Basil Lourié

(St Petersburg, Russia)

Propitiatorium in the Apocalypse of Abraham

1. Introduction

The Apocalypse of Abraham (thereafter AA) is a pseudepigraphon that is now widely known but rather not very good studied. Indeed, the most of the biblical and “parabiblical” scholars has no direct access to the Slavonic text of AA. Moreover, the Slavonic text itself is rather difficult, being a secondary version of a lost Greek version that was, in turn, translated from a lost original in either Hebrew or Aramaic.

While being unmissed by the first generation of the Russian scholars who were working on the pseudepigraphic stuff of the Palaea, AA has been not studied against its Jewish background until recently. Indeed, I. I. Sreznevsky (1861—1863), N. S. Tikhonravov (1863) and I. Ya. Porfiryev (1877) were content with the publication of several manuscripts of AA with scanty notes clarifying some obscurities of the Slavonic text.[1]

Shortly after this (in 1887), M. Gaster published a medieval Romanian version of AA from Slavonic.[2]

The second wave of the interest toward AA emerged within the modern post-Qumranic scholarship. Its main results are two critical editions with studies and commentaries taking into account the Jewish background of AA.[3] One of the scholars, R. Rubinkiewicz, added to his critical edition of AA a study putting forward a rather strange hypothesis on the translation of AA directly from Hebrew into Slavonic with some Karaite intermediary, that was almost immediately refuted by E. Lipiński.[4]

Finally, quite recently the Jewish background of AA became the focus of the monograph by Alexander Kulik.[5] His aim was retroversion into Hebrew or, sometimes, Aramaic of a number of phrases from AA, with a due attention to the intermediary Greek version. As to the original language of AA, Kulik opts for Hebrew rather than Aramaic.

Be that as it may, Kulik acknowledges a relatively high level of the Aramaisms in the text. As he says himself, “In the period under discussion elements of these languages [Hebrew and Aramaic. — B. L.] could be mixed in a single text”.[6]

As to the Aramaisms of AA, Kulik notifies a series of the Aramaic proper names, and, then, certifies that “As well as the proper names, most Semitic forms in our document may reflect an Aramaic original as well as a Hebrew one. In very rare cases we can indicate Hebrew forms impossible or unattested in Aramaic”. Only these latter are supporting Kulik’s hypothesis of the Hebrew original of AA.[7]

In sum, let us conclude: regardless to our definition of the original language of AA (be it Hebrew with many Aramaisms or Aramaic with many Hebraisms), a priori we have to suppose either Aramaic or Hebrew original behind any obscure term of the Slavonic version.

2. One hapax in AA as a problem to resolve

Such a complicated text history of the only accessible version of AA is the reason why we still have to re-examine the culmination scene of AA, where Abraham receives the revelation after having reached the seventh heaven (chapters 21 and 22).

Abraham looks at some object where some scenes from the future are shown, especially the scene of Judgment (ch. 21:7). In Slavonic this object is called образование (obrazovaniye), sometimes in slightly different forms (образъ, образство). Even if the words образ and образование are not unknown in Slavonic, now they are used in an unusual way, and, in this sense, we are now in presence of a hapax legomenon.

All the translators deal with these words in a similar manner, conjecturing their meaning from the context. So, we have “tableau” (Rubinkiewicz), “représentation” (Philonenko-Sayar and Philonenko), “picture” (Box[8] and Kulik[9]) and so on.

Only few of the scholars were trying to point out what kind of device this образование is.

Philonenko-Sayar and Philonenko, referring to an alleged parallel in 3 Enoch 45:1, suppose that образование is a curtain before the Holy of Holies where the names of all the people were inscribed, the names of those to be solved at right and of those to be perished at left.[10] Indeed, there is a parallel between this distribution to right and to left with the scene of Judgment in AA 21:7, but AA says nothing about the mere names of the judged people. So, the parallel put forward by Philonenko-Sayar and Philonenko is far-fetched.

Larry Hurtado approached the same problem in a more systematical way, taking into account the whole corpus of the intertestamental literature describing the structure of the heaven and the Throne of God. So, his conclusion was that this образование is nothing but the Throne of God itself.[11]

Basically, I agree with Hurtado. From the cosmological perspective, it is difficult to say more. (Indeed, the Throne of God is a notion pertaining to the cosmology). However, his interpretation says nothing about the exact meaning of the term образование.

