job had not seen, Enoch saw in the holy of holies. There is
not just one isolated example of such a vision of creation; it is
a recurring theme throughout the entire compendium of texts. And
what Enoch saw in the holy of holies, Moses, as we should expect,
has seen on Sinai. According to 2 Baruch, Moses saw: ‘the
measures of fire, the depths of the abyss, the weight of the
winds, the number of the raindrops, ... the height of the air,
the greatness of Paradise, ... the mouth of hell... the multitude
of angels which cannot be counted... the splendour of lightnings,
the power of the thunders, the orders of the archangels and the
treasuries of the light...’ (2 Bar.59.1-12)[28]. When Ezra asks about the LORD's
future plans for his people, he is assured that the One who
planned all things would also see them to their end. Everything
had been decided ‘before the winds blew and the thunder
sounded and the lightning shone, before the foundations of
paradise were laid and the angels were gathered together, before
the heights of the air were lifted up and the measures of the
firmaments were named, before the present years were
reckoned’ (2 Esdr.6.1-6). Ezra is told that everything was
planned in the holy of holies, before time.
The speaker in Proverbs 8 also saw the works of Day One. The
speaker was begotten[29]
before the mountains, the hills and the earth, and was with the
Creator when he established the heavens and the fountains of the
deep and when he set limits to the waters and marked out the
foundations of the earth. This chapter emphasises that the
speaker was witness to the works of Day One. The one who was
newly born witnessed the creation, exactly what Cosmas, many
centuries later, said of Moses.
Then having taken him up into the mountain, he hid him in a cloud
and took him out of all earthly things... and he gave him a new
birth as if he were a child in the womb... and revealed to him
all that he had done in making the world in six days, showing him
in six other days the making of the world, performing in his
presence the work of each day.... (Cosmas 3.13)[30]
Later mystics describe a similar experience. Jacob Boehme, for
example, a seventeenth century German mystic, described a similar
experience of learning everything in an instant, and of being a
child:
‘Thus now I have written, not from the instruction of
knowledge received from men, nor from the learning or reading of
books, but I have written out of my own book which was opened in
me, being the noble similitude of God, the book of the noble and
precious image was bestowed on me to read, and therein I have
studied as a child in the house of its mother, which beholdeth
what the father doth and in his childlike way doth imitate the
father.
...the gate was opened to me in that one quarter of an hour. I
saw and knew more than if I had been many years together at
university... and I knew not how it happened to me... for I saw
and knew the Being of all Beings...the descent and original of
this world and of all creatures through divine wisdom...[31]
Philo describes the works of Day One as the invisible and
incorporeal world. ‘First the maker made an incorporeal
heaven and an invisible earth and the essential form of air and
void’ (Creation 29). That was Day One in Genesis. After a
lengthy discussion, Philo describes the second day: ‘The
incorporeal cosmos was finished... and the world apprehended by
the senses was ready to be born after the pattern of the
incorporeal. And first of its parts the Creator proceeded to make
the heaven which... he called the firmament’ (Creation 36).
In other words, everything made on or after the second day was
part of the visible world but the works of Day One were beyond
matter, beyond the veil. Elsewhere, Philo confirms this by saying
that Moses entered this ‘unseen, invisible, incorporeal and
archetypal essence of existing things and saw what was hidden
from mortal sight’ when he entered God's presence to be made
God and King (Moses 1.158). On the third day, says Philo, the
creator began ‘to put the earth in order’ (Creation 40)
Beyond the veil of the temple was the holy of holies with the
heavenly throne, the invisible world and Day One of creation. The
LXX translator of Genesis knew this and so chose to render the
enigmatic tohu wabohu (Gen.1.2) by ‘unseen’ and
‘unsorted’, reminiscent of Plato's description of the
unseen world of ideas, and this has been suggested as a possible
influence on the translators[32].
