Andrei Orlov

Abraham as a Heavenly High Priest

an excerpt from A. Orlov “The Eschatological Yom Kippur in the Apocalypse of Abraham: Part I: The Scapegoat Ritual,” in: Symbola Caelestis. Le symbolisme liturgique et paraliturgique dans le monde Chrétien (Scrinium, 5; eds. A. Orlov and B. Lourié; Piscataway: Gorgias Press, 2009) 79-111.

... It is quite clear that in the Apocalypse of Abraham Yahoel functions as a senior priest explaining and demonstrating rituals to a junior sacerdotal servant - Abraham.[1] This parallelism between the instructions of the master and the actions of the apprentice is manifested already in the beginning of the apocalyptic section of the text, where the patriarch faithfully follows the orders of his angelic guide about the preparation of the sacrifices.[2] The same pattern of sacerdotal instruction in which orders of the master are then followed by the performance of the disciple is also discernable in the depiction of the ritual of dispatching the scapegoat.

In the Apocalypse of Abraham, after Yahoel’s own “handling” of Azazel, the angel then verbally instructs Abraham on how to deal with the scapegoat:

Say to him, “May you be the fire brand of the furnace of the earth! Go, Azazel, into the untrodden parts of the earth. <Since your inheritance are those who are with you, with men born with the stars and clouds. And their portion is you, and they come into being through your being. And justice is your enmity. Therefore through your own destruction vanish from before me!” And I said the words as the angel had taught me. (Apoc. Ab. 14:5-8).[3]

In this narrative the dispatching formulas appear to be even more decisive and forceful than in the previously investigated passage from chapter 13, now including such commands to the scapegoat as: “Go” (Slav. иди)[4] and “Vanish from before me” (Slav. буди от мене исчезлъ).[5]

Another captivating detail is that the dispatching formula “Go, Azazel, into the untrodden parts of the earth” designates the destination of the demon’s removal as “the untrodden parts of earth.” The word “untrodden” (Slav. беспроходна)[6] is significant since it designates a place uninhabitable (lit. impassable) to human beings. Reflecting on the language of Lev 16 where the scapegoat is dispatched “to the solitary place” (hrzg Cr)-l)) “in the wilderness,” (rbdmb),[7] Jacob Milgrom observes that “the purpose of dispatching the goat to the wilderness is to remove it from human habitation.”[8]

In view of these observations it is possible that in the Apocalypse of Abraham one encounters another, so-called “elimination,” aspect of the scapegoat ritual whereby impurity must be removed from the human oikumene into an inhabitable (or in the language of the Apocalypse of Abraham, “untrodden”) realm.

In this respect Daniel Stökl also observes that the terminology found in Apoc. Ab. 14:5, where Azazel goes “into untrodden parts of the earth,” is reminiscent of the Septuagint version’s translation of Leviticus 16:22 (ei)v gh~n a!baton)[9] and the expression chosen by Philo in De Specialibus Legibus 1:188 in his description of Yom Kippur.[10]

The concluding phrase of the passage from chapter 14, which reports that Abraham repeated the words he received from the great angel, confirms our suggestion that Abraham is depicted here as a sort of a priestly apprentice receiving instructions from his master Yahoel and then applying this knowledge in dispatching the scapegoat.[11]