It is especially strange why the Throne of God works as a television screen to show to Abraham apocalyptical visions.

3. The ways of the present research

To go further, we have to explore two more ways. At first, we plan to discuss possible equivalents of our Slavonic hapax legomenon in the Semitic original of AA, and, secondly, to examine the device in question more closely, from a nearer point of view than the cosmological one.

All the three Slavonic synonyms, образование, образъ and образство, are derived from the same root, the word образъ being quite common in Slavonic. This latter word may be rightly translated as “picture” or “tableau”; this is its synonymy with two previous ones that makes a problem. Notwithstanding an apparent clarity of the word образъ, it is still absolutely unclear why its meaning may be identified with two others.

An attempt to seek the possible Greek prototypes would be not of much help. There are several Greek words that can be rendered with the same root as in the word образъ in Slavonic. For instance, εἶδος, σχῆμα, παράδειγμα...[12] The difference between the Slavonic synonyms may reflect either a morphological difference between some Greek derivates from the same root or a difference between unrelated lexemes. It is hardly probable that such a variability of the term in the Slavonic version has had no support at all in its Greek original.

 Then, our question is: why the Greek terminology applied to our device was so flowing?

We do not know the exact Greek terms, but what we do know, that is the fact that in the Greek original of the existing Slavonic version there were some different terms for the same device. Probably, some of these terms were looking equally strange in Greek as their equivalent образство in Slavonic (that is, combining a recognisable root with unusual inflexions).

Without running ahead too far, let us notify that even the Greek text under our Slavonic terms was probably not quite easy.

What we can say about the Semitic original(s) of these terms?

We have to find some Hebrew or Aramaic term(s) fitting two frame conditions:

1.      applicability to the Throne of God or something else that would be at place on the seventh heaven,

2.      with literal meaning close to the meaning of Slavonic образ, that is “view”, “appearance”, “picture” (we can neglect the meanings like “manner (of acting)” because our device is certainly something to be looked at).

If there was such word ready in either Hebrew or Aramaic lexica, no doubts, our predecessors would be able to point it out. But they failed. Therefore, we have to look deeper.

At first, I will put forward a plausible hypothesis based on the linguistic ground only. I hope to show that an Aramaic term for the propitiatorium could be rendered in Greek by some roots with the literal meaning connected to viewing.

Then I will try to verify this hypothesis by extralinguistical means, namely, demonstrating that it is the propitiatorium that would be exactly at place on the Throne of God as a kind of a television screen (or, as Halperin said, “as a sort of motion picture screen”[13]) for the apocalyptical visions.

4. Linguistic hypothesis: Aramaic חסא as a prototype of Slavonic образование

 Dealing with the Jewish “matrix” of the Christianity, we are constantly working in a complex Hebrew-Aramaic linguistic milieu. The situation is already exemplified to us grace to AA, which is certainly a work borrowed by Christianity from its Jewish “matrix”. Of course, neither Targumim and Talmudim nor the Qumranic texts are exhausting all the cultic terminology of the pre-Christian Judaisms.

4.1. A genuine Aramaic term for “propitiatorium”: חסא

The cultic realities of this epoch are partially reparable from the much more late Christian tradition. In fact, one of them is the only channel by which AA itself came down to us.

As to the late Jewish Aramaic terminology, one of the channels of its transmission is Christian Syriac. Syriac-speaking Christian milieu was developing on the ground of early Semitic-speaking communities, and their Western Aramaic dialects were influencing early Christian Eastern Aramaic dialect, the ancestor of medieval Christian Syriac.[14]

The only Western Aramaic term for “propitiatorium” known to us through the accessible Targums and the Jewish rabbinic tradition is a Hebrew loanword, כפרת.[15] It is of no help to us. But neither had it left a trace in Christian Syriac.

In Christian Syriac the term for “propitiatorium” is ܚܣܐ or its derivate ܚܣܝܐ. It is important to note that Syriac ܚܣܐ is the only term for “propitiatorium” known to this language. There is no alternative term that might be borrowed from Greek, despite the fact that Christian Syriac is very rich of the Greek loanwords. It is a priori likely, that Syriac ܚܣܐ belongs to the earliest layer of the Christian vocabulary of the Syrians, that is, that it goes back to the earliest Aramaic-speaking Christian and pre-Christian communities.