But Plato's account of creation, especially in the Timaeus, is
itself of uncertain origin and the question of who influenced
whom must remain open.[33]
Knowledge of these secrets gave power over the creation and this
is probably why there are several texts which forbid access to
certain matters. There is a line in the Gospel of Philip, now
thought to be a first or second generation Christian text:
‘The veil at first concealed how God controlled the
creation.’ In the Aboth de Rabbi Nathan we find (A39):
‘Because of sin it was not given to man to know the likeness
(demut) on high; for were it not
for this (sin) all the keys would be given to him and he would
known how the heavens and the earth were created...’[34]
Best known must be the prohibitions in the Mishnah
restricting the reading of both the story of creation and
Ezekiel's description of the chariot, on the grounds that one
should not think about ‘what is above, what is below, what
was before time and what will be hereafter’ (m.Hag. 2.1)[35]. What the Creation
and the Chariot have in common is that they both belong to the
world beyond the veil, the timeless place which also revealed the
past and the future. Some centuries earlier than the Mishnah is
the warning in Ben Sira: ‘Seek not what is too difficult for
you, nor investigate what is beyond your power. Reflect upon what
has been assigned to you, for you do not need what is
hidden’ (Ben Sira 3.21-22). We are not told what the hidden
things were. Earlier still, and most significant of all, is the
prohibition in Deuteronomy: ‘The secret things belong to the
LORD our God: but the things that are revealed belong to us and
to our children’ (Deut.29.29). Secrets are said to exist.[36] It is interesting
that such knowledge is still forbidden; the Pope, addressing a
group of cosmologists in Rome in 1981, reminded them that science
itself could not answer the question of the origin of the
universe. [37]
Proverbs 30 must refer to the world beyond the veil of the
temple; it links sonship, ascent to heaven, knowledge of the Holy
Ones and the works of Day One:
Who has ascended to heaven and come down?
Who has gathered the wind in his fists?
Who has wrapped up the waters in a garment?
Who has established all the ends of the earth? (Prov.30.4)[38].
To which Deuteronomy replies: ‘(This commandment) is not in
heaven, that you should say: Who will go up for us to heaven, and
bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’
(Deut.30.11). Job's arguments were shown to be ‘words
without knowledge’ (Job 38.2) because he had not witnessed
the works of Day One.
Most of the detailed evidence for this tradition of the world
beyond the veil has been drawn from relatively late texts, but
the warnings against secret knowledge suggest that it was a
matter of controversy from the beginning of the second temple
period. No one text from the later period gives a complete
picture, indicating the fragmentation of an earlier corpus rather
than the conglomeration of strands which had formerly been
separate and even alien[39].
Early evidence for what I am proposing is to be found in Isaiah
40. This chapter seems to be a conjunction of all the elements of
the hidden tradition which can only be reconstructed otherwise
from a variety of later sources. The chapter is set in the holy
of holies; the prophet hears the voices calling as did Isaiah [40]. The LORD sits
‘above the circle of the earth’ and ‘stretches out
the heavens like a curtain’; there is a glimpse of history
as ‘princes and rulers are brought to nothing’. The
LORD ‘measures the waters and marks off the heavens with a
span...’ the weighing and measuring terms which characterise
the creation accounts of the sanctuary tradition about Day One.
There is reference to enlightenment, knowledge and understanding:
‘Who taught him knowledge and showed him the way of
understanding?’ There is the challenge: ‘To whom will
you liken God?’ a reference to the belief that temple was a
copy of what had been seen, followed by derision of the idol
which the workman casts ‘an image that will not move.’
The prophet is told to look at the host of heaven whom the LORD
has created and named, a reference to the sensitive issue of the
sons of God on Day One. There is the question: ‘Why do you
say: My way is hidden from the LORD?’ And finally, the
prophet is reminded of what he knows because he has been
present in the sanctuary to see the works of creation: ‘Have
you not known, have you not heard? Has it not been told you from
the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of
the earth? (Isa.40.21). It is significant that the Targum
understands this as a revelation of the process of creation:
‘Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has not the work
of the orders of creation been announced to you from the
beginning?... (T.Isa.40.21). This is how that passage in Isaiah
was understood at the end of the second temple period.
If this reconstruction of the world beyond the veil is correct,
it illuminates several issues. First, the mixture of subjects in
the apocalyptic texts can be explained: throne visions, lists of
the secrets of creation and surveys of history which deal not
only with the past but also with the future are the knowledge
given to those who passed beyond the veil of the temple, the raz
nihyeh of the Qumran texts. Second, it suggests that the
material in the apocalypses originated with the high priests
since they were the ones who passed through the veil into the
holy of holies. It gives a context for understanding the known
priestly writings of the Hebrew scriptures with their concern for
measurements and dates, and their conception of history as an
unfolding plan[41].