In Aramaic of the rabbinic tradition a liturgical connection of the corresponding root (Hws) reveals only obliquely.

There is, in rabbinic Western Aramaic, a verb חוס with the basic meaning “to protect, pity, spare”, with no specific liturgical connections, likewise its homographic counterpart in Biblical Hebrew with the same basic meaning.[16] However, as to the Hebrew verb with the root Hws, we have to deal with it more in the next section.

Oddly enough, a derivate of the same root, חַסָּא, an exact equivalent of Syriac ܚܣܐ, has in rabbinic Aramaic a meaning apparently unrelated to “protecting”, namely, “lettuce”.

However, both Syriac ܚܣܐ and Western Aramaic חסא are going back to the Jewish liturgy. In fact, in rabbinic Aramaic, חסא is a more liturgical than botanic or cooking term. There is a normal term for the corresponding botanic species, חזרת, and so, another term, חסא, is used only as superfluous and needing to be explained. This is what has been done in the Babylonian Talmud (bPesachim, ch. II, 39^a): “Even Rabha said that lettuce (חזרת) is called hassa (חסא), which signifies, ‘God has mercy on us’.” The whole context is a discussion on the bitter herbs necessary to the preparation of the lamb for the Pesach.

This etymology of חסא connected to “mercy of God” is exactly the same here as that of the Syriac ܚܣܐ. Moreover, it is the same as in Greek ἱλαστήριον calquing Hebrew כפרת “propitiatorium”. It is important to note, that there is something more here than mere linguistic etymology to a root with general meaning of “protection” or “having mercy”. The “mercy” here is precisely the mercy of God.

The mercy of God is the main theme of the Yom Kippur, the only feast when the propitiatorium was in work, but the same theme is not foreign to the Pesach as well, not to say, that in some pre-Christian Judaisms the feasts of the Pesach and Yom Kippur were interferential in such an extent that even the expiation performed by Christ Himself, the main ritual of the Yom Kippur, has been presented as a sacrifice of the Pesach lamb… Avoiding to go deeper, I note this here only to point out that we have not to overestimate the distance between the Pesach and the Yom Kippur in the pre-Christian Jewish traditions.

As a result, we have to consider the meaning of “lettuce” as a rather late acquisition of Western Aramaic חסא and specific to the rabbinic tradition only. Before this, that is, before its rabbinical use, the word was a liturgical term connected to the rituals of asking of mercy or forgiveness.

The very existence of the same word in Syriac with the meaning “propitiatorium” makes it very likely that such was an original meaning of Western Aramaic חסא, even if its initial spectrum of meanings could be broader. This supposition is corroborated by the fact that in Aramaic of the rabbinic tradition the only term for “propitiatorium” is a Hebrew loanword כפרת. A native Aramaic term for the same liturgical device, חסא, has been almost completely (while still not completely!) “de-ritualised”. 

So, my first point is the following. There was a genuine Aramaic term for “propitiatorium”, preserved by the Christian Syriac vocabulary and still faintly discernible in the rabbinical sources, חסא (or *חסיא, like Syriac ܚܣܝܐ).

4.2. How to read חסא with connotation of “viewing”?

Our Aramaic term for “propitiatorium”, חסא, had no connotation of “viewing” or “appearing”. However, in the Hellenistic milieu and especially in a text with preponderance of Hebrew over Aramaic the situation might be different.

First of all, in Hebrew, the verb חסה (root Hws) that is the exact equivalent of Aramaic חסא, has not only a general meaning of “to pity”, but especially “to look with pity”. So, it is normally used together with words “eye” and “upon”. However, these words are sometimes disappearing in ellipsis, like in 1 Sam 24:11 (for the ellipsis of the word “eye”: ^yl,_[' sx'T'äw:).[17]

Taking into account that the language of AA was closer to Hebrew than to Aramaic, we have to admit that our term חסה “propitiatorium” was to be appreciated with some visual connotations, notwithstanding the lack of such connotations in the original Aramaic term.

These connotations might be enforced by a phenomenon attested quite well in the Hellenistic Semitic texts, while, alas, not properly described and interpreted by the linguists. I mean the interchange between s and z in the Semitic proper names. (As it goes without saying, the very specific Aramaic technical term for “propitiatorium” was to be treated rather as a proper name, especially within a mainly Hebrew context).