Third, it establishes that this tradition was controversial as
early as the exile and invites a closer look at what happened to
the temple cult in the seventh century, the process so often
described as ‘Josiah’s reform’. It explains, for
example, why the description of the temple in 1 Kings mentions
neither the chariot throne nor the veil and why the essential
features of the world beyond the temple veil - the cherubim, the
anointing oil - were later said to have disappeared from the
temple not as a result of the Babylonians but in the time of
Josiah
If we adopt the widely accepted exilic dating of Isaiah 40, the
sanctuary traditions which I have been reconstructing have
implications which reach beyond Old Testament study. The early
apologists, both Jewish and Christian, maintained that Plato
learned from Moses, that he was Moses speaking Attic Greek. The
most notable of these was Eusebius of Caesarea, who, in his work The
Preparation of the Gospel, argued the case in great detail
and listed all those who had held such views before him. Eusebius
and the other apologists were probably correct.
My reconstruction suggests that the priests of the first temple
knew an invisible, heavenly world on which the tabernacle or
temple had been modelled; that they spoke of forms: the form
of a man and the form of a throne; that they described the
heavens as an embroidered curtain; that they knew the distinction
between time, outside the veil, and eternity within it. They knew
that time was the moving image of eternity. They knew of angels,
the sons of God begotten on Day One, as Job suggests. They
concerned themselves with the mathematics of the creation, the
weights and the measures. They believed that the creation was
bonded together by a great oath or covenant. They believed that
the stars were divine beings, angels, and they described a
creator whose work was completed not by motion but by Sabbath
rest. What I have reconstructed as the secret tradition of the
world beyond the temple veil would, in any other
context be identified as Plato's Timaeus [42], written in the middle of
the fourth century BCE
It is nearly forty years since Käsemann suggested that
Apocalyptic, far from being something on the periphery of New
Testament study was in fact ‘the mother of all Christian
theology’[43],
the legitimate development of ideas in the Old Testament. On the
basis of my reconstructions, I suggest that the sanctuary
traditions which survive in the apocalypses were not the
development of ideas in the canonical OT, but their antecedents.
The apocalyptic texts were not the original product of a
Hellenising, oppressed minority group late in the second temple
period, but the repository of Israel’s oldest traditions,
what I have called The Older Testament[44].
[1] This paper was my Presidential address to
the Society for Old Testament Study in Cambridge January 1998,
first published in the Scottish Journal of Theology 51.1 1998.
[2] The hanging at the entrance to the holy of
holies is paroket (LXX and Philo katapetasma)
distinguished from the hanging at the entrance to the tabernacle masak
(LXX epispastron, Philo kalumma)
[3] There was a debate after the temple had
been destroyed as to whether there had been a veil in the first
temple, as m.Yoma describes the high priest walking between the
curtains to reach the ark: ‘To what are we referring here?
If it be to the first sanctuary, was there then a curtain? Again,
if the second, was there then an ark?’
[4] LXX Isa.6.1 reads: ‘...the house was
filled with his glory’, anticipating the angelic song, v.3,
‘the whole earth is full of his glory. By implication, the
house is the earth.
[5] W.A.Meeks ‘Moses as God and
King’, in Religions in Antiquity. Essays in Memory of
E.R.Goodenough. Ed.J.Neusner Leiden 1970 p.371 ‘...an
elaborate cluster of traditions of Moses’ heavenly
enthronement at the time of the Sinai theophany... closely
connected with Scripture but at the same time thoroughly
syncretistic.’ See also n.39.
[6] The singular nature of the two is seen
clearly at Rev.22.3-4; the MSS at 6.17 are ambiguous, but the
singular identity is implicit at 7.9-10; 20.6; 21.22; 22.1.
[7] In later texts, only the Prince of the
Divine Presence passes within the veil, b.Yoma 77a, c.f. Clement
of Alexandria Excerpts from Theodotus 38: ‘(The fiery
place of the throne) has a veil in order that things may not be
destroyed by the sight of it. Only the archangel enters in, and
to typify this, the high priest every year enters the holy of
holies’; and 3 En.22B.6: ‘The glorious king covers his
face, otherwise the heaven or Arabot would burst open in the
middle, because of the glorious brilliance, beautiful brightness,
lovely splendour, and radiant praises of the appearance of the
Holy One, Blessed by He.’ The Targum to Job 26.9 is similar.