We have, from the Hellenistic epoch, a number of examples of the interchanges between s and z in the Semitic (Hebrew and Aramaic) proper nouns. (An Aramaic term for “propitiatorium” is also to be considered as something like a proper noun.)

So, in Aramaic fragments of 1 Enoch, we have the name ^cAsa’el in two forms: עשאל and עסאל, on the one hand, and עזזאל and עזאזל, on the other. The latter spelling is the same as in Leviticus 16.[18]

Dealing with the Greek transliterations, we have even more representative corpus of the interchange between s and z in the Semitic proper nouns.

In the same 1 Enoch, 1 En 6, 7 (and cf. 1 En 69, 2): the Aramaic equivalent to Greek form Σαριήλ is זהריאל.[19] The editor supposes some mistake in the order of the names,[20] but there is no need in such a supposition.

The magic texts are rich in such interchanges. For instance, the same name Σαριήλ having its Hebrew equivalent in זריאל, and the name Ζαλαμαρλαλιθ whose Hebrew original is supposedly reconstructed as שלם אור לילית (“Peace [upon you], light of Lilith [or “(Lady) of Night”]”), but, in any case, it is clear that the first element of the reconstruction should be read as שלם.[21]

These interchanges between s and z are hardly explicable from the Greek of the Hellenistic epoch, but do have correspondence in some cases on the Semitic ground.

In this case, our term חסא might be read as a derivate of a root with middle z instead of middle s. For instance, in Aramaic,  חזיא “mirror”, an exact “parallel” to our reconstructed form *חסיא,[22] and even חזה that Jastrow lists as an alternative form to חוזי “view, appearance”.[23] There are some other Aramaic words with the same root which are of interest to us, such as or חזיון “vision, prophetic revelation” (the same spelling in biblical Hebrew where only the vowels can differ).[24]

Let us sum.

In the Hellenistic epoch our Aramaic term חסא, especially within a text with preponderance of Hebrew over Aramaic, might be read as an equivalent of חזה and comprised as “view, appearance, vision”.

So, the Greek translator was able to render it by some word (probably, several slightly different words) with the same basic meaning, that, in turn, was rendered into Slavonic as образование  or образ.

For these Slavonic words, we are putting forward retroversion into the language of the Semitic original omitting the step of retroversion into Greek. Indeed, we are dealing here with one of the cases when, according to Kulik, such an operation is justified: where the Slavonic version reproduces Semitisms or misinterpretations of the Semitic original “which were not found in any extant Greek texts.”[25]

The above linguistic considerations are not sufficient to proof that the device in question is the propitiatorium, but only have value of a decision nihil obstat issued by a linguistic censorship.

The final decision belongs to the analysis of the liturgical tradition. If it will be not in contradiction with the above linguistic conclusions, then, we will obtain a decisive argument to proof both our main hypothesis and its linguistic part.

5. Propitiatorium as a mean of revelation

It is clear that in AA Abraham is visiting the heavenly Temple, its Holy of Holies. Hurtado’s analysis demonstrated that it is, naturally, the place of the Throne of God.

In the earliest layer of the so-called Priestly tradition, the propitiatorium is the main place of God’s revelation. See, for instance, cases of appearance of God “on the propitiatorium” in Lev 16:2 and also in Ex 25:22 and Num 7:89.[26] Milgrom once had coined the propitiatorium “the Priestly ‘picture of Dorian Gray’ ”.[27]

During its development, the role of the propitiatorium was becoming more and more preponderant over the role (and even the sanctity) of the ark.[28] “The chest containing holy objects is the ark itself; the throne [of God] is symbolised only in its cover, the kapporet, on the side of which two cherubim spread their wings”. The kapporet is not a part of the ark at all.[29]

In the Intertestamental period the kapporet is developing into an apparently quite different device, the magical chalice with oracular capacities and, ultimately, into the Christian chalice of the Eucharist. I am tracing these tendencies at length in another place and à propos another Jewish-Greek-Slavonic pseudepigraphon, namely, an inscription over the so-called “Chalice of Solomon”.[30] I have to limit myself now to several illustrations.

So, it is symptomatic that in one case (Lev 16:13) Vulgate translates kapporet as oraculum. We do not know the ultimate source of this translation, but it would be reasonable to seek it somewhere in the Intertestamental exegetical traditions.

The most important for us is the testimony of the Greek version of the book of Ezekiel where it describes the ceremony of consecration of the Ezekiel eschatological Temple (Ezek 43-44).[31] (As to the Hebrew book of Ezekiel, it is known that there were neither ark nor propitiatorium in his eschatological Temple, that was, very probably, a right representation of the state of affairs in the First Temple in the time of Ezekiel[32]).

Elsewhere in AA, Kulik already pointed out a passage (25:1) where the Slavonic text quotes Ezekiel (40:3) according to the Septuagint text where it differs from that of the Hebrew bible.[33] Now we will have to see a case of the fidelity to the Greek text in spite to the Hebrew one in much more important matters, namely, in the arrangement of the Holy of Holies.

In Septuagint version (Ezek 43:14 and 17), there is no ark in the Temple, but there are two different devices called “propitiatorium” (ἱλαστήριον), the great one and the small one. This “small propitiatorium” corresponds exactly to the role of the propitiatorium in the rest of the Priestly tradition being the upper part of the whole altar structure.

Now, with the Greek book of Ezekiel, we are very close to our AA.

Our Apocalypse has been already treated in the vein of the late Jewish Ezekiel traditions by David Halperin.[34] Now, taken into account also Hurtado’s treatment, we have to express that in the Temple of Ezekiel its propitiatorium (I mean only the “small propitiatorium” of the Greek version) is indeed the seat of God: in Ezek 44:3 a messianic divine figure is entering the Holy of Holies and seating here. But, according to the Greek version, the only surface to sit here is the “small propitiatorium”.

Needless to say that an eschatological Temple of Ezekiel has a lot of common with the heavenly one. Our author of AA is dealing with the latter, but takes his knowledge from the former, that is, from an intertestamentary interpretation of the Ezekiel Temple.

So, in the heavenly Temple of AA, there is no ark, but there is a propitiatorium. It is also the Throne of God. Moreover, as in the rest of the Priestly tradition, it is the main device of transmitting the divine revelation.  

The main contents of such a revelation are, of course, the sins of Israel and judgment of God. I say “of course” because the propitiatorium is a device to be used on the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur. Our Apocalypse is not an exception.

AA, being a precious source on the liturgical devices of the heavenly Temple according some late form of the Priestly tradition, is not a source on the rites themselves. So, I omit here the correspondences between the liturgical structure of the heavenly Temple of AA and the atonement rites in several other Jewish traditions, including that of the Greek book of Ezekiel. I am considering all of them in my paper on the “Chalice of Solomon”.[35]

Needless to say that the discussed affinity between AA and Greek Ezekiel has to be explained by the acquaintance of the author of AA with the lost Hebrew original of the Greek version but not by a direct influence of the Greek text of Ezekiel. I am not in position to go in this field deeper, and so, I would prefer to limit myself by pointing out an eventual importance of AA for the Book of Ezekiel textual criticism.[36]

Let us sum what we have demonstrated in this section.

The Throne of God in AA is the same device as the “small propitiatorium” in the Greek book of Ezekiel. It is a propitiatorium indeed.

It is now showed without referring to linguistic considerations.

6. Conclusions

The mystical “Television screen” showing to Abraham the visions of the future is the propitiatorium (being also the Throne of God).

This is the propitiatorium of the heavenly Temple whose liturgical devices in the Holy of Holies are basically the same as in the eschatological Ezekiel Temple according to the Greek version of the book of Ezekiel. The main distinctive feature of this propitiatorium is the lack of the ark at all.

The term for the propitiatorium in the Semitic original of AA was a genuine Aramaic term חסא, unknown to the Targumic and Rabbinic traditions but preserved in the Christian Syriac one.

For some reasons, it was read in the Hebrew (or, at least, preponderantly Hebrew) original of AA with connotations of “view” or “appearance” that resulted (through a Greek intermediary) in образование, образъ, образство in the Slavonic version.

Among these reasons one can enumerate those of two kinds:

1.                             really existing connotations of “seeing” in the Hebrew verb having the same root as Aramaic term חסא,

2.                             possibility of interchange between s and z in the Semitic proper names (and so, also the terms) in the Hellenistic epoch.