See also ‘The Measures of
God’s Glory in Ancient Midrash’ in Messiah and
Christos. Studies in the Jewish Origins of Christianity presented
to David Flussner Ed. I.Gruenwald, S.Shaked, G.Stroumsa
Tübingen 1992 pp.53-74 esp.pp.55-60 where he discusses the veil
as the cover for ‘the measure of God’s glory’
which he suggests is a reference to some esoteric knowledge.
[8] According to Jerome On Illustrious Men
11.
[9] Fishbane, see n.7 above, pp 64-66,
discussing the work of M.Idel that the surot in 4Q 405 19
are early evidence for mysticism, and his own suggestion that sur
and demut referred to the man on
the throne.
[10] See also the Ascension of Isaiah 10-11
where Isaiah in heaven sees the whole history of the incarnation;
and b.Sanhedrin 38b ‘the Holy One... showed Adam every
generation.’
[11] 1 En.89.73 describes the sanctuary of the
second temple as a tower before which impure bread was offered.
The Assumption of Moses 2.4 reads: ‘The court of his
tabernacle and the tower of his sanctuary...’ An
interpretation of Isa.5 in the early 2nd century CE,
attributed to R.Yosi reads; ‘He built a tower in the midst
of his vineyard... this is his sanctuary Tosefta Sukkah 3.15.
This passed into Christian usage e.g. Hermas Parables
3.2.4; 9.3.1. The Son of God is LORD of the tower Parables
9.7.1.
[12] Ignatius of Antioch, Philippians 9:
‘To Jesus alone as our high priest were the secret things of
God committed; Clement of Alexandria, Miscellanies 6.7:
‘...the knowledge of things present, past and future
revealed by the son of God; ibid.7.17: ‘...the true
tradition came from the LORD by drawing aside the
curtain...’; Origen Celsus 3.37: ‘Jesus beheld
these weighty secrets and made them known to a few’. Also my
‘The Secret Tradition’ in JHC 2.1 (1995) pp.31-67.
[13] For a summary and bibliography of these
traditions in Canaan, Mesopotamia and later Jewish sources, see
M.Weinfeld ‘Sabbath, Temple and Enthronement of the LORD.
The problem of the Sitz in Leben of Genesis 1.1-23’ ‘Mélanges
bibliques et orientaux en l’honneur de M. Henri Cazelles,
ed. A.Caquot and M.Delcor Neukirchen-Vluyn 1981, pp.501-512;
J.D.Levenson Creation and the Persistence of Evil. The Jewish
Drama of Divine Omnipotence Harper SanFransisco 1988
pp.78-79; N Wyatt ‘Les Mythes des Dioscures et Ideologie
Royale dans les Littératures d’Ougarit et d’Israel, RB
1996 pp.481-516.
[14] Midrash Tanhuma 11.2. See also
J.Blenkinsopp ‘The Structure of P’ CBQ 38 (1976)
pp.275-292. Levenson op.cit. n.13 pp.78-99. P.J. Kearney
‘Creation and Liturgy. The P redaction of Ex.25-40’ in
ZAW 89 (1977) pp.375-387, who worked out one possible scheme of
correspondences between the seven days of creation and the
construction of the tabernacle, based on the LORD’s speeches
to Moses in Exod.25-31. F.H.Gorman ‘Priestly Rituals of
Founding: Time Space and Status’ in History and
Interpretation ed. M.P.Graham, Sheffield Academic Press 1993
pp.47-64 recognises that the summary in Exod.40.16-38 is the
clearest link between creation and tabernacle, but does not work
out how each day corresponds to each part of the tabernacle.
[15] None of the material cited in nn.14,15
makes the link between the traditional order for the construction
of the tabernacle and the order of the days of creation.
[16] M.E.Stone ‘Lists of the Revealed
Things in the Apocalyptic Literature’ in Magnalia Dei;
the Mighty Acts of God. In Memory of G.E.Wright ed. Cross,
Lemke and Miller, New York 1976 pp.414-452: ‘This interest
in the measures of Zion seems curiously unstressed in the
apocryphal and Rabbinic literatures,’ p.415. Ezekiel did see
the temple in his vision Ezek.40-48.
[17] Blenkinsopp op.cit.n.15 shows how P relates
the creation of the world, the construction of the sanctuary and
the division of the land, p.278. We should not forget that Gen.1
is attributed to Moses insofar as he was the ‘author’
of the Pentateuch.
[18] R.Devreesse Essai sur Theodore de
Mopsueste, Studi e Testi 141 Vatican City 1948 p.26n. finds
similar ideas in Theodore’s work on Exodus, written early in
the fifth century.
[19] R.H.Charles The Book of Jubilees
London A&C Black 1902, p.11. The angels were variously said
to have been created, not begotten, on the second day or the
fifth. On the basis of Ps.104, R.Johannan taught that they were
created on the second day because the LORD formed the firmament
in v.3 and the angels in v.4. R.Hanina said on the fifth day
because they were winged creatures. Gen.R 1.3: ‘Whether we
accept the view of either... all agree that none were created on
the first day, lest you should say Michael stretched out in the
south and Gabriel in the north, while the Holy One, Blessed by
he, measured it in the middle [quoting Isa.44.24] Who was
associated with me in the creation of the world?’ Targum
Ps.J. Gen.1.26: ‘And the LORD said to the angels who
ministered before him, who had been created on the second day of
the creation, let us make man.’ If the secret knowledge of
the sanctuary included the birth of the angels i.e. the gods of
Day One (and also of the king?), this suggests that the material
antedates the reforming monotheism of the Deuteronomists. See my
book The Great Angel London SPCK 1992. This is consistent
with my proposal for the meaning of sur in the passages
connected with divine fatherhood, namely, that they were
deliberately obscured and removed.
[20] See also 1QH 6 (formerly 1), 1QH 17
(formerly 13), for similar themes and the raz nihyeh of 4Q
417.
[21] Since H.Gunkel Schöpfung und Chaos in
Urzeit und Endzeit Göttingen 1895
[22] Wyatt op.cit.n.13 shows that Ps.8.4 also
describes the birth of the sons of God.
[23] B.Lang Eugen Drewermann interprète de
la Bible Paris Cerf 1994 p.167, developed in ‘Lady
Wisdom. A Polytheistic and Psychological Interpretation of a
Biblical Goddess’ in A Feminist Companion to the Bible
ed. A.Brenner and C.Fontaine Sheffield Academic Press 1997
suggests that the wise man was initiated by studying the myth of
creation and then being reborn as a divine child in the presence
of Wisdom who showed him the creation. Also Wyatt op.cit.n.13 on
Job 15.7-8 and Ps.110.
[24] MT and LXX have here ‘face of the
throne, but an emendation to ‘face of the moon is usually
proposed, by reading keseh rather than kisseh.
[25] Wyatt op.cit.n.13; also Weinfeld
op.cit.n.13 p.507.
[26] The names of the angels were a part of the
secret knowledge. The names, as recovered from the Aramaic,
‘were for the most part derived from astronomical,
meteorological and geographical terms’, J.T.Milik The
Books of Enoch Aramaic Fragmennts of Qumran Cave 4 Oxford
1976 p.29. In other words, their names reflected their functions
as the angels of Day One: Fire of El, Thunder of El, Comet of El,
Lightning of El, Rain of El, Cloud of El etc.
[27] R.H.Charles the Book of Enoch Oxford 1912,
p.231: ‘The verses are completely out of place in the
present context’, citing several eminent scholars who had
drawn the same conclusion. They had not made the link between the
sevenfold knowledge, the resurrected ones and the secrets of
creation. For a better understanding see Stone op.cit.n.16
pp.424-425.
[28] There are similar traditions about Adam;
‘The LORD showed him the pattern of Zion before he
sinned’ 2 Bar.4.3. Jer.4.23-28 implies a similar experience.
[29] LXX and Targums have ‘created’
for Hebrew qnh. Evidence for qnh meaning create
rather than acquire see C Westermann Genesis 1-11 A Commentary
tr. J.J.Scullion London 1984 p.290. For the contrary view see
R.N.Whybray Proverbs London 1994 pp.129-130. More likely
than ‘created’ is ‘begotten’, c.f.
‘brought forth’ Prov.8.24,25. She was established,
v.23, c.f. Ps.2.6, where the king is ‘established’ on
the holy hill, but another possibility is that nskty here
should be read as ‘I was hidden’ from skk, see
W.McKane Proverbs London 1970. Wisdom brought forth and
hidden i.e. behind the veil, is possible in the context.
Deutero-Isaiah changed the older
divine title ‘Begetter of Heaven and Earth’ as in
Gen.14.9, and substituted ‘Maker or Creator of Heaven and
Earth’, see N.Habel ‘Yahweh, Maker of heaven and Earth.
A Study in Tradition Criticism’ JBL 91 (1972) pp.321-337.
In my book The Great Angel
London 1992 I suggested that Deutero-Isaiah and the exilic
reformers fused the older deities El and Yahweh, thus
establishing monotheism, and at the same time they suppressed the
older mythology of the sons of God. ‘(Deutero-Isaiah)
removed the idea that the Creator God was the Procreator, the
Father of gods and men... The idea of a procreator God with sons
seems to have fallen out of favour with those who equated Yahweh
with El...’ p.19. This is further evidence that the sons of
God of Day One were part of the tradition of the first temple and
suggests the reason for their disappearance.
[30] The figure present at the creation became
the Torah in later tradition. Thus six things preceded the
creation of the (visible) world: the Torah, the throne of Glory,
and the plans for the patriarchs, Israel, the temple and the Name
of the Messiah Gen.R 1.4.
[31] ‘Letter to an Enquirer’ in
R.Waterfield Jacob Boehme Essential Readings
Wellingborough Aquarian Press 1989 pp.65-66.
[32] For recent discussion of possible
influences on translators see J.Dines ‘Imaging Creation: the
Septuagint Tradition of Genesis 1.2’ in Heythrop Journal
36.4 (1995) pp.439-350.
[33] It is frequently observed by commentators
that Plato introduces wholly new ideas of creation with a purpose
and without the jealous gods of the Prometheus myth, e.g.
F.C.Cornford Plato’s Cosmology London 1937 pp.31-33.
For the first time the world is described as the creation of a
father, maker or craftsman and the stars are held to be divine,
D.Lee Plato, Timaeus and Critias London Penguin 1977
pp.7-8.
[34] Fishbane op.cit.n.6 discusses Sifre Deut.
355 when Israel asked Moses to tell them about the glory on high,
requesting esoteric knowledge that had not been revealed to them.
Moses said: ‘You may know about the glory on high from the
lower heavens’ and there follows a parable about the great
king hidden behind a jewelled curtain.
The mystics instant acquisition of
knowledge is well known, see n.30 and text above.
[35] Neusner translates the corresponding
passage in Tosefta Hagigah: ‘above, below, within,
beyond’.
[36] See also 2 Esdr.14.6, 40-48, that there are
24 public books of Scripture, but 70 others only for the wise,
which held the secrets of understanding, wisdom and knowledge.
Also my article ‘The Secret Tradition’ op.cit.n.12
[37] Acta Apostolicae Sedis 73 (1981) 669-670
[38] Wyatt op.cit.n.13 shows how this passage
was part of the royal wisdom tradition. He reconstructs the
impossible vv.2-3 on the basis of the LXX to be: I surpass all
men and possess the intelligence of Adam, for God has taught me
Wisdom and I know the knowledge of the holy ones. The one who
ascends to heaven must be the king who becomes the co-creator,
gathering the winds and the waters, and he also becomes divine.
[39] I disagree with Meeks op.cit.n.3.p.369:
‘We must reckon with the possibility, therefore, that the
legends [about Moses] are composites of the strands which at some
earlier stage served disparate functions.’ The legends had
indeed served another purpose, but had been transferred as a
whole from the royal tradition.
[40] Deutero-Isaiah heard voices but, unlike
Isaiah, he saw no form as he was influenced by the Deuteronomists
c.f.Deut 4.12.
[41] Blenkinsopp op.cit.n.14 esp. pp 275,291:
‘...beneath (P’s) surface one can still make out the
contours of an encompassing mythic pattern. It is also possible
to interpret the ritualism of P as embodying a concern for
man’s concrete existence in relation to the cosmos... his
entire existence on the temporal and spatial axis’ (my
emphases).
[42] The passages in Timaeus are: the creation
is good, 29; the invisible world, 28; the forms, 29, 38, 52; time
and eternity 37; angels created first but the story of their
origin is not known, 41; the mathematics of creation 53,69; the
bond of creation, 31,378; angels as stars 38; resting as the
culmination of creation 30.
[43] Die Anfänge christlicher Theologie ZTK 57
(1960) pp 162-185.
[44] My book The Older Testament. The
Survival of Themes from the Ancient Royal Cult in Sectarian
Judaism and Early Christianity. London 1